Ryzeki's Asus G51J-A1 review

Well folks, here it is: The Asus G51J-A1. This Laptop is the latest update to Asus RoG (Republic of Gamers) series of laptops. There is little difference between this new “J” version of the laptop, compared to the “VX” we know. Both still sport quad core processors, dual hard drives and the nVidia GeForce GTX 260M (still downclocked to 9800M GTX speeds). So what is the fuzz about? The single most notorious change is the inclusion of the newest intel processors: The Core i7 technology.

I acquired my laptop from the best resellers out there, GentechPC. Not only was my purchase extremely fast, but I was kept informed of every detail regarding my order. Shipping was even faster, with the unit arriving on time without issues. Ken Lee, a representatives of GentechPC, actually posts on this forum with the same name of GentechPC, often providing excellent information on anything about Asus or its notebooks. Feel free to contact him to buy one of these incredible Asus laptops!

Anyways, back on track; As everyone can imagine, this Asus G51J-A1 was made with gaming in mind, and with the specs it packs one would imagine this rig could play any game out of the box. Let’s find out how this laptop performs!

-Specs as ordered (Changed driver for blu-ray and added IC24 thermal compound):
CPU: Intel Core i7 Processor 720QM @ 1.6Ghz – 2.8Ghz (With Turbo boost and IC24 thermal compound)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Chipset: Intel PM55
Memory: 4GB DDR3 @ 1066 Mhz
Screen: 15.6” 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio) LED backlit
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M w/1GB GDDR3 VRAM @ 500/800/1250 (and IC24 thermal compound)
Hard Drive: 2x 320GB 7200RPM SATA (There is no RAID controller! )
Optical Drive: Blu-ray drive combo DVD-RW Super Multi with Lightscribe
Wireless: Intel WiFi link 1000 BGN 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Warranty: 2 years standar factory warranty + 1 year accidental damage warranty
I/O connection: 4 USB, eSATA, HDMI, S/PDIF, VGA, IEEE 1394, Ethernet, card reader, PC Express card slot.

-But let’s start from the beginning… What's in the Box:

For the price premium you pay, you get premium items! Included is a great Razer Copperhead laser gaming mouse and a well built gaming backpack. The backpack is surprisingly high quality, and good enough to keep as your primary bag for your laptop. The Razor mouse is also a superb addition compared to some other brands that most of the time include below average mice. Along with the laptop, you get your standard assortment of recovery discs, manuals etc. Additionally, and most probably for a short while, you will get a free copy of Batman Arkham Asylum. This is the perfect gift for your new gaming notebook: A great game!

Users of the previous version G51vx-A1 won’t see anything different in the included items, except for the missing Eee sticks. I would say that this is a definitive bad point, however I’ve got to be honest here: I never actually used them.

-Design and Build Quality

If you have ever used a G series from Asus, you won’t find this as news: The Asus G51J is of superb build quality overall. The whole machine is very sturdy and doesn’t have flex except for the keyboard area and the LCD cover; None of which affect performance or functionality at all. Keyboard gives a perfect feeling per keystroke, providing a good amount of feedback when pressed. Also the chiclet distribution and backlit nature help type on low light conditions and game comfortably at nights. The hinges keep the screen on place, and give the feel of high quality. The rubberized palmrest is quite comfy, never being a problem when typing or gaming.

The new design on the back is much better than the alien sci-fi look of the previous model, but this is merely personal opinion. What makes this look nicer, is the fact that the much disliked side lights, and overall illumination, is of white color instead of blue, which personally helps the design as a whole, to look great.
What can I say? Build quality is amazing.


-Screen:

A good gaming notebook must be coupled with a good screen, and this is no exception. The glossy finish, 1920x1080 LED backlit LCD screen provides good contrast ratio and brightness. The screen would be perfect, however, the viewing angles still leave a bit to be desired. Colors wash out when turning the screen moderate angles (both horizontal and vertical angles are average to mediocre), but on the bright side, the main user won’t have much issues at all, as he/she will be using the sweet spot all the time. As far as I know, this is the same AUO 1080p screen from the old G51vx series.

I am coming from a horrible 1366x768 screen (G50vt-X1), so for me it was a superb upgrade. Users of other quality LCDs might be a little disappointed, but nothing too severe at all, as the screen still looks great.

