Asus V1J Santa Rosa

found this review of V1j with santa rosa refresh.
The new v1j uses Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT instead of ATI Graphics card.
this give 3Dmark 2006 score of 3741, (does no say what resolution).

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39030092,49290208-1,00.htm

enjoy

 

I'm sure I'm not going to enjoy a single notebook review that CNET does
*After reading the "review"*
Again a bad review from CNET, they messed up this one too.

 

They really make a huge deal about it using 667mhz memory, Did no one bother to explain to him that 800mhz memory isnt supported under the Santa Rosa platform?

 

Bad news =/ I was looking at the V2J model, but looks like they're still doing poorly on battery consumption even with this refresh.

I really want an ASUS, but the V series are the only models with the fingerprint reader and dx10 gfx--and their battery life bites.

 

if 800mhz mem isnt supported...why bother with the 800mhz fsb? it might as well be 667 too

 

Is it? One of the key features of the Santa Rosa platform is that it actually supports 800MHz memory speeds. The new Zepto's use PC6400 800Mhz memory, so I guess you're wrong.

And I'm with Cnet on this one, I think Asus should have opted for 800Mhz memory.

 

Matt is right, the PM965 and GM965 chipsets are both limited to 667 for memory. Just ignore CNet when it comes to computer reviews.

http://www.intel.com/products/laptop/chipsets/index.htm?iid=laptop_body+chips

 

Well, judging by these facts and seeing that no other component would require FSB bandwidth.It seems that the only reason for the raised FSB is to raise the clocks.

 

I looked around for the Santa Rosa Zepto. The only thing I found was this:

http://www.zeptoforum.com/QuickRev/index.htm

However, this looks like a custom whitebook build where someone or a dealer installed "Kingston RAM, PC6400 800MHz" RAM. There is no way to know if the system is actually running the RAM at that speed. It is possible that Zepto has cranked up the memory clock with their own mods but we can only speculate without more details.

 

Well, if you look here:
http://www.zepto.com/Shop/Notebook.aspx?notebookid=636
you see that they have 800Mhz memory standard installed. It's actually the only memory that they provide with these notebooks. Or am I mistaking here?

Maybe Zepto is wrong, but look at this quote from the same page as listed above:
The Znote 6625WD is built on the latest technology, amongst which Intel's new 965PM + ICH8-M chipset. This chipset provides optimal speeds and performance, is part of the Core2 Duo family, and supports a frontsidebus (FSB) of up to 800Mhz of memory (PC6400).

 

It's possible that Zepto is running the chipset beyond specifications. We'll need someone with a actual laptop to to tell us what's going on.

 

Theres no point in 800mhz memory, 667mhz memory already provides more than sufficient data speeds, and the latency would end up being to high. Intel decided not to support 800mhz DDR2 and just wait for monteneva and 800mhz DDR3

 

Are notebooks generally more expensive in Europe than in North America? The listed price of 1219 British Pounds would be quite a large chunk of cash...

 

This guy obviously understands nothing about Asus. Asus ensemble laptops would not sell in such high numbers if there were not high-end components in every Asus series.

 

Most of the time they are. That's why I'm gonna buy my new notebook in Canada or USA this summer. Sometimes you could save up to around 300-400 euro, which is pretty much.

 

Same goes for Australia and NZ, you can usually save a good 500USD. It seems odd to me that Asus put the GT in the V1j, and not in the F series.

 

Very much so I payed 2300 EUR for a notebook which in US was 1800-1900 at the time (V6J), so almost double.

 

Ok, these guys seem rather cretin. They don't understand what class means, probably for them a notebook only looks good if it's silvery all over and has at least 10 blinking LEDs and chromium sides.

Huh? repetitive strain injury? Give me a break. This sounds like a tabloid article.

This is the second review on CNET that I'm reading and it seems they have no idea what they're talking about (also judging from the posts above).

 

I think everytimes that CNET reviews something.We should set a contest :
"Find 30 things that are wrong with this review and get 50 rep points"

 

or you could turn it into a drinking game. everytime you spot something wrong, take a shot.

We of Desktop systems do that with "everytime an infrastructure server goes down". suffice to say Desktop and Infrastructure are not on the most friendly of terms unless both are sufficiently enibriated to understand each other XD

 

uncontrolled and reckless drinking can lead to permanent brain damage, hence playing that game is rather dangerous.

 

Seriously, CNET "reviews" are a total joke. When they compare softwares (and pretend to compare the "top 5 choice", they just include a very poor choice of popular softwares and often ignore the less well known but better alternative. They also totally ignore what open source is, as I guess they prefer to talk about products they have advertisement agreements with... Even when looking at a review and not the whole batch, it's usually very short, you can feel that the guy didn't really use the stuff more than a couple of hours. Total waste in my opinion, look like the computer page of a fashion magazine...

 

The review is quite picky, anyway the overall judgment is not so bad.
Santarosa/960 chipset DOES support 800 Mhz memory, it's one of the distinctive features of the new intel platform, so i agree with the reviewer, it has no sense still using 667 Mhz RAM, and i agree also that right now 2 giga is the standard, and the european version of the V1 come with 2 instead of one.
In conclusion i would argue that the RAM is the weak point of the V1, otherwise it would be a great machine.

 

Not really. There is no inherent support of PC6400 DDR2 in Santa Rosa.

That depends on who you ask; most people will be fine with 1 GB of RAM for Vista.

I don't think the RAM is the weakest point, because you can just pop in another stick. I think the weakest fault with the V1 is the battery life, and the BIOS problems the battery encounters. The V1 as a business laptop gets a respectable 3 hours of battery life, but a similarly configured Thinkpad T60p is exactly as powerful with 5-6 hours of battery life.

 

T60p with a 8600GT won't be getting 5-6hours of battery life

 

I'm talking about the V1Jp with the X1700, which gets 3 hours of battery life. A V1Jp with an 8600M GT will get even less battery life. The battery drain is relative to both the T60 and the V1J.

 

Yes i was very wrong, only the FSB is 800 Mhz, but i am sure i have seen specs of new Santarosa notebook equipped with 800Mhz RAM, so i assumed that was an importat news, but according to the specs on intel website that is not true.
Anyway i stick to my idea the RAM is the weak point of this notebook, i agree that many people can need only 1 giga, but the V1 is supposed to be a high end notebook, and i think almost all high end notebooks from other brands right now come with 2 giga.
I am not familiar with the program they used to evalute the battery life but doesn't look that bad.

 

I asked about the RAM speed on the Zepto forum and one of the dealers said:

It's possible that Zepto is running the chipset out of spec.