RainMotorsports (Clutch's) ASUS G50Vt-X5 (Best Buy) Review

So far the 9x00 series seems fine. I haven't seen any indication of widespread failures.

Cheers,

 

yep i dont think the 9x series is effected like the 8000 seires i know my 9800gs is still going after about a year of heavy gaming in my g50vt-x5 i even have it overclocked over gts speeds.


tho i dont even see much 8800s dieing pretty much just 8600s.

 

I have some problems overclocking my 9800M GS. Not a problem of the hardware though.. I have windows 7 64bit and it keeps throttling my GPU up and down lol.

I overclock the GPU to 9800GTS speed then it works fine as the Rivatuner statistic thing shows. Windows downclocks it to some lower clock because of lower power demand. I kept the rivatuner thing running to see if it work at the speed I set. When I run a game it just rises back to the stock clock level -.-

 

hmm what are you using too overclock system tools?


i just flash my card too what ever clocks i want too too have but theres allways risk which happen too me about 1 too 2 weeks after i bought it the flash went wrong and it was just a black screen lol.. so i had too do a blind flash which wasint that bad if you know what buttons too push and stuff.

but think it was a bad flash drive that caused the bad flash.

but anyways you should try system tools sense the new version finally works with pretty much every nvidia card i tried it and it works even when it downclocks and when it runs full speed it kept my overclock speed.

im also runing windows 7 64bit.


edit
hmm just saw that you said about rivatuner dont think that never worked for me for software overclocking. i would give system tools a try.

 

coooooooooool, thanks for the info. I am pumped, ive been without a laptop for a while. Asus did offer me this deal while my machine was out of warranty which is pretty good of them. They gave me the option to fix my F3SV onetime for free, or to grab a refurb G50Vt(dont know trim) for $250cdn. This is a superior machine in most aspects, so Ill be picking it up later on in the week. I am a little miffed that the tech said it was a 1050 hires screen, with dual harddrives(he had red g50 infront of him) and would give me a gaming mouse and travel bag but then mentioned it was the bestbuy model. Having done my research, it seems as though its going to be either X1 or X5...so i was a little mislead when I agreed to the deal. Regardless its generally, but not completely, a superior machine compared to the F3SV, so its still fine.

I am still content to have selected an asus laptop for my gf(k61, $850) and assembled an asus based desktop for her mother while my laptop was out of commission. They continue to support their customers and products. Accidental coverage? what a party

*end rant*

 

Ok.. I'm using the Nvidia system tools for overclocking now. It works flawlessly! It forces the 3d clock to the overclock specs I set while it still throttle down the GPU when I am not using it. After the overclock, my GPU reaches 89C. I will be applying some aftermarket thermal grease on both the CPU and GPU when it arrives next week. Thanks for telling me that rivatuner doesn't work

The next thing on my to-do list is to undervolt my GPU. I have been trying to find an article on how to do that. I will look further today after my classes.

Actually I think that this laptop is a beast! It has the battery life when you only want to surf the web and the gaming power when you want to game. I don't know why the newer models can't get this kind of battery life even when they have large batteries too.

 

Well I have had the 8GB of Mushkin and T9600 in for about a week or so now with no observable signs of issue. Just wanted to know if anyone sees any reason for concern with these temps. They all look fine to me. This is after a some light gaming and racing and back to idle for about 8 minutes.

 

ya the g50vt-x5 is a beast of a machine so far the best laptop i ever had and lasting for gaming it maxes out every game i throw at it

well my d.e.ll 9300/xps did last me and still going but is pretty outdated for gaming singlecore and 7800gtx but what can you expect for a year old machine lol

ya later on i like too upgrade the cpu too a t9600 or a t9900 and ram too 8gbs that's if they will let me overclock and let me unlock the ram i need my overclocking and maybe even the 260gtx if i could find one i knew i shouldve got that one on ebay that went for 50$ which was untested but problee was fine...

and than upgrade the hard drives too 2x500gbs or when they come out 2x 1tbs than run them in raid.


oh ya and about the battery life its awesome for a gaming laptop

doesn't the new ones come with ony a 6cell? problee why they get bad battery life.

mine came with the 9cell which i can easily get around 3hours and little over that if i put everything on low power. for gaming its around 1hour too 2hours depends on the game like crysis its around 45min too 1hour max lol still good tho but i usely just plug it in when im gaming pretty much always is plug in except for about a hour or 2 a day.


and abharkl those temps are great!!

