ASUS G71G User Review

by David Li

The ASUS G71G-A1 is not only a gamer's dream machine, but also an extraordinary powerhouse system. Mimicking the designs from the G50 series, the G71G-A1 is tailored to fit even the most demanding gamers and multi-taskers whom desire unique and flamboyant aesthetics. Equipped with the latest Intel Montevina processor, 9-series Nvidia dedicated graphics, dual hard drives and 6GB of memory, the G71G-A1 is designed to rip through games and programs with tremendous ease.

Specifications:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9400 2.53GHz 6MB L2 cache, 1066 FSB
• Graphics: nVidia GeForce 9800M GS 512MB GDDR3
• Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
• Memory: 6GB DDR2 800MHz (2GB+2GB+2GB)
• Display: 17.1" WUXGA (1920x1200) glossy
• Hard drive: 500GB 7200rpm SATA 2.5" (250GB x 2)
• Optical drive: 8X DVD/RW Double layer Super Multi Drive
• Ports & slots: 4x USB 2.0, HDMI, eSATA, IEEE 1394, Express card, 8-in-1 media card reader, VGA, microphone-in, headphone-out, Ethernet
• Wireless: Intel 5100 Link 802.11a/g/n
• Battery: 8-Cell 5200 mAh
• Other features: Built in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 2.0MP webcam
• Weight: 8.5lbs
• Warranty: ASUS 2-year limited global hardware warranty + 1-year accidental damage warranty, + 30 days zero bright dot LCD warranty.
• Included accessories: Carrying case and optical mouse
• Dimensions: 16.5" x 11.5" x 1.7"-2.2" (actual measurements with notebook screen closed)
• MSRP: $1,799

Reason for Buying

With the current $200 off Live.com promotion from Microsoft, it is very difficult to find another laptop for $1,599 ($200 discount included) with as much power and features as the G71G-A1. A few other laptops have crossed my mind such as the Sager NP8660 and the Sager NP9262 but given that the G71G provides the best balance between performance, weight, warranty and price, the ASUS became the clear choice for me.

Where and How Purchased

In order to take advantage of the Live.com promotion, I placed my order through GenTechPC's eBay store and used the Buy-It-Now feature for my purchase. GenTechPC also offers several upgrade options including hard drive, operating system, and additional batteries.

What's in the Box?

• G71G-A1 laptop
• 8-cell battery (5200 mAh)
• 120-watt power adapter
• Re-branded Targus back pack
• Copperhead Razer external optical gaming mouse
• Micro-fiber cleaning cloth
• Set of drivers, recovery DVD, CyberLink Power2Go (all-media disc burning software), and Alone in the Dark game
• Cable tie
• User manual and Quick installation guide
• Warranty card

Build and Design

The G71G is extremely robust and certainly one of the top laptops ASUS has built. Although the finish is identical to the G50 series, the chassis feels more durable and flex is virtually non-existent.

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The array of ports are placed in ideal positions near the back of the laptop; likewise, the vent is also positioned at the rear which prevents hot air propelling on the user's hands.

Front: speakers, screen latch

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Left: 2x USB 2.0, firewire (IEEE 1394), media card reader, optical drive

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Right: 2x USB 2.0, headphone jack, microphone jack, wireless toggle switch, ExpressCard slot

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Rear: A/C in, HDMI, eSATA VGA port, LAN, Kensington lock port

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The petite access doors to the ports are something I'm not too comfortable with and can do without. These access doors feel somewhat flimsy when opened, and I could visualize it being the first part to break if the laptop was accidentally dropped.

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The OLED display on top of the keyboard is also a familiar feature found in the G1 and G50 series laptops; this display allows the user to view CPU/RAM usage, battery life, as well as MSN messages and e-mail notifications.

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Screen

One of the most significant features on the G71G is the strikingly bright, dual-lamp LCD screen. Equipped with the AUO 2088 - B170UW02 V0 (model number from EVEREST), the panel boasts a 400 cd/m2 brightness with a contrast ratio of 600:1 (average laptop screens have 200-250 cd/m2 brightness and a 400:1 contrast ratio). Horizontal viewing angles are exceptional and the screen can be clearly viewed by people sitting two seats away from you (great for having friends over for a movie and even better for the bored stranger sitting next to you on the plane). Vertical angles are average and start to get washed out at steeper angles.

