Ryzeki's Asus G51J-A1 review

Awesome! thanks

 

can you post the total dimensions of the laptop? like thickness etc

Thanks In Advance

 

I don't have a ruler or something to measure with me right now, but these are the dimensions and weight from GentechPC page where I bough it:

14.6" (width) x 10.3" (depth) x 1.3"-1.6" (Height Lid open-Lid closed)
Weight: 6.5lbs ~ 2.95Kg

 

hey ryz. do you know if the asus mouse works with the copperhead software from razer? Im think about trying it out.

 

I haven't tried but will do so. There is no reason why it shouldn't so I say give it a try!

 

Great review! I just picked up this laptop myself, and your review definitely influenced my purchase. Loving it so far, just downloaded batman and am getting ready to play.

Quick question on something I noticed though; don't know if it's an issue or not. While browsing slightly, and even when the laptop is idle, I notice there is some drive activity taking place. The hard drive is not really making noise, but the drive activity "loading" light is flashing every 5 seconds or so (inconsitantly...you know what I mean). It does not seem to to be affecting performance, games run smooth as silk. I did some research and have read people saying this is normal is vista and windows 7, some saying they haven't noticed it, etc.
Just wondering if you noticed anything like it. All of your stuff is pretty much stock, right? No windows 7 reinstall or anything.

So far I'm digging it! Just ordered a NC-2000 incase heat becomes and issue.

Drivers for the copperhead are being released on the 13th for windows 7. Atleast that's what it says on razers website.

Thanks for the excellent review!

 

Thanks for your support and reading my review

Yeah all my settings and everything is stock including drivers and OS. If it ain't broke, don't fix it right? You will love batman, i am currently replaying it, such an awesome game and runs incredibly well maxed out no AA and importantly: no physix!

As for the blinking light of the HDD, yeah mine flashes every 3 or so seconds, sometimes it doesn't after a while, but it is pretty normal. You can monitor on taskbar and Resource monitor to check what the HDD is doing. Don't worry about it.

Yeah the laptop gets hot but it was designed that way, just keep it clean and don't cover the exhaust vent and you should be fine no problem. I love my machine so far! Later on I will try a bit of overclocking but not right now!

 

Here is my score running at my native res of 1440 x 900.
I also have texture detail set at 8xx

SCORE: 8171
AVERAGE: 83.97FPS
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz
Memory: 6143MB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
Video Memory: 1024MB
Display Setting: 1440x900 60Hz 8xAA

(c)CAPCOM U.S.A., INC. 2008, 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

To achieve this score I enabled force V-Sync & Tripple Frame Buffer in the Nvidia Control Panel. I also disabled V-Sync in SFIV because it does a better job from the Nvidia Control Panel than from allowing the app to control it. Oh yeah, I also disabled 8 Logitech G13 programs and 1 logitech G35 program.

Maybe these settings can help you boost performace as it did for me.

 

Hehe believe me, there is no reason ofr 8xAA specially at 1920x1080 res. There are no jaguies nor anything much to improve Though enabling vsync from Nvidia panel might help abit. When you get over 60fps, what's the point though? haha it is a very easy to run game huh?

I wish all games ran that smooth! Unlike Darkest of Days which just sucks regardless of the settings

 

yah, the hdd light getting a little annoying, same with the ligh leakage from the keyboard but Im just being picky.

 

I have a 1080p Sammy LED(UN46B8500) and I've recently started playing on there at 1920 x 1080 to see what my pc can do and trust me my screen is better than the ones found in the G series notebooks. No AA to 8XAA makes a HUGE difference in the background and character outline. My Sammy is 240hz with a 2ms respone time and has a 7,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio which maybe the reason for the extreme difference in clarity between your pc not needing AA.

I guess if your happy with your perfomance than that's really ALL that matters but if you wanna step it up to a LED big screen you might want to try AA

I recommend 8xAA and 8x texture

Did you get a chance to check out Borderlands yet?

 

Woah woah, how can you run SF4 at 8xAA and 8xAF??? I do agree AF makes the game look so beautiful, but 8xAA just kills performance for me. I get 30fps with 8xAA and 8xAF.

I have a 37inch HDTV Samsung, not LED and the game looks beautiful with tint and 8xAF, but I don't see any benefit to AA due to the high resolution. Perhaps 2xAA tops but more than that seems overkill for me. 8x AF is godly though... Everything looks.... gorgeous!

And I haven't tried borderlands yet. I don't have money and I want to try Dragon Age first.