 

yeah i am loving the performance boost so far with out any over clock. plan to look at overclocking shortly though. I am interested in the GPU swap to the 260M though. If one could be found for a reasonable price i would consider it. easier to install a new gpu then buy a new laptop

 

Man... that beast T9600 can overclock easily above 3Ghz... Sick...

Is there a huge difference between GTX260M and 9800M GS? I can overclock my 9800M GS to 650/840/1600. I tried raising the core clock to 670 and it crashed during a session in NFS Shift but did not blue screen just driver crash. Performance dropped to 400 core clock by itself and won't go higher unless I restart the lappy lol.

 

there is problee is a difference but from what i seen not really alot.

and sense our res is 1366x768 problee just a very difference


ya seems like 670 is the max mine will go on the core but what did is put it back down too stock gts speeds and under volt it down help on the temps is around 84 85c now before it was around 88 too 93c on games that really stress the gpu which i was fine with those temps too but seems like overclocking for just a 60 or 70mhzs on the core doesn't really do much in performance in games.

might even try too under volt it lower 0.90.

 

Hey Guys, I'm new to this forum and just to give you guys some back ground of me, I build and sell computers and I do understand computer hardware quite well, I also work for an I.T. team on a college campus. But enough about me, I wanted to post something because I purchased a G50Vt-X5 last week based on Clutch's review, and all I have to say is WOW!! This thing is epic! I got it on sale for 550.00 and I am very very pleased with it, it runs all of my games and does it on the run too which s very impressive. I actually got stuck in an elevator going to work 2 days ago and I broke out my laptop and started to play some Need For Speed Shift while I was waiting for the fire department and surprisingly I had about 50% battery left after about 1.5 hours of playing. But I do have some concerns, i have been using HWmonitor and i have notice my GPU has gone well over 200 Degrees Fahrenheit and my cpu was well over 160 Degrees Fahrenheit also, and that was just after playing Need For Speed Shift for 30 min and its not overclocked. This really bothers me because through out this forum you guys keep talking about over clocking and still maintaining temperatures lower than mine not being overclocked. What would you guys recommend, I'm going to make the wild assumption that thermal paste will be the number one answer but in that case what type is the best for the application? Also, I'm looking at upgrading to a t9900 but I will not if I continue to have these heat issues. I have done research on better ram but I want to know what yo guys recommend, I want to stay with a 4GB set (2 x 2GB) but i want faster timings, any recommendations? Lastly, I am doing some research in small laptop fans and copper heat sinks to see if I cant beef up the the cooling on this laptop a little bit more.

Thanks again for the awesome review,

Special K

 

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hi my name is james i own a g50vt i have two 250 gb harddrives in raid 0
my question is can i add a third drive and do raid 0 with 3 hdd.
i dont care about losing data due to the increased amount of danger of running 3 drives without a back up.
i have purchased a 12.7 optical bay hard drive caddy and already have a 250 hdd waiting to go in.
it has not arrived yet so i was wondering is this possible or just a dream

link to the caddy

New Laptop 12.7mm SATA TO SATA 2ND HDD HARD DRIVE caddy on eBay (end time 15-May-10 11:26:29 BST)

 

you lot ------ (-(-_(-_-)_-)-) ------- come on

 

It´s a great laptop! I´m very satisfied with mine.
About the temperature, are you using hdmi or vga conection with your monitor?
I always connect my x5 to my 32" tv using the hdmi port and i have no problems, my max temps usually are 50-55ºC for the cpu and 70-75ºC for the gpu, (for normal gaming, for movies the temperatures go down) if i spent 5 hours of hard gaming, the gpu reaches the 80ºC.
Maybe you should take a look at your monitor resolution, maybe it´s too high.
Sorry for my awful english

 

hi my name is james i own a g50vt i have two 250 gb harddrives in raid 0
my question is can i add a third drive and do raid 0 with 3 hdd.
i dont care about losing data due to the increased amount of danger of running 3 drives without a back up.
i have purchased a 12.7 optical bay hard drive caddy and already have a 250 hdd waiting to go in.
it has not arrived yet so i was wondering is this possible or just a dream