Another interesting point to note is how the screen is able to open further back than any other ASUS I've seen. Although many other laptops such as the Lenovo T series are able to open 180&ordm;, the G71G does a fairly nice split at ~170&ordm;.

The panel has very minor light leakage coming from the bottom but is only noticeable on a pitch black background. Bending and twisting is slightly evident with a good amount of force, but neither ripples nor distortions were visible when pressure was applied from the back. Although creaking sounds were noticeable when opening/closing the screen, the hinges are particularly tight which keeps the screen wobble to a minimum.

Speakers

Thanks to the four-channel Altec Lansing speakers, the sound produced is well above average in both quality and volume compared to standard laptop speakers. Bass is still lacking and at maximum volume, the sound becomes slightly muffled and less crisp. A good set of headphones or external speakers would easily overcome these shortcomings.

Keyboard and Touchpad

I'm pleased to announce that the infamous keyboard lag that has plagued many of the recent ASUS laptops is not found in the G71G-A1. The keyboard is very pleasant to use and barely suffers from any flex. The keys provide the typical travel and tension found in most "slim" designed external keyboards and typing for long hours shouldn't cause any discomfort. The matte finish touchpad has excellent response and fingers can glide across with ease.

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Processor and Performance

Fueled by Intel's T9400 2.54GHz processor, Nvidia's 9800M GS graphics card and 6GB of memory, the G71G-A1 is one of the most powerful laptops currently in the market. Not only does the 9800M GS provide excellent gaming performance, the ability to house 6GB and dual hard drives also makes this laptop an excellent multi-media system or desktop replacement. Although most gamers may not fully utilize all the 6GB of RAM, users running multiple virtual machines will be especially grateful.

To better illustrate overall performance, multiple benchmarks were performed on the system shown below. All benchmarks were performed in Overclock mode with stock drivers.

Windows Index Experience:

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3DMark06 at 1280x720 (Notebook Review in-house 3DMark06 resolution is 1280x800):

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3DMark06 at 1280x1024 (Standard default resolution):

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3DMark Vantage:

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HDTune:

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wPrime (32M)

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Heat and Noise

The G71G-A1 runs very cool for a gaming laptop. Idle temperatures are similar to those of a non-gaming laptop; CPU at 40&ordm;C, GPU at 61&ordm;C and HDD at 41&ordm;C (power saving mode). The CPU and GPU top out at 65&ordm;C and 70&ordm;C respectively while running 3DMark06 (overclocked mode). During load, the fans spin faster and louder, but still at an acceptable level and less audible than its G50 sibling.

Gaming Performance

Devil May Cry 4 - 1680x1050 resolution with texture resolution, shadow quality and quality set on high, Vsync on and MSAA on x8.

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Red Alert 3 - 1920x1200 resolution with high settings and AA disabled.

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Call of Duty: World at War - 1920x1200 resolution with all details enabled, normal dynamic lights and AA off, model and water details set to normal.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - 1680x1050 resolution with all details enabled, normal dynamic lights and AA off, model and water details set to normal.

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Battery

For a gaming laptop, the battery life on the G71G-A1 is slightly below average. With a 100% charge, Vista was able to calculate a duration of 2 hours and 15 minutes on power saving mode. However, real life testing shows a less modest number. Having brightness set at minimum, I was able to squeeze just under 1.5 hours while surfing the internet, word processing, listening to music on iTunes and downloading miscellaneous programs.

Conclusion

At the price of $1,799 ($1,599 with live.com's rebate), the ASUS G71G-A1 is superior in its class. Whether you plan to game extensively or multi-task like a ninja, the ASUS can gladly satisfy almost everyone's needs. The vast variety of ports and dual hard drives also makes it a perfect multi-media system or desktop replacement. The unit also comes standard with a generous two-year international warranty, one-year accidental protection and 30-day zero bright-dot screen guarantee at no additional charge. In spite of being one of the first 17" gaming laptops to incorporate a spectacular dual-lamp screen and other impressive hardware, the G71G-A1 still inherits the notorious "below average" battery life of its predecessors. All in all, if you are a gamer or power user looking for a powerful, "bang for buck" laptop, the ASUS G71G series may just be the ideal system for you.

