Asus N71JA/X77JA review by OC-Freak

While all the fuzz is around the Asus G73JH, those looking at less expensive all-round PC might be interested in reading this review.

I originally did an quick review here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=452722 But doing an new writeup here to include more test results. My first was DOA (I suspect that antennas for the wireless card was not properly connected), but the new one appears to work perfectly fine.

My computer is an X77JA which is actually an N71JA, but with no extras (no bag/mouse).

Specs:
17,3" 1600x900 LED backlit LCD. (manufactured by LG)
Core i5-430M 2,26GHz
ATI Radeon HD5730 1Gb DDR3 (650MHz core / 800MHz memory)
500Gb 5400rpm HDD (Seagate momentus ST9500325AS)
Super multi DVD-drive (LG GT30N)
4GB DDR3 1066MHz (Actually it's 1333MHz kingston memory)
Atheros N-wireless
USB 3.0
4400mAh 6 cell battery.

Images:
I do not have an good camera, so refer to this link for images - it looks identical to my laptop.

http://go.notebookreview.com/?id=52...-p8700-2-53-ghz-90nx0a114n1172vl151/00001602/

CPU-Z:



First impressions:
The keyboard is very good, best I've had on an laptop, but it's not very silent to type on, you can hear the key clicking quite well.
The trackpad is good, but reqires getting used to, I'm used to scroll by dragging along bottom or right edge, but I've found no option to enable that with this elantech pad. Instead it uses two fingers scrolling..... which requires getting used too
The LG monitor is average, it looks crisp, but viewing angles are average like most TN panels. Better than my old Acer 5930G laptop, but not as good as the monitor on my old Asus M50SA (had an great monitor from AUO optronics).
The laptop build quality feels good, it's quite light for an 17", keyboard doesn't flex, and pushing at the back of the monitor doesn't give image distortions.

Speakers:
The laptop has altec lansing speakers + subwoofer, and the sound is great, you might have to use the sound control panel to adjust it to your liking, but after doing so the sound is great, with noticeable bass, and acceptable volume. But don't expect to get blown away, it's an laptop afer all

Noise:
The computer is very silent during normal use, but uses "spin up fan for short time when needed" rather than "always spin fan at very low speed" which I prefer.
During load the fan is noticeable as an blowing sound, but not very loud, and not with annoying whining or whirring sounds.
Overall quite pleased.

Performance:
First up the standard windows rating, which honestly don't say


3dmark06 1280 x 768:


Vantage performance test (connected an external monitor to be able to run default test):


Crysis demo @ high quality and 1280 x 720 resolution (1600 x 900 not selectable)



Battery life:

Settings: Balanced profile, 70% brightness, profile modified to not dim monitor or turn off monitor, as well as keeping the computer on until there is 1% battery left.

Using battery eaters reading test to simulate light usage.

System Info
Manufacture
Model
ModelEx
OS
CPU Info
CPU Manufacture Intel Corporation
CPU Model Celeron
CPU Frequency ~2260Mhz
CPU Extensions | MMX | SSE2 | HT | Enchanted SpeedStep
CPU Cache Info
Level 1 Instructions 0
Level 1 Data 32
Level 2 Data 0
System RAM info
Total Memory: 3949Mb
Memory slots 0 ( )
Display Device Info
Adapter ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730
Resolution 1600x900
OpenGL render device ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730
OpenGL driver version 3.1.9210
Vertex shader version 3.0
Pixel shader version 3.0
Hard Disk Drive Info
S.M.A.R.T. Supported and Enabled
HDD Model ST9500325AS
HDD Serial
HDD FirmWare 0002SDM1
Main Battery Info
Device Name K72J-44
Manufacture ASUSTek
Serial #
Unique ID ASUSTekK72J-44
Chemistry Lithium Ion
Temperature Termal Control Not Present
Designed Capacity 48400mWh
Full Charged Capacity 47839mWh
Designed Voltage 10,8V
Current Voltage 10,7V
Manufacture Date 0/0/0
Cycles Count 0
Cells count 3
Force charge support Not Supported
Force discharge support Not Supported
Benchmark results
CPU BEmarks 0
GPU BEmarks 0
RAM BEmarks 0
HDD BEmarks 0
Work Done
Pi calculations 565 Cycles
HDD read\write 0 Mb
Fames Rendered 0 Frames
Benchmark Options
Resolution 800x600x32
FullScreen Disabled
Mode Reader's Test
Results
Total time 2:22:46
Discharge rate (minimum) 32417 mWh
Discharge rate (maximum) 4294949817 mWh
Discharge rate (average) 2410443233 mWh


Temperatures:
This is the real stress test, running prime 95 and Furmark max burning at same time. Since GPU and CPU share the same cooling solution running separate tests is almost pointless.

Also notice that reaching these temps under normal use is very unlikely. Throttling treshold for the core i5-430 seems to be 105 degrees celsius.