Windows 7 quirk: When first configured, Windows 7 scales the DPI of your screen to 125% more, giving this 1920x1080 screen the look and size of a 1366x768. I was puzzled by this at first, so messing around I was able to quickly change the settings to the correct proportion. 1920x1080 might seem overkill, but the resolution does grow on you, specially all that real state available.


-Keyboard

The keyboard has a nice feeling to it. The keystrokes are on the silent side, and feedback is good enough to type without errors. Chiclet style distribution is great and the extra space used for the numeric pad is more than welcome. Backlight functionality is superb, allowing ease of typing on low light conditions. Overall it is a very good keyboard.


-Touchpad
I have not much to say about this. Along with the computer you get an incredible Razor copperhead laser mouse, so there is hardly a point to use this. However, the touchpad is still good, with good enough space for scrolling, fast reaction and overall accurate functionality. Touchpad buttons are on the softer side with clicking noise that is not really bothersome. Very durable feeling, and no flex on this area at all. This area is also not really affected by the heat of the laptop.


-Wifi
From the name 1000 BGN WiFi link I was expecting a very low quality wificard, but so far it has worked without a single issue. Response time (turning the wifi on, to connecting to the router) is very fast.


-Speakers
This new Asus G51J comes with a sticker denoting “EAX Advanced HD 4.0” sound, which sounds impresive and might give off the idea that maybe Asus improved the speakers to let us hear this amazing EAX sound. Sadly to say, these are still the weak speakers from all G series. Sound is of above average quality, with hardly sound distorition, no bass but extremely low volume. This is a problem for 99% of notebook out there and it is easily solved with a good pair of headphones.


-Performance and User Experience:
Most G50 and up series come with Power4Gear or a similar CPU overclock functionality and this is no exception. Using the “extreme turbo” preset, the CPU overclocks about 6% to 1696mhz. I find this useful as it diminishes the need for the stock Core i7 820 processor. So far, performance has been top notch.

I recommend you go to the Nvidia Control Panel, and create several custom resolutions to your liking. These is because usually games just let you choose, for 16:9 format, 720p or 1080p. I created 1600x900, 1680x945 and some more, to have a wider variety of possible resolutions. As you will see a bit below, games like Resident Evil 5 play perfectly on 1600x900.


Windows Experience Index : 5.9 (slowest is HDD)

These numbers don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. As you can see, even if we are branded as 5.9, all components are fairly stronger, with CPU and Memory already within the maximum WEI score.

HD Tune test!
Min: 20.7 MB/s
Max: 95.4 MB/s
Average: 69.4 MB/s


wPrime with OC: 13.91 and since this is the first time I have used this, I have no idea if this is good or not.

wPrime without OC:14.127

3dmark06 stock GPU(stock drivers), CPU on turbo mode: 10168 at 1280x1024.


3dMark Vantage: P5228


Some Game results!

Batman Arkham Asylum

Settings:All high, vsync, 1920x1080, NO physics (This is important)
Average: 54 fps.
comments: Batman not only looks gorgeous, but runs extremely well maxed out on this rig. Framerate is above 30 at all times (for what I have played) and usually between 40-50fps. *Note: It is very important to disable physics by nvidia for this title. The recommended VGA for physics is a desktop GeForce GTX260 which is MASSIVELY more powerful than the GTX260M so if you enable them, just practically cut the fps in half. Yes, it is that taxing on the GPU.

Resident Evil 5 Benchmark with CPU O/C

Settings:All high, no motion blur, no vsync, 1920x1080, CPU O/C
Score B, average: 45.3 fps.
comments: The game is more than playable at this settings. Gameplay sections ran higher than the videos presenting the game. most of the time it stayed in the 40fps which is great, and never during gameplay it went less than 30fps.

Resident Evil 5 Benchmark No CPU O/C

Settings:All high, no motion blur, no vsync, 1920x1080, CPU not O/C
Score B, average: 48.1 fps.
comments: This is definitely weird. As you can see from the overclocked CPU test and this one, when you DON'T overclock the CPU, you get higher performance across the board. The fps went up about 1-4fps around everwhere, as you can see the graph is a tad bit higher all across the test. The average was higher in the end. Weird stuff and I noticed this happens with most games so far so running without OC might help some games.

