ASUS U35Jc: Jogging in Place
by Dustin Sklavos on September 30, 2010 3:00 AM ESTGaming on the U35Jc
The NVIDIA GeForce G 310M at the heart of the ASUS U35Jc is already a known quantity in our gaming suite: just 16 of NVIDIA's "CUDA cores" strapped to a paltry 64-bit memory bus. Knowing that bus is already going to strangle the meager number of cores on the 310M, it's not unreasonable to expect that the reduced video memory clock in the U35Jc is only going to exacerbate things. The 310M was never a very good gaming option to begin with—barely a passable one—but mercifully its time with us is almost up. NVIDIA's GeForce 400M series should be trickling into the marketplace soon, and with that hopefully ASUS will have a better option than this for the next refresh. We'll start with the 3DMarks.
In each of the Futuremark benches, the U30Jc and U35Jc fall in line exactly where we'd expect them. Note how massive the gulf in performance is between these two (and the HD 5470) and the mainstream-class GPUs, though.
And there you have it. Outside of Mass Effect 2, which may have the benefit of the newer video drivers in the U35Jc, the crippled memory speed has a measurable impact on performance in every game, and actually brutally curtails performance in the otherwise hardware-friendly Left 4 Dead 2.
These results all prove something we already knew, though: the GeForce G 310M is barely adequate for anything but the most basic gaming. It's a definite improvement over Intel's HD integrated graphics, but these games are just on the cusp of playable at our lowest settings and the laptop's native resolution. The reduced clock on the 310M's memory in the U35Jc just exacerbates an existing problem. We need faster hardware; the GeForce 400M series can't arrive soon enough.
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justaviking - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
You stole my thunder....no excuse for NOT going with the faster hardware...
Even though I'm not in the market for a laptop, I still enjoy the articles. As with all AnandTech articles, I enjoy the blend of factual/analytical reporting blended with opinions any "why" commentary.
It's so easy to claim that you do or do not like something. But WHY? When that is included, we can decide if we agree or not, or if the comment even applies to us.
ONE EXTRA NOTE TO DUSTIN: Beware of too much light sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek commentary. Some people may get confused, especially if it is overdone. I like the style, just be careful to not get carried away.
Thanks again, and keep up the good work.
Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
I do try to keep it in check. I'm actually still pleasantly surprised how much they let me get away with here. ;)If you want to see how bad it can actually get, you should look up the stuff I do/have done for NotebookReview. I've been getting away with murder there for years.
Kegetys - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
> The battery on our review unit is operating at a reduced capacity, substantial enough to account for a small portion of the differenceHow many full discharge-recharge cycles did you put the battery through? I think all li-ion batteries require at least a few such cycles to reach the max capacity, as the battery of my UL30VT did. But as the capacity starts to drop off after some use maybe it is better to not test with the max capacity as it won't retain that for a very long time...
synaesthetic - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
Dear nvidia,Please kill the GT218 core dead.
No love for you,
Cori
I would be perfectly okay with this being 50% thicker if I could get a GT 335M or Mobility Radeon 5650 inside it.
...
Dear Asus,
Stop using crappy 1366x768 screens.
No love for you,
Cori
MrSpadge - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
"no reason not to go with 7.2k rpm HDDs"I disagree: there's noise. I went from a Toshiba 160 GB to a Scorpio Black 320 GB, both 7.2k rpm and both considered very silent in reviews. However, mounted in a Thinkpad (some rubber around the drive) both drives are clearly louder than my desktop with ~7 fans and 24/7 load of ~300W. In silent environments the noise can disturb my concentration.
- Screens: hurray for kicking them for the crappy TN panel again. At least give us an IPS option, Asus!
- GPU: personally I don't want to pay for a fast GPU in a laptop as I woudn't really use it anyway. So I'm definitely not with you here if you continously ask for better models. The G310M at least gives one a solid driver, if the Intel fails.
- GPU-Memory: 1 GB at 64 Bit is ridiculous! I wouldn't want to pay for that either. Mine's got 16 shaders as well combined with 128 MB and frankly it's always been enough for me.