CPU peaking out at 94 C and GPU peaking out at 81 C. Even with these temps the computer only feels slightly varm to the touch, my old acer 5930G gets uncomfortably hot to type on during similar stress testing.

Also there was no throttling during the testing.

Summary:
Positive:
Build quality and design.
Weight.
Performance/price ratio.
USB 3.0
Silent during use.
Great keyboard
Great speakers
1600 x 900 resolution fits the screen quite well. Full HD would be nice but more straining on eyes (at least for me).
Doesn't get hot to the touch even during heavy load.
Very silent DVD-Drive.

Negative:
Average bettery, had preferred an larger battery for an 17" PC.
Doesn't support switching to the core i5-430 intel GMA gfx to save battery.
2nd Harddrive bay can't be used to add an 2nd harddrive since it lacks connectors/cables.

Overall I'm very happy with the computer.

 

The ATI HD5730 is based on the desktop "Redwood" HD5670 hardware. It's clocked at 650MHz and equipped with 1GB of DDR3 memory clocked at 800MHz, just like ATI specs. While I do not expect a lot of overclocking headroom, it's always fun to try. Using the latest AMD GPU tool to overclock the card.

Using 3dmark06 1280 x 768 and default vantage performance test.

700MHz core and 850MHz memory:




No issues found and it responded quite nice to the overclock and numbers increased more than I had expected. Let's go for more!

750MHz core and 900MHz memory:




Another noticeable bump in score, ready for more?

800MHz core and 950MHz memory:




Another bump in scores, more than 1000 points extra in 3dmark06 compared to stock speed. Do this card have any limits? Let's see!

850Mhz core and 1000MHz memory:




That is quite impressive! 200MHz extra for both core and memory! But no it's not stable, it's perfectly fine for benchmarking and probably most gaming but it's not stress testing stable, when using furmark it will crash sooner or later (Dispaly driver stopped responding and has been restarted error message).

I found the sweet spot to be 800MHz core and 1000MHz memory, that is + 150MHz for the core and +200MHz for the memory. Very impressive and a lot more than I expected.

Crysis demo at 800/1000MHz:



Temps at 800/1000MHz (furmark extreme burning + prime95 max temp at same time):




The GPU peaks out at 85 C now and the added heat to the cooling solution makes the Core i5 peak out at 97 C.

The overclocking potential of the GPU surprised me, was expecting to get +50MHz on core/memory or so, not more. For everyday use I won't use the overclocking potential, but for gaming I might occasionally use it.

 

The 5730 is 10-15% faster than the 5650 based on your scores. These new Radeons are pretty good.

 

This is strange, so it has a space for a second HDD but you can't put one in?

 

It's sold with either one or two harddrives (different models coming pre-configured from asus), but the one with only one harddrive like mine doesn't have connectors for the harddrive in the 2nd slot. Asus saving cost I guess.

 

OC-Freak how are you getting the temps off the GPU?

 

Latest version of furmark supports reading the temp, or you might use AMD GPU tool. Click the thermal sensors tab, click the upper sensor (ASIC Temperature via internal TSS 0) check enable reading, and then click start to monitor the temps.

Like I did on the attached image.

I have found no other programs that supports temp readings from these cards yet.

 

Image of the 2nd harddrive bay with no connectors, and image of the very funky looking subwoofer.

Also tip about sound; I found it better to disable "SRS Premium sound", it fits my listening taste a lot better at least. None of the presets were as good as having it disabled.

 

Thanks that worked.

 

I was using Everest Ultimate for temps yesterday and it seemed to be reading the GPU sensor...had a listing for it and gave a reading.

 

Does look like everything is the same as my N71JA with an i5 instead of my i7

I'll have to look into OCing like you did....that is a heck of an increase.

 

EDIT - I fixed my issue with the AMD GPU tool....thought I had the most updated but you need 0.9.26 and good to go now!

 

Best I was able to do on my N71 was:

780 Core 1000 Memory



GPU sensor showed 84 degrees

 

Nice review OC-Freak.
I'm interested buying this notebook but it's not for sale in The Netherlands yet.
What kind of Atheros wireless card does this notebook have ?
I don't understand that you prefer Intel wireless cards, their driver is not as good as Atheros.
Does it have something to do with the range, or .... ?

 

I'll check model number later.

intel <100ms latency in wow
Atheros >200ms in wow.

 

That's a huge difference indeed, i'm curious which model it is.
Maybe my luck, i still have a spare Intel 5100 if the Atheros has bad range.
I've tested the 5100 in my Acer Aspire 5920g which original has a Intel 4965agn and it performes very well.

 

I have intel on my Acer 5930G, and 5920g which I had some time ago had atheros something as well. So yeah a lot lower latency in wow is my experience, for the rest both works.

 

Atheros AR9285 is the model number

 

Looks like we will be getting ATI mobility drivers directly from AMD starting from catalyst 10.3! Good news for all ATI based laptop users.