Resident Evil 5 Benchmark at Lower Resolution

Settings:All high, no motion blur, no vsync, 1600x900, CPU O/C
Score B, average: 55.5 fps.
comments: This is interesting, the game has a massive improvement in performance by reducing the resolution only. During the whole benchmark the fps were high and everything was smooth. Both 1080 res and 900 res are good, and choosing between them would be a bit higher eye candy and sharpness vs more consistently fluid performance. I would choose 1080 because the lowest fps being 30 is acceptable for the game (consoles ran at top 30 fps).

Left 4 Dead
Settings:All highest, vsync triple buffering, 1920x1080, 2x AA, 2x AF, CPU O/C
Min: 28fps, max: 60, average: 48fps
comments: Again, the game is more than playable at these settings. Gameplay was very smooth, and the min framerate was when the horde came and never got lower than that which is good. Most of the time it stayed in the 50fps range, making it a very smooth experience.

Killing Floor
Settings:All highest, 1920x1080, no AF or AA, CPU O/C
Min: 54fps, max: 120, average: 76fps
comments: The game is runs like a hot knife on hot butter. And it is actually quite fun to boot. You won't have problems running this game whatsoever.

League of Legends
Settings:All high, 1920x1080, no AF or AA, CPU O/C, vsync
Min: 54fps, max: 60, average: 56fps
comments: This is probably the least taxing game so far. It looks really good in my opinion, and so far you can pretty much run at smooth framerate all the time. Granted, this can change as the game evolves as it is still in beta, but for now, this is a cakewalk.

Demigod
Settings:All high, vsync, 1920x1080, 0x AA, 0x AF, CPU O/C
Min: 28fps, max: 56 average: 36fps
comments: The game seems a bit slower than what the fps might be showing, however the performance is very consistent. fps always hover around the average, and rarely drop much or even go that high. After playing for a while in these settings the game is pretty much playable easily, however I think the game was made with 60fps in mind, as animations and in general, things just don't go as smooth as other games. I will try a test with lower resolution to see what is the perfect res. Additionally on my old G51vx I ran much better when using Dox Drivers so maybe drivers are at fault here too.

Crysis (2 runs, one in very high at request, and the second at all medium)

Settings:All very high/All medium, DX10, 64bits, 1920x1080, 0x AA, 0x AF
Very high Min: 5.66fps, max: 11.24 average: 9.95fps
Medium Min: 24.96fps, max: 41.75 average: 34.3fps
comments: It's crysis, what do you expect? It is a very demanding game, and even newer GPUs from dekstops may struggle a bit at such very high settings. However, as you can see, all medium runs quite decent with a good average of 34fps. If you want to play crysis, I advise to run at lower resolution with a mix of high and medium for optimal performance.

BattleForge

Settings:Textures high, shadows and FX medium, vsync triple buffering, 1920x1080, Cloud shadows and Glow enabled. (This is the mix with probably the best fps and good eye candy so far, for this game)
Min: 7.3fps, max: 78.3 average: 27.7fps
comments: The Benchmark tool is quite more taxing than the game itself, as I have seen on average higher fps when playing (abit over 30) but still, the game runs awesome for the resolution that is being using, and since this is a RTS the 27.7fps average works great. Not much eye candy is sacrificed, and performance is consistent. The min and max frames take them with a grain of salt, as they are the fps when loading the benchmark and you will RARELY see any of those min or max when playing at all.

-Battery life
This is, perhaps, the weakest part of this machine. Having a Core i7 and a nVidia GeForce GTX 260M has its downside and this is battery life. Using battery saving profile along with 40% brightness you get about 1 hour and 31minutes of use. At full performance and 100% brightness, you get only 50minutes or so. Gaming while on battery is mostly out of the question.

A 9 cell battery will only help you get about 2 hours and a bit more from normal use, but gaming or any other heavy activity and expect the 9 cell to last about the same as the 6 cell. 55watts from the Core i7 alone is monstrous, and more than what some whole notebooks consume.... now add the GeForce, screen, HDDs etc and you get an idea for why battery life is so poor.

Honestly, this was kind of expected out of the specs advertised, so be warned! I fully knew I would not get good battery life and I bought it still because I wanted the higher end performance.

