Asus G71

According to notebookcheck, the 4850 < GTX260m.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5150066&postcount=1363

Notebookcheck? I don't trust their system that well, I trust Tom's Hardware though, they do thorough tests...

 

I completely forgot about something......When I purchased my G71 at BB in late June, (returned it a day later because of the throttling problem), the CSR had to look up the lappy in their system to see if they had one. I remember it showing a release date and a end of sale date next to it. The end of sale date was 9/27/09.

Looks like the G71 will only be available for another month or so.

 

Supply and demand. I went to my local Best Buy to buy it this past Sunday. They had none, and had no idea if or when they'd get them in again. In fact, I was told that they have been getting one unit in every once in a while and that it would sell within the first couple of hours of opening.

Sooo, I had to drive an hour and a half to get it since they directed me to a store that had 3 in stock. i dorve home and ordered it for in store pick up to make sure no one grabbed them before I got there. It sucks they are raising the price, but the demand is highly outweighing the supply at the moment.

 

i'm excited to have one then haha

 

The MSI seems like a fine machine, probably might end up cheaper since u dont pay tax, but something i disliked completlly about the 725 and seems the 729 has aswell is very small shift/., for me its hard to work on laptops as it is, so different size keys really makes it frustrating to me.

 

Anyone know what the 1701 bios update does?

 

Hmm says a firmware update but I have no clue what it does.

 

It turns your G71 into the Enterprise.

 

I heard it was the Death Star.

 

As far as the ram underclocking "problem"... it only underclocks when you have Turbogear enabled, and it does it so you do not push the ram clock too high (15% OC takes the freq from 667 to 780ish... so if you overclocked from stock 800Mhz it would be far too high) Its a design feature to ensure that the TurboGear OC does what it says it will do, OC the CPU. Just disable it and use SetFSB.

 

They were also completely sold out here in Orange Co, I ended up finding one in Colorado when I was on leave. And even then i had to drive 45 miles away to the one store in the Denver area that had it, and it was their last one.

 

I'm a newbie in need of general advice, especially in light of Best Buy raising their price on the G71. I had decided on buying this laptop as it had so many rave reviews and the GPU issue was fixed with the BIOS update.

My main requirement for my new laptop is a large screen. I want a 17" screen. I will use the laptop for business purposes as well as multimedia - Photoshop, Premiere, watching movies, etc. I'm also something of a closet gamer, and am excited by the prospect of using the laptop for those purposes... To paraphrase: "All work and no play makes Joey something something..."

So here is my question. Is the G71 the right laptop for me? When it was $1150, I could compare it well with laptops in the $950-$1100 range. Justifying an extra $100 or so for the power of the video in the thing is something that I could easily rationalize. With the new higher price, though, I have to wonder. Am I really going to need this kind of visual power?

Another thing I am not clear on is how the video card in this thing translates to things other than games? Will it give me faster renderings when using tools like Photoshop or Premiere? Or is the value of (and cost of) power specific to gaming? Don't get me wrong, I want to game on the thing, but I'm no... is there a gaming term similar to audiophile? I'm not gamingphile? I'm not sure I'd know the difference between very good gaming graphics and incredible gaming graphics.

I've read through the forums and I'm impressed by the amount of customization available in all the clocking and voltage modifications and tweaking and utilities. I don't think I'm likely to ever touch these settings. I just want a laptop that I can turn on and get awesome performance out of. I'm not concerned with battery life, and as long as I don't get 2nd degree burns from the thing, I'm not too concerned about the heat it produces.

So my question to you all is "should I buy the G71?" Or is it the equivalent of buying a Ferrari that I'll only use for city-driving, and never go over 45 miles an hour in? Or is there a Camry out there for me? Before Best Buy upped the price, there wasn't much difference in price between the Camry and the Ferrari. I'm still ok with spending the extra money if people tell me it's really worth the extra money - money isn't so much the issue as value is for me. And if the G71 would be overkill for me, can you throw out specific alternatives that I should look at?

So what do you guys think?

JoeyJoJo

 

if you are doing photoediting, this should be fine. but for you not playing great video games, this is a ferrari in the city going 45. The laptop runs VERY cool (on the outside) and it doesn't burn your lap either. I got furmark to make it 212*F. and it was still cool

anyways- i would buy it. it will last a very long time. you might play games in the future. it's good for its price

 

Wait a minute. If you have turbogear installed and enabled the RAM is underclocked? Why didn't they leave the RAM speed the same? That seems silly, to me at least. It's not like you're trying to overclock the RAM.

