ASUS G50VT-X1 with Nvidia 9800M Review and Initial Impression

This machine will most likely still be around in January, unless Nvidia comes out with breakthrough for a mobile gpu. Then another model would come out.

 

Great. My Toshiba just went belly up after a bad bios flash that they recommended. They then offered to fix it... for $450. I am going to be using my PC for student teaching for PowerPoint and such while also wanting gaming and audio editing. Would this be the computer for me?

 

If you get the asus you might consider getting a separate sound card for audio editing.

 

Thank you, tshong!!! Exactly what I needed!

 

You may not want to use such a flashy looking machine for student teaching. Your students may very well be distracted or ask lots of questions about your laptop.

 

CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP.

Best Buys advertsied this machine for 1099$ !!!!!!!!!

****it.

it ends tonight too, does bestbuys still match their previous promotion?

 

What do you mean exactly? Like a price match? Yes, if it's less than 14 days old. You can try and ask them if they can still do the price match for you. I had mine price matched the day it went on sale.

 

Price is back at $1250.

 

Got this laptop ... Any problems that i should check for???...Any benchmarks to be run???

 

Would you be kind enough to give us some Crysis benchmarks? Maximum resolution (native, 1336*768), all settings maxed out? I wonder how many fps this laptop can make... DX9 and DX10.

 

Slightly offtopic, but if you have a record (like an email) of them recommending this BIOS flash to you, and if the bad flash is due to bad BIOS or utility bug (rather than you forcefully rebooting for instance) they should pay for the damage and not you.

I know, a lot of IFs...

 

Im waiting till the end of the month or maybe a few days more to get my hands on it(already ordered on sale + MO Home and Student 07 79.99 nice deal) since im not from the US XD I hope I dont get a Lemon like Howard did haha. Nice reviews, I read all the 47 pages and it just made me crave for it cant wait. Peace

 

Hi everyonne, i'm new here!

I really really want to buy this laptop, but can it play games with native resolution (1366x768). I mean that almost games does not support this resolution. Any idea?

And, will it have xx$ off for this X-mas?

My native lang is not Eng, so I am sorry about my bad Eng skill

 

I bought this laptop yesterday and so far so good. my only beef is that the mouse buttons are a little bit stiff for me. so I will have to use a mouse for gaming. but probably need to anyways. I have been running Warhammer Online and seems to run very smoothly. As far as the 9800m gs goes i checked on system requirements lab and it shows up there as a gt. and also shows up as a GT in the display adapters.

 

Product Current
Installed Driver Recommended
Driver
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT 176.23 ASUS requires that you download the driver for your GPU from their support site.

You can find more information at: asus website
The GeForce M series and GeForce Go series notebook GPUs use drivers that have been customized by the notebook manufacturers to support hot key functions, power management functions, lid close and suspend/resume behavior. NVIDIA has worked with some notebook manufacturers to provide notebook-specific driver updates, however, most notebook driver updates must come from the notebook manufacturer. Additionally, the desktop GeForce graphics drivers will not install on Geforce M series and Quadro M series notebook GPU's.

I got this off of the Nvidia site. I used there auto detect hardware program. so Nvidia thinks it is a gt also.

 

Don't worry about the resolution. Any game made during the past few years will accept this resolution.

Any game made before that can be forced to accept the resolution through editing a .txt file in the program files.

 

Hi, one question to the owners or the people that know about, is it true that the info gave by BB on this laptop is wrong? If the ram is PC6400 (800 MHZ) and a HDD @ \7400 RPM. Thanks in advance.

 

I have a question, It is recommended to have a power plan that keeps your latop always at max? And it is recomended to have this laptop(G50vt-x1) in OCed mode all the time? Since my Inspiron is giving me some problems of overhrating to much and like a burnt smell from its vent (that when new I never recall to have that smell till a few months ago). Thank you in advance.

 

Thank you very much!

I still cant understand clearly. How can I do that? Could u mention it in detail?
Thanks again!

 

So far the games I have tested and did support 1366 are;
Guild Wars, Left 4 Dead, Dawn of War 2, Oblivion
The nvidia controls have settings to either stretch to fit, or center block. As for the txt file editing it would depend on each game, not all have a way to force resolution.

Yes, the BB page was/is incorrect.

 

I see no Need to run it in overclock unless you need it. and since you can change it in about 3 seconds if necessary i see no reason to always run in OC. also you can monitor the cpu with the lcd panel above the keyboard. to know if it may be necessary to OC it.

 

...LOL. I've been eying this notebook for my brother; something better will probably come out by the time I'm ready to buy.

 

I've come to the conclusion that others have. The screen resolution on the Best Buy G50VT-X1 is just too low. Other than that, it's really a great laptop. I'm returning mine. My new G50VT-A1 from newegg should be in tomorrow. I'll be implementing RAID-0. Sweet!

 

Yeah G50vt-A1 is a better deal than X1, but still, both work great

I was aiming for an A1 or maybe even A2, but I had some problems with money and I couldn't even get 1250dlrs, but then BB put it on sale for 1099 and I just couldn't resist.

I am happy with my purchase tho, even if the screen is its weakest link.

