Asus G50V 9700M GT Review, Benchmark and games

The raid gods must hate me, I have never gotten a raid or AHCI setup working and this is no exception the CTRL + I deal is not bringing up the storage manager for me.

Edit: I got it. I had to hit F2 to enter setup and then the message was there to hit control + i and I had to do it quick before I got into bios.

Also there are 3 recover options now that I am redoing windows.

Recover to entire HD - Wipes everything and gives you 1 full partion.

Recover to first partition only - Wipes the first partition only but will leave data on other partition untouched and get you back to square one

Recover entire hd with 2 partitions - Wipes the entire drive but gives you a clean install with 2 partitions instead of one. I am using this one for this isntall.

This is very important as the conversation I was having with rdwing, there is no point in having more than one partition if every time you recover it wipes the whole disk. Using option #2 tho you can keep all of your data/media on a 2nd partition and recover anytime without losing that data and thats why I am using option 3 to setup 2 partitions.

 

How do the speakers compare versus older generation Asus'? I had an A8Js in the past, and one of the biggest reasons I hated it was the awful speakers. I could not even watch a movie on the computer without headphones. It was truly terrible.

 

The speakers sound great, but I thought for "altec lansing" they could go maybe slightly louder. I wanted to save it for my review but I think I already found a way to make them much louder.

In bios you will see a speaker volume setting its default to 4, while max is 6. I am pretty sure I just increased speaker volume by maybe as much as 50% I cant test right now since I am reinstalling windows on a raid 0 setup. Dont get me wrong the speakers were loud with great quality. No bass tho.

 

hmmm how much better is the 9700m gt than the 9600m gs?

 

about 50%? 5700 3dmark06 vs I think the 9600m GS gets like 4000. I have yet to find a program to overclock it with but its a very cool running card so far so it may have some good headroom to go further.

 

Sounds promising. Could you watch a movie in a fairly loud ambient noise room? Say... you have a fan on. No problem?

Are the viewing angles on the screen good? My old A8Js had a sweet spot about the size of a five dollar bill, it was a huge PITA.

 

so the 9600m gs runs a lot cooler? hm well il see how much il be making in the next little bit and il either get a m50 or g50 cause the sager 8800s will have pitiful battery life and overheating?

 

Screen angles good, seems like the nomral 170 or maybe 160 degree view angle. Speakers are good to go. I just did something that I think makes them even louder gonna test after this reboot and will post back.

 

Hey.. why does xoticpc's G50 come with 4965 wireless, and Gentech's is 5100?

 

I think the 4965 was the spec that Asus sent them for there pre-orders. But when they actually got the units it contained the 5100.

 

is it too heavy? whats the battery time like

 

Did anyone else notice the sudden drop in frames during that crysis video? This has me very worried because i have similar problems to that on my g1s with several games. I've seen the g2s(8700m GT) videos running crysis and they do not have the same problem and it looks to be shown at the same exact settings. The frames are steady around 20 then suddenly dip to around 9 and it close to freezes for a second.

I'm not going to be happy if i get my machine and it has the same issue i currently have, I've done whatever i could to fix it as well.

 

@Playername: Yeah, I noticed that too. But looks like it doesn't happen a lot - although it would be quite annoying if it happened in the middle of an intense firefight. I think it was less apparent in the 3rd video (1280x720) because the game was running at 15fps anyway!

 

i think its still a very capable machine for a 15 inch. im wondering if the new sagers will have cooling problems. and does anyone know when the new dell line up is coming out?

 

I'm kind of confused as to why you would pick those resolutions to benchmark in... not even the native resolution of the screen?

 

well, its really not about if its a capable machine. Its about whether or not theres a technical issue with the 1 second freezing every 10 seconds or so.
I guess i'll find out tomorrow when i receive it. :/

 

hm i dont think il get a dell cause they like to screw us Canadians over

 

So all in all a good laptop for the price? Sorry, I'm just trying to get the gist of things.

 

Yep...excellent deal.

 

More pics I need my fix.

sorry about it ryhming

 

I just got done with my unit pictures hi2u, I dont really have time to crop them and upload them right now tho. It will have to wait until I get home.

 

Don't worry about take your time, your review is on your own time and I appreciate you doing it in the first place. I am however a little upset that Xotic still doesn't seem to even have them in stock, I really wanted it for this weekend...I will be lucky if I get it next weekend with ground shipping...

 

I notice that too, I think it was hard drive activity in the background when I was playing the game, the Windows Vista was factory installed and I didn't uninstall all the bloatwares.