 

I have no idea. I just set everything to max in the game and I turn texture to 8x and AA to 8xAA. I also enable V-Sync & Tripple Frame Buffering in the Nvidia Control Panel. If I'm in my native resloution of 1440 x 900(I posted attached score in previous post) I get 83.97 and if I'm in 1920 x 1080 with the same settings I get 67.02 FPS. In soooooo many forums I read that I7 processors are the culprit for low FPS in certain games. That's why I've stayed clear of them. But if they are the reason I'm sure a bios update could rectify the issue.

Soon I'm going to build a desktop with a I7 and quad sli GTX 295m to hook up to my sammy. When I get everything up and running I'll shout at you to let you know how it performs.

 

Here is an interesting read
link

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/nvidia-proves-intels-core-i7-is-money-wasted-for-gamers-20090430/

Nvidia proves Intel’s Core i7 is money wasted for gamers

Apr. 30, 2009 (2:15 pm) By: Rick Hodgin Intel has been distributing a press deck recently which outlines the various benefits of their Core i7 architecture. On one particular slide entitled “The Intel Core i7 920 Processor”, they claim that gaming performance goes up 80% with a Core i7. However, Nvidia’s technical marketing director, Tom Petersen, has called Intel out on that claim, saying not only that the test they used to arrive at the 80% increase figure was entirely CPU-based, but also that the expense of their Core i7 lineup is an unjustified waste. He explains why.

First, Petersen said that Intel is using 3DMark Vantage’s CPU test, which is designed only to show the performance of the CPU’s ability to compute graphics. And whereas most could not argue that Core i7 can produce 80% better performance on various compute tasks, the reality here is that nobody uses their CPU for gaming, and that’s the claim made by Intel, that the Core i7 results in 80% better gaming performance.

He goes on to make not only that point, but also to emphasize the unjustified expense of the Core i7 when it comes to building high-end gaming systems.

First, he describes two types of PCs. The first is a Hummer which he says “has got to be big, and it’s got to be expensive and of course it’s infused with Hafnium … It has a Core i7, which is Intel’s latest, greatest CPU that they claim is the best for gaming”. Basically, the Hummer is Intel’s X58 platform with the Core i7 920, 4GB of RAM and a single GeForce GTS 250 card.

Next he describes a BMW, which has a Core 2 Duo E8400 (which is not the fastest Core 2 Duo, but is a 45nm 3.0 GHz 65 watt CPU released in January, 2008), an nForce 750i motherboard (instead of the X58) and two GeForce GTS 250 cards configured in SLI (so both cards augment the gaming performance).

In this example, the “Hummer System” would cost $1,501 from components at Newegg (as of April 23, 2009), and the BMW would cost $790. These prices do not include common components, like case, power supply, keyboards, monitors, mice, etc. Already, Petersen pointed out, you’ve saved enough money to buy more memory, or a better monitor, or if you wanted to, additional or better Nvidia graphics cards.

To drive home the wasted money on the Core i7 as a desirable CPU for the gaming platform, the Core 2 Duo BMW machine had one GeForce GTS 250 card taken out. It was able to get an average of 41.6 fps at 1920 x 1200 (no AA or AF) on Crysis Warhead, Fallout 3, Call of Duty: World at War and Far Cry 2. When upgrading to a Core i7, the single GTS 250 increased to 42.4 fps (an increase of 0.8 fps, or 2%). However, when upgrading to a second GTS 250 in SLI mode, increased to 59.4 (an increase of 17.8 fps, or 43%).

Petersen made the final claim: “When you’re gaming and you’re running at resolutions of 1920 x 1200 or better, the Core 2 Duo is perfect for running all of today’s games. In real gaming, there’s no difference between a Core i7 and a Core 2 Duo” — even one that’s not the highest-end available.

The GeForce GTS 250 cards cost $119.99 after $10 mail-in rebate. Intel’s Core i7 920, which is the lowest Core i7 CPU sold, costs $284, with the highest-end 965 model selling for $999. Two graphics cards could be purchased for less than the price of one Core i7. And the Core 2 Duo E8400 today sells for $163. However, an E5400, which has 1/3rd the L2 cache and is 300 MHz slower with a 533 MHz slower FSB, is only $84. When you consider the 43% improvement obtained in gaming from an SLI configuration (something that would be commensurate also with ATI graphics cards in CrossFire), the slower, less expensive E5400 may be the way to go because it’s the graphics card that does the lion’s share of the hard work, not the CPU.

See Bit-Tech.net.