What I did last night is set it to 10% OC on the processor using turbogear. Then I used nVidia's ntune to set the video card to OC when running my games or 3dMark06. Doing it this way allows you to overclock both the CPU and GPU if you use turbogear and ntune. I ran 3dMark to check the temps and to get a score. Both processors remained cool to an acceptable level, and the score jumped to 11009. Now I'm finding out my RAM is downclocked if I do it this way and thereby losing performance?

I like the idea of using the utility, because I could set it by percentage and vary it how I see fit, but if using slows my RAM, what's the point of it? lol

 

Hi all!
Anyone here have a 2nd hard drive on the G71GX from best buy? i cant get it work....

 

I believe it has to overclock the RAM in order to overclock the CPU. Instead of overclock the RAM, it just underclocks it at normal settings and raises it to normal clocks to enable the overclocking of the CPU

I think its to prevent your RAM from OCing too high and frying itself.

 

Still though, the G71GX-RX05 WAS a great deal, instead of going for the G51VX you could toss $100 more and get the G71GX-RX05. Now it's no longer a deal and overpriced actually, I can't even suggest people to get it anymore. Slapping $150 to the original $1149 price tag is not only a decision breaker but we all know why Best Buy jumped the price tag to $1299 - because it's selling so well, Best Buy now just wants to see a huge profit from the sale.

Here's your profit from me Best Buy - $0 because I can easily spend my money on something better at that new pricetag of your G71GX-RX05, like the computer mentioned in my Sig. Heck, if Gateway would hurry up with their 79XX series notebooks to the USA (Japan and Canada already have them), I'd grab a Gateway FX no question (has a GTX 260m in them as well).

Yes, I could grab the G51VX-RX05 but it's a 15" laptop, I want a 17". Plus I want a laptop that's somewhat up to date in hardware and speed. 2.0Ghz is too low and overclocking it isn't going to help much. I don't want to break my warranty, so upgrading hardware is out of the question. The G71GX-RX05 WAS an awesome deal but Best Buy has now lost a customer and I can easily grab something better for their same upped price.

 

I wouldnt take it so personally its just business and thats how these things work. It sucks but you cant really blame Best Buy for the supply and demand they have right now. We've already seen the price change 3 times. Once it gets off backorder it should go lower again just like it did before.

Id be surprised if it wasnt back to 1150 by the end of September at the latest.

 

It's because the program ups the front-side bus speed, and both the CPU and RAM use the front side bus.

 

so because they both use it, shouldn't they BOTH get faster?

 

Not sure, but I think mobos might have a RAM frequency limiter or something like that. Ask someone who knows for sure.

 

TL;DR.

SetFSB overclocks the whole FSB leaving little bandwidth left for GPU overclocking.

 

Thanks for the answers guys. I decided to test it at 15% and with the slight OC'ing to the GPU hit 11200+ on 3dMark06...Temperatures only hit 65 C on the CPU so I'd say that's pretty stable.

 

On the bios, with turbogear on with memory downcloakcing off i cant pass the system memory check in the initial load. If you disable Turbogear on the bios, the memory loads at the normal rated speed.



Here a photo of the bios.



While browsing the bios, inside the monitor options, i found that you can see the fan rpm, just wondering if any program could monitor it...

 

My anger spewed onto Best Buy's forum as well...
http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Computers/Asus-G71GX-RX05-price-raise/m-p/46926#M10232

Mod from that forum has already replied to my post, lol...

 

Sh*t happens. Either pony up the difference or buy another laptop in the price range.

 

on the ram downclocking issue, im considering disabling turbo gear (cause i never use it) to keep the stock ram speeds intact, what do you guys think?

also, its been a little while since ive asked but here goes.

Has anyone confirmed the ability to have up to 12 gigs of ram in this beast yet?

 

Got mine today!

fresh out the box, default everything

 

I cannot figure out where to place .rom file for bios update. I have a g71gx-rx05(bby version) and i just recently was playing call of duty 4 MW maxed out and after it was paused for a few minutes it hit the bios crawl (lol)

can anyone explain where to place the bios update files? I know how to update bios just get an error (something about boot block?)

