Review: Sony Vaio PCG-V505EX

[Dalantech]

Posted at Da LAN Tech:

Sony Vaio PCG-V505EX (http://www.dalantech.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=62120&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)

I'll answer any questions that Talk Notebook readers have about the review in this thread so you don't have to become a member of my site to get answers. Sorry for just posting a hyperlink, but when you run your own web site it's not possible to post content on someone elses web site...

[Enderet]

Hey Dalantech, great review. Nice to hear the notebook has been good for you.

[Dalantech]

Thanks! It really exceeded my expectations! I use a laptop more for scripting and web related work than I do for gaming, but it's cool to be able to play a little Unreal Tournament 2004 when I get a break :)

[tsalien]

Hi DaLanTech!
Thanks for the review! I just bout the V505Ex also and yes, it is quite a neat machine! I was wondering if you kept Windows XP Home or did you upgrade to the Pro? Would there be any difference in performance and how fast the computer loads up? Sorry, I don't know much about computers but I am learning so I'd greatly appreciate your advice. There seems to be a lot of programs that automatically start for me and I find myself waiting a bit to get it loaded so what can I do to speed things up? Thanks!

Lan aka tsalien

[shurcooL]

tsalien, I don't think XP Pro would be any faster, since, AFAIK, all it adds are some additional features, etc. If anything, Home might be faster, since it has less things to load. This is just speculation, though, as all I've ever tried is XP Pro. Oh, and if you want to speed up the boot times, the only real way would be to get rid of those applications that load with Windows (either by uninstalling them, or by making them *not* load on boot-up).

Dalantech, thank you very much for that awsome review. I only wish you'd have posted a 3DMark2001 score, since I don't really know what '03 scores mean, and I'd rather get some more DX8-related performance information, since I know 9200 is not good for DX9 stuff. Other than that, it was a very informative and interesting read. Thanks!

[ForceCalibur]

What was the final price of the system? It seems like the specs are pretty low, and well.. there are alot of better systems out there, though probably more expensive. I did look through Sony Vaio's but they don't really keep up with technology like many other companies do. (I'm surprised you got a Radeon 9200 when Radeon 9700 mobile is out)

[Dalantech]

Hi DaLanTech!
Thanks for the review! I just bout the V505Ex also and yes, it is quite a neat machine! I was wondering if you kept Windows XP Home or did you upgrade to the Pro? Would there be any difference in performance and how fast the computer loads up? Sorry, I don't know much about computers but I am learning so I'd greatly appreciate your advice. There seems to be a lot of programs that automatically start for me and I find myself waiting a bit to get it loaded so what can I do to speed things up? Thanks!

Lan aka tsalien

Pro would probably load slower, but both OSs would run just fine on the 505EX.

[Dalantech]

Dalantech, thank you very much for that awsome review. I only wish you'd have posted a 3DMark2001 score, since I don't really know what '03 scores mean, and I'd rather get some more DX8-related performance information, since I know 9200 is not good for DX9 stuff. Other than that, it was a very informative and interesting read. Thanks!

I tried to run it but it failed saying I needed to load DX 8.1 and I didn't feel like downgrading to it. In the next few days I'll load it up and post the scores :)

[Dalantech]

What was the final price of the system? It seems like the specs are pretty low, and well.. there are alot of better systems out there, though probably more expensive. I did look through Sony Vaio's but they don't really keep up with technology like many other companies do. (I'm surprised you got a Radeon 9200 when Radeon 9700 mobile is out)

$1899 as configured at the time I bought it, but Sony occationaly runs specials so you might be able to get it cheaper if you order directly from the sonystyle.com web site (I couldn't because they won't ship to a P.O. Box).

Currently the 505EX is the only laptop with a 12" screen and a Radeon 9200 with 32MB of RAM -most laptops in its class have no GPU (it's built into the chipset) or they have just the base Radeon GPU and 16MB or RAM. So the 505EX is the smallest laptop you can currently buy and still have some decent gaming performance.

Believe me, if Sony was selling the 505 with a Radeon 9600 or 9700 I would have been all over it, but currently they don't and what I really wanted was a laptop, not a desktop PC in a laptop case...

I'm hoping that Sony sees the review and the intrest that people have in gaming on a real laptop! Since the max resolution on the LCD is only 1024x768 a Radeon 9600 with 64MB of RAM would be overkill, but it would make one heck of a LAN party rig! :)

[Enderet]

What was the final price of the system? It seems like the specs are pretty low, and well.. there are alot of better systems out there, though probably more expensive. I did look through Sony Vaio's but they don't really keep up with technology like many other companies do. (I'm surprised you got a Radeon 9200 when Radeon 9700 mobile is out)

This isnt meant to be a super powerful notebook. Its the smallest notebook with a decent gpu.