Rick’s Opinion
Nvidia has been taking some notable pot shots at Intel lately. First on their Atom platform, to which Nvidia claims their Ion system has markedly better performance than Intel’s own chipset. And with Ion 2 coming out soon, it’s likely to be even better than that.

The rumors recently of Nvidia buying into VIA (to obtain an x86 license to create their own CPUs) were flatly dismissed by Nvidia’s CEO. And when I spoke with a VIA representative, they told me “Regarding the VIA/Nvidia stories appearing right now, we have no comment”.

So whereas all is not lost, meaning Nvidia will continue developing products for Intel’s Atom CPU, and whereas it does not seem today that Nvidia will be creating its own x86-based CPU, when PC World spoke with Nvidia’s Michael Hara, VP of Investor Relations, he said “Tegra [Nvidia's ARM-based CPU+SoC] which was released in June, 2008, and most recently appeared in an Android product, by any definition, is a complete computer-on-chip, and the requirements of that market are such that you have to be very low-power and very small, but highly efficient. Someday it’s going to make sense to take the same approach in the x86 market as well.” Note: Geek.com’s bolding.

The time is coming when Nvidia is no longer going to see value in relying upon Intel to dictate the speed and direction at which their products can evolve. VIA is a very under-valued company in my personal opinion, because they are so small relative to Intel and AMD. However, their products have been able to keep pace with the low-end offerings, and that from a completely in-order core throughout every CPU generation.

Were Nvidia to acquire VIA, or buy a license agreement to aid them in developing x86-based technology, the reality is Nvidia’s previously stated vision of the CPU becoming obsolete might actually achieve parity with real products. At that point, the x86-based CPU would not be a stand-alone product, but would merely be a component of the GPU package which coordinates software to be executed much faster by the parallel cores available within such a design. And let me tell you brothers and sisters, that would be something to see.

 

“**Article**When you’re gaming and you’re running at resolutions of 1920 x 1200 or better, the Core 2 Duo is perfect for running all of today’s games. In real gaming, there’s no difference between a Core i7 and a Core 2 Duo” — even one that’s not the highest-end available.

^^hmmmm.........


**Article**The GeForce GTS 250 cards cost $119.99 after $10 mail-in rebate. Intel’s Core i7 920, which is the lowest Core i7 CPU sold, costs $284, with the highest-end 965 model selling for $999. Two graphics cards could be purchased for less than the price of one Core i7. And the Core 2 Duo E8400 today sells for $163. However, an E5400, which has 1/3rd the L2 cache and is 300 MHz slower with a 533 MHz slower FSB, is only $84. When you consider the 43% improvement obtained in gaming from an SLI configuration (something that would be commensurate also with ATI graphics cards in CrossFire), the slower, less expensive E5400 may be the way to go because it’s the graphics card that does the lion’s share of the hard work, not the CPU.


^^I read in an article that the way the I7 is setup it tries to over compensate for the GPU which sometimes leads to hiccups or lower frame rates.

 

That article states what is to be expected. If you think that an i7 will make the ultimate gaming machine when matched with integrated graphics, you're misinformed, a fanboi or stupid. It may not be known to nvidia, but some people use their i7 for things other than gaming.

My Dell refund came through today so I'll be ordering a g51j tomorrow

 

Any chance of you getting some videos of Dragon Age up?

Fantastic review btw. Pretty much sold it for me, I ordered this beauty on Monday

 

Dragon age is pretty awesome so far. I'm running maxed out with VSYNC at 1920x1200, 2x AA, High everything else with a 3.3ghz Core 2, and 550/1375/950 GTX 260M. Frames seem to be around the 45FPS area.

 

ALOT of us are misinformed. Because I am building a desktop soon I've done alot of research on I7 with games within the last 24 hours. It's kinda sad to say but from what I've read after all these years dual core is still the best way to go for most games

 

Thanks! I am not sure if I will post videos, but I will post benches if I can. I don't have a camera for video sorry!

Excellent! You won't be disappointed

This is very good news, I will try it later today and hopefully I will match your settings similarly!

Still, can you double check and post benches with 8x AA and 8x AF all high and tint extra detail at 1920x1080?? At any other setting I get over 100FPS even at 1920x1080. The Core i7 might not give me much of an advantage on gaming at all, but still I shouldn't be having such low framerate with AA compared to you, as that is GPU dependent, and since we have the same GPU, we should be performing around the same. Don't force vsync etc on nvidia control panel yet, lets go step by step to see where my performance gets killed. Test 8x AF first, then add 8x AA and 8x AF. With 8x AF I still get near 100fps all high and extra tint.