 

Updated ATI mobility 5730 drivers:

win7 64bit: ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/VGA/VGA_ATI_Win7_64_z869210.zip
win7 32bit: ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/VGA/VGA_ATI_Win7_32_z869210.zip

 

Are these the 10.2 drivers?

 

Thanks for the review! I added it to the Info Booth and the Reviews & Owner's Lounges Index..

 

Hello,
I just bought this laptop 500gb version, only one here..

And, of course, there are no connectors in second hard drive bay....

Any1 got some more info if it could be possible to connect second harddrive after all... I would love to put SSD on this lap...

Best regards!!

 

There is no part available yet. Checked everywhere including Asus Norway


I had to rma mine for that reason. It was unacceptable the fact that a 17 inch machine had a huge blank space inside.

 

hm, i could not return it, there are no alternatives here
i was thinking about some kind of hack, perhaps on esata or something...

 

Just wait a bit, I'm working on the same thing with my N71JQ.. if the SATA board isn't released soon, I'll drop a mod into the wild for you N71JA owners, as well as N71JQ-X1 owners like myself

 

great, i can hardly wait to put an ssd on this baby

 

I can hardly wait to stick dual 1TB drives in my N71JQ

I know the current drives are too fat to fit, but skinnier drives are on the horizon!

 

What is this usb+ on the right side?
Can i plug in normal usb stuff in it?

10x

 

How did you guys achieve such OC?, I could only push mine to 805 mhz core and 864 mhz memory.

 

It will vary greatly from computer to computer. Getting past 800MHz core is hard for most chips, getting to 900-1000MHz memory I think will be possible for many.

 

Also the 0204 bios has an option to overclock CPU by up to 5% (increasing FSB by up to 5%).

With 5% CPU overclock + GPU overclocking I managed to break the 10k mark in 3dmark06, not bad

 

the problem is : you can't play with an Overclocked cpu: the temps would be too high!! without OC, My i7 reachs already 90°c in high performance energy profile.

 

OK, Thanks for your responses.

Now I wish I didn't updated my firmware to v.208(on my n61jq).
I think n71jq doesn't lose this feature on v.205.

Valofel
If you are reaching those temps I would recommend you to use the fan speed control from MSI Afterburner, It helps a lot! my min. temps are 50° and max. temps 85° OC'd and playing crysis.

The problem is that the fan speed is always at 30% by default.

 

Problem with n71 is that GPU and CPU fan is the same,
so actually only CPU controls the fan...
GPU fan is 30% as a cosmetic thing, it makes no difference...

Now if we could control the CPU fan, hat would be awesome!!

 

To the OP, what driver version did you use for your overclock, and with your current drivers is it still stable at that level.

 

Using an beta driver right now, but has been using the included driver and catalyst 10.3 as well for my computer overclocks. Up to 800MHz core and 1100MHz memory is rock stable, even for hours of furmark testing with all driver versions.

Higher clocks than this is more or less unstable.

 

Try this also
ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

10.4 drivers...

 

wow 1100mhz, originally 1000mhz now even 100 higher OP?

 

3dmark06 with catalyst 10.4. 800MHz core 1100MHz memory



Temps after 3 full hours of furmark extreme GPU burning + Prime95 max temp. Completely stable and temps well within acceptable values.

 

very nice overclock.

 

Any news on second drive bay hack?

 

Hello again!

I'm still newbie about overclocking and I just wanted to know if 860+ Mhz on memory in my video card is unestable because of the powersupply that comes with the N61JQ (90w vs 120w on X77/N71 model).

Thanks in advance AND NICE OC!

 

Hi

What is the highest core and memory clock that is still stable in stress test?

 

That would depend on your computer. Could be anywhere from almost no overclock to pretty high overclock.

My computer is stable at 810MHz core 1100MHz memory max with stresstesting, but I think my computer/card is way above what average overclocks would be

 

My X77JA only came with 90Watt powersupply, so I don't think that is your problem, it's more a matter of luck with your gfx memory.

 

Hello everyone,

I am considering the ASUS N71JA-TY016:

Prenosnik Asus N71JA (N71JA-TY016)

I was wondering about graphics card switching - is it impossible to switch from radeon to intel? I saw a laptop that has a hot switch button for this. So if this switching is not pre-integrated, ther is no way of doing that or what?

Thank you for your help and potential replies,

K

P.S.: does anybody know what does the X stand for in ATI X5730HD?

 

I'm not sure if switching requires hardware differences, but it requires bios differences at least, which the Asus N71JA/X77JA doesn't have. So no, there is no way to switch to the intel GPU as it is now.

I guess the X is just an typo.

 

It is possible to create hotkeys that enable and disable the ATI graphics driver. I think that would essentially give you the same result.

 

Thank you for your answers.

By creating hot-keys you mean making your own code for this?

In overall,would you then recommend the purchase?

Best regards and thanks,

K