[Dalantech]

This isnt meant to be a super powerful notebook. Its the smallest notebook with a decent gpu.

And it's decent enough to play Unreal Tournament 2004 :awdance:

[Dalantech]

...I only wish you'd have posted a 3DMark2001 score, since I don't really know what '03 scores mean, and I'd rather get some more DX8-related performance information, since I know 9200 is not good for DX9 stuff.

Sorry, but I tried loading 3DMark2001SE again and it still errors out saying I need DX 8.1 or the correct drivers :(

[ForceCalibur]

You downloaded an older version of 3Dmark01SE. The newest I believe is build 330. Try another mirror link (lots of futuremark's mirrors are outdated)

I had not idea you *wanted* a small monitor! heh. I mean, I think laptops are cool with 15" ish monitors, even 17" is not real problem, as long as its not TOO heavy. :). Anyhows, I guess that's a real niche market.

[Dalantech]

You downloaded an older version of 3Dmark01SE. The newest I believe is build 330. Try another mirror link (lots of futuremark's mirrors are outdated)

I had not idea you *wanted* a small monitor! heh. I mean, I think laptops are cool with 15" ish monitors, even 17" is not real problem, as long as its not TOO heavy. :). Anyhows, I guess that's a real niche market.

I'm trying another mirror now, but I'm pretty sure I installed the latest build both times...

I wanted a real laptop -a computer that I could actually use on my lap and not bake my balls :D

[Dalantech]

I only wish you'd have posted a 3DMark2001 score, since I don't really know what '03 scores mean, and I'd rather get some more DX8-related performance information, since I know 9200 is not good for DX9 stuff.

OK, I finally got a good version from one of the mirrors:

Detailed Test Results
3DMark Score 5435 3D marks



Game 1 Car Chase - Low Detail 66.9 FPS

Game 1 Car Chase - High Detail 39.1 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - Low Detail 81.8 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - High Detail 47.3 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - Low Detail 89.9 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - High Detail 42.9 FPS

Game 4 Nature 23.2 FPS



Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 361.5 MTexels/s

Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 825.1 MTexels/s



High Polygon Count (1 light) 16.0 MTriangels/s

High Polygon Count (8 lights) 3.8 MTriangels/s



Environment Bump Mapping 93.2 FPS

DOT3 Bump Mapping 44.6 FPS



Vertex Shader 56.4 FPS

Pixel Shader 72.0 FPS

Advanced Pixel Shader 59.5 FPS



Point Sprite 10.3 MSprites/s

The high detail scores take a performance hit due to the 32MB of video RAM and its 64 bit path to the GPU. I think the difference would be smaller with 64MB of RAM (128 bit path to video memory).

[shurcooL]

Thank you very much Dalantech! It's unfortunate I won't be getting this laptop as soon as I wanted (end of summer, at the soonest, it appears; it sucks to be a 17 year old without a job and poor parents), so there's probably going to be many changes in the laptop scene by then... :(

Either way, that's a very respectable score, seeing how top of the line Centrinos with P-M 1.7 GHz and Radeon 9600/9700 get around 9000. Did you get that score with the default Sony video card clock settings, or overclocked to default ATi ones (270/270, IIRC)? Even if it's the latter, the results are still very nice. Otherwise, I'm just speechless.

Oh, and I don't think that VRAM matters all that much, at least not to the extent you make it seem. More VRAM will only help you with higher resolutions, bit depths, and *most* importanly high-resolution textures. Other than that, IMO, the difference in speed is negligible. I may be wrong, though.

[Dalantech]

Thank you very much Dalantech! It's unfortunate I won't be getting this laptop as soon as I wanted (end of summer, at the soonest, it appears; it sucks to be a 17 year old without a job and poor parents), so there's probably going to be many changes in the laptop scene by then... :(

Either way, that's a very respectable score, seeing how top of the line Centrinos with P-M 1.7 GHz and Radeon 9600/9700 get around 9000. Did you get that score with the default Sony video card clock settings, or overclocked to default ATi ones (270/270, IIRC)? Even if it's the latter, the results are still very nice. Otherwise, I'm just speechless.

Oh, and I don't think that VRAM matters all that much, at least not to the extent you make it seem. More VRAM will only help you with higher resolutions, bit depths, and *most* importanly high-resolution textures. Other than that, IMO, the difference in speed is negligible. I may be wrong, though.

Actually that's exactly the effect I think having more RAM would cause: better frame rates with higher textures.

I ran the benchmark with the GPU and video RAM set to their default clock speeds. I'll run the test again with both set to 260Mhz and see if it makes any difference. I don't think it will because of the 64 bit path between the GPU and the video RAM.

Glad you all like the review :)

[Dalantech]

Did you get that score with the default Sony video card clock settings, or overclocked to default ATi ones (270/270, IIRC)?