At such high res, CPU matters the least and GPU is where gets very taxed. The article was pointing that out, that when you have a high end CPU, getting a better CPU does hardly anything when gaming, and you benefit more from extra GPU power.

 

I think the settings I changed in the Nvidia Control Panel back in early October is one of the main factors in my benchmarks. I believe it makes sense to have the GPU control Tripple Frame Buffering and Force V-Sync and not the application. That's why I told you so that you also may benefit from an increase in performance. "In the end we are all on the same team" I work really late today so I'll post when I get settled in at home with my Sammy.

 

Oh I know we are working on the same team haha, I just want to find out what's up with my performance. Well if I force vsync and tripple buffering I can't get more than 60 fps because of the refresh rate of my panel. It could also be drivers as I am using stock drivers.

 

Yeah, it's true that a lot of people don't know much better. Some people want the latest and the greatest in their machines and think 'what's the most kick processor I can get for my 1447 gaming rig?' and the marketing hype does it's work and the answer 'i7' pops in their head, then they are disappointed that their friend with a dual core gets the same fps as them.

My last laptop purchase was a clevo m570a with a 7800gtx and a Pentium M 2.13ghz processor back in late 2005. Then soon after dual cores for laptops were released, although my laptop was relatively fast. However as more programs began to utilize dual cores the performance gap became more apparent. Although with g51j I intend to do some video conversions and photshop, the main reason for purchasing with an i7 is future proofing.

I'm pretty sure I won't. Some of the posts about the screen quality had me a bit concerned, however for the price I'm fine with that given that I have an external monitor. Now the struggle is to find a place that has stock with decent postage to Australia. The delivery dates on the store I was looking at (sparco.com) have been pushed back a bit, and the intel 80gb ssd's are out of stock for quite a while. I'll have another look around to see if anything is available sooner before purchasing. I'm excited about this purchase, it seems to have everything I want for a reasonable price.

 

I think its gonna be hard to find someone who will be able to ship it to you quickly. The company I've ordered it from (not sure if I can say who, but they're very well known) said I won't get it for 2-3 weeks

 

hey whats up guys, I had a G50 once it overheated and i was given a gift card from best buy. I love that the company does that but the thing is i am debating to get a Toshiba x500 or this machine but it has to have a blu ray drive even though i am debating to just buy a external one. Anyway. The thing is I really really worry about overheating, now i didn't use the machine that much and the thermal paste just fadded away. I see that different websites allow you to pick different thermal paste but i won't be buying the machine myself.

 

Here is my bench from my Led 1080p Sammy.
What is strange is that my display is 240hz but shows in the bench as 59hz. I wonder why that is?

For having everything maxed out and 8xAA & 8x texture I think my scores are higher than yours. Probably because of the settings I mentioned in previous post about the Nvidia Control Panel and the driver from Nvidia. I've provided a pic for clarifacation.

SCORE: 6474
AVERAGE: 62.73FPS
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz
Memory: 6143MB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
Video Memory: 1024MB
Display Setting: 1920x1080 59Hz 8xAA

(c)CAPCOM U.S.A., INC. 2008, 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

 

Oh yeah, sorry it took soooooo long for me to get back with my results. I was looking for Sledge in Borderlands

 

I know this is much more mundane than the machine's performance, but I do need the info: can any1 here tell me the approximate (or exact) dimensions of the box in which this laptop ships? I need to find out whether or not it meets usps criteria for intl shipping. Thanx!

 

looks like overclock will decrease the peformance.....

 

Its about 2 feet long, 1 foot wide, and 4 inches thick from glancing at my box. Nevermind, the G51J box is probably huge with all the extras it comes with.

 

here're EXACT dimensions:

527 X 196 X 385 (mm)

N.W. 6.43 kg
G.W. 6.93 kg

 

Yep. You definitely have higher performance than me. It could be your CPU or something else. I made a run with 8xCAA and 8xAF at 1920x1080 (I used CAA instead of normal AA because it gives me a bit higher performance, you should check it out) Also I am not using extra details like tint and here is my performance:



Basically I get an average of 49fps.

What drivers are you using?? I am on 186.69 (stock) and maybe these are incluencing a bit.

Oh don't worry at all, I have been busy too haha, so it's okay!

