ASUS G75VW Review: The Best Mainstream Gaming Notebook Gets Better Discussion

This facelifted ASUS G-series gaming notebook features a new backlit keyboard and the latest technology including an Intel Core i7-3610QM processor and 2GB Nvidia GTX 660M graphics card. Is the new G75VW a worthwhile upgrade for those players with agingTgaming notebooks? Keep reading to find out more.

Read the full content of this Article: ASUS G75VW Review: The Best Mainstream Gaming Notebook Gets Better

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great review. I own a g55vw and love it. Very good upgrade from my g51j

 

Excellent Review, Also found that RAID is doable, Asus G55VW, G75VW get RAID Support | Best Gaming Laptop .... about time

 

I do have to say that I think the new ASUS G75VW looks better than the updated Alienware M17x R4 ... but Alienware (or Dell) does a pretty good job keeping the M17x price low.

Too bad about the less-than-impressive speakers on the G75VW. I'm sort of lusting after this notebook.

 

I think ASUS improved the G-series in all the right areas and this is by far the best one yet. I would like to see a GTX 675M offered (or HD 7970M) but other than that, this is such an easy notebook to recommend.

 

Just out of curiosity, why would you give this an Editor's Choice when no reviews have been done on competitor Ivy Bridge offerings (ex Samsung Series 7 Gamer)? I understand it's an excellent machine, but isn't it a bit early in the game?

 

660M is pretty weak for a notebook this size with this good of cooling. Let's get a 7970M in there!

 

I'm in agreement here, why stop the game for the Editor's Choice before the other players even take the field? Seems a bit pre mature.....

Second, you proclaim this as the winner for the gamer yet its pretty much the weakest one out there- c'mon, a 660m? Er, uh, what gamer willing to pay in the vicinity of 2000.00 US is going to want a 660m? 2600 3dmark11s vs. close to 7000 on an easily overclocked Clevo/Sager/Alienware/MSI/ with a 7970? And the clevo/sager can be had from a number of sources for around 200.00 less? and that's WITH the 7970!!!

No offense, but this is the kind of *stuff* I recall from the *bad old days* where the reviewer seemed to always end up with the tested unit...gratis...or quid pro quo- choose your own latin.

In any event, I hope an aspiring young gamer with his/her parents' money in hand holds on for a couple of weeks so he can look at the 7970 and GTX680 machines just around the corner, especially the clevo 170em variants which you can have customized from a whole flock of reputable builders, for a lot less money.

Seer

 

We do not get to keep review units. They are on loan to us for a short period of time.

FYI I'm a little taken back by some of the comments in here. I have been reviewing notebooks since 2005 and during that time I've reviewed more gaming notebooks than anyone else I can name, including people at other publications. So needless to say I know a good quality unit when I see and test one. This is a top-shelf laptop and I found nothing that would prevent me from giving it a full recommendation. The G75VW qualifies for an Editor's Choice award since it has an abundance of "good" things about it, more than we would usually see; not simply because it's x times better than competing systems. We will be testing other systems soon.

 

I played around with one of these at best buy. They improved a ton of things with the laptop. I love the new keyboard and touchpad buttons, plus the L-shaped power cord plug was a great idea. Four usb 3.0 spots and the ethernet located near the power cord is great too. Makes me want to sell my g73jh so I can get snag one of these babies. God I hate technology, it changes so fast.

 

The review misses some really important things. I am new to NBR so I do not know that well how in depth reviews go. But lets say this notebook is targeted at gamers. There is nothing but praise for the input devices which were one of the huge gaming failures on this notebook.

1: this notebook uses very flat chiclet keys. These are not desired for accuracy. Fingers can slip off them easier / miss keys. It is fine if you prefer chiclet because it looks cool or whatever but you need to at least mention in a review the down side in choice on a gaming level notebook. This isnt a stylish ultra portable facebooker.

2: If you use an ESDF config which many gamers do (probably the second most popular config after WASD. You simply cannot buy this notebook it will will be completely useless due to key roll over issues. I would expect a review of a gaming notebook to include key rollover testing since that can radically affect the ability to use a notebook, especially when it is not possible to swap out the keyboard for something better as it is in a desktop.

 

The accuracy argument has two sides: You can also argue that since there is usually more space between keys on Chiclet-style keyboards compared to traditional notebook keyboards it's slightly easier to avoid hitting the wrong key during gameplay.

Also, most Chiclet keyboards tend to have quieter key action than traditional keys and some people like quieter keyboards. I have a Razer Black Widow keyboard that I use with my gaming desktop but the key noise drives me CRAZY.

You can make a valid argument about key rollover impacting gaming, but every notebook with a USB port can use an external keyboard and mouse. Back when I was using my first-gen Alienware M11x I always used an external mouse and external keyboard if I was gaming at a desk.

If we did a survey of all the serious notebook gamers here in the forums I would be VERY surprised if most of them said they use the notebook keyboard and touchpad when gaming at a desk. Most serious notebook gamers I know use peripherals designed specifically for gaming (external keyboards, mice, and headsets, etc.) as long as they aren't traveling.