Here are the results from over clocking the GPU and Video RAM to 260/260:

Detailed Test Results
3DMark Score 6164 3D marks



Game 1 Car Chase - Low Detail 79.0 FPS

Game 1 Car Chase - High Detail 42.6 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - Low Detail 93.8 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - High Detail 55.2 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - Low Detail 98.6 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - High Detail 48.0 FPS

Game 4 Nature 26.7 FPS



Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 416.3 MTexels/s

Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 1020.1 MTexels/s



High Polygon Count (1 light) 19.5 MTriangels/s

High Polygon Count (8 lights) 4.5 MTriangels/s



Environment Bump Mapping 107.5 FPS

DOT3 Bump Mapping 51.1 FPS



Vertex Shader 60.3 FPS

Pixel Shader 83.7 FPS

Advanced Pixel Shader 70.0 FPS



Point Sprite 11.7 MSprites/s

Still limitted at high detail, and really not much of a change.

[shurcooL]

Wow, that's extremely good for such a small laptop! :O I am truly impressed, and very sad at same time, because I'm not getting it anytime soon... :'[

Edit: All those FPS scores are at 1024x768, right? And how many colour bits? 16? 32? I'm guessing it's the former.

Still limitted at high detail, and really not much of a change.
That's because the high detail version is just that, high detail. It means more polygons, bigger textures, more objects, more effects, and so on. Even if you had a Radeon 9700 128 MB on there, you would still get about twofold the FPS in low detail compared to high detail.

Also, I'd say that's quite a nice improvement. Sure, it's not all that much, but it's still nice. :]

[Dalantech]

Edit: All those FPS scores are at 1024x768, right? And how many colour bits? 16? 32? I'm guessing it's the former.

1024x768 and 32 bits :)

[dtemplar]

Hi Dalantech,

I've been looking for a good review on this laptop as I've been seriously considering buying a V505 laptop, thanks!

However, have you play any "second generation" FPS's such as Battlefield: Vietnam or FarCry on the V505EX? I want to see if it can handle these type of games on the same resolution/graphic details.

Thanks!

[Dalantech]

Hi Dalantech,

I've been looking for a good review on this laptop as I've been seriously considering buying a V505 laptop, thanks!

However, have you play any "second generation" FPS's such as Battlefield: Vietnam or FarCry on the V505EX? I want to see if it can handle these type of games on the same resolution/graphic details.

Thanks!

Sorry, but I haven't tried any of those games. I'll see if I can get my hands on the FarCry demo and let you know how it runs.

Edit: I found FarCry Demo 2 on a PC Gamer CD and loaded it. In the advanced video options I ran the auto detect and it set just about everything to "Low" so I kept the settings and did a little walking around in the game. I saw a lot of odd artifacts -poligons missing and re-appearing in some places. I don't the demo is all that stable cause I haven't had problems playing other games. Frame rates were smooth, but I've got no way to tell how fast it was. The final release of the game might be a lot faster / better graphics. The water was transperant, and swimming was pretty cool :)

If you are really concerned about gaming then you should look for a laptop with a Radeon 9600/9700. Sony, if anyone from Sony reads this, you really need to put a 9600 with 64MB or RAM in the V505 -even if you under clock the GPU it would still make a cool gaming rig!...

Second Edit: I re-ran the demo and the artifacts that I saw the first time were gone -it looks pretty good :)

[dtemplar]

Hey thanks again. Just wondering, during your second time when you run the game, what graphics details settings do you have and how does it look and is there any lag?

Yes I do agree Sony should make a Centrino laptop with a better GPU :(

[Dalantech]

Hey thanks again. Just wondering, during your second time when you run the game, what graphics details settings do you have and how does it look and is there any lag?

Yes I do agree Sony should make a Centrino laptop with a better GPU :(

I tried it again this morning with all options set to "normal" except for the last one (I left it on custom). Gameplay was smooth, and seeing the water foam as the waves splash up on the beach is pretty cool! Definately playable!

[Tirinal]

I am seriously considering this laptop as well, for the same reasons you were. I don't want some 17" monstrosity, I something small I can easily carry in a backpack while still retaining at least some gaming performance. Some questions:

-Do you feel that the small screen inhibits clarity at all? I'm mostly going to be playing RTS games (WCIII, etc), so discerning units on the battlefield may be hard.

-What's the battery life like? They apparently have an option for a better battery if you tack on $200, and I'm trying to decide if its worth it.

-Can you recommend a good place to buy memory for this notebook? I plan on starting out with the default 256 and buying a stick of 512 later on.

-What's the difference between this and the V505EXP model?

Thanks! :)

[Dalantech]

I went from a 15" Dell Inspiron 8200 to the V505EX and I don't miss the 15" screen. The Dell had a 1600x1200 resolution, and although it was great for image editting fonts were always way too small (even after changing to large fonts in XP). I thought using a 12.1" screen was going to be the biggest problem, but it was an easy transition (at least it was for me). Games look just fine at 1024x768 (the max resolution on the 505EX's LCD). Plenty of detail.

