ASUS N53JF: Midrange 15.6” 1080p, Take Four
by Jarred Walton on December 28, 2010 1:40 AM ESTGaming Performance
We’ve covered this ground several times of late: 1080p with “midrange” mobile graphics really isn’t great for playing games, but at least you can turn down the resolution to get reasonable performance. We’ve run our Low, Medium, and High benchmarks at both the standardized resolutions as well as 1080p, but you’ll generally want to stick to medium quality or lower if you want to run at native resolution.
Starting at Low detail, about the only thing worth noting (other than the games all being playable) is that several titles benefit from the faster CPU in the Clevo notebook, but BFBC2, L4D2, and STALKER all give the ASUS a slight lead, with a larger 13% lead in L4D2. The Clevo notebook clocked the GPU the same, but used 1400MHz memory instead of 1600MHz RAM for graphics, so that 14% deficit shows up in some games more than others. Again, we ran Mafia 2 and Metro 2033 but are skipping the graphs for the time being. Mafia 2 manages 35FPS at 768p and 21.5FPS at 1080p, so it manages low detail and low resolution at least. Metro 2033 doesn’t even clear the 30FPS hurdle at 768p, scoring 26FPS and dropping into the teens (17FPS) at 1080p. The scores are basically right where we’d expect given the GPU and CPU.
The story is similar at medium detail, and again the ASUS notebook leads the Clevo, this time in four out of six games. The lower memory bandwidth is definitely a factor here, though the difference isn’t so large as to be alarming and the faster CPU still pushes Clevo ahead in Mass Effect 2 and StarCraft II. 1080p with medium is only playable in STALKER and SC2, while the other titles will need to drop to a lower resolution. Mafia II and Metro 2033 continue their slide into unplayable territory, with scores of 30.4/18.1 and 24.4/16.1 respectively (at 768p/1080p). As mentioned in the Compal review, AMD’s HD 5650 also manages to lead the 420M/425M at our Medium settings in virtually every case, despite being six months older hardware.
Finally, our High settings push many of the titles below 30FPS, though DiRT 2, L4D2, and ME2 all manage 900p High at >30FPS. As for Mafia II and Metro, they’re now down to 23.6/17.6 and 14.6/11.3 for 900p/1080p, which definitely isn’t playable. Also worth noting is that we continue to test games in DX9 or DX10 modes rather than DX11, as performance drops in nearly every DX11-enabled title and mobile GPUs aren’t usually fast enough to have the luxury of increasing detail levels. DiRT 2 is the odd man out, boasting higher performance at Ultra Low through Medium detail when DX11 is enabled, but the tables turn at the Ultra High setting. What we really need to make DX11 and high quality settings viable for notebooks is about twice the current level of performance—roughly equal to the HD 5850 or GTX 460M. “Midrange” laptops still require you to drop to lower resolutions, lower details settings, or both.
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, December 28, 2010 - link
Look, it's not like we *try* to put fingerprints all over the laptops. Just regular use will put them there, even if you're careful (which I am). If I walked around with white gloves on all the time, it wouldn't be a problem, but I'm not going to do that. Saying "just use your thumb" doesn't entirely fix the problem either, because you WILL overlap into the glossy area every time. A better solution, amazingly enough, is to stop using stupid piano black glossy plastic on laptops. There, problem solved, and it wouldn't cost anything extra.IanWorthington - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
Got to take issue with this "brighter is better". Maybe for some stuff but for photo editing, where you would care about color gamut, even 100 cd/m2 is likely to be over bright for accurate work.i
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
You can always turn it down if you need to, but if you're outside and can't read the display because it's not bright enough (I've had that happen with numerous laptops over the years), then brighter *is* better. Apple does this with MacBook Pro, where they get up to 350nits or something, but you can always set it to 50% or 100nits or whatever if that's what you need/like.blackrook - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
Now I'm just getting confused with ASUS's naming schemes. What does the N in N53 mean? The K? U? UL? G?It's the same with video cards, what with the GTX460 1GB/768MB/SE or the 5850 > 6850 business. Companies need to differentiate their product lines more intuitively.
86waterpumper - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
I agree that displays have slipped lately. I am building a new desktop rig currently, and I hate the 16:9 displays enough that I am sticking to a old dell 4:3 17 inch. Pretty sad I would need a 24" or something to even match the height of it. My wife has a 17.3 hp dv7 laptop, and she downloaded the amazon kindle software. I double clicked it to check it out, and opened up a book...It looked hilarious to see the middle 1/4 of the screen being used and nothing on the sides, all of these apps and programs are going to have to start allowing for wrapping and double width viewing if this stupid trend continues. I literally wanted to turn the screen sideways it would have been much better.I tell you another problem too with the piano black glossy finishes. Our daughter is 7, and uses the laptop sometimes for schoolwork or to look at disney website etc. A very heavy laptop is a pain even for me to carry with such a slick surface. It is utter stupidity!!! I wonder how many people have dropped their expensive laptops and ruined them due to this. I always make sure my hands are 100 percent dry before carrying the thing, but it's really tough for my daughter which is why I have started to let her use my much lighter netbook more. Anyway a rougher, matte finish would provide tons more grip and look better on the fingerprint front as well. I can imagine the pain in the tail it must be for people doing these reviews to try to get the thing fingerprint free under camera flash.
Luke2.0 - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
Hi Jarred, can the "Blu-ray Combo" do DVD-burning?Thank you.
chemist1 - Thursday, December 30, 2010 - link
If you google the drive name listed in the spec table at the beginning of the review ( "Philips/Lite-On DS-4E1S") you can get the full tech specs. But from what I vaguely recall, this drive can burn CD and DVD, but it's read-only for Blu-Ray.JarredWalton - Thursday, December 30, 2010 - link
Correct: this is DVDRW and BD-ROM. I would say "BD-ROM/DVD-ROM" otherwise, but I suppose you have no way of knowing that. :-)Luke2.0 - Thursday, December 30, 2010 - link
Thank you for answering my previous question.Got another question though: The spec table shows only 1 HDD. Does this laptop support dual HDD, or SSD-HDD combo?
IMO It'd be a shame as a 15-incher not to be capable of it.
I have checked Asus International and it does not seems to support it, but could you please confirm?
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=zzD4OFFWhspr...
Thank you again.
JarredWalton - Friday, December 31, 2010 - link
There's no room for a second HDD. If you wanted to get creative, you could try removing the optical drive and installing a second drive there, but ASUS doesn't sell the necessary caddy so you're pretty much on your own. Actually, very few 15.6" or smaller laptops have room for two drives in my experience; that's usually a feature of 17" notebooks, or special laptops that skip out on other items in order to fit two 2.5" drives. Granted, there are exceptions, but I don't think we've reviewed any in the past year at least.