ASUS UL80Vt and G51J: Going for the Gold
by Jarred Walton on December 15, 2009 1:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Testing Overview
We're going to separate the performance results of the UL80Vt and G51J as they're not competing laptops. For the UL80Vt, we'll be comparing it against similarly priced notebooks (and a couple netbooks), which you can read about in our previous Studio 14z review. As for the G51J, we'll compare it with high-end offerings, some of which cost over three times as much! You can find the test configurations for the high-end notebooks in our High-End (Clevo) Roundup. Here are the test configurations for the two ASUS notebooks.
| ASUS UL80Vt-A1 Test System | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 (2x1.3GHz, 45nm, 3MB L2, 800FSB, 10W) Turbo33 @ 1.73GHz/1066FSB |
| Memory | 2x2GB DDR3-1066 (Max 2x4GB) |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce G210M 512MB Driver Version: 186.88 Intel GMA 4500MHD IGP |
| Display | 14.0" LED Glossy 16:9 768p (1366x768) |
| Hard Drive(s) | 320GB 5400RPM HDD |
| Optical Drive | 8x DVDR SuperMulti |
| Battery | 8-Cell, 15V, 5600mAh, 84Wh |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
| ASUS G51J Test System | |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-720QM (4x1.6GHz+ HTT, 45nm, 4x256KB L2, 6MB L3, 2.5GT/s QPI, 45W) Overclock @ 1680MHz (base speed) |
| Memory | 2x2GB DDR3-1066 (Max 2x4GB) |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M Driver Version: 195.62 |
| Display | 15.6" Glossy Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) |
| Hard Drive(s) | 2 x 320GB 7200RPM 16MB HDD (Non-RAID) |
| Optical Drive | 8x DVDR SuperMulti |
| Battery | 6-Cell, 11.1V DC, 4800mAh, 53.28Wh |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
Our tests will use standardized application benchmark suites like PCMark along with individual application results. Our in-house application tests place more weight on CPU performance, as we look at video encoding and 3D rendering performance. We'll provide any additional commentary related to application performance concerns if necessary. We will provide results from the UL80Vt with and without Turbo33 enabled. On the G51J, we only enabled the maximum overclock for heavily threaded workloads, as otherwise it didn't provide any noteworthy boost and often resulted in lower performance. Unlike the UL80Vt, the overclocking modes on the G51J can be enabled/disabled on-the-fly.
For gaming, our high-end tests standardize on performance at 1680x1050 with maximum detail settings (sans 4xAA) in a variety of games. Since the native resolution of the G51J is 1080p, we will also provide 1080p results. For the UL80Vt, nearly all of the competing notebooks use 1366x768 LCD panels, but many of the laptops are unable to run most games at that resolution, even at minimum detail settings, so we standardize on 800x600 minimum detail performance. With the G210M enabled, the UL80Vt doesn't have any difficulties at those settings, so we will also look at performance at 1366x768 with low, medium, and in a few instances high detail - basically, we'll show where the G210M runs out of steam at the native resolution. We did not perform gaming tests on the UL80Vt with the IGP enabled - why use a candle when you already have a flashlight?
Battery life testing will follow the same pattern, with both laptops set to "ideal" settings for improving battery life. With the launch of Windows 7 we have decided to showcase the best that laptops are able to offer in terms of mobility. If you run using a "Balanced" profile instead of "Power Saver", you can expect 5-15% less battery life, depending on the laptop. We tested the UL80Vt in several configurations: without Turbo33 and running IGP and G210M, and with Turbo33 with IGP and G210M.
Finally, we will combine the results for Windows power on/off and LCD quality, as the differences aren't as large for those tests. We'll also include power requirements on the combined results page.
We'll begin with the UL80Vt results, and we'll try not to get into too much detail on the following pages unless there's something truly noteworthy. By and large the tables tell the performance tale.