 

I LOVE the keyboard design. The arrow keys is situated a little lower than the rest of the keys so when I am typing at night, I just move my hand to the right and I will eventually hit the arrow keys. The keyboard design is the most important thing for me and is the deciding factor for me. I plan on purchasing the ASUS G75 or G55 just on the keyboard layout

 

Another important tidbit that could have been mentioned (just for clarity) is that the 660M GTX is the highest Nvidia Kepler part currently out. From what I've heard the 670 & 675 are rebadged 500M GTX (Fermi, last gen) parts. For people that are interested in high end parts, this is something to keep in mind. And since so much $$$ is involved, people may want to wait for newer Kepler versions of 670 / 675 / 680 to come to market.

 

I wouldnt bet a 680m version coming in. And since that is the kepler you seek... dont get your hopes up.

 

Me too and I think it's a lot better than the last gen's keyboard. No more flimsy looking tray inlaid in the surface of the chassis; it's solid and has more key travel for better tactile feedback.
The "W" key has an upraised dot on it so it's easy to find too.

That is a good point - the GTX 660M is a 28nm part. It provides more power per watt than the GTX 670M, which is not Kepler. One way or another though I don't think this notebook's cooling system will have a problem handling more heat. It handled the i7-3610QM quad-core and GTX 660M in stride. Didn't even break a sweat.

 

A minor correction. According to mikesquarter G75VW review the mini Displayport is a Thunderbolt port. MarshallR@ROG confirms the latest G55VW has one too. Thunderbolt provides a x4 2.0 (and likely x4 3.0 with the Series-7 chipset + latest TB controller) pci-e link to external device such as desktop video cards ). That's the same as a x8 1.0 or x16 1.0 link.

 

The problem with the retorts to the critism of the review is they seem to miss the point of a review.

People want all the information to make purchasing decisions. So just because the reviewer or some higher ups dont ever use their gaming laptops keyboard to game they assume others do not. Personally for me the whole point of a laptop is to use it on the go and I want to use the keyboard it came with. Every person I personally know does this too. We use laptops for you know mobile computing. If I was only ever going to use it on a desk with a KB / Mouse I would then just buy a desktop and an ultrabook or something light for on the go computing. Then I would have saved alot of money.

At the very least the review should have a footnote or link to a paragraph describing the key rollover issue. And pointing to the fact that if you are an ESDF gamer you will need to take up one of the alternative tactics. Carry a big keyboard with you, buy a different laptop, or use a different config. This is not just any small issue, this is huge for ESDF gamers like myself. I have used a ton of laptop keyboards and most of them have key rollover issues that affect other keys but not the 3 most important keys to you. For instance my current laptop will not let me press those keys and C, which is bad in tribes ascend but not a big deal in most games. I can get around it, and would not be surprised of a review that missed that.

If no one is willing to do this then it just seems like its a paid review where the authors are scared to say anything bad about the notebook, and supporters rush to defend it against any critique, in which case it is not a review at all.

Same with kepler, I find it hard to believe that the flagship gaming notebook for asus is not ever going to come with a 680M. Even if it is not going to then that is just one more reason to not buy the notebook which should be stated.

I wont even get into the fact one retort seems to compare a desktop razer with cherry blue switches which are pretty much the loudest keys in existence to this and uses that as the baseline for a standard keyboard. It is not accurate at all, a typical traditional laptop keyboard is pretty much silent, has around 5 mm of clearence between keys vs the 3 I typically see on chiclets. If this chiclet breaks the mold then state it, saying it has X mm of clearance ridge to ridge on the keys.

Once again you may prefer the keyboard on here but others will not, the point is to not just say this is great because I said so, it is to describe the ups and downs to put information in the readers hands. And if people bring critism the immediate response should not be to go defensive and explain away or demean the critism, it should be to A, educate yourself on the issue, then B fix it in the article, and C do it better from here on out.

 

I was set on buying one of these laptops... until I noticed that the graphics cards are VASTLY weaker than what's in the competition. P2600 vs ~P6000+ is a joke. For a company that spent so much time on engineering the cooling system you would think they would have actually put that to proper use? If ASUS is listening, you were so close to making THE gaming laptop of 2012, remember that next time around.

 

"The Nvidia Optimus technology helps improve it by turning off the dedicated Nvidia graphics card and switching to the integrated Intel graphics card (which is actually part of the Core i7 processor) when no 3D processing power is needed. This also helps keep the heat and noise level down."

My G75VW (Best Buy model) doesn't have Optimus. I'm also not aware of any other G75 version that has Optimus. Are you sure that your review model had the Intel iGPU graphics?

 

ASUS G Series has a history of using mainstream gaming GPUs [not enthusiast highend GPUs]. Their decision to use the GTX 660m and GTX 670m, does not surprise me. (as Charles pointed out, there are 2 versions of this laptop)

Great review Charles!

 

I'm between this or building an Alienware.

Sent from my SGH-T989