ASUS U6S Ultraportable Notebook

Name: ASUS U6S Ultraportable Notebook - Page 8
Brand: ASUS

by Michael Lin — Wednesday, February 13, 2008, 12:00 PM EDT

Gaming Performance

Page 8: Gaming Performance

For our first gaming-related benchmarks, we'll look at the ASUS U6S' performance in Futuremark's 3DMark06. For the overall 3DMark06 score, we have compared the U6S to a collection of laptops we have reviewed in the past. We also briefly looked at the U6S' performance in Company of Heroes and Prey.

Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06

Details: www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06

3DMark06

3DMark06 is the most recent addition to the 3DMark franchise. This version differs from 3Dmark05 in a number of ways, and includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests, but Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. Max shader length in 3DMark05 was 96 instructions, while 3DMark06 ups that number to 512. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.

The ASUS U6S performed the best out of the non-gaming laptops in our comparison. However its GeForce 8400M G could not compete with the mid-range and high-end graphics solutions some of the other notebooks were touting. Especially worthy of note is the large difference in performance between the U6S and the Alienware Area 51 m5500 which used an Intel integrated solution, since most ultraportable notebooks should have similar performance.

Real-world Gaming Performance

Company of Heroes and Prey

Company of Heroes and Prey were both configured to their lowest possible graphical detail settings. Every graphics setting was either disabled or set to the lowest available setting. Anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering were disabled as well.

By now, it should be obvious the ASUS U6S is definitely not a gaming notebook. However, we have included some benchmark results for Company of Heroes and Prey to give an idea of how it would perform if you insist on attempting to play modern games on your ultraportable laptop.