Performance – Competitors, Processor, General, Hard Drive

Performance – Competition

The ASUS G75 is the second laptop we’ve looked at with an Ivy Bridge processor. The first was the ASUS N56VM, which was provided as the reference platform. Both products have the same processor, a Core i7-3720QM, but the G75 is closer to final production form. The ASUS N56VM we looked at for the Ivy Bridge mobile review is a production chassis, but ASUS told us it may be a bit before that exact configuration is available in North America.

Because of the similarities in the processor we are not going to include the ASUS N56VM as a competitor in this review. Instead we’re going to go with a number of high-end multimedia and gaming systems such as the Dell XPS 15z, the Alienware M14x, and the Alienware M17x. We’re also going to include the ASUS G74 in those benchmarks we can to provide insight into how the G75 has improved on it.

Here are the specification tables for the competition.

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Processor Performance

SiSoft Sandra is a great benchmark for examining the maximum overall performance of a processor. Let’s have a look at how the new G75 performs here.

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The results here are not unexpected. Ivy Bridge dominates, easily outpacing the previous generation Core i7-QMs in the older gaming laptops. While this difference probably won’t result in better performance in most games, CPU-bound titles will benefit from the extra muscle.

Now let’s have a look at 7-Zip and Peacekeeper.

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In 7-Zip the 3720QM once again stands out, offering performance that’s about 25% better than the outgoing Sandy Bridge quads. It’s not an entirely fair competition, as the 3720QM is a relatively more expensive part than the 2630QM in these older laptops. Still, it’s obvious that the new processor offers a nice boost in performance.

This remains true in Peacekeeper, where the G75 scores an excellent 2311, beating even the Sandy Bridge Core i7 dual-core found in the Dell XPS 15z. The 3.6 GHz Turbo Boost maximum of the 3720QM clearly helps the processor perform well even when multiple threads are not being properly utilized. 

General Performance

We like to temper our results with performance from a couple real-world applications that can be used to accomplish useful tasks. For starters we’ll like at Windows Live Movie Maker, the freeware tool from Microsoft that can be used to accomplish various basic video editing tasks. 

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As you can see, the new processor is extremely quick in this test, blowing away the other competitors we’ve ran it on. It’s also nearly 40 second quicker than the ASUS N56VM with the same processor, for those who are keeping score.

Why is that? I think it’s because of the Power4Gear custom performance profiles on the G75. The N56VM came with no custom performance profiles of any sort, and the Power4Gear High Performance profile seems to do a particularly good job of keeping Turbo Boost engaged in certain conditions. It’s also possible that the solid state hard drive is helping, as well.

Now let’s have a look at Sunlit BatchBlitz, a freeware batch photo editing program.

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BatchBlitz does not do a great job of pegging multiple threads but, despite that, the Core i7-3720QM easily defeats the older Sandy Bridge parts. This is due to a Turbo Boost feature that seems more aggressive than that found in outgoing laptops. 

Finally, let’s have a look at boot and resume times. 

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The ASUS G75 is easily the quickest here, but it is also the only one with a solid state hard drive, so that’s not surprising. As with many SSD equipped systems, this computer can actually boot just as quickly as it can resume from hibernation.

Hard Drive Performance

A system’s hard drive has a major impact on how quick it feels. In the past, solid state drive systems have managed to feel snappy even when they have so-so processor performance. Of course, this  computer has both an SSD and a fast processor. Let’s see how it stacks up in ATTO.

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Uh…well. That’s not much of a competition, is it? We really shouldn’t expect anything less from a system that has a solid state drive dedicated to its operating system, though these results are particularly good even for an SSD. These results are born out in application load times and file transfer times. Everything moves quickly. 

Now let’s see if the SSD offers similar results in HDTune.

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Yes, the G75 once again dominates. It’s super-quick access times contribute to the feeling of performance. This is a really quick hard drive.

Although these results are great, they are damaged somewhat by the fact the drive’s capacity which, after overhead, adds up to only 95GB. That’s not much room considering the size of modern games, so you’ll only be able to enjoy lightening quick loads in two or three titles.

 

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