-Heat and noise:

This picture is my "while working temperatures" as I am browsing, using Office etc.

So far the machine has been quite silent during normal to low use. Start using lots of apps, heavy gaming and the such, and the fan kicks in making moderate to high noise. Usually this will happen during gaming, in which case you probably won’t even notice due to the game sounds, unless you play in mute. Temperatures are on the same league as most G51vx, and considering this is a more power-hungry CPU, I find it decent enough, but not excellent and with the possibility of much improvement (specially on the GPU).

The nVidia GeForce GTX260M still gets very hot, but unlike my previous G51 versions, I didn’t get over 97C using Furmark Extreme burning mode at 1080p resolution. When the card reached 93 degrees Celsius, the fan kicked in on high, and after that it took 9 minutes of grueling pain to reach 97C, and even then is was going back down to 96C

Previous G51 versions of mine always reached 102C, per comparison, and while gaming too. In the case of G51J the temperatures I was able to read from League of Legends and Demigod, GPU never went over 86C.

Furmark Xtreme burning mode, 1920x1080 log temperature-- Temperature 91-92C stable just as with the games, I get this temp maintained usually.


CPU cores max temp ever: 74C
GPU Core max temp ever (After 10 minutes of xtreme burning mode furmark test): 97C
Note: I haven't been able to replicate this temperature so far, which I think is good!


-Warranty
On top of the quality of this machine, you get a fabulous warranty of 2 years standard parts and labor warranty, along with a free 1 year accidental damage warranty. This is much better than the standard 1yr warranty of other brands, and you get this for free. If you have any problems, Asus has you covered.

So the next time you worry that your GPU gets to 90C, remember that Asus build this machine to take it, and if something happens, you have two long years of warranty for whatever issue arises. Game on people, game on!

-Conclusion
This is a superb machine in every sense of the word. The specs, build quality, overall performance and included items is amazing for the price! I greatly recommend this machine to any gamers out there, that want to spend money on a rig capable of performing our favourite task without breaking our wallets. The only bad points of this computer is the battery life and the lack of RAID controller, but for the price and specs, it is more than worth it.

Get this if:
-You want to game well, at a reasonable price.
-You want value from your purchase (in extra specs etc).
-You use CPU heavy software.
-You want top of the line warranty

Avoid if:
-You want the best possible performance (there are higher spec'd machines for more $$$).
-You need great mobility (battery life is about an hour and half).


Thanks for taking the time to read my review! Feel free to comment on anything you want regarding the laptop, and ask any questions you want! I will try to answere ASAP.

 

Does the processor already come with a turbo boost, or do you have to modify your order?

 

Intel's Turbo Boost feature is an embedded technology of the Core i7 that dinamycally adjusts core frencuency depending on CPU core load distribution. All Core i7 have it, don't worry.

As for Power4Gear, that is exclusive to Asus, but it is a software solution that can be done in any other computer. For the casual user, it is very convenient.

 

Updated 3dmarks, HDtune, and some games... more coming as they get downloaded and/or installed!

 

So then this asus can be overclocked using the power4gear that asus provides? I'm really interested in getting this laptop.

 

Yeah, using Power4Gear you overclock the CPU in a small but safe%. The Core I7 1.6ghz basically becomes a Core i7 1.7ghz. I find this quite convenient as it almost reaches the 820QM level without the huge price tag.

So far the laptop has been awesome. Gaming performance is great, CPU performance is top notch, Windows 7 is pretty good..... I couldn't be happier with my purchase! Totally worth it.

 

ryzeki, mind snapping some pics of your lappy.

 

Still hot. Can you post a screen shot of L4D at 1440 x 900 if you dont mind?

 

Will comply! I just need to get some batteries for my old camera I just found.

Sure, I will post it for you in a bit, I just gotta finish something from work, give me some mins and I will post it.

 

Any particular scene you want to see? Here are a couple of pics, but I couldn't do 1440x900, but 1600x1024 (the closest 16:10 rest I found).

Normal use:
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/3960/l4d1600x1024.jpg

Lowest framerate (when the horde was around):
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/5984/l4dlowcase.jpg

Settings are all maxed, 2xMSAA and 2xAF.

