ASUS UX31A: Putting the Ultra in Ultrabooks
by Jarred Walton on August 28, 2012 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Intel
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- Zenbook Prime
- Ultrabook
Benchmark Setup
We’ve covered our current selection of benchmarks previously, but in order to keep the graphs a bit more manageable so we can just say “ASUS UX31A” in the charts instead of “ASUS UX31A-DB71 (i7-3517U, HD 4000, 4GB DDR3-1600, 256GB SSD, 50Wh, 13.3-inch 1080p IPS LCD”, we’ve put together this handy reference table of the laptops we’ll be using in this review in the following table. Since this is an Ultrabook review, we’re focusing on Ultrabooks along with a couple of smaller laptops. If you’d like to make your own comparisons, our full selection of laptops is available in Mobile Bench. Note also that all of the laptop names in the following table link to the appropriate review.
Laptop Configuration Overview | ||||
Laptop | CPU | Graphics | Storage | Battery |
Acer TimelineU M3 | Intel i7-2637M | GT640M/HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 55Wh |
AMD Trinity Prototype | AMD A10-4600M | HD7660G | 128GB SSD | 56Wh |
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX21A | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 35Wh |
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 50Wh |
ASUS Zenbook UX31E | Intel i7-2677M | HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 48Wh |
Clevo W110ER | Intel i7-3720QM | GT650M/HD4000 | 750GB Hybrid | 62Wh |
Dell XPS 13 | Intel i7-2637M | HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 47Wh |
HP Envy 14 Spectre | Intel i7-3667U | HD4000 | 2x128GB SSDs | 56Wh |
HP Folio 13 | Intel i5-2467M | HD3000 | 128GB SSD | 60Wh |
Ivy Bridge Ultrabook Prototype | Intel i5-3427U | HD4000 | 240GB SSD | 47Wh |
First, you’ll notice that every system tested in the above charts uses an SSD for storage, with the exception of the Clevo W110ER. That particular laptop used a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB hybrid drive, mostly because we wanted to get a feel for how it compared to pure SSD storage. The short answer: it doesn’t. While best-case workloads might not look bad, in practice there’s a big difference between SSDs and hybrid solutions. 64GB of SSD caching might be enough to eliminate most of the difference, but at that point you could just run with a 64GB OS+Apps drive.
In the other areas, we have eight Ultrabooks—four Sandy Bridge models and four Ivy Bridge models—plus our reference AMD Trinity laptop and the aforementioned W110ER. While Trinity is a 35W TDP processor, the improved gaming potential is certainly worth a look, and in practice battery life isn’t all that different from ULV Ultrabooks—though the size is generally quite a bit thicker unless you opt for a low voltage A10-4655M (which we still haven’t been able to test). Looking at the sizes of the laptops, the UX21A and W110ER both sport 11.6” LCDs, although the W110ER chassis is substantially larger than the 13.3” Ultrabooks. The AMD Trinity and HP Envy 14 Spectre are 14”-screen laptops, the Acer M3 is our sole 15.6” representative, and the remaining five Ultrabooks sport 13.3” LCDs.
We’ll draw two major comparisons throughout this review by highlighting the numbers in the graphs. Besides the UX31A, we’ll look at how much ASUS has improved since the UX31E, and we’ll also see how the UX31A stacks up to the prototype IVB Ultrabook from Intel. We’ll also highlight the Trinity results in AMD red, just so they’re easy to spot, but it’s not a major focus of the review. And with that out of the way, let’s get to the benchmarks.
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smartypnt4 - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Wow. My math is a bit off here. $1300 + $100-200 = $1400-$1500.So, for a comparable price, you get a slightly larger ultrabook that you can upgrade yourself.
janderk - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
I would have bought the 1080P UX32VD instead of the UX32A if it were available locally, but yes it is for nerds only.The 32VD only makes sense if you immediately upgrade RAM and put in a Samsung SSD and reuse the Hybrid drive as a secondary drive in another PC or USB disk enclosure.
Hopefully Anand will tinker a bit with it too and do the same thing. Otherwise it certainly is an under-performer.
jtwitkow - Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - link
Yes, I agree! Anand PLEASE TINKER!!!! Add an SSD and an 8gb stick and let us know how it improves things over the stock setup. Please!!!!Galcobar - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Has anyone else noticed when shopping for laptops that display resolutions are never a filter option?Not one manufacturer or retailer that I've looked at will provide that information without drilling down in to the configuration details of a specific model. Given resolution is perhaps the biggest differentiator in a sea of laptops and ultrabooks running largely the same hardware, it's wildly frustrating.
Would love to see "available screen resolutions" added as a category to the Bench for comparison purposes.
parim - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
The flooding was in Thailand not TaiwanJarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Egg, meet face. Sorry about that.Alexo - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Any chance of seeing a review of the Tinkpad X230?JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Only if Lenovo wants to send us one, which is doubtful.Calista - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
What about the X1 Carbon? It seems to be one of the best ultraportables around and I would love for Anandtech to review it.JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
The problem is getting *anything* from Lenovo (though oddly, Dustin was able to get a ThinkCentre). If it happens, that will be great, but I'm not holding my breath.