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
Benchmark Setup
We’ve covered our current selection of benchmarks previously, but in order to keep the graphs a bit more manageable so we can just say “ASUS UX31A” in the charts instead of “ASUS UX31A-DB71 (i7-3517U, HD 4000, 4GB DDR3-1600, 256GB SSD, 50Wh, 13.3-inch 1080p IPS LCD”, we’ve put together this handy reference table of the laptops we’ll be using in this review in the following table. Since this is an Ultrabook review, we’re focusing on Ultrabooks along with a couple of smaller laptops. If you’d like to make your own comparisons, our full selection of laptops is available in Mobile Bench. Note also that all of the laptop names in the following table link to the appropriate review.
Laptop Configuration Overview | ||||
Laptop | CPU | Graphics | Storage | Battery |
Acer TimelineU M3 | Intel i7-2637M | GT640M/HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 55Wh |
AMD Trinity Prototype | AMD A10-4600M | HD7660G | 128GB SSD | 56Wh |
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX21A | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 35Wh |
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 50Wh |
ASUS Zenbook UX31E | Intel i7-2677M | HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 48Wh |
Clevo W110ER | Intel i7-3720QM | GT650M/HD4000 | 750GB Hybrid | 62Wh |
Dell XPS 13 | Intel i7-2637M | HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 47Wh |
HP Envy 14 Spectre | Intel i7-3667U | HD4000 | 2x128GB SSDs | 56Wh |
HP Folio 13 | Intel i5-2467M | HD3000 | 128GB SSD | 60Wh |
Ivy Bridge Ultrabook Prototype | Intel i5-3427U | HD4000 | 240GB SSD | 47Wh |
First, you’ll notice that every system tested in the above charts uses an SSD for storage, with the exception of the Clevo W110ER. That particular laptop used a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB hybrid drive, mostly because we wanted to get a feel for how it compared to pure SSD storage. The short answer: it doesn’t. While best-case workloads might not look bad, in practice there’s a big difference between SSDs and hybrid solutions. 64GB of SSD caching might be enough to eliminate most of the difference, but at that point you could just run with a 64GB OS+Apps drive.
In the other areas, we have eight Ultrabooks—four Sandy Bridge models and four Ivy Bridge models—plus our reference AMD Trinity laptop and the aforementioned W110ER. While Trinity is a 35W TDP processor, the improved gaming potential is certainly worth a look, and in practice battery life isn’t all that different from ULV Ultrabooks—though the size is generally quite a bit thicker unless you opt for a low voltage A10-4655M (which we still haven’t been able to test). Looking at the sizes of the laptops, the UX21A and W110ER both sport 11.6” LCDs, although the W110ER chassis is substantially larger than the 13.3” Ultrabooks. The AMD Trinity and HP Envy 14 Spectre are 14”-screen laptops, the Acer M3 is our sole 15.6” representative, and the remaining five Ultrabooks sport 13.3” LCDs.
We’ll draw two major comparisons throughout this review by highlighting the numbers in the graphs. Besides the UX31A, we’ll look at how much ASUS has improved since the UX31E, and we’ll also see how the UX31A stacks up to the prototype IVB Ultrabook from Intel. We’ll also highlight the Trinity results in AMD red, just so they’re easy to spot, but it’s not a major focus of the review. And with that out of the way, let’s get to the benchmarks.
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Luke2.0 - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
Page 5 on General Performance, the 3DMark06 graph is shown twice.I assume the graph for X264 benchmark second pass is missing, replaced with 3DMark06 instead.
Anyway, a very good review, and thank you for checking the speakers quality!
QChronoD - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
Was searching around on some of the random notebook forums and came across a few mentions of this machine. 14" 1600x900 matte screen, I7-3517u, GT650m, SSD+HD. Would love to see a review to figure out if the gaming performance would be worth the probably subpar display.QChronoD - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
While I'm throwing out suggestions, how about the HP ProBook 6575b? A10-4600 w/ 7660G graphics. It also has a 14" 1600x900 matte display, 8GB, 500GB HDD and DVD+/- drive. Best part is that it's only $830, so even with a 256SSD it'd be cheaper than most ultrabooks.simonm - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
And yet they still plaster those annoying stickers over the front of it.welch - Sunday, September 9, 2012 - link
If you are looking for the best Ultrabook under $1,000 you can get it here http://www.squidoo.com/ultrabook-under-1000 all brand listed. Hope that help.Sunburn74 - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
You can tell you SSD type without opening the box (specifically the brown box). Call asus' support line and give them the serial number on the outside. The technician will then tell you the ssd inside if you ask.