Pros:

• Top notch screen with excellent brightness, contrast and viewing angles
• Powerful enough for demanding gamers
• Wide variety of ports
• Bundled with free backpack and Razer Copperhead gaming mouse
• Runs very cool
• Well priced

Cons:

• Below average battery life
• Port access doors feel fragile
• Screen hinge creaks when opening/closing
• Aesthetics may not appeal to everyone
• No RAID setup

 

a little underpowered for me.. LOL nice review

 

Thanks for the detail review!

 

Not bad....the WEI score is pretty close to my rig right now (5.7 on the processor, 5.9 on everything else). It's impressive for a laptop, but not that much when you consider I achieved near/better ratings using older hardware.


Given the whole slew of (affordable) gaming notebooks that have come on the market recently....I'd like to see a big shootout between all the major players.

 

The drives ARE 7200rpm (mistake in the review?). These are the ones mine shipped with: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...f64f9110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&locale=en-US

 

Ooops.....my bad then. Will go back and edit my OP.

 

I think I will stay away from asus products for a long while as I am still steaming about how they screwed me over with my $3,000 desktop that is not built buy asus but contains an Asus motherboard which they have completely stopped support for and cannot update to sp3 along with various other security updates solely because of their lack of firmware update and zero support. This just really left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

Nice-I was waiting for this review!any link to that ebay store?

 

Thanks for the time and your review.

 

You're right I've edited the correction in the review.

Yup, gentech's ebay store is:
http://stores.ebay.com/gentechpc

Asus motherboards are a separate division from Asus notebooks and they operate very differently. For notebooks/laptops, US/Canada support is top notch and support for older systems can still be serviced from Asus.

 

yeah but none the less, there is still the Asus name that left the bad taste in my mouth. I have gone through a terrible experience as a customer and want nothing to do with the company. And I feel that others should be aware of this that are new to the Asus name. I understand where you come from, but this is where I come from and will not change my opinion as I have been royally you know what by this company and its terrible attitude.

 

nice review....ok so why is 3dmark06 and gpu z showing the 9800m gs as a GT?

 

I believe both 3dmark06 and GPU-Z (newest versions) came out prior to the release of the 9800M GS card, hence the database isn't updated with that particular card.

 

yea, i though just as much

 

Bummer on the MB issue - maybe other technology changes made it not possible to make the change? I'm speculating but regardless, you're comparing apples to oranges to a certain degree.

I've had nothing but good experiences with Asus Laptop support (W3j and just received my G71G).


Curious if I should be worried, but I got the unit delivered by UPS last night and after installing the battery and plugging in the unit, it started booting (lid was closed even). It said Windows had not started correctly blah blah and failed to boot (then there was a weird clicking noise).

I removed the battery and unplugged the power (and tried to not freak out) and when I tried again it booted.

It's making a chirping sounds fairly regularly and the defrag I did took hours to finish - not sure if I'm looking too far into things but I figured I would ask for some insight on things.

I'm going to play around w/ it more tonight.

 

Some one on the Asus forum reported that if you uninstalled the Realtek driver, it will solve the clicking issue. I don't experience that issue, so I can't say for sure. However, if that doesn't solve your clicking/chirping issue, I'd recommend reinstalling the realtek audio drivers and if that still doesn't do it, performing a clean install with the recovery disk/partition.

 

Really appreciate it - so just uninstall the driver without reinstalling first? I'll look into it but wondering if you need that on there.

Why would my Memory WEI score only be a 5.0?

EDIT: Interesting - I reran the score and it went up to 5.9.

 

WEI is a terrible performance benchmark and I wouldn't worry too much about those scores. The only reason why I put it up on my review is because there are still many non-technical viewers on the forum and they want to see how this system compares with others they see in stores.

 

Very nice laptop, and grand review. I thought it was odd to have so many 3-minute-plus videos of just you gaming on it.

 

Those videos are with fraps and help illustrate gaming performance I've had a few requests prior to making this review, hence the videos

 

I liked the videos!

 

bah.

without a demo video of My Horse and Me this review is an EPIC FAIL.

j/k.

very good review! so you're not using *any* external cooling at all, eh? neither am i, for the moment. temps are holding steady and pretty cool.

 

Thanks

As I said in a previous post, I will not be doing a video for that game

Temps are holding out very well for with this laptop and I don't see the need for a cooler at all

 

i guess i'll do one! lol. will have lots of time over the holidays to get acquainted with my new box.

while gaming i thought the fans had kicked in due to major cooking, but after i got the temps, i was pleasantly surprised at the temps! new thermals standards in effect for ASUS now, i wonder?

