Asus M51Ta Owners' Lounge

As of 5 October 2008, this thread is also the owners' lounge for ASUS M51Ta. Enjoy! E.B.E.

Long time reader, first time poster..

I have been researching laptops for a while and I am in the market for a 15 inch with moderately nice features. I have several candidates in mind, but all that is beside the point.

I recently noticed a new posting on newegg for a puma based Asus called the M51ta. It has comparable features to the new intel based M50 and its a few hundred dollars cheaper. The only problem is there is no information on it what so ever. The only info is in the newegg listing and it isn't very specific.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220349

It features one of the new puma processors, and the radeon 3650, but it doesn't specify if its ddr3, if there is crossfire, or even how big the thing is.

If anyone has any info on this it would be greatly appreciated. I am sure we can solve this mystery together.
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In honor of making it to the Owners Lounge Status I dug up an old unboxing photo I found from when i first got my M51ta.



It is still the best bang for the buck laptop in its class and it handles everything I throw at it.

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Useful Links by E.B.E.

• bacon612's M51TA Issues Thread

 

It's most likely DDR2 since all the other 3650 GPUs Asus uses are DDR2.
As for size, it is the same as any other M51 notebook - 36.5 x 26.9 x 2.8 - 4cm (from Asus website)

 

I figured it would be ddr2, but the fact that it has 512mb of memory makes me curious. The other ones have 1GB. Why would they use the 512mb card if it didn't have faster memory.

Also considering it is the Puma platform there is a possibility that the new crossfire solution is being used, but it is strange that this laptop isn't even listed on Asus's site, yet it is already for sale.

You are most likely right about the dimensions, but the weight is still a total mystery. I wonder how well this system stacks up next to the montevina Asus systems. (battery life, synthetic benchmarks, etc.)

It seems like Puma is late to the party.

 

The G50v is for sale and not 'really' listed on the Asus website. You have to hunting for an information page.

 

True. No one hear seems to be partial to AMD. I know they are behind in the race, but they really are a good value. Puma is nearly on par with Santa Rosa at least in terms of performance.

 

After some extensive research, and translating, and more research.. I found a glimmer of hope that may or may not spark some more interest in this elusive yet temptingly cheap laptop.

http://www.notebookjournal.de/news/1015

It is in german, but if you scroll down to the laptops specs you will see it lists it as having the 3200 and the 3650. Now if we can just get some benchmarks on how well those two gpus will run in hybrid crossfire we might have a cheap but effective gaming laptop here.

Then again I don't know how reliable this source is.

 

Hybrid Crossfire only works with the combination of the HD3200 IGP and the HD34xx series GPUs. The HD3650 is better than the combination of the HD3200 and the HD34xx, so they just disabled it for anything higher than the HD34xx. The HD3650 is a very adequate gaming GPU, unless you like Crysis at high res.

BTW, anyone know if XP drivers are available for this model (or if the Vista ones work with XP)? I've searched all over the Asus websites and only found Vista drivers. My son is wanting to get one of these, but he also has older games that will not run with Vista.

Thanks,

BT

 

Not all Vista drivers will work for XP (this is for Intel notebooks, but may apply to AMD as well: usually the chipset drivers, and the ATK drivers and utilities will work). Video drivers are not a problem usually (ATI -- Mobility Modder).

Given this is not a very popular model, you may need to go hunting for the rest of the drivers yourself, on component manufacturer websites, and for related, older ASUS models with similar hardware...

 

I heard that it was for 34xx only somewhere, but I also heard they would be able to update it to work with the 36xx series. At any rate I would feel more comfortable with a 3650 than a 9600m at this point due to all the nvidia failure rumors. So we might be able to rule out hybrid xfire, but what about gpu switching to save power.

I mainly want to be able to play some of the upcoming strategy and rpg titles like diablo 3, starcraft 2, spore, dragon age, red alert 3, maybe the warhammer mmo..

