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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yzkbug - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
glossy screen? ... neeeext!B3an - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Why have you not included the recently reviewed Dell XPS L501x ? Especially in the LCD tests. Without it, and other reviewed laptops with good or better LCD's, it's makes them tests seem bias towards Apple. As if they are the only ones using a decent LCD.JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Different markets... that's a mainstream laptop with a decent GPU. Plus, this review was started before the XPS ever arrived (shame on Vivek for taking so long).VivekGowri - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
*sigh*.....my bad.setzer - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the chipset noted in the hardware table wrong?As far as I know (and I also checked ARK) the GS45 only applies to the old Core2duo cpus no?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Fixed.VivekGowri - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Yeap, my bad - I ripped off the UL80Vt table and simply forgot to change the chipset. Thanks for catching that :)MikeMurphy - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
I have been waiting anxiously for this review but was disappointed that the UL80VT or UL30VT numbers weren't included for comparison.Also re 210 v 310 above, you'll notice many of the 310 Optimus setups have reduced memory clocks compared to the 210 in the UL30/80VT. I suspect this is for battery savings considering the continuous memory copying going on in the background.
Thermogenic - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
I still haven't seen anything more appealing than the Alienware M11x R1. It has the Core2Duo CULV and gets great battery life, as well as a 335M graphics card that powers almost all games at it's native 720p resolution with 30fps. It's screen is terrible, but that seems par for the course in the sub $800 systems. The only thing close I've seen is the $999 Macbook.StrangerGuy - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
Simply put: No offering as potent, as small, and as cheap as a Acer 3820TG. C'mon, ULV and 310m on a 12" may have been nice...but on a 14" incher that is a total joke. Lately they are just flooding the market with unappealing netbooks/laptops that are underpowered for the price.