Sony Vaio VGC-RA304 review

Sony Vaio VGC-RA304 Review

Reviewed by: Matthew Elliott

Reviewed on: 19 November 2004

Application performance
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

BAPCo SysMark 2004 rating

SysMark 2004 Internet-content-creation rating

SysMark 2004 office-productivity rating

Cyberpower Media Center Ultra Edition (2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-55, 1024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

203

228

181

iBuyPower Media XP (3.4GHz Intel P4 550, 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM, 533MHz)

198

227

173

Sony VAIO VGC-RA820G (3.2GHz Intel P4 540, 1024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

185

211

162

Sony VAIO VGC-RA810G (3.4GHz Intel P4 550, 1024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

168

225

194

ZT Media Center X3113 (2.8GHz Intel Celeron D 335, 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

121

135

108

To measure application performance, we use BAPCo's SysMark 2004, an industry-standard benchmark. Using off-the-shelf applications, SysMark measures a desktop's performance using office-productivity applications (such as Microsoft Office and McAfee VirusScan) and Internet content-creation applications (such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver).

3D gaming performance (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby-Antalus 1600 x 1200 4xAA 8xAF

Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby-Antalus 1024 x 768

Cyberpower Media Center Ultra Edition (Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra, AGP)

110.4

284.1

iBuyPower Media XP (Nvidia GeForce 6600, PCIe)

32.1

159.6

Sony VAIO VGC-RA810G (ATI Radeon X600 XT, PCIe)

21.1

132.5

Sony VAIO VGC-RA820G (ATI Radeon X300, PCIe)

13.1

83.1

ZT Media Center X3113 (Nvidia GeForce4 MX 4000, AGP)

N/A

39.1

To measure 3D gaming performance, we use Epic Games' Unreal Tournament 2003, widely used as an industry-standard benchmark. We use Unreal to measure a desktop's performance with the DirectX 8.0 (DX8) interface at a 32-bit colour depth and at resolutions of 1024x768 and 1600x1200. Antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are disabled during our 1024x768 tests and are set to 4x and 8x respectively during our 1600x1200 tests. At this colour depth and these resolutions, Unreal provides an excellent means of comparing the performance of low-end to high-end graphics subsystems. We report the results of Unreal's Flyby-Antalus test in frames per second (fps).

System configurations:

Cyberpower Media Center Ultra Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005; 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-55; Via K8T800 Pro chipset; 1024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra (AGP); Maxtor 7Y250M0 250GB 7200rpm Serial ATA

iBuyPower Media XP
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005; 3.4GHz Intel P4 550; Intel 915G chipset; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Nvidia GeForce 6600 (PCIe) ; Maxtor 7Y250M0 250GB 7200rpm Serial ATA

Sony VAIO VGC-RA810G
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004; 3.4EGHz Intel P4; Intel 915G chipset; 1024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 128MB ATI Radeon X600 XT (PCI Express); Maxtor 7Y250M0 250GB 7200rpm Serial ATA

Sony VAIO VGC-RA820G
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005; 3.2GHz Intel P4 540; Intel 915P chipset; 1024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 128MB ATI Radeon X300 (PCIe); WDC WD2000JD-98HBB0 200GB 7200rpm Serial ATA

ZT Media Center X3113
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005; 2.8GHz Intel Celeron D 335; SIS 661FX chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 128MB nVidia GeForce 4 MX 4000 (AGP); Seagate ST380011A 80GB ATA/100 7200rpm

Edited by Lindsey Turrentine
Additional editing by Nick Hide