ASUS UL80Jt: Overclocked i3 ULV
by Vivek Gowri on November 17, 2010 1:15 PM ESTASUS UL80Jt Gaming Performance
The UL80Jt has an NVIDIA G 310M, with NVIDIA’s Optimus graphics switching technology enabled. It’s a dedicated graphics card, but really that’s not saying much. As far as dGPUs go, it’s basically as slow as you can get and at the end of its lifecycle. NVIDIA has already announced its 400M series, and we sincerely hope that the GT 415M that replaces the G 310M at the bottom of the lineup can improve performance significantly (and it should, with three times as many cores and a 128-bit memory interface). More than that, we hope ASUS will quit with the 310M and use the faster 415M sooner rather than later.
We already have integrated graphics solutions nipping at the heels of the G 310M, and with Sandy Bridge and AMD’s Zacate on the horizon, they can only get closer or maybe even surpass it. And let’s face it—the current 11” MacBook Air (yeah, that 0.68” thick, 2.3lb paragon of industrial design) can run rings around anything with a G 310M inside. When you’re being beaten out by glorified netbooks, you know your GPU is ripe for replacement.
Performance-wise, it’s not too far off the U30Jc that we also tested, with maybe a 10% decrease in performance due to CPU bottleneck. The Turbo33 mode doesn’t do much outside of StarCraft 2 (which is much more CPU reliant than the rest), giving a 1 or 2 FPS boost at most. At low settings, we see the G 310M playable in most of the games, but when you bump it to medium settings it’s all gone. The only game even approaching 30 FPS is STALKER, with the rest being pretty poor.
But really, the G 310 is a low end card rapidly approaching the end of its life, so I guess I can’t judge it too harshly. It’s better than integrated graphics (but not by much), but it’s not really a huge factor—if you’re looking for a portable notebook with a dedicated graphics card for the purpose of gaming, you should either look into the M11x or wait for the next generation of graphics chips to hit market. And the sad thing is, G 310M performance is what the next-gen IGPs appear to be targeting, rather than setting their sites a little higher (i.e. GeForce 320M).
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slagar - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
"Unfortunately, the LCD bezel is still glossy plastic, a recurring theme with ASUS notebooks. Dustin went off on this in his last review, but I’d like to touch on it again. It’s stupid, stop doing it."This gave me a laugh; well said. Nice review, thanks!
I think the CULV i3 is well suited to 11-12" notebooks, like the UL20FT, as long as you don't mind the short battery life. But as said in the review, it sort of loses its purpose in such a "large" laptop when there are better options available.
Personally, I've still got an EEEPC 900 and it goes great. I'm looking at upgrading to a 12" UL20, but I'm not completely satisfied with the current revisions; maybe next year ;)
scook9 - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
I have a UL80Vt from work and aside from the horrible build quality and screen and touchpad (I know, right?) it is a great laptop. I like that the battery life is longer than windows 7 can handle (sits at 10h 00m for like 1.5 hours haha)And if you get SetFSB...Well I was able to bench my UL80Vt at 320 FSB without any instability :D - at room temperature with no special measures taken.
G-Man - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Hi, VivekI like how you intentionally come across as frustrated and resigned over both keyboard and the lcd-screen. Actually, you seemed frustrated throughout the entire review. The reviews aren't usually so harsh here on Anandtech, but in my opinion it was a nice change of pace.
VivekGowri - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
It was kind of a frustrating notebook all around, actually. I mean, it was slower and had worse build quality than the U30, but everything else (including price and battery life) was basically the same. So while it's not a bad notebook, I don't really understand why it exists, or why anyone would buy it versus the U30.AstroGuardian - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Why? Because not everybody buys a laptop for some special reason. And most people want to just buy a laptop. Not everybody looks for a hair inside the egg you know.VivekGowri - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Let's say Honda made an Accord with the 1.5L Fit engine that has roughly 60% of the power as the Accord's standard 2.4L 4-cylinder. Let's say this model with the undersized engine got very marginally better fuel economy and cost the same as the larger engine, but was significantly slower than the normal 2.4L Accord.You would question what the point was. Not every notebook needs to be "special", but come on - Asus sells a very parallel system that costs the same, weighs the same, gets roughly the same battery life, has better build quality, and is significantly faster.
Evil_Sheep - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
Asus's product strategy seems to be: unload a dozen clips in the general direction of the target, hope something hits. To continue that analogy, Apple would be the professional hitman who waits hours for the perfect shot and then only fires once. The contrast could not be more extreme.To be fair, Apple's execution isn't flawless and Asus's is hardly terrible. It just would be nice if it weren't so scattershot.
fokka - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
"Asus's product strategy seems to be: unload a dozen clips in the general direction of the target, hope something hits." roflmao :Djabber - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
Remember we are judging this machine (most of us) purely as a written comparison with another machine thats just a few months old.Most of the folks who look at this machine and buy this machine will love it and think its brilliant.
Why? Cos their last PC or laptop was bought 5 years ago.
On its own it still sounds a pretty decent machine...but we nit pick essentially over cup holders.
strikeback03 - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
I'm pretty sure most people buying a laptop on the internet do at least a little research (look at the "What laptop should I buy" thread over at notebookreview) and even a little searching will show that the current UL series seems inferior to the U3x series. So if internet buyers are out, that leaves in-store buyers, and unless the U3x isn't present while the UL is, the better build quality of the U3x will probably be the deciding factor. So sure this is an upgrade to something 5 years old, but when better upgrades are easily available it still doesn't make sense.