I am really interested in this model so if anyone does take the plunge I would love to see a review and some benchmarks. OOooh and expressgate looks pretty cool.

 

I think I might take the plunge on this system. I have been looking around and this seems to be a pretty intriguing system based on the price. I don't think you can do a whole lot better for the 1k price tag.

I did see something about having both graphics cards and that it would use the integrated card normally, but switch to the dedicated card when needed. It seems to be available in Europe mainstream, but I haven't been able to find much mention of it in the US yet.

 

If you were wondering, here is the press release from ASUS for the German/Austrian market talking about the two models being released beginning of August 2008:

http://de.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=12283

It confirms the switching between the GPUs to conserve power. Other than that, it just talks about the specs of the two systems and how it was released as a system with a good balance between multimedia and gaming functionality.

 

Awesome. Good find.

Now just a little more hype, and a few more owners and we can get an owners lounge going haha.

Well its between this and the powerpro based on the msi 620.. The price on this thing is so pleasing though.

 

I went ahead and ordered mine, so I guess I'm the first to take the plunge. It should arrive by the end of the week. It's nice to get the 12-month deferment through newegg.

 

I posted in another thread before I saw this one. I was wondering if the warranty offered by newegg is the standard Asus global warranty. Seeing as it's being offered to the european market, it isn't one of those customized laptops, right?

I would like to see how this stacks up to the M50Vm. Probably no match in the CPU department, but I've heard good things about the HD3650. I'd rather get the slower CPU and be able to sleep at night than wonder when my Nvidia GPU would kick the bucket.

 

I bought this model last week. After hours of plowing specs in the laptop jungle my conclusion was that this model offers most power for least money. I also was a bit uncertain about the specs for the M51 TA, but with help from a computex 08 forum and AMD's press release of the puma platform, I realised that this laptop has all the features of the platform including crossfire. So far I'm very pleased with the computer, it seem to have more than enough power. It's pretty neat when you unplug the laptop and it comes up a window informing you of the switch of graphics card (from the discrete 3650 to the integrated 3200) to increase battery life.

 

Any chance of you posting some benchmarks?

 

I'm liking the look of this notebook too!

But UK website has nothing on it http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=5&l2=26&l3=652

 

On-the-fly GPU switching is SUPPOSED to be standard on the PUMA platform. The platform allows for either manual switching, auto-switching or both. What you get is left up to the notebook manufacturers. Since this model has just now hit the street, I can't find any info on which features this model has.

All PUMA lappys with discrete GPUs are supposed to auto-switch to IGP when they go to battery power (unless the feature is disabled by the user, probably in the Power Options in Vista). There was also pre-production talk of some manufacturers adding a quick switch button to allow users to switch with a tap of the button. THAT would be sweet!!

Regardless, I am looking real hard at this notebook. If I acquire one, I will post my findings.

BT

 

Yeah I would love to see some benchmarks and battery life, etc.. maybe some real life photos from the owners of this laptop. We have at least 2 owners now. I think its only a matter of time before I buy this.

 

So... is anyone going to add to this thread? Benchmarks anyone? I wonder if any of the resellers plan on carrying this variant. If so, I hope they post a review.

But to be honest, I'm more or less sold on this one, the deciding factor being it doesn't have the dodgy nVidia chips. Processing power isn't a requirement for me as I mostly do spreadsheet number crunching while doing a bit of gaming on the side when I'm away from my desktop. Neither requires much computing. I want it to last the next 3-4 years as having electronics serviced can sometimes be a test of patience. And another reason why I like the laptop: it has a numpad!

I hope to see a mini-review/more info/benchmarks on this, though, before I make my purchase around October.

 

Have you looked at the V1V, assuming it's available in your location? Intel+ATI.

 

Mine is scheduled for delivery today, so I'll let you know more shortly and maybe some pics.

 

Too expensive. I don't want to spend more than 1500 USD. I will never be able to explain to my wife why I'll need to spend 2400 to do my spreadsheets. Heh.