 

Cross-post, I answered in your other thread here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/480211-asus-laptop-g50vt-x5-raid-0-3-hard-drives-possible.html

 

I am using the screen on the laptop. I'm a college student so i don't have my monster 32" monitor with me, my father "adopted" that lol. But when I get a little extra cash I'm gonna try and rig something up to help the cooling a little more because those temps scare me... especially when I put my hand next to the vent and it burns my hand XO

 

I get wild temps when I game hard. Furmark makes my GPU temp reach 94C. Yep... Really HOT!! I overclocked mine though. My CPU temp is 55C Max. I upgraded to a P8600 overclocked to 2.93Ghz. This is a pretty sick laptop for the price really. I don't know why other laptops can't have the same battery life as this one with the so much horsepower.

 

i have just bought a t9800 oem for 150 gbp
i just want to know will it be ok im scared its going to overheat
it will be here on monday
will the direct console 2.0 overclock it

 

well my t9800 came and is working perfect i have overclocked using the direct console 2.

turbo extreme puts it up to 3.22 ghz from 2.93
turbo puts it up to 3.08 ghz

temps reach between 55 - 70 when gaming
gpu unchanged so im relay happy.
i wish i could get it to 3.33 ghz but im too chciken it go boom
next upgrade 8 gb ram and 2 x 64 gb in raid 0 ssd wooo hoo

 

ohhhhhhh noooooooooooo

ITS ALL GONE WRONG
IM RELAY UNHAPPY
PLEASE HELP.

THE T9800 RUNS AT 85-90C AT FULL LOAD THAT HAS TO BE WRONG.
WHAT CAN I DO I HAVE AS5 ON IT APPLIED IN THE CORRECT WAY.
IS 90C LOAD OK OR IS THE CHIP FAULTY.
MY PC HAS NOT CRASHED OR BSODED YET PASSES ALL STRESS TEST AND GAVE ME A 3DMARK 06 OF 9850 AT 1280 - 1024 RES
PLEASE TELL ME IF THIS IS NORMAL OR NOT

 

Caps lock is not cruise control for cool.

Make sure you applied it correctly - this doesn't just mean putting it on the CPU in the right amount, but also when you put the heatsink back on make sure it goes straight on. If you wobble it or slide it in across the CPU it will smear the paste and we know where that goes. Also make sure it's tightened down enough.

If you're overclocking it, you don't need a response. You know the problem. If it's that hot stock maybe redo the thermal paste and clean out your fan area with some compressed air.

And turn off your caps lock. Good luck.

Edit: BTW 90C isn't that hot where you should be freaking out. If you get past 95C then you should really think about double checking your work. If you've bogged it down with a stress test for an hour and it doesn't go past 95C it's probably good enough.

 

ok caps lock off lol

it has never gone above 90c thanks again ill just relax then.

 

So outlaw--star or anybody else, would you guys recommend upgrading the CPU? Like is it a substantial difference in performance?

 

That totally depends on what you do on your laptop, if you are just using it for web browsing/word processing or other day to day tasks, upgrading CPU ain't worth it because you will never notice a difference.

However if you do lots of gaming on your laptop, especially RTS or other CPU intensive games, you will gain some FPS by upgrading to a better CPU.

Alternatively you can save the $ by just overclocking your current CPU, I have my P8400 2.26 Ghz in my G50vt set at 2.79 Ghz in setFSB, it will overclock itself automatically when I boot into windows and it runs very cool(never goes above 53 C). It's like upgrading from a p8400 2.26 Ghz to a T9600 2.8 Ghz at the cost of 0 $ !

 

overclock dont upgrade i hate the high temps i have

 

So I just got this refurbished from geeks.com

It came today, I'm actually on it right now, but it says 2GB RAM... ? I'm thinking about calling ASUS to get a new one, but did anyone else have this problem?

[edit] Yeah opened it up, it's 2GB of RAM. Just phoned geeks.com and the guy was really cool, they are mailing me another 2GB card. Glad I don't have to send my whole laptop in.

 

thats good is your al stock or ?

 

Delete this post.

 

I donno why you have such high temps, I'm running a X9100 OC'd to 3.43 GHz and it only hits upper 60's under heavy gaming and running benchmarks.
Depending on your luck, you can get a engineering sample high end CPU for half the price of OEMs on ebay (grayish legality aside). So after selling your stock CPU you just might break even.

