Benchmark Results: Synthetics
Sporting a desktop Core i7-980X processor, the X7200 creates its own performance class in notebooks. The only fair comparison would be to itself, using single GPU data to show the advantage of SLI.
Some readers will want to know exactly how much more powerful the desktop processor is, and Alienware’s most recent M17x represents our best-performing previously-reviewed notebook.
A combination of more cores and higher clock speed allow the MALIBAL Nine X7200 to solidly trounce any notebook that uses a mobile processor. On the other hand, the desktop platform edges it out in spite of the fact that it’s underclocked from the correct 133.3 MHz base clock to 133.0 MHz.
Triple-channel mode isn’t supported by Intel’s notebook platforms, but the X7200’s motherboard uses desktop parts to enable it. This allows MALIBAL to triumph over Alienware, in spite of its rival’s tighter timings. The desktop system uses a mixture of modules to reach the same capacity, frequency, and timings as MALIBAL’s notebook, yet its bandwidth is still slightly higher.
PCMark benefits from the X7200’s striped SSD drives as well as its more powerful processor and wider memory bus. Plugging the same drives into the desktop platform allowed it to gain even more, however, in spite of the identical chipset, CPU, and memory settings.
Further analysis of the score points directly at Clevo’s implementation of Intel’s RAID controller, as the HDD scores (not shown) were 45886 for the desktop platform and 35596 for the X7200 notebook.
All of today’s charts are arranged by notebook GPU power, with the desktop’s non-notebook part keeping it out of the loop. SLI scaling over 80% for the second GeForce GTX 480m makes the X7200 look spectacular, while an even bigger lead for a pair of desktop-class GeForce GTS 450 graphics cards causes us to once again question Nvidia’s mobile-graphics naming scheme.
