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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
106 Comments
View All Comments
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.