 

Hey i have a question. I have the same laptop and in the last few months is heating A LOT! I've heard that i have to clean the dust inside of it but i dont know if when i open it i will break something, lose warranty or lose a protection plan that i've have with that laptop. (It covers the keyboard and the batterie) i bought it on Best Buy in May 2009.

could you please help me? i dont want a fried laptop

(Sorry about my english)

 

Just follow this disassembly guide to open your laptop. Don't bother opening other things. You just need to access your CPU, GPU, and Chipset. You need new thermal paste and thermal pads if you plan to remove the heatsink completely for cleaning.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...8551-asus-g50-notebook-disassembly-guide.html

 

Hey guys, I posted earlier about heat issues, but I just wanted to tell you guys what I have done and ask for a little bit of help.

Well I found a X9100 on sale for $200.00 so I decided to buy it and put it in my G50vt and I also looked up the stock hard drive and bought another one exactly like it so I could do a Raid 0 setup. I also installed Dox195.62 Optimized Drivers with clock speeds of 600/1500/800 and no voltage mods. Which all of this in 3DMark06 gives me a score of 10,950 which is 2,000 above stock, I can't help but thinking that the score should be higher, like at least high 11,000's. Any recommendations to boost performance? Also, my temps are a little bit higher than before, CPU: idle 41/ load 85 , GPU: idle 50/ load 101 degrees Celsius, so i decided to order arctic silver and now I am waiting for it to come in the mail, found a 12oz tube for $5.00 on amazon if anyone is looking for it. I also ordered another hard drive cover so I can modify that for better airflow. I also just realized that when I pulled the CPU, I didn't change the thermal paste on the GPU because the GPU's heat sink was stuck on their pretty good, yes i took the screws out lol. I searched the forums and no one ever said anything about the heat sinks sticking so i decided to leave it, but could anyone here give me any recommendations?
Oh btw i was thinking about upgrading to the 260m so i did some research and found that Asus also had a 460m available but after some intense research and trial and error with my laptop I was able to come to this conclusion about MXM size and thermal compatibility:


(If the link doesn't work let me know)

Which in short means that only the 260m is compatible with the Asus G50VT-X5, if anyone would like to correct my findings just email me please and I will take any constructive criticism. With my setup do you think I could take full advantage of the 260m? One last thing, I want a backlit keyboard... I can't find a definite answer about this.

Summary of questions:
Recommendations for performance boost with my current setup
Recommendations for cooling
Help on GPU thermal paste application
Would the 260m give a large performance increase with my setup?
Backlit keyboard
Would RAM with timing of 4-4-4-12 help performance?

 

Update:


So I finally got AS5 in and applied it to the CPU, GPU, and Northbridge but my temps seem to be worse with my CPU. I did all of these tests in a room at 70F and I let the computer warm up at idle for 15 min before taking temps.

Before:

Idle: CPU 41/ GPU 50
Load: CPU 85/ GPU 100

After:

Idle: CPU 42/ GPU 53
Load: CPU 88/ GPU 94

So the only thing that got better was the GPU load temp but the CPU is still cooking and I don’t like that at all, any ideas?

 

Well how much experience do you have with applying paste?

It should be as thin as possible, but thick enough to fill in any gaps and make 100% contact between the cpu die and the heat sink. First time i did myne I thinned it with a credit card, went back and redid it using a razor blade. Sometimes you get a little chunk out just smooth it back over, work in all 4 directions.

But too much paste will just make it worse. The idea is to facilitate an even contact between the cpu and heat sink. Too thin, aka not enough contact and i could cool unevenly. Somewhat Idealy when u remove the heatsink u should see no points that didnt make contact.

Remember do it once, put the heatsink down evenly. If you pull it off it needs to be redone again.

 

Ok I'll do that Friday evening, and I'll report back after I do a little bit of testing. I have two 15 page research papers due Friday and I have procrastinated way too long lol, all nighters here I COME!!

If possible could someone answer any of the questions I asked in my previous post?

Another question, what is the lowest ram timings that this laptop can handle? Im looking at purchasing this RAM but there have been alot of complaints that it is not compatible with peoples laptops.

