15.6" LED-backlit Full HD 1920x1080 display Intel Core i7-3620QM (2.6GHz - 3.8GHz, 8MB L3 cache) 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory Nvidia GeForce GT 650M 2GB DDR3 VRAM 750GB 7200RPM hard drive Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
14.0" LED-backlit HD anti-glare 1366 x 768 display Intel Core i5-2520M (2.5GHz - 3.2GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6470M 320GB 7200RPM hard drive Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
13.3" HD AG LED SVA 1366 x 768 display Intel Core i5-2410M (2.3GHz - 2.9GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 4GB DDR3 SDRAM Intel HD 3000 Graphics (650MHz - 1.3GHz) Hitachi 320GB 7200RPM hard drive Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
13.4" TFT 1366 x 768 display (covered with Corning Gorilla glass) Intel Core i5-2520M (2.5GHz - 3.2GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 4GB DDR3 SDRAM Intel HD 3000 Graphics (650MHz - 1.3GHz) Hitachi 320GB 7200RPM hard drive Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
14.5" HP Radiance 1600 x 900 display Intel Core i5-450M (2.4GHz - 2.66GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 4GB DDR3 system memory 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200RPM Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
With the discrete GeForce GT 650M disabled, the Asus N56VM was forced to use the i7-3610QM’s Intel HD 4000 graphics engine. This resulted in a 3Dmark score of 7033pts and a PCmark score of 7349 pts. This already made Asus N56VM was faster than any laptop we’ve tested in 3Dmark 06, while it was only slightly slower than the EliteBook 8460p and ThinkPad X1 in PCmark Vantage. However, with the GT 650M enabled the 3Dmark score increased by 37%, while the PCmark score was boosted by 18%.
The Asus N56VM’s iTunes Encoding performance was impressive as the Core i7-3610QM took just 65 seconds, making it 10% faster than the Core i5-2520M in the EliteBook 8460p.
The Asus N56VM’s gaming performance isn’t anything to write home about when using the HD 4000 integrated graphics core, averaging 31.2fps at 1024x768 in StarCraft II and 43.3fps in Far Cry 2 at the same resolution. The EliteBook 8460p’s Radeon HD 6470M was 43% faster. However, enabling the GT 650M improved the N56VM’s performance by 119%, pushing the average frame rate to 68.4fps, though this plummeted to 31.5fps at the native resolution of 1920x1080.
