Toshiba Portégé Z835-P330 Ultrabook Review

We began our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA 2011, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. We ran four of the built-in subsystem tests that partially comprise the SANDRA 2011 suite (CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Memory Bandwidth and Physical Disk Performance). All of the scores reported below were taken with the Toshiba Ultrabook running at its default settings with full performance mode enabled and the notebook plugged into the AC adapter.

SiSoft SANDRA Synthetic General Performance Mertrics

 
SANDRA CPU Arithmetic and Multimedia Performance

 
SANDRA Memory and Physical Disk Performance

SANDRA's synthetic benchmarks reveal what you're giving up in performance in exchange for money saved. The numbers are lower across the board compared to the better equipped Asus Zenbook. The Toshiba systems gives up a little bit of memory bandwidth, a fair amount of CPU performance, and a whole lot of solid state drive muscle.

On its own, the Z835-P330 isn't exactly a slouch, and it still benefits from Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture, DDR3-1333 memory, and an SSD, albeit a subdued one. Just temper your expectations of winning any benchmarking records.

Toshiba Portégé Z835-P330 and Asus Zenbook SSD Performance Comparison with ATTO
We were so impressed with the SSD performance numbers with our first round of ultrabooks that hit the lab, that we had to double check with ATTO to make sure everything was on the level. Here's how it shook out:

Asus Zenbook UX21

We ran the Z835-P330 through the same test and here's how that one shook out:

Toshiba Portégé Z835-P330

That's quite a difference, and while we're not trying to beat a dead horse, the simple fact is Toshiba made some performance cutbacks in order to scale back the price tag on its entry-level model, and this is the result of that. Where the Zenbook's SSD tops out at over 550MB/s read and 500MB/s write speeds, Toshiba's SG2 SSD stopped short of 200MB/s read and 55MB/s write speeds. At 200MB/s, read throughput is decidedly better than any standard notebook hard drive on the market but at 55MB/s, write throughput is on par or perhaps a little slower than some 7200RPM drives.

Cinebench R11.5 64-bit 3D Rendering Performance

Maxon's Cinebench R11.5 benchmark is based on the company's Cinema 4D software used for 3D content creation and tests both the CPU and GPU in separate benchmark runs. On the CPU side, Cinebench renders a photorealistic 3D scene by tapping into up to 64 processing threads (CPU) to process more than 300,000 total polygons, while the GPU benchmark measures graphics performance by manipulating nearly 1 million polygons and huge amounts of textures.

We're less concerned with how the Z835-P330 fares in Cinebench simply because you're not going to do much 3D rendering, CAD design, or other professional-level work chores on this machine. It does give us another point of comparison, however, which is why we include it. Overall, the Z835-P330 put up respectable numbers for a system that lacks a dedicated GPU, with part of the credit owed to Intel's improved graphics drivers and integrated graphics core technology.