 

you actually play with the film grain on? lol

 

Lol, I haven't really played the game on the laptop, except for benchmark purposes.

I kind of like and kind of hate it... but probably play without it.

Dammit stupid batteries are taking a while to charge! I guess laptop pictures will be due tomorrow. Along with the rest of the games.

Any recommended drivers to change to?

 

186.82 is the most solid in my experience. and yea...I would hate that film grain in smoke/boomer bile =P

 

Great review, made me regret even more buying the G51vx in September, the price seems really nice for it.

I second NVIDIA GeForce v186.82 WHQL Drivers, the 2d clock was normal and got 300pts extra over 186.81 on 3dmark06, not sure compared to the stock ones from the G51J.

 

Thanks Abula I am downloading the drivers suggested right now. I will probably wait a couple of days before installing, as I had quite some issues with an old G51vx (best buy) when changing drivers.

And don't worry there isn't much performance difference between your laptop and mine, you still have a great performer.

 

Thanks for the review! This seems like a great deal on a nice looking notebook. I'm curious what kind of battery life your are experiencing with this. I don't expect much, considering the high performance parts, but is it in the sub 2 hour range or something more than that? I'm preparing for a long roadtrip and can't decide whether I want to go with something like this or go with a netbook with excellent battery life and the built in 3G access and GPS. But if the battery life on this isn't too bad I think I can live without turn by turn directions and constant connectivity so I can still play games!

 

Great review! I have a couple of questions though:

1. I'm a WoW player do you have any benchmarks or ideas on how the game runs?

2. I'm concerned about the fullHD resolution, doesn't this actually reduce gaming performance since its so high. Also is it possible to maybe post a screen shot with a word doc open, I'm curious to see how small the font is, since I'm scared it might strain my eyes.

3. What's the general consensus on upgrading the CPU to the 1.7 820M? I'm concerned the base 1.6 720M might be too slow. I dont really understand the new turbo boost, I mean the processor is set at 1.6 but only moves to 2.8 when its required, so doesn't that mean it would generally be slow?

4. I can understand it gets toasty during gaming, but for normal use are temps a problem?

Thats it for now. Thanks!

 

I haven't done a full 100% to 6% battery life test, but doing normal stuff, webbrowsing and battery saving, the life of the battery is around 1 hour and 40mins tops. The Core i7 CPU is quite demanding. Infact the processor alone demands more power than my whole netbook Eee.

I have both a netbook and this monster, the netbook for ultramobile nonsense and this for everything else! 9 cell battery probably won't help much. I will perform a full battery test tomorrow for you, and update the review.

 

1) I had less powerful systems run WoW without much issues. If I can get a trial and time to download the game, I will test it out, but from experience I can tell you the game should have no problems running at all. I'd say you could run maxed with fps as low as 30 fps during the heavier scenes.

2)If you game on full HD yeah then some games might tax the system too much. However most games are currently playable at this resolution as you can see of the few games I have tested. You can always run at lower res, it doesn't affect image quality THAT much, and increases performance. As I mentioned in the review, Windows 7 actually scales the size when you first turn on the PC, making it seem the computer has much less resolution and less eye straining. Font size and everything does get small on native, but personally I like it and I am used to the amount of real state it brings. You can change the DPI to suit your needs.

Here is a pic of word to let you see how much it fits.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2076/wordtest.jpg

Times new roman, 12 size font, single space, 0 spaces in between.

3) Oh don't worry. This might be the lowest end of the Core i7 series, but it is already as fast, or faster, than the fastest core 2 duos. 1.6ghz is, or should be, faster than the Q9000 and around Q9100. Additionally Power 4 Gear overclocks the cPU to 1.7Ghz, so you don't need to spend on the 820QM for its stock speeds. On windows, the Core i7 720QM is extremely fast and smooth operating, everything opens quickly.

Turbo Boost dinamically overclocks the CPU cores depending on core usage: If you use all 4 cores, it runs at 1.6ghz. At 3 cores, it is around 1.8Ghz, 2 cores around 2.6ghz, and 1 core to 2.8Ghz. (I don't know the exact speed of 3 and 2 core use, but you get the idea). All this is done automatically so in theory, the processor always runs at its best possible. Power4 Gear makes the single core be basically 3.0ghz.