Cool! Looking forward. I hope it turns out to be a more than able machine.

 

Would love to seem some benchmarks out of it, and triple check things if it has Bluetooth (guess it does) can't see how many USB ports it has too?

 

3d mark 06, super pie, pcmark.. battery life.

I am glad a couple people have ordered already. My desktop died on me a few days ago, and my current laptop is pretty dated so I decided to go with a "laptop only" solution. If this one can keep pace it will be a big winner.

Currently have an hp dv2416 with 1.8ghz amd and 6150 igp and it is painfully slow compared to what my desktop was. I hope this m51ta can outpace it marginally.

 

Super pie LOL It's Super Pi.

 

Good call. I guess I am just really hungry right now. Haha. Some key lime would be super delicious.

(I guess being a college graduate doesn't save you from embarrassing typo's)

 

Heh. Then I take back my wikipedia link

And I will add another: Freudian slip. Maybe that's what the pie was. Sorry for the offtopic.

 

Still waiting... it's been "out for delivery" for almost 12 hours now.

 

It'll come when your half way through on the can... guaranteed!

You won't be trying any overclocks on the CPU/GPU will you by chance or just let things settle in first? I'm eager to get this notebook and even eager to see what it can do!

 

Here's some quick info as I just got mine today.

Benchmarks (these are quick results not perfect as not everything is closed)
wprime 37.35
4526 PCMarks

Info

Newegg specs are accurate as far as I can tell.
32 bit Vista even with the 4GB ram
It will switch between cards when unplugged

GPU-Z does show both
3650
512MB DDR2
3200
256 MB DDR2


Since these processors are new here is the CPU-Z info
550MHZ
2.75 Multi

Also
Ram has CAS Latency of 5.0

If there is any specs you want to know, just ask. I'll post benchmarks, as I get them.

 

Awesome! Are you happy with the purchase so far? Windows Experience index while plugged in and while unplugged would be an easy and helpful bit of info.

Also, weight, sleekness, durable feel, etc?

Edit:

For anyone wondering here is the wprime for comparable cpu's

Dell XPS M1530 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)
37.485s
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz)
34.628s

So the new puma zm-82 is exactly as I suspected.. on par with santa rosa which is actually pretty good in my opinion.

 

Nice! Have you tried running any games? Also, what Tshroom said, how does it look, feel, etc.

 

Check the newegg listing. Someone has actually posted a review claiming it runs several games on decent settings.

 

WEI (plugged) - same stipulation as above

CPU 5.0
RAM 5.9
GPU 5.5
Gaming 5.1
HDD 5.3

As for the feel. I'm not a fan of touch pad nor their buttons. I personally prefer the coarse touch pads, and the buttons have the hollow echo when pressed. Palm rests feel like the flimsy plastic that it is. Keyboard is solid but takes some getting used to being off center for the num pad. If you use this as an actual laptop, the fan vent is in the back right and will breathe on your leg, or you'll cut off the exhaust and warm the whole thing up. Finger print magnet is accurate. ctr- c is tough to hit since it's a half button, istead I hit Fn C which changes the lighting theme, that'll get old I think. I know it's mostly little gripes, but of course that always sticks out in my mind most at first.

I'm happy so far, but I want to play some games to determine if it was worth it.

No games yet, that's tomorrow's fun job.

 

Heh, that wasn;t there last night. If it's true what he says, at $999.99, the M51TA is one of the best bang-for-buck laptops out there. Unless, of course, you go for the X1 version of this which sells for 899. Sweet!

Decent scores on the WEI. Hope it does well in actual practice. I hate touch pads, too. I usually disable them and plug in a mouse when using my laptop. When I type, I usually rest my palms in such a way that the cursor ends up jumping from cell to cell. That gets old fast. I'll probably never get used to touch pads.

And at least Asus puts the ctrl button on the left most now. The Asus I use has the Fn key at the left most.