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whatthehey - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
Thanks for that; now go blow more smoke up Jobs' arse and leave the real discussion to people that can think.Calling this a cheapo Asus to try and make you Mac look better is pathetic. What makes it cheap, other than a plastic body? Most laptops are plastic shells, and this is still $40 less than the plastic MacBook while offering superior battery life and gaming performance. Plus I wouldn't have to put up with OS X and its quirks. Anand may love that stuff but I'd just as soon stick with Windows. No contest over glorified Apple.
KutterMax - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
Congratz to ASUS for the UL80Vt which looks to be a very nice portable machine that still has some pretty reasonable gaming performance coupled with great battery life.ASUS has made some great computers. I picked up a "Lamborghini" a few years back and still really like it. However the very short battery life and heft did not make it the best travel companion.
I recently picked up a new Sony Z-series with a 2.8GHz processer, a couple extended batteries, and built-in Bluray. Granted it wasn't cheap, but the laptop is pretty slick. Sony allow put a great display on it and Blurays look outstanding. Importantly - it plays Torchlight great...
Basilisk - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
"... if you're talking a difference of 10W to 14W, that's a 40% increase in power requirements - or 40% less battery life."I believe the correct statement is "29% less run-time":
RT = Wh / w ; RT reduction = 100% * (1-10w/14w) = 28.6%
By analogy, your metrics would suggest a 100% loss in run time (= zero time) if the draw was 20 watts, whereas its actually a 50% reduction.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
Sorry... was being lazy when I wrote that. It would mean the lower power gets 40% more battery life, but as you point out the higher power draw is 29% less battery life.Wolfpup - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
Notebookreview's forums have reported major stability issues with that specific model:http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...
That's really uncommon for Asus laptops, but seems to be the norm for this model, so...I take it the review unit didn't have those issues?
I run Folding @ Home on both my CPU and GPU when I'm not gaming or watching Blu Rays, so one way or another my hardware's always getting hit hard...need it to be 100% stable.
Also, regarding Vista or 7 losing power settings, I've never had that happen, though I always use "always on" and always do a clean install of the OS (I wasn't running much Asus software on my N80nv on Vista, and didn't install any under 7).
JarredWalton - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
I didn't have any stability issues with the G51J during testing. That said, I highly caution against running Folding@Home (SMP or GPU) on a laptop. I used to do that and found that it seemed to cause serious problems after 6 months or so... that it just pushed the hardware beyond where it was intended. I sometimes wonder if all the "failing NVIDIA mobile GPUs" isn't somehow related to a lot of people running such apps, but that's probably oversimplified.In short, while I respect what the Folding teams are doing, I've determined that intentionally stressing hardware is a good way to make it fail sooner rather than later -- even if the hardware was once "100% stable". The benefit to me personally doesn't outweigh the cost... and if you're running a "folding farm" with desktops, your costs can very easily scale into the realm of $100+ per month for power, let alone hardware. :|
Wolfpup - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
Thanks for the info! Glad to hear it was stable.I guess my N80 is a guiness pig for Folding then. If it does fail, that'll force me to upgrade :-D
Glock24 - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
I'm currently frustrated because I want to buy a new laptop, but it seems every manufacturer only ordered 1366x768 screens, be it for 12", 14", 15.6", or even 16" or 17" laptops.I was seriously considering an Asus N81Vp, and the only screen available is.... you guessed it, 1366x768. My current laptop, an Asus F8Va has a 14.1" 1440x900 screen, so you may understand my disappointment.
I think manufacturers are trying to squeeze every penny they can putting those cheap 16:9 screens on every laptop. They do not realize we, the consumers, also use our laptops to work and not just to watch movies.
1366x768 is ok for a netbook, not for a real laptop.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
Seriously. The UL50 (15.6" version) sounds like a laptop I would consider, but not with anything less than a 1680x1050 screen and a decent contrast ratio.On a side note, has anyone had trouble with Win7 blanking their screen but not actually turning it off? On both my desktop and laptop after the "turn screen off after" time has elapsed, the screen will flick off then back on, and stay on but blank. Any way to fix this?
yacoub - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
Looking forward to a review of the new ASUS EeePC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK. That's an interesting one - dual-core, ION, 12" display, etc.