Clock for clock, Core i7 is more efficient than Core 2 Duo, and each core of this new i7 has hyperthreading enabled, helping it work with 2 threads simutlaneously.

4)To be honest, I don't even consider the gaming temps to be a problem. Sure it gets hot during gaming but unless I put my hand on the exhaust, I don't notice much difference comparing it to several other laptops of even much less power. During normal use and normal power settings it gets warm, but it never becomes uncomfortable for me at all. I can use it on my lap too without issues.

 

can you some software that shows heat "graph" during gaming?

 

Will try. Perhaps I can log the temp with GPU-Z and then make a graph with excel, or just monitor temps with riva tuner.

 

Well the only graph style that i seen arent games but stress tests, like Furmark or OCCT, not sure if thats what he is referring to.

 

I wanted to see the image quality of playing games on non-native res on this monitor. The 260gtx will have a hard time keeping up with 1080p unless you turn some eyecandies off. It looks good to me though, nice scaling.

 

Yeah, some games will require to scale down some settings but several games work well enough. Another good resolution would be 1600x900, less taxing and not much of a loss in quality.

Left 4 Dead, Resident evil 5, Dead Space etc and several other games run great at 1920x1080 resolution anyways, just games like crysis and some other heavy hitters will require to scale down. And of course, newer games coming out probably will need to.

*on another note: taking pics and will upload soon.

 

thats great man! Thanks for the help. And ya, the image really helps. Definitely doesn't look bad at all.

 

Great review. I'm definitely looking to get this laptop for myself once I can finally talk the wife into it.

One question though...and my main concern about the laptop. In your review you mentioned that the keyboard has some flex. Is the flex as bad as the Best Buy 15.6" model keyboard flex? I find that the flex in the BB model is a little too much...and am hoping that these models are constructed a little bit better than the ones we can find at Best Buy. Any info on this would be much appreciated.

 

Great effort in the review as opposed to many attempts I have seen in this section. 9/10.

 

Thanks everyone for the support of my review

Yes, the flex is, or should be, the same like the best buy version. Don't worry, this is how the keyboard was made, because if you remove it you will see that everything is well built and sturdy. Actually, there is nothing under the keyboard per-se except for the protective casing of the laptop, so you don't have to forry about anything. Flex is only noticeable around the center, the rest is pretty normal and sturdy.

I heavily recommend this laptop to anyone looking to game on a budget, with ALOT of extras.

 

You are welcome! Yeah I personally fell in love with this resolution, and will probably not be able to use lower res screens for a while haha.

Thanks for your support and time spent reading my review! I am trying my best to make a full fledged review and not just a quick overview

 

***Updated more pics and benches plus general stuff on the review***

 

Thank you very much for the battery test. Very nice review overall, keep it up!

 

Thanks for the kind words =) I will try to update this when I can but right now I am busy playing instead of benching haha

 

I'm thinking of buying this machine and your review is really helpful
Thank you.

I don't know if it is a limited edition or not.
Because I'm going to wait until december and see if price going down
although I think this is the best gaming laptop for this price for sure.

How's mobility of this machine? i'm not talking about battery life.
i'm just wondering if it's heavy to carry around.

 

The G51 series basically uses the same chassis and a heck of a lot of the same parts as my previous G50vt, so I would rate it pretty light for a gaming notebook (actually lighter than my 15.4" ASUS M51) which is precisely why I'm buying the G51j-A1 as well.

 

Thanks

Just as Cheeseman said, the machine is quite mobile for a gaming laptop of this caliber. I honestly never had problems carrying around (I owned the G50, G51vx too) so I am pretty okay with this. It is almost as big as a 17 incher, but not as heavy. Well at least not as heavy as some 17 inchers I have carried haha.

 

Just ordered mine.. One quick question, does it have full recovery disks? Or is that just a driver disc? My previous Asus machines came with full disks and I'm hoping this one is the same.

Asking because I have 500GB drives I want to swap in and need to know if I need to boot up and burn recovery discs first.

 

Yeah, you will be included a recovery disc and driver disc separately, along a disc for Power2Go disc.

Just a couple of things, unrelated to the disc question:

I just found out that most games are actually running a tad bit faster without overclocking the CPU. Benchmarks diminish but games increase between 1-3fps or so. I don't know why is that at all.