I'll probably go with this when I make my purchase on October.

 

Those WEI scores smoke my HP, and I am sure the asus probably feels a lot more durable than my hp.

All very interesting. Aside from styling I think this laptop could probably go toe to toe with the f8va-b1, and it is $200-$300 cheaper. Not to mention it probably gets better battery life.

In my quest to stay away from nvidia and get a new laptop this one is looking great. Can't wait to see the gaming results.

 

I wouldn't use the WEI scores to compare two computers... they are too inaccurate.

Also, if you gather all the information about the performance/usability of the computer in a single, easy to read post, if and when it gets useful enough I will link it from the Info Booth as a "review".

 

That would probably be helpful, and it would boost the popularity of this model. I really wish one of the vendors like gentech would carry it, but all of them seem to have a thing against AMD.

 

Hey I'm back with a benchmark for everyone, from the Crysis benchmarking tool (V 1.21). I've run this same test a couple times and I can't get any higher numbers, if there is a prescribed way of optimization please let me know. I closed as any apps as possible, but I'm not sure if there is proper way to benchmark involing these tools.

8/15/2008 10:16:26 PM - Vista
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX10 1280x720, AA=No AA, Vsync=Disabled, 32 bit test, Windowed
Demo Loops=5, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: Medium
==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 93.08s, Average FPS: 21.49
Min FPS: 15.77 at frame 1954, Max FPS: 25.88 at frame 115
Average Tri/Sec: 18542314, Tri/Frame: 862918
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 1.06
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 88.61s, Average FPS: 22.57
Min FPS: 15.77 at frame 1954, Max FPS: 28.82 at frame 73
Average Tri/Sec: 19691552, Tri/Frame: 872480
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 1.05
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 88.73s, Average FPS: 22.54
Min FPS: 13.63 at frame 1936, Max FPS: 28.82 at frame 73
Average Tri/Sec: 19674442, Tri/Frame: 872853
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 1.05
!TimeDemo Run 3 Finished.
Play Time: 88.63s, Average FPS: 22.57
Min FPS: 13.63 at frame 1936, Max FPS: 28.82 at frame 73
Average Tri/Sec: 19696450, Tri/Frame: 872816
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 1.05
!TimeDemo Run 4 Finished.
Play Time: 88.86s, Average FPS: 22.51
Min FPS: 13.63 at frame 1936, Max FPS: 28.82 at frame 73
Average Tri/Sec: 19655082, Tri/Frame: 873236
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 1.05
TimeDemo Play Ended, (5 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

8/15/2008 10:16:26 PM - Vista

Run #1- DX10 1280x720 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: Medium ~~ Overall Average FPS: 22.5475

 

Another note:

I tried to register this notebook with ASUS ADW, and it says it does not qualify. I have a support email out to newegg trying to find the answer, considering newegg mentions this warrenty in their specs.

My main hope is that the serial number isn't updated system wide yet. This notebook has a manufacture date of 08/2008, so the info might not have populated all ASUS internal servers yet...at least that's what I'm hoping.

 

Thats weird.

The crysis fps was decent considering how high of a resolution you used, and medium settings. Make sure to download the latest or the best mod of the radeon drivers to get the best performance. Also running in DX9 will give you way better performance.

I meant to ask you about the contents.. Did you get a bag and mouse like with most asus laptops? Any word on battery life and expressgate functionality?

 

Ask and you shall recieve. My goal was to mimic the benchmark of the HP dv5t review. The GPU (9600M-GT), according the GPU overview thread, is about on par with the 3650, so that was the avg FPS I was shooting for. To be honest I'm not sure why the avg FPS did not rise using dx9. I figure three runs was enough, I can run more if necessary.