 

Hello all!! Came across this site by way of Best Buy review.

I bought this laptop last week when it was till 1,099!

I'm loving the speed and the resolution isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I have had some issues with the trying Direct Console. When I try to put the computer into Tubro or Turbo exreme my unit locks up. Is there a fix for this?

 

Hi and welcome to NBR! The first thing you should probably do is to reinstall the Direct Console. The software can be found in your drivers disk. If that doesn't work, check if the Asus website has a newer version and try to install that.

 

Thanks David!!

I forgot to add, I've done 3 full system restore with the reboot and driver's discs. I also did a system restore by pressing F9 while booting, its like a full system restore, but it does not require the discs.

I will try downloading a newer version for Asus's website.

 

If you have done 3 full system restores and that didn't fix it you may have a hardware issue. If you're within 14 days of the purchase, take it back to Best Buy and show them what it's doing and tell them what you've tried. They should swap out the lappy for another new one. Both Turbo and Turbo Extreme worked fine for me.

 

Thanks for the reply

 

Thank you for answer my questions

 

I was going to buy this laptop last week after I saw the sale. I was going to buy it on Sunday. I didn't know that it was going to end on Saturday... Does anybody know when it's going on sale again?

Edit: I was looking up the laptop on ebay. Someone ripped off your review. :O

I need at least 15 posts to give you a link, however, it's the only black/silver G50VT on Ebay. Price is $1289 and the seller's name is guyfrommountain, if you want to report it.

 

Thanks for the notification. We'll leave it up to howard (the OP) if he wants to take action w.r.t. to the review.

 

Hi all..long time no talk.. caught some viral infection, been sick as a dog wishing I was dead... saw your post. Guess I'll let that one slide. The new owner will come across the real review eventually. Just want to wish everybody HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Ill be working overtime both days.....

 

you aint the only one working.. althought i get to game while at work when no ones looking lol....

glad to hear your back to ok =)

 

I need help! First of all I bought my asus yesterday, I quickly installed a few programs and downloaded 3d mark. After the test it almost froze in the last part of the test and the final results were 4,350!! WHY? Can anyone help me? Or tell me what I should do? Thx.

 

3dmark06 i get around 8880 points at 1280 x 768.. this is with the settings in the nvidia control panel set to performance/ high performance and my cpu oc to turbo extreme ( dont know if that makes a diff since i havent tried it with normal clocks)

try new gpu drivers would be my first guess... and download a temperature monitor program for your gpu just to check the temp

 

Ok, so I tried pcmark now and guess what? It crashed.. can someone tell me why this is happening to a brand new asus? What should I do?

 

Yeah, post your temps first otherwise we have no idea where to start...you can try hwmonitor, it seems popular among the NBR crowd.

 

Well I downloaded that program you told me about and I took a screenshot of the pc temps, here it is..

 

I kept posting the wrong link, sry i'm kind of new at this.

 

The temperatures are fairly normal. On my A1, I have 55C on idle.

Just for future reference! There is an edit button, so you wont post too many at a time.

 

Ok, thx. So what do you recommend me? Did you donwload anything in specific as soon as you bought your A1? Or did you just start gaming quickly and it worked perfectly? I just need somebody's thoughts on what I should do. Because if I should return it I first have to mail it to my aunt in Texas (where I bought it) because Best Buy doesn't accept shipping from Puerto Rico. (where i'm at) So if I mail it im gonna waste at least $70 shipping it to her and she shipping it back. I just need to know if there's a way for me to fix this here. Thx in advance.

 

Call ASUS support. I think they can ship you a box for the laptop both ways free of charge. (if the laptop is proven to be a lemon)

One the side note, how do you add more components to monitor in HWMonitor? The software only detects my HDD.

 

Hey could one of you guys measure out the dimensions of the screen itself, NOT including the LCD bezel? I'd really like to get this laptop, but I really hate glossy screens, so I'd like to buy a matte finish screen protector for it. Here's the link if anybody's wondering where I'm going to buy it:

http://www.buyviewguard.com/index.php

 

I would recommend some troubleshooting steps before going through the trouble of returning it.

Have you installed any applications from the factory install? If so, they may cause the problems. In that case, do a system recovery from the HDD partition. If you run 3Dmark with this stock config and you still get bad scores, post back.

Also, after the factory recovery, you could try removing some of the bloatware (Norton, perhaps any trial Office install) and needless ASUS utils. Perhaps some of these are causing the problems.

Check the event log, see if there are any errors or warnings listed right before or at the time of the crash.

And there's also the new GPU drivers to try.

 

I have a quick question:

It seems that the dimensions for this laptop is rather large given its screen size, so would the laptop fit in 15.4" laptop backpacks or would you have to use a 17" backpack?

 

It fits my Targus backpack for a 15.4" notebook. I have to shove the laptop in it real good though...

All in all, it'll work but it's gonna be tight!

 

ive tried a couple of backapcks and it fits in most but not all... i would say take the laptop with you into the store and try them out =)

 

Anyone knows where i can buy this laptop other than BB? Or something with similar price range and specs from Asus? (still g50 i mean)

 

go for the g50vt-x2 at newegg.com