And I just noticed in your sig, and I am sorry to break this to you but there is no RAID controller on Asus G51J. It is one of the components missing which makes it a bit cheaper. You still get dual harddrive bays though. I probably should mention this on the review.

 

Before I ordered I shot an email over to XoticPC and that was one of the questions I asked. I received in response: "Yes the G51J supports Hardware RAID. You will be able to set it up in the bios if you want to." I didn't question it since I've owned a G50 in the past and was able to set up RAID.

Not a dealbreaker but still kind of a bummer anyway.

 

Nice review, i should say its more complete than some that i found on other sites!

Seems like a nice laptop. I want to buy it, but i have a question.
Is it possible to scratch of the "Republic of Gamers" on the cover? not the logo, just the writing. I've made a thread but no one seems to be answering. I'd rather like it without the writing. Just looks, um, i don't know. It just feels weird.

Thanks

 

You'd damage the lid trying to remove that, it's one with the plastic.. but that doesn't stop you from finding a skin you like for it

 

Ryzeki, can you post your idle temperatures as well? I am curious as to see what the i7 idles at, and along with the GTX 260M.

Also, can confirm your Powermizer works (it is downclocking to 200/120 on Desktop)?

 

Thanks! And as ComputerMD82 said, the paint is one with the cover so you might scratch it off but will permanently damage the back cover. You can always opt for a notebook skin, I had one on my Asus G50vt which covered everything except the lights and it worked well for about a year and a half, then I just took it off heh. Personally I don't mind the design at all.

I am sorry to hear that. I assumed, myself, that the controller for RAID would be there considering that the older G51 has it, but when I asked Ken from Gentech he said they removed it to save costs. I checked the BIOS too and yeah, there isn't RAID option. It isn't cool that they lied to you but well as you said, it isn't a deal breaker at all. Performance is still top notch, don't worry!

 

Sure I will post it in a bit and I can confirm that with stock drivers it is downclocking to 200/120 but rarely stays that way. my idle temps hover around 60+, and the CPU around 56+

Max CPU goes to 74C so far and GPU 97, but that last one was with furmark. With games the highest I have seen si 93C and it was after hours of gaming, different games so I don't know which one pushed it to 93.

Also, I noticed that clocks won't downclock after several gaming sessions or perhaps it has something to do with switching between power profiles. At some point I have seen my clocks say at 500/799 and my GPU temps hover in 70C.

 

The i7 looks like it would benefit a lot with a good Zalman notebook cooler. My 3ghz T9900 idles as low as 25C without a cooler.

 

Yeah, The core I7 would benefit for any cooling method it can get haha. But keep in mind the T is a 35w TDP while this Core I 7 I think is 55w, much higher.

Temps never get crazy though, it is all within those limits, 56-74C

 

55+ idle with Powermizer working isn't a good sign.

 

Definitely go for one. Try doing what Forge has done with Copper Ramsinks and opening more airflow to your bottom.

IT should drop your idle into the 40s at least with a notebook cooler.

 

it also depends on ambient + how powermizer is flunctuating. @ ambient of 84F i get 53C idle when powermizer runs at the highest power-saving mode (200hz core d/c), yet @ 74F ambient it runs 50C idle and 61F a few weeks ago was giving me 47C @ idle. also, load temps increase DRAMATICALLY for me when i have high ambients...im not gonna even mention it @ 84F amb, its shameful...

 

Oh don't worry. The problem is that it RARELY stays on 200/120 at all. Most of the time is on the 370+mhz range. And it seems that after gaming the powermizer switch doesn't work and keeps it at 500/799.

Besides, part of the heat comes from the powerhungry Core i7. I am not that worried about idle temps, I am more worried about the Load temps, and to be honest, those are in the range of my old G50vt so I am okay for now.

I will consider using the copper mod block later, but for now I think it is pretty okay. When gaming my highest temp right now is 92, which is when the fans kick in on full.

It is funny how at idle, the sole Core i7 consumes as much as my Eee PC at high speed haha as a whole netbook.

 

hm,what about cooling pad?
do you have any recommendation for this "little monster"?
since it have high temp...

will coolermaster notepal infinite could handle this heat problem?