Asus 13.3" U30Jc Laptop, Optimus-Enabled Mobility

by Ray Willington — Monday, April 05, 2010, 09:00 AM EDT

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SiSoftware Sandra and Multimedia Benchmarks

Testing with SiSoft SANDRA 2009

Synthetic Benchmarks

We continued our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA 2009, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. We ran four of the built-in subsystem tests (CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Memory Bandwidth, Physical Disks). All of the scores reported below were taken with the processor running with Turbo33 enabled along with 4GB of DDR3-1066 RAM running in dual-channel mode.

CPU Arithmetic Test; Click To Enlarge

CPU Multimedia Test; Click To Enlarge

Memory Bandwidth Test; Click To Enlarge

Physical Disc Test; Click To Enlarge

We aren't quite sure if we've seen a more well balanced marriage of chassis, CPU and GPU than what's together here in the U30Jc, and it shows in the benchmarks. Just look at the CPUs that this Core i3 is hanging with. That's pretty good company, particularly for a sub-$900 ultraportable. The 5400RPM hard drive is an easy upgrade target, but having 4GB of DDR3 memory helps alleviate the slow-load-time pain a fair bit. A good showing, no matter how you slice it.

To test multimedia capabilities, we attempt to play back a 720p WMVHD clip, a 720p H.264 clip and a 1080p clip. We've also included two screenshots of the 1080p clip from prior test rigs to give you a better idea of CPU utilization from rival systems.

Click To Enlarge; 720 H.264

Click To Enlarge; 720p WMVHD

Click To Enlarge; 1080p

Click To Enlarge; 1080p on HP Mini 311 w/ Ion

Click To Enlarge; 1080p on Asus Eee PC 1201N w/ Ion

Is there anything more beautiful than 1% CPU utilization rates when playing back high-definition media? The U30Jc didn't come close to breaking a sweat when asked to play back 720p and 1080p multi-media files, and playback was as smooth as possible. We never even noticed the GPU switch from integrated to discrete (that's the beauty of NVIDIA's Optimus, but we did notice the fans kick in. Things got a little warm after extended playback, but nothing uncomfortable.