ASUS ZenBook 13 UX331UN Ultrabook Review

1. Introduction2. ASUS ZenBook UX331UN3. Testing Methodology4. Testing: CPU and Memory5. Testing: PC Mark 86. Testing: Graphics7. Testing: SSD and USB Interfaces8. Testing: Thermal Dynamics9. Testing: Battery10. Closing Thoughts11. View All Pages

Maxon Cinebench R15

To test the processor, we first ran the CPU test from Maxon's Cinebench R15. This is a great way of assessing general processor abilities as there are loads of comparison results available, although here we focus on the specific systems we chose as direct competitors.

Things get off to a flying start with the render. The ZenBook 13 benefits from having four physical cores and eight virtual ones. This is an almost desktop-level of multi-threaded potency, and blows our comparative ultraportables with previous-generation CPUs out of the water.

This also bodes extremely well for multi-tasking. With eight threads available, you won't be waiting around for one thing to finish off before you can start the next.

SiSoft Sandra Arithmetic

For the second test for the CPU, we ran SiSoft Sandra’s arithmetic test – a synthetic benchmark.

The incredible performance in Cinebench is paralleled with Sandra. The UX331UN blows the comparison ultraportables away.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth

To test the memory bandwidth of the 8GB, 2133MHz DDR3 RAM that comes with the ZenBook, we ran SiSoft Sandra’s memory bandwidth benchmark.

Although the UX331UN only has DDR3 memory, it is a reasonably fast 2,133MHz variety, and this gives it decent bandwidth, even better than the UX430UA, which has DDR4 running at the same speed.

But these are synthetic benchmarks, and it's the performance in the real world that counts, so let's turn to some more application-orientated tests next.

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