8/15/2008 11:44:42 PM - Vista
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX9 1280x720, AA=No AA, Vsync=Disabled, 32 bit test, FullScreen
Demo Loops=3, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: Medium
==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 99.08s, Average FPS: 20.19
Min FPS: 13.28 at frame 1952, Max FPS: 27.20 at frame 976
Average Tri/Sec: 16834788, Tri/Frame: 833961
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 1.10
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 90.03s, Average FPS: 22.22
Min FPS: 13.28 at frame 1952, Max FPS: 27.20 at frame 976
Average Tri/Sec: 18739150, Tri/Frame: 843525
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 1.09
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 89.22s, Average FPS: 22.42
Min FPS: 13.28 at frame 1952, Max FPS: 27.76 at frame 872
Average Tri/Sec: 18912524, Tri/Frame: 843672
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 1.09
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

8/15/2008 11:44:42 PM - Vista

Run #1- DX9 1280x720 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: Medium ~~ Overall Average FPS: 22.32



Also, no bag or mouse, or any goodies.

Battery time under normal use will be checked tomorrow morning. I was installing and benchmarking today and didn't want to give the wrong info.

 

That's odd. DX9 should have given an fps boost. Unless it has to be WinXP DX9. Vista does impact performance quite a bit.

Would you know if XP drivers are easily obtainable? The first thing I plan to do when I buy mine is to get rid of Vista, or at least dual-boot into XP for my gaming.

I inquired with newegg support before. They say the warranty offered is the manufacturer's warranty, so it should be the global one. Maybe they have yet to update their database. I remember the M50Vm only showed up recently on their products page. Maybe in a week or so, when asus has the M51Ta on their products page.

And, oh, thanks for the benchmarks. I'm not big on FPS games anyway. Hopefully, Diablos 3's requirements aren't as steep as Crysis'.

 

Great post there bennyhana! Any chance of running COD4 on it and a minireview on that? or some PCmark scores?

The display is good/bright/colour depth?

Any ideas how it stacks up to the M50Vm-A1 ? I guess that's still it's main competition!

 

The M50Vm has a better design, and probably better speakers, but it is nearly $300 more. And why does it have 1GB of vram isn't it null if you are running ddr2 vram? I know the M50Vm will perform better in synthetic benchmarks, but I bet the $300 you pocket will be a lot sweeter when you are doing all the same things and only having to wait a couple seconds more.

The M51ta isn't the ugliest thing (I'm looking at you sager/compal), but it could stand to be a little more pleasing on the eyes. I think the M51's are business class though so it is fitting.

I am really interested in seeing some battery tests.

 

Why should business class be ugly? Older business laptops from ASUS were quite nice, actually.

 

I didn't say it was ugly (said it wasn't the ugliest), just plain, and lacking some of the multimedia features or the M50.

 

OK here is some fresh info. As requested COD 4 was tested, the results are based on what the game determines as "optimal." This was tested plugged in using the 3650 card. The "optimal" consisted of a resolution of 1024x768 and AA 4x. The level test was "crew expendible." I'm also, using the touch pad to play a FPS, which is just a terrible idea.

Frames
10159

Time (ms)
507719

Min
3

Max
63
Avg
20.009

Also, I performed a more or less real world battery test today as well.

The test started at 3:10pm, the battery went critical at about 4:23pm when windows logged me out, but did not go dead (about 4% left as it turned out). During this test, brightness was kept at 20%, vista was being run in Aero mode, there was a game install through the network, and the internet was being used.

Another note, this notebook seems to have the fan issue that has been brought up before. When coming out of sleep mode, the fan runs at high and will not slow down. Once you do a full shut down, the fan speed lowers. I have uninstalled, the ASUS power mgmt prog (name is escaping me ATM). The notebook is still having the issue, but, the ASUS probe won't display temp, it just says normal. SO I'm not sure if it's running hot or not.

I've never used this program before so if there is a way around that please let me know and I can provide more detail.

 

That sounds like horrible battery life. Hopefully the fan issue can be fixed, but I never use sleep or hibernate so its not a deal breaker.