Asus U33Jc: Much Ado About Bamboo
by Vivek Gowri on July 29, 2010 9:01 AM ESTASUS U33Jc - 3D/Gaming Performance
Here’s where things get more complicated. While the U30 and U33 share the same Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics card and Optimus technology, the U30 ships with a core clock of 625MHz and 512MB of VRAM clocked at 790MHz, whereas the U33 has a 605MHz core clock and 1GB of 667MHz VRAM. At the resolution and detail levels that the G310M core is capable of handling, anything more than 512MB of video memory is probably superfluous, so the expectation going in is that the U33 will perform 5-10% worse than the U30 in both gaming and the synthetic 3DMark tests.
We can see just that, as the U33’s 3DMark results are lower than the U30 by about 9% on average. But 3DMark is just a synthetic benchmark, and doesn’t always translate to real world gaming, so let’s have a look at those gaming results.
In general, the U33 ended up a couple of FPS shy of the U30’s performance. It was expected, and it doesn’t really change much - playable games are still playable, and unplayable games like Mass Effect 2 are still unplayable. Like the U30, the U33 isn’t an out and out gaming machine in the style of the Alienware M11x, but it can hold its own when it comes to gaming so long as you’re willing to drop either the resolution or the level of detail down a couple of notches to keep the frame rate on the good side of 30 fps.
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Kegetys - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Disapointing to have such a nice "premium" quality machine be ruined by a poor quality display once again. I would have expected Asus to pair it with a better screen. Or maybe they want me to just stare at the bamboo paneling instead of the display...VivekGowri - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Hey, I'd be down for that - the bamboo paneling looks really nice.hybrid2d4x4 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Thanks for the review and continuing to harp about bad displays. I've been holding out for the UL30Jt myself, but based on the trend from the U30 and this laptop, I'm guessing the new UL30 is also garbage...I guess I'll never buy a laptop then.
chrnochime - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
Then don't buy one. Simple as that.Pirks - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
Or buy a Macbook Prosynaesthetic - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Maybe if enough people complain, we'll see good displays on laptops again? I noticed HP seems to be doing something about that--the Envy 14 has a quite nice display.Dell's taken the 16" RGBLED option off the SXPS 16 again...
I miss the days of high-resolution 4:3 and 16:10 panels on all laptops...
aebiv - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
I'm glad I got my SXPS 16 when I did. That RGBLED screen truly is marvelous to look at.I think they have it on the precision laptops now though as well.
Full Ctrl - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
I'm planning to buy my wife a U35Jc in about a month, I would definitely spend the extra $100 to get a high quality display. I would probably even spend $150 extra if it was also higher resolution, I'm not too thrilled about the 1366x768 resolution.Vivek: are you guys really doing a U35 review as well, considering how similar they are so similar to the U33?
notext - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
It is even more disappointing because it is Asus and they did such a nice job with the g73jh-a1/a2 screen. I was hoping they would be putting that effort into all of their higher end laptops in the different screen sizes.crimson117 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
How does MacBook give a good display under $1200?It skimps on other internals, like CPU and hard drive. Also, $1200 is 20% more expensive than U33Jc.
I'd love to see a $200 LCD upgrade option, though. But perhaps not enough people are willing to pay for display quality to make it worth developing.