- Keyboard: and while we're at it.. give us a Thinkpad keyboard ;)
Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
My experience with 7200rpm notebook drives has been a bit better. The Momentus 7200.4 in my Studio 17 is dead silent, but I'm one of the freaks that misses hearing the drive anyhow.As for the GPU, if you're not interested in the 310M, that's fine. The way I see it, there are either users like you that don't really care about the laptop's GPU, so just sticking with Intel's HD IGP would be fine...or there are users that do care about the laptop having a decent GPU, in which case the 310M is dismal. I just don't see anywhere on this spectrum where the 310M justifies its existence, and mercifully with the upgraded IGPs in Sandy Bridge, Ontario, and Llano, this isn't going to be a problem anymore.
Alex Smith - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
I'm a newbie here, is there a place to request reviews of other laptops?For example, my boss is looking at getting a Sony VAIO Z Series Laptop and it would be nice to know how it compared to the others you have reviewed here.
Cheers.
Dustin Sklavos - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
The comments are the best place to go, but the problem is that we can only review what the companies send us. Some companies, like ASUS, MSI, Dell, or Acer, are very forthcoming. ASUS in particular is downright hungry for a piece of the pie and they've really been working at it.Sony, though...the only places you're going to find reviews of their kit are the MAJOR consumer-grade publications. My "alma mater" (so to speak) NotebookReview.com doesn't even get Sony hardware.
You can always request reviews in the comments and we do our best to see if we can't secure review hardware. From there, the best thing you can do is just read the reviews and recommend them to friends. The more read we get, the more pull we'll have to get the review hardware you guys want to see.
Evil_Sheep - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
I feel like the review was a bit overly critical. I know there are a lot of things that could be improved on the U35Jc but, let's put it in perspective, if you want a "Windows MBP" this is as close as you're going to get, and the U30/33/35 family is actually better in some respects (primarily: value for money.)The fact is, there is no other notebook right now in the Windows solar system that is touching the U30-series trinity of Value, Performance, and Battery Life. Personally I think those are the three most important specs to hit on a computer, particularly in the 13" category. No one else is even close, and I feel like Asus is the only OEM who "gets it" right now (and a part of the reason why so many are defecting to Apple.)
Here's another reason why the glass is half-full, not half-empty: two years ago, before the advent of the budget-ULV CPU, you were looking at $2000 for a computer with half the performance (and no GPU) and worse battery life than what we are getting now (just think if your best option in the 13" category was the Dell Adamo...)
Finally, I don't think it's fair to look at the U30Jc and say, oh look, it's been six months and they haven't improved anything. The U35Jc is not intended as the successor to the U30, it is a *variant.* It's like we are already expecting a brand new model but, come on, it's been just six (actually, five from shipping) months! Asus doesn't have infinity engineering resources and it's a bit much to expect brand new iterations every six months...the U35 is just supposed to be a minor tweak.
The U35 (/U30-series) is not perfect but it's by far the best 13" we (windows folk) got right now; I think for that it deserved at least a bronze award...
All that said I think Anandtech has among the most honest laptop reviews on the net right now, but sometimes they can go overboard with the negativity. I know that the intention is for the manufacturers to make better products, but sometimes you just need to sit back for a moment and realize, whoa, everything's amazing and nobody's happy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
Dustin Sklavos - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
We need to be critical when we think companies can do better. It's true an ultraportable in this price range was unheard of just a couple of years ago, but that doesn't mean we should just accept what we have either. I like the U35Jc, but I like the U30Jc better because it performs better and for some inexplicable reason produces superior battery life.We even tried giving ASUS' "Super Hybrid Engine" a shot but it didn't add more than maybe forty minutes of useful running time. That's not bad, but it's small beans when you're dealing with portables that are already hitting over six hours, and it still wasn't enough to make up the difference between it and the U30Jc.
We actually gave the U30Jc a Bronze Award, and I would still recommend that notebook over this one.