FYI i did download all my updates directly from asus support center

 

It's not that easy. Most people feel cheated and for the new price you can buy a much better laptop. Personally I think other than greed, Bestbuy brought the price up possibly, because it was pressured into having their other notebook brands in the same category sell while the G71's were going out of stock at a much quicker rate. Unfortunately for me I was going to take a trip down to the States and pick one up at the old price, but I guess that aint gonna happen.

 

I was pondering the G71 at bestbuy for quite some time...now I'm wishing I'd ordered it a couple weeks ago like I was wanting to. They've been backordered for quite some time now (thus my hesitation)

 

Thank you for understanding my situation, I do feel cheated out of a purchase. Planned on getting it next week, not anymore. For that price I CAN get a better laptop (like the one in my sig or Gateway's FX). Hopefully Best Buy learns from their ways again and drops the price again, I will instantly buy it then.

Forge and TevashSzat... what are your thoughts on the price change...

 

Well......its just business. G71s were selling well and Best Buy is just trying to make a quick buck......Newegg does the same thing sometimes with the prices.

Anyways, I doubt that the price will stay there for that long so it'll probably mean that you'll have to wait a bit more longer....If you truly desperate for a new laptop now you can buy it at the increased price and just pray that the price falls within two weeks (might be one week) of your purchase.

If it goes back to $1149, Best Buy will refund you the difference. I actually bought my G51 for $1049 like 3 days after the $50 increase but then the price dropped back down to $999 after a week and I got that $50 back.

 

Cool, thanks TevashSzat... I feel a bit better now - might even edit my sig !

 

does anyone have issues with low wifi signal? I even switched out to a new wifi card a gigabit gn-ws30n-rh. This has mimo technolgy with three antenna holes. I hook up the wires like how the old one had it. should i hook up the gray wire to the hole in the center labeled #3? what is the correct wire placements? Also i still have low signal even at other places then home....

 

Mines perfect, in terms of wifi. And so far gaming it hasnt broken 90. I played fallout 3 for 3 hours yesterday and reached a max temp of 84 degrees.

 

I know I'm upset over the up in price (I still kinda want the laptop) but I'm not going to lie about something in a review. Check out this user review on Best Buy's Website of the G71GX-RX05:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...oduct&id=1218092150740#tabbed-customerreviews

Really? You've had this laptop for a year now huh, I could have sworn that the G71GX-RX05 came out in June of this year. The laptop is not even 3 months old!

 

I don't think Cindy06 from Spokane is a stickler for accuracy.

 

Mine is working fine, as a matter of fact, it has much better reception than my Dell had in terms of WIFI.

 

No the 4850 is superior because of it's pipelines, despite the lower memory, core and shader speeds.

At the end of the day, Best Buy is still selling and it's a business and they want to make the most money. If they stop selling them, the price will drop again, plain and simple. Wouldn't you do the same?

Pit this up against the likes of Toshiba and Alienware equivalents and it's still $500+ cheaper. Not overpriced at all IMO. I'd consider it a bargain for $1150.

Wait, how is it not easy? It's a big market. Like you just said yourself, you can buy a much better laptop if you had the money. So what you're saying is you were looking for a $1150 laptop price and there's plenty out there, but now you have $1300 to spend? So why not spend that much in the first place?

Does uninstalling or disabling turbogear (how do you do that?) work and bring the Mhz back to 800?

 

Just disable the Turbogear in the BIOS and you should load at default ram speed (800).

 

@grandfinale

Not necessarily. Basically, MSI GT725 owners who have done 3DMark06 tests with the same CPU as G51 owners all seem to be consistently getting lower scores.

 

I saw that a new BIOS is out for the G71GX ver 1701, i downloaded it to see if it fix the problem with the second HDD but when i try to flash it the ezflash says "boot block in file is not valid" and not do the update.
Please Help

Best regards

 

I am having the exact same problem. someone help us out plase????

 

download bios and unzip it to a flash drive root directory then restart pc and enter bios, then go to flash section of the bios and navagate to the drive of your flash and select the bios... worked for me....

what does 1701 fix as it does not say on the web site.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5197166&postcount=1559

 

NX-01 or NCC-1701?

 

I don't know. The one Shatner flies.

 

Psh.

Picard > Kirk.


Yes. I just went there.