 

what a great review! why can't they all be this informative?!?!

 

David, you did a really good review on this! I like the red color!

Your review was very *indepth* and the pictures are really nice!

Kudos!~

Cin

 

Great review!! .....My horse and me? Whats that? By any chance is that related to my little pony?

 

Nice review

A couple of things:
1. did you try the overclocking feature? there is apparently two modes, turbo and and turbo extreme. what clocks did these achieve?
2: its interesting that the quadcore version can only have up to 2x2GB ram in the config panel. Maybe there is only 2 ram sockets on the quadcore version?


a Qx9300 boosted to 2.89ghz + 6GB of ram would be pretty sweet 3d cad machine

 

Why, thank you!

Thanks a bunch Cin~! I can't wait for your review to show up

It's a horse simulation game that someone brought up in another thread. Nothing to do with My Little Pony

Yup, overclocking the CPU brings it up to 2.67Ghz. The two modes you are referring to "turbo" and "turbo extreme" are overclocking modes in Direct Console, which apparently don't work on the G71G. To overclock, you'll need to use the power4gear utility.
I'm not sure about the G71Q (quad-core version). I'll need to ask a reseller for that information.

 

Turbo Gear has a configuration option for setting the overclock amount (5% or 10%). It defaults to 5% which is what gets you the 2.67Ghz. If you set it to 10% you get 2.8Ghz. Functionally the same as "turbo" and "turbo extreme", just a different way to get to it.

 

Hi

I have seen pics that show 3 slots for DDR2 ram, but CPU-Z shows that my G71G has 4 slots. The 3 slots are located under the notebook behind the big shield, but were is slot number 4? (if any).

 

There isn't a 4th slot for the ram. CPU-z is probably saying that because of the P43 chipset and thinks it's the desktop P43 which supports up to 16gb of DDR2 ram; hence the 4 slots are seen (4x4gb). I'm assuming that because the mobile version of the P43 is so new, it's not even on Intel's website, yet alone in CPU-z's database.

 

Maybe, but 3DMark06 is also giving me the same info. Both programs say slot 0-3 (4 in total). I don't know if both programs are too old, but it could be nice with a 4th slot

 

isn't 6gb enough?

 

Isn't 640K enough? All depends on what you want to do with the system but knowing how far you can expand it (to extend it's life) is generally useful. There's only 3 slots (maybe to get 3 physical slots they needed to enable 4 channels on the chipset or something). I'm more interested to know if it has a hard limit at 8GB or if it'll be able to take 12 with a firmware update (not that I can afford the 4GB chips right now).

I don't really need a faster GPU for the future but knowing I can put in a quad core chip and upgrade the memory at some point in the future is something I'll definitely take advantage of. I've had 5 laptops so far over 8 years or so and I've maxed out the memory that every one of them could physically handle over their lifetime. 6GB is good for now (though I can push that doing work in multiple VM's simultaneously) but I can easily seeing needing more before I switch laptops.

 

Considering that most people now won't even use 4gb of ram, I'd say 6gb is more than enough for the average joe gamer. But like I mentioned in the review, people like yourself that uses multiple VMs will appreciate the 6gb memory. I'm not sure what the max amount of ram the G71G supports, but I can try and find out for you.

 

Right now it's enough, but maybe not in a year. I find it usefull to know the upgrade uptions, allthough the G71G has good hardware balance when it comes to gaming.

If I at some point buy a 4GB modul in order to get 8GB ram, how should the memory be placed in the slots? My G71G came with 4GB ram with one slot free and I would like to get the max out for dualband (2GB+2GB on one band and 4GB on the other). I belive that 2 of the slots work together one work solo.

 

Thank you for this review David. It was incredibly informative. I've been shopping for a laptop for several weeks now, doing my research and trolling the forums here. Thanks to this review, I think I've found my new laptop. Now it's just a matter of securing the best price.

 

Looks like they've finally made it. This is the first Asus G-Series that seems really worthy to me. Highend Graphics without the need of SLI and reasonable CPU in an 17" Chassis and balanced cooling system.

 

Yes, it's a real beauty and impressive in person. Pictures do not do it justice.

 

oh my god, it's so beautiful =P~

 

Personally I like the look, others do not.

How the fan rubbing got past QA i'll never know.

 

.....wow how could they say this notebook is hideous/ugly? They also state it in the review quite a bit.

 

It attracts too much fingerprints imo...