1280x1024 is the default resolution on 3DMark06 if your screen supports it, most of the time people use 1280x1024 and 1024x768 to compare the score.

 

I get what seems like a drop in fps at the start of the FEAR benchmark but after a few seconds its fine, got CoD4 installed and it eats CoD4 alive. 1680x1050 all maxed out with no AA and its 30+fps average. I would run a lower resolution but seems like 1680x1050 is the only 16:10 resolution it has on there. Maybe if I update the game it will offer some new ones.

 

Awesome, CoD4 is my bread and butter. mmm.
can't sleep tonight :\

 

Yeah its doing great in CoD4 I had everything maxed out like I said with full native 1680x1050 and fraps showed me like 30 as my lowest number during the flight scene for the first mission. Thats a pretty graphically intense part so it should play very well at that setting. I like to be around 40fps average tho just incase something makes it dip down, so I will try a lower resolution if I can find one thats 16:10.

I have Crysis installed now and downloading the update, its going to take forever on my works wi-fi tho.

If it pulls off all high DX9 with a decent resolution on Crysis at 30fps average I will be a happy camper and I have a good feeling it will. Everything inside is nice and cool so we have a good possibility of getting more out of the machine once some overclock tools are available.

 

Was just waiting to hear about the crysis benchmark only. If it can do all high at a decent resolution then definately this is going to be the machine for me and will prove the capability of 9700GT.

 

It is strange how much this machine looks like the gateway machine I own.

The color scheme and the button placing are the same

It is competitive in performance too and smaller.

I think its very nice it unfortunately isnt as good a deal

 

loving that smooth black cover

 

To the people who already have a G50V:

How easy is it to get smudges/scratches on the lid of this laptop? From the pictures, it appears as though the surface is very glossy and that usually means smudgecity!

 

Is there any way you could give us an update on whether you could get rid of that stutter/freeze in crysis? I'm really hoping its not a serious issue, part of the reason i'm buying this machine is to get away from those issues with my g1s.

 

I hear you guys talking about getting 30+ fps in COD4 with everything maxed at a crazy 1680x1050 resolution. Then I watch the vids in the review and it's getting over 30 fps at a much lower resulution.

Also, it barely gets 15fps with high settings in Crysis at 1280x768.

Am I missing something here?

Does making those Fraps movies lower the fps on screen or something? I know its a medium range gaming laptop, but 15fps in ANY game is unplayable for me. It has to be 30+fps to be playable imo, that means crysis will probably have to be down to medium with maybe the same resolution of 1280x768 to be playable.

Can someone clarify this for me.

 

Recording with Fraps does stress the system a lot and lowers FPS.

 

It does lower the FPS but not by alot.
I've tried recording Test Drive Unlimited at 1680x1050, AAx2, High Details, No HDR which normally gets around 20-23FPS and drops to around 17-18 with FRAPS recording both sound and video.

 

some games are more effected by it than others. it uses cpu & hdd resources so if your maxing out the cpu (and crysis is very hard on the cpu) it will hold you back. I have crysis installed now I just need to run the benchmark on a few settings to see what is playable.

 

These videos are not being recorded using fraps.

 

Well I guess i'll just wait till Vicious posts his benchmarks to see what Crysis really gets with those settings.

But, if Crysis is running at around 30fps with everything on high at 1280x768, that is quite impressive.

Also, what resolution do you guys mostly play games at on your laptops? My current laptop is fairly weak, so I have to go with 1024x768. I've never thought about using 1280x768 because it seems like a weird resolution, but I noticed all the benchmarks are done with that one so it must be popular. To me, 1280x800 seems like a much better res when playing games.

 

For gaming benchmarks, like CoD4 or Crysis use the following settings:

Cod4 Custom resolution 1280x800 (you can use this one with the latest drivers from nvidia, or accessing the control panel and enabling custom resolution). All settings high and set shadows low or medium, and you will be playing near 60fps all the time.

Crysis-- Run in DX9 mode, all settings high, shadows medium, custom resolution 1024x640. This should yield near 30fps average. It would take an 8800 level card to reach higher resolution with all high settings at 30fps average.

Greatests weakness to this card are shadows, then shaders(but these are not nearly as heavy as shadows).

Overall this Asus G50 has a lot of extras and details that make it an amazing card. I am pretty sure they could have squeezed a 9700GTS in there, and trully make it a high end 15inch gaming laptop. I must say the gaming performance was not as I expected, and thus I will probably keep my laptop for a while.

The one laptop that caught my eye was that Gateway FX line, the new one with C2D 2.26ghz, 200gb 7200rpm, 1920x1200 res 17inch screen and 9800GT card for 1449dlrs. It does have a great video card for an affordable price.

