M50Sv: Review & Owners' Lounge

Thanks John.


Here is the benchmark for M50SV-B1:

CPU: T8100 2.1GHz 3MB 800FSB
GPU: GeForce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2 stock driver no overclock
RAM: 3GB DDR2 667 (1G+2G)
Blue-Ray Disk Drive/DVDRW
Windows Vista Home Premium 32

WEI



3DMark06
1024X768: 3724



1280X720: 3515



1440X900: 3042

 

Thanks for going through all the trouble and posting these benchmarks, but any chance you can also send me a screenshot of the GPU information using GPU-Z program? I'm asking this, because the reading on mine is a little strange.

 

if you take a poll off all the people that reported strange reportings it is no surprize that most of them are from CPU-Z. remove it...

 

Yea, just took a look at the GPU-Z topic and a lot of other people seem to have the same trouble. I Guess the program still has problems.

 

Does anyone have framerates for the M50SV - T9300, 4GB RAM, 9500M GS - in COD4, UT3, Crysis, and/or WoW preferably at 1280 x 720, or 1440 x 900? I know WoW is not a new game but some people have been saying that it has problems with the 9500M GS.

 

hey ken, does it have S-Video Out-put? I don't see this out put from all the pics you posted. thanks for the great review. you did a good job!

 

Hers one I did with Crysis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bxeFdaKUoE
The settings it was run under are stated in the video explanation.

CoD4 I also tried and with everything maxed at 1280x800, AA 2x I get avg of 22-28FPS.
Edit: Forgot to mention at other maps I get above 40FPS at those settings.

 

Thanks.

There is no TV out, it's a dud:


and so is the antenna port a dud:

 

thanks for the b1 stats

 

I did both GPU-Z and CPU-Z:

M50SV-A1




M50SV-B1

 

Thanks a lot for the posts. After using the latest version of GPU-Z it now displays the same information as the screenshots you've posted. So everything seems to be alright.

 

I'm hearing that the M50Sv-A1 is on backorder. Is anyone else finding this to be true?

 

It was las week now back in stock.

 

I just received my M50SV-A1 last night and I'm enjoying it so far. Coming from a Toshiba Satellite 5205-S501 (5 years old), it's like night and day. The keyboard is nice (pretty solid, good layout) and everything seems to be built well. The only thing I'll say is the speakers aren't anything special. Of course, my 5205 had the mini-sub, so I'm a little spoiled. Even so, the sound seems very average (like a lot of Dell Inspirons and Thinkpads I've used). When you turn up the volume, it just gets worse. If that's the only gripe, I guess the M50SV-A1 is still a winner, IMO.

Btw, I laughed when I saw the s-video to composite adapter in the box.

 

I find that I have an Auo 2277 monitor. Not the best of monitors. What are others finding?

 

So jealous ^_^ Damn you money that needs to come out of hiding. *shakes fist*

I don't understand why Asus would include this for a laptop that doesn't have S-Video.. They should of included a VGA to composite lol. Would have prevented people that want to use with a composite tv from going to the trouble of getting one!

 

Time to drill a hole :

 

Have anyone gotten a M50 with the blu-ray drive and have you tried to output from HDMI to HDTV on movies? How's the quality compared to a standalone blu-ray player?

 

I haven't try that but it should be the same quality as stand alone Blue-Ray player.

 

is there a way to overclock the t9300 processor with clockgen?

 

agreeee.... i tried that before.. hehehe.. and ken.. what version of 3dmark06 that u have? the basic edition or advanced? thx..

 

I am using the advanced edition so I can choose different resolutions.

 

what chipset does this notebook actually have, GM965 or PM965? intel chipset id utility says GM965 and everest says PM965. how can i really know which chipset i have?

 

I would go with Intel's scan, the PM965. No retailers list it as having a GM965 anyway.. Oh and the GM965's has an integrated Intel GPU.

 

It's PM965 with PCI-Express X16:

GM965: Integrated GMA X3100 graphics core
PM965: PCI-Express x16

 

thanx for the info guys

 

Anyone swapped the DDR2 667 for DDR2 800 yet? Does it make any difference?

 

Is that even possible. :| I know the CPU hits at 800MHz but I thought the max for ram was 667MHz, because thats what retailers offered... Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'd love to learn.

 

Hmmm...10% toward your next computer purchase. Have faith, save up the sheckels, you'll get there.

 

You can put DDR2 800 but it'll still run at 667 MHz because the speed is limited by the PM965 chipset.

 

i would like to use rightmark clock utility to reduce battery usage but i dont know which sSpec number the t9300 processor has. is it SLAQG or SLAPV? what is actually the difference between these sSpec numbers?

 

Haha, cool you saw the change. Thanks for the encouragement!

 

what settings was the battery tested at? high performance mode?

 

it was tested with battery saving mode.

 

running any programs or mp3 or movies or just idle?

