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
ASUS UX31A: Gaming Performance
First, let’s get this out of the way: this page is only for those who are interested/curious about gaming potential. If you’ve seen any of our previous looks at Intel’s HD 4000 GPU performance, you should already know what to expect. Intel can now run DX11 titles, but in practice you’ll need to use a lower resolution (e.g. the ever-so-popular 1366x768, or even 1280x720) with low to medium detail settings. Even then, some titles are simply too demanding for HD 4000. If you can wait another year, Haswell is supposed to double down on HD 4000 performance, but the waiting game isn’t very fun to play. We’re only going to show gaming results at our Value (~Medium 1366x768) settings, but if you want to see what happens at higher quality settings we’ve included Mainstream (~High 1600x900) results in Mobile Bench.
Much like the prototype IVB Ultrabook, the UX31A proves to be somewhat less capable than the standard voltage IVB parts when it comes to gaming. We still manage to pull playable frame rates in Batman, DiRT 3, Portal 2, and Skyrim, but even with average frame rates above 30FPS you’ll still see occasional dips into the low 20s or even the teens. At the native 1080p resolution, only Portal 2 is able to stay above 30FPS average, but I don’t think anyone really expected 1080p gaming to be a priority. In short, it’s possible to play some games on an Ultrabook without a dedicated GPU, but the experience won’t be all that great in many recent titles. AMD's Trinity on the other hand puts in a very respectible showing, with the understanding that the Acer M3 (and the newer M5) pretty much beat the A10 on all fronts.
At this point, we probably won't bother returning to look at Ultrabook gaming performance until something changes on the IGP (other than for discrete GPU models). We've exhaustively tested IVB ULV twice now, and the results are largely the same, other than a few minor differences that we can chalk up to drivers. If you want to know how Core i5/i7 ULV Ivy Bridge perform, the results above should tell you everything you need to know.
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Aikouka - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
I got the Elantech drivers ( Version V10.5.10.0 ) that I'm using from ASUS's website:http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en...
They're only about a month old, which isn't too bad. Finding that link can be a pain though... I had to go back to the forums where someone posted it ( http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=3372897... ) just to find it!
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Interesting... I actually was probably at that page before but didn't notice the "Elantech" option about three down. That said: WTF REQUIRES 146MB!? A touchpad driver should be about 1/10 that at most. :-\Aikouka - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Haha! That was my reaction when I saw the download size as well! I get the feeling that it's some monstrous package that is capable of servicing a lot of different products... kind of like graphics drivers?Although, I don't know how many products Elantech has.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Okay, so I've downloaded the actual Elantec drivers from ASUS' site now to see if they're any better. One thing they do have that the ASUS drivers lack is a "Smart detector" option that you can customize to help avoid accidental activation of the touchpad while you're typing. The default setting is too small for my liking, but if you set it to use a "large" area you can get it so that it mostly rejects input while you type. I'm not sure how good it is because this is the first I've tried it, but the above paragraph was typed with me basically resting my thumb near the palm on the touchpad and I didn't get any activations where my text got screwed up. I'm going to go update that page of the article just for completeness' sake, though I still feel like it's not quite at the same level as a good Synaptics touchpad.amrs - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Samsung's Ivy Bridge Ultrabook needs some more quality reviews, like Anandtech's... Is this planned?Personally I think the RAM issue is something of a concern. Hopefully someone puts out a model with 8 GB.
Toshio - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
+1 on a review in this one, many sites consider it the best thin+light windows notebook.RetroEvolute - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
I actually would have bought this ultrabook, but when I saw that it used a proprietary connector for its SSD, and soldered the RAM in (and at only 4GB), I really can't justify it. Everything else about it seems so great.On goes the wait for the perfect ultrabook.
Beenthere - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
There is a good reason why Ultrabooks don't sell even with lots of Intel bribe money.The reality is that there is nothing Ultra about these toys other than the high price. Most folks can see that there are many better, cheaper options for 99% of the world. If you're one of those who must own an Ultrabook, jump in. Otherwise your money is better spent elsewhere.
roc1 - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Jarred, could you tell me if the audio jack can also be used as a line-in? It is important for me to record sound from my synthesizer on the go.Thanks! Great review :)
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
As far as I can tell, and going by the specs as well, it only works for speakers/headphones -- no mic or line-in support. So if you need that and you don't want a USB adapter, you'll need to look elsewhere.