If I were to change my laptop, I would probably change it to the gateway, but im not really sure as I can play the games I want right now without much of a hassle, and I even managed to finish crysis.

 

The COD4 frame rates that Vicious mentioned seem to be much better than what gentech's videos show, especially considering he is running native.

 

Well Crysis all high is playable but not my my standards 20fps average on the benchmark. But man Crysis brings even my high end destktop to its knees. I played thru the entire game DX9 very high ~30fps benchmark score fine.

Medium was a huge jump went to about 40fps average. This was 1280x720 because 1200x800 is not a resolution choice..... I looked around for a way to add a custom res and the normal method via the nviida control panel wont work the option is not there. The 2nd method is to edit the monitors .inf and the nvidia .inf and thats a bit much right now.

Maybe new drivers from laptopvideo2go will fix it but I have not tried that yet.

Yes CoD4 is doing pretty darn good. Let me toss up some teasers. BRB

 

Crysis with High settings and medium shadows at 1024x640 is respectable I think.

About the 17" Gateway FX, I was thinking about this laptop as well but I prefer the build quality and extra's that Asus has. That is why I'm going with the G71v.

I know this is off-topic, but do you guys think that the G71v will have increased performance or the same as the G50v? I read somewhere that it is going to have DDR3 ram, but I think everything else is pretty much the same.

 

I just noiticed even tho I had trilinear filtering on I didnt turn up the AF.

Oh well it will still run well because I would crank the AF up all the way and drop the res to 1200x800 once I find a way to add that res in.

 

I doubt the ram will do anything for you except cost more.

 

First of all, Ken thank you very much for the review, once again great job!
You got to admit though some people are funny...they have worries about weight, how long the battery will last... Let me ask you this, how often are you using a Gaming laptop away from your desk or on battery?
From my experience, after using G1S for almost an year - it is none! Never moved, never had to carry, never worked on battery.
And yes they could have put the m9700gts, it would have been soooo much better, but they did not, we have to deal with this.
And now comes the biggest frustration, the Gateway new FX baby again offers better GPU, on better price...I mean Come On! After using Asus for so many years, the dilemma is should I go buy it (and I hate the 17inch bulkiness too)...
Probably not, I would prefer to make this sacrifice and get the Asus despite the fact of the weaker GPU.

P.S. well, if you can upgrade the GPU by your self (in other words put something MXM III) it will make it the perfect gaming machine.
This actually can turn in to a question for Ken, is it possible GPU upgrade, for example putting a m8800gts or 9700gts both are MXM III? Thank you in advance.

 

I don't see why you would even bother buy a 15.4 over a 17 if you NEVER plan on moving it. I will be using mine in college.

 

The cooling design has been made for a 9700M GT. How hot is it already?

 

Vicious, you stated earlier that it is a big notebook during your initial impressions. How big are we talking? I mean I know the dimensions but I'd like to know what you think about carrying it around everywhere. I literally gotta lug this thing around with me everywhere so if it's too inconvenient I probably won't get it.

 

~hi2u~, I just don't like the look of any 17inch laptop, it just not laptop any more all of them are huge and ugly, not to mention FX series sticking out battery, even more unattractive.

JCMS, I really doubt that m8800gts is much hotter than m9700gt, the only issue might be the size.

Some one was complaining about the CPU temp's under the overclock and load, 82c (61c overclocked no load) is very, very cool if we must compare to the older generation Merom (i.e. T7500, it was 65c-70c idle and over 85c playing heavy games, fan noise like a small hair drier, that was default on the G1S).
Speaking of cooling I saw a great improvement from Asus on the F8 series, mush quieter and sufficient.

 

Did you notice any 1-2 second freezing every ~10-15 seconds like in the Gentech review videos?

 

@ Playername - No freezing at all and from my experience the benchmark is a good idea of how the game will play. Like I said my desktop got 30fps avg on the benchmark and in playing thru the game most of the time the fps was higher than the benchmark only few situtations made it get low. So the 20fps avg I got with all high may be closer to 25-30fps in game avg in most situations. Medium pulling nearly 40fps avg in the bench means its most definitely fully playable and it looked very close to high to me.

@Doc Z - Well its just wider than my C90S and thats what I am used too, and its thicker. You will see this in my review when I get it up. But its not heavy and its easy to "lug around" Considering how cool & quiet it is and it has 2 hdd's I think the size as amazing. I dont hear the laptop running I hear my ultra quiet zalmans cooler instead.

The cooling system works very well, in crysis the fans became audible but all the hot air comes out that side vent and the insides stay cool.