 

I don't think I have seen any ram that wasnt compatible with these laptops. The Chipset can only run 8GB and while 667mhz ram will work, 800mhz is whats in it. I would have to look into the timings again i remember CL5 being the lowest in the 800mhz range anyways maybe cl4.

Remember DDR2 lol.

I never looked into it but when the G51 came out someone was able to use the 260M with a module from the g51 bios. Only the 260M from an ASUS laptop is going to work as they are upside down from the MXM standard. But all i have on that is relativley older info. Straight out of the box no other card works.

 

I ran a quick 3dMark06 and got a little over 11.7k at 1280x1024 with my configuration in sig. It's probably possible to hit 12k by pushing things further, but I think a 300 point difference at these scores won't really do much more than generate even more heat. With an X9100, you should be able to push well past 3.6GHz, so you'll probably hit around 12k.

Also, I never had to update my BIOS or anything with my 260m. Driver installation and a restart was all that was required.

 

SO IT WAS YOU! j/k cool cool. I swear i remember someone putting up a file related to the bios but who knows that was over a year ago. Glad you jumped in.

 

Hm on second thought it might not have been me, this swap was fairly recent. But I've been following word on the 260m ever since it was deemed possible.

 

Ok so great news my temps are way down since i reapplied AS5 with the credit card and my temps are:

Idle:

CPU 32/ GPU 46

Load @ 3.33 ghz:

CPU 65/ GPU 90

Thank you guys for the help. Also, i dont think gaining less than a thousand points on 3DMark06 is worth 300 plus dollars. So do you guys have answers to any of my other questions?

 

Looks good, most stuff will perform better after the break in period. SO what did u thin it with last time? and i guess no razor blades where available? just curious.

Your 3dmark06 looks pretty good, mind you your biggest increase are now coming from the CPU which doesnt increase graphics performance any further than applications that are cpu bottlenecked.

Ive barley pushed past 10,000 with the T9600 and a flashed gpu.

 

Ok cool, do you think replacing the OEM thermal pads on the GPU with better thermal pads or copper shims would significantly ( being 3-5C ) drop the temps of the GPU?

I ordered some miscellaneous things to try and modify the cooling, I'll keep you guys updated on what I do.

 

Well for the most part you wont be able to read a temp difference if you change the thermal pads. Maybe 1C on a good day difference at full load. The temp sensor for the card is a diode in the chip itself.

While I would have more peace of mind with everything running cooler, without temp sensors in everything, its hard to know if your doing good or harm. I would leave it alone as long as its intact. But that is up to you just check for good contact. I believe though with non integrated heat sinks such as the ram chips you still need a thermal pad to make decent contact.

 

Clutch, how did you flash your GPU from GS to GTS ?? I don't need the exact info, if you point me the right direction that should be enough. My GPU is 9600m GT (DDR2 DAMN! ). So i thought i could flash it to a 9700m GT .. everything is same except the Watt and the clocks. I dont think a 9700m GT DDR2 exists, but i thought i could flash it to a "9700m GT DDR2".

 

I would try some software overclocking to see if its stable at 9700m GT speeds. If its stable then personally, there would be no need to flash it.

 

I did the AS5 upgrade on mine, and saw a drop of about 5 degrees Celsius within the first week. It does help, especially in games.

I still kind of wish I'd waited to get the G50VT-X5, though. On Amazon, the price has dropped a lot since I got mine from Best Buy, and it's still a powerful laptop. I don't think you can find a gaming laptop under $800 that compares to this one. Everything I've looked at seems to be well over $1k.

Jeez. Half of the notebooks over $1k don't even have discrete graphics, or run on the GMA chipset. Don't even get me started on entry-level MacBooks, which cost way more than the ASUS systems and haven't got the graphics power to run anything decent, whether or not Steam is on Mac now.

I mean, what good is Steam if you're using a built-in, memory-sharing, low-end chipset to display graphics?

 

Yeah but these days 750 will buy you an amd quad with a 5650 mine you the 5650 isnt as good as the 9800M GS or the GTS but its still a deal. The G51's 260M is a worthy step up and the quad support we should have had was nice but its heat issues just suck needs a bigger or better designed chassis.

 

I have a asus g50 vt the problem I am having is my game launcher stops working and my graphic controller stops working any ideas where i can get help