Battery life is great unless you are doing somethign CPU intensive like playing a game or watching a DVD. I can get about 1.5 hours out of a standard battery when watching DVDs. I still need to see how long I can play UT2004 on a single charge. If you plan on some heavy usage while on battery then definately go for the extended battery.

Crucial sells the PC2700 SODIMMS that the V505EX uses. They didn't have it on their memory selector the last time I ordered memory for mine, but the 200 pin SODIMMs (http://www.crucial.com/store/listModule.asp?module=DDR+PC2700&cat=RAM&package=allModules) are what you want.

The 505EX has Windows XP home. The 505EXP has Windows XP Pro, and that's the only difference between the two.

[drb]

Hey Dalantech
I am planning to go for v505, have you made any changes to the HD? (like replacing with 7200 rpms?)

thanks.

[Enderet]

Hey Dalantech
I am planning to go for v505, have you made any changes to the HD? (like replacing with 7200 rpms?)

thanks.

You cant change the HDD on the v505 series

[mpeg]

You cant change the HDD on the v505 series

Yes you can. You need to open up the bottom panel. Just tried it tonight and was able to disconnect the hdd from the main unit. It will be handy if I need to back up the hard drive to a ghost image, etc.. I'm guessing if I can take he hard drive out, I can replace it with something else...

Does anyone know what I need to take apart in order to find the memory slot so I can upgrade the memory?

[Enderet]

Yes you can. You need to open up the bottom panel. Just tried it tonight and was able to disconnect the hdd from the main unit. It will be handy if I need to back up the hard drive to a ghost image, etc.. I'm guessing if I can take he hard drive out, I can replace it with something else...

Does anyone know what I need to take apart in order to find the memory slot so I can upgrade the memory?

What I meant, was that you will not be able to change it to one of a faster speed, specificaly a 7200 rpm HDD

[mpeg]

What I meant, was that you will not be able to change it to one of a faster speed, specificaly a 7200 rpm HDD

mmmm ok... but do you know why? What is it about 7200rpm notebook drives (eg. the Hitachi one that has been reviewed several times on the internet since July 2003) that they can't work on the V505? Is it voltage requirement differences between the Hitachi and what the v505 can support?

Oh, and in case anyone didn't already search Sony, I found an article that showed me how to find the RAM slots on the laptop

Link (http://129.33.22.8/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=39,E=0000000000230741803,K=6154,Sxi=2,Case=obj(341881),UseTemplate=Case.tem#)

[Dalantech]

I don't think a 7200 RPM hard drive would be impossible but there are two things to concider:

1) Power: The battery on the V505EX won't last long if you are using the hard drive a lot, and since the laptop wasn't designed with the power erquirements of a 7200 RPM drive there may not be enough amperage to run it...

2) Heat: 7200 RPM hard drives run a lot hotter than slower speed drives. Since there is no active cooling in the area of the hard drive that heat is just gonna build up and stress other components in the laptop...

My advice: Go with a 5400 RPM drive if you really have to have something faster. In my experiance with the V505EX the 4200 RPM drive is not weak area of the machine -it's actually faster than the 5400 RPM drive that I had in my Dell Inspiron 8200. I thought I was gonna swap out the drive before I bought the V505EX just because it was a 4200 RPM drive but decided against it once I started using the laptop. I may still change the drive, but only cause I need more staorage space...

FYI: The only week spot on the V505EX is the GPU -an ATI 9200 with 32MB or RAM may not last long with some of the new games coming out. I think it will be OK until I replace it with another laptop in two years. But it would be safer, if you are into gaming, to get a laptop with an ATI 9600 and 64MB or RAM minimum...

[massinger]

I've learned a lot from reading all of these posts. I am looking for a good versatile notebook for college. I have looked a lot at the VAIO S150. Have any of heard of any pros or cons about this notebook.

[Dalantech]

I've learned a lot from reading all of these posts. I am looking for a good versatile notebook for college. I have looked a lot at the VAIO S150. Have any of heard of any pros or cons about this notebook.

Sorry, but I have no experiance with that model...

[kevhuynh]

I've learned a lot from reading all of these posts. I am looking for a good versatile notebook for college. I have looked a lot at the VAIO S150. Have any of heard of any pros or cons about this notebook.

Do a search in the Notebook General section. There's a thread with 1200+ posts last I looked.

[Enderet]

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?p=500986#post500986

[bassamaroun]

Hello. i m working with my VAIO since 2 weeks and till now the laptop won't boot normally to the BIOS this happened when i removed the RAM from it to upgrade..
now all components assembled but still have same problem do y have any technical advice??
Thank you