 

Download CPU-Z 1.44.2:

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

If your Core VID is 1.250V then it's SLAPV, if it's 1.150V then it's SLAQG.

 

thanks ken

 

I bought m50sv a1 from ewaggle on 20 march. they hasn't shipped yet. they dont answer my emails. what can i do?

 

ITECIR Infrared Receiver

you said it didnt work on Xp OS, is that item important??

 

That's for the remote control of TV tuner not sold in North America, if you buying M50 series in Asia or Europe then yes, it's important but if you buying it in North America then don't worry about it.

 

Hey All I just wanted to say my friend and I just ordered the asus M50sv-a1 from Ken at Gentech and I phoned him 4 times to ask questions before we bought 2 units. He's great. Like really great. Like I'll never buy another computer from Best Buy or Futureshop ever again great. I was going to buy the F8-sn-b1, but because the M50 has the small key pad for data entry, and the better quality speaker set, i went with the M50. I own a small business ( www.bigsmile.ca) and I am a heavy heavy skype user, and I'm constantly on my laptop. I don't have much time anymore for gaming, but my peeps and I were heavy UT 2004 players a long time ago and I can at least now play UT (at a lower resolution?) with the new M50 when I'm away on business. My last one was a Toshiba satellite A-10 celeron (no games played on that slug)....bought in 2002. So this should be quite the jump in performance and now I will have webcam! I bought the XP disc also...our business network at BigSmile is all XP, so chances are I will switch it to XP, but just in case....I had them ship the CD separately(not pre install), and I will at least toy with Vista for a while.

Anyway, I just wanted to say how much I really appreciated your assistence Ken. We can't buy the M50sv-a1 here in Canada yet, and you certainly made me feel comfortable buying from you in the US.
Cheers and best of luck in your business.

Ryan Mitton.

 

I'm looking to upgrade from my current Toshiba Qosmio F-15 and have been very interested in the m50

Two things important to me are the quality of the screen and the loudness of the speakers.
Both are awesome on the qosmio, but it sounds like the m50 is a little lacking.
I use my laptop as an all around machine from office apps to photoshop to dreamweaver.
I'd be getting the blu-ray version if i do get it.

o and one of the other things is that my current rig gets so damm hot, i've burned myself on it several times before.
Not to mention it's had to go in to repair every year for a failing cooling system.

so do you think this is a good transition, or would you recommend something else?

 

I looked at the Qosmio a long time ago. it's HUGE!!! I recall how bright the screen was too. I think it was dual lamp right? Not sure what the M50 is for screen.

It's funny you mention the speakers. My old Toshiba Satellite's speakers were really really loud (if I turned them up) but my brothers recent Asus A8j and my wifes recent HP dv6000 are super super quiet.

I'd like to be able to watch a movie without headphones. I'll let you know when I get it.

Ryan.

 

yeah it was dual lamp, the screen is a beauty and amazing harmon kardon speakers, but the battery doesn't last too long and it gets hot as hell

new toshibas are nice but they probably won't be sportin blu-ray anytime soon

 

I'm having a great time with my M50Sv-A1. I like the screen. If ever I feel the screen is too dark I turn off the ambient control and manually brighten it up. So, I don't think you'll have any problem there.

The speakers are too quiet. I keep hoping someone will chime in and say, "Oh, you just change this setting in the bios and they'll be much louder." But, so far no such luck.

The M50 won't burn you, it runs very cool for a powerful laptop.

 

thanks for the feedback, so it looks like the speakers are the only downside so far. I like to listen to music while i'm on my laptop which is a lot. You would think they'd put louder speakers for a blu-ray equipped multimedia machine.

have you set the volume levels up in the control panel and then on the laptop dial too?

I've seen other asus laptops on display and the screens look pretty good.

 

I installed XP on this, and everything works, except for the Infared like you said, AND the HD Audio device. For some reason that driver that you linked to is not working for me. The install goes most of the way, and then fails.

Under the tab "Sound video and game controllers", all is working except for "Realtek Hi Definition Audio", and I don't have any sound on it? Any advice on what may be wrong, and what the solution is?

 

Fixed, if anyone runs into this, it is a conflict between Microsoft UAA driver, and realtek. Search on any search engine, and you will find the solution.

 

Since I have the A1, not the B1 version, I don't have blu-ray. The B1 may have different sound characteristics. However, you inspired me to go into the control panel and I found some cool features under Realtec HD Audio Manager.

Besides having a karaoke option, the HD Audio Manager allowed me to activate the Dolby 5.1 surround. Well, that didn't affect volume, but I figured 5.1 was good so I activated that.

Then, I went back to the sound effects page while playing a streaming news broadcast. I clicked on Loudness Equalization and it made the broadcast louder sounding. This is good.

Then I got really bold clicked on some of the equalizer options. To my surprise the live option made the sound louder still. So I tried all of the dozen or so options and decided that the base setting made the volume of voices the loudest for my old ears.