 

I have 186.81 WHQL. After I did a clean install of W7, I did notice that when W7 automatically updated to the Nvidia Driver that they recommended, I tried SFIV, GoW, Section 8, COD4 & WaW, UT3, Crysis & LFD they all seem to have a slower frame rate than what I was acustom to in Vista. I also noticed a VERY SMALL hiccup in COD4 if I was running every 30 seconds. So then I downloaded 186.81 WHQL from Nvidia. The performance was better but still not as good as Vista. So then I tried to install Direct X from Micosoft. For some reason I couldn't install. Then I changed the settings in the Nvidia Control Panel to what I told you before. It made a huge improvement but not as good as Vista was. The last thing I did was install Need for Speed Shift. During the installation of NFS:S I noticed that it installed Direct X. Now every game exceeds my expectations and runs Perfect except for Crysis. Crysis has a VERY small sound clipping in the background that gets on my nerves so I uninstalled it. I also read of other people with W7 having Crysis sound issues with Realtek drivers.

I'm so pleased and in shock that everything runs so good that I try and look for slow frames and other issues but I can't find any. What's interesting is that I read all these reviews with G Series similar spec laptops and they show frames and benchmarks in ggames way lower than mine.

In Vista, Crysis(DX10) on all Very High settings at 1440 x 900 full screen would run at a smooth 37 FPS on my G71. Now it runs just as good but with sound clipping issues

I hope this helps.

 

does it happen after loading each map, and goes away after a minute or two?
(though they occur every 3 seconds, not 30 for me)

 

The M15x owners at the Alienware forums are reporting a skipping or stuttering issue that is tied to the Core i7's Turboing back and forth.

 

It use to happend every 30 seconds. But it does NOT happen at all at max settings now.

 

So the only problem was that you hadn't installed direct x?

 

Thank you very much.

 

I had direct x. I just had the one that came with W7. Who knows

 

Hey guys whats up i would like to know what type of moterboard is the laptop? Also i want to know if you can put gtx 280 in this sweet machine. This guy in the alienware fourms has the M15x and he put a gtx 280 in there, and it supposedly only runs up to gtx 260.

 

That is not possible. ASUS uses their own special inverted MXM design for their notebook GPU's, so unless in the near future ASUS produces a laptop with a GTX 280M then you're all out of luck. There isn't much difference between the GTX 260M and the GTX 280M (16 shader difference), so it wouldn't be worth it anyhow.

 

Yes i realized that soon enough. Their isn't much difference between both cards. If i had it my way sli gtx 260's would be great! Ati is going to leave nvidia in the dust soon with their 5800 series releasing a 1.3 ghz card. My god so insane! I can't wait to play Call of Duty Modern Warfare Two!

 

Well, I tried Dragon Age Origins and it turns out I don't have much of an issue playing maxed no AA at 1920x1080 res. Pretty awesome game.

Also, I am now using 186.82 drivers and I like them so far. I received a small boost everywhere (about 1-2fps) and even 3dmark06 score is 10600+ on stock clocks.

Pretty happy with my gaming rig right now

 

ryzeki, does your fn+f4/f5 work with 186.82 (screen brightness)? for some reason, mine stopped working.

 

Yes, they work. I had the same problem on an old G51vx, the solution is to uninstall drivers, run driver sweeper and reinstall both the ATK hotkey (from your Drivers CD) and new the drivers following the instructions in the optimization guide (Uninstall display drivers from device manager, reboot in safe mode, run driver sweeper and remove display driver only, install the new 186.82 drivers, reboot etc) .

It is just a worng installation driver issue, don't worry.

 

For some reason it's still not working for me. I'll try it again tomorrow.

 

Ryzeki,

Sorry if you've already answered this.

There's been a hell of a lot of threads about peoples G51 excessive heating but you don't seem to have had any problems?

Do you use a cooler? Or do you just not play games for very long periods of time?

 

Well, The laptop gets hot but doesn't overheat at all. I do play for hours and i don't have a problem with it, Almost finished batman, already finished Half Lie 2 and Episode one.

I don't use a cooler yet, I guess I am just not that worried by the numbers of the temperature haha. The max I see in games is 92C most of the time anyways, so I don't worry bout how hot it is running. The heat doesn't cause me problems like shotdowns, lock ups, etc so I don't consider them a problem.

Keep In mind I use my laptop about 10 hours a day (school, work and gaming) and sometimes I keep it on for 48 hours and even then I don't have problems.

 

Ryzeki, i know i used to do the same thing for a long time but the thing is that later on it happened about ten months later. I know when i get the machine i am going to put arcktic thermal paste on.

 

Artic Silver or Arctic Cooling?