Asus rog gx500

I thought he meant the non mobile gpu
Gtx 680 = gtx880m

 

Well the 680 desktop is still a bit faster than the 880M still.

 

Realistically, since this laptop is coming out so late in the year (sep - oct), wouldn't it make sense to wait a couple more months for intels Broadwell (Q4 2014) and MAYBE nvidias 900m series, with more powerful maxwell chips perhaps like a 970m to be fitted into this laptop before buying it?

 

Broadwell quads have been delayed to mid next year.

 

They'll just release a refresh next year with a broadwell chip and a 900m series, probably in Q2, if they've done the work and the product is ready there is no reason to delay, especially since this is fills a hole in the ROG lineup.

 

Pretty much, the hardware should be pretty translatable to new chips as they come up.

 

Realistically though, what benefits would broadwell have over haswell in real life gaming and general use? So far from what i've seen, there will be better power consumption so basically better battery life? But how about factors such as FPS in gaming performance and temps?

Also, aren't there new maxwell cards coming in september, cards like the 870mx and 875mx? What are the chances of asus putting more powerful GPUs into the gx500?

 

Pretty slim to zero as the GX500 already uses Maxwell and those new cards won't be using a new process.

 

Broadwell is just a die shrink of Haswell so there will be virtually no performance difference, only lower power consumption. Intel usually throws in a few minor performance improvements to obscure things like SSE instructions, but historically it's been the integrated GPU they improve most. And that's going to be irrelevant to a laptop with a discrete GPU.

The only way you'd see substantially better performance from Broadwell is if the Haswell version throttles due to high temps. The Broadwell version would run at a lower temp and may not throttle.

 

There could be an 865m type chip but the differences are likely not going to be large without a new process.

 

The GX500 looks amazing. I hope the numbers on paper stand up to it's actual performance. My Toshiba Qosmio X875-Q7380 recently died due to a turbulent incident on a plane. I have had enough of the over expensive costs associated with this brand. It is my second Qosmio following my first satellite. Unfortunately I need to repair it in the interim until I purchase a new laptop and ASUS looks quite promising. I have a few questions to ask, hopefully some of which you can help me answer. You all seem to have more than sufficient knowledge of the technical and practical aspects of what is on the current markets now and what may be out there in the near future.

The GX500 to me, a business man that enjoys gaming in his downtime, seems to be a quality purchase. It's sleek, versatile and looks of a quality sturdy build, unlike the cheap plastic chassis of my Qosmio which gets insanely hot too fast even after a fresh disassembly and cleaning. I'm strongly considering this laptop as my next purchase but want your opinions on whether ROG can do better in relation to what I am looking for - if it is too costly for the ASUS to even consider or it's too silly to contemplate, I welcome all opinions or critics. Historically, I know nothing of ASUS' previous gaming laptops, so excuse my ignorance especially my technical ignorance. I also am pressed for time and cannot search the entire line of models to know all the details of previous models. I was going to get a blade but it's too costly, I still believe this will be cheaper. I am more than willing to wait if a larger version of the GX500 is showcased in the near future. All I look for is large HDD or SSD space, 17.3" screen and a numpad which is not a deal breaker for me.

Hopefully you can answer these questions on what you have seen and know of this model. I'll do more research after work.

1. I'm searching for a 17.3" laptop, do you think that a larger model of the GX500 will be built?
2. I would like a numpad if possible, if a 17.3" were built it's only logical to assume it would be incorporated, what do you think?
3. I would like a min of 1TB space with the possibilty of expansion to 1.5TB / 2TB on SDD in a larger model, do you think it would be built or is this too costly a dream?
4. What is the max size capacity of the GX500 with full SSD expansion?
5. With the dual cooling system, are there many anticipated heat / cooling issues other than the possible noise?
6. How would I find out if it has a Maxwell or Kepler chip in a standard PC shop. Would they really know in BestBuy or PC World?

I appreciate all answers.

 

1. No word on it yet
2. I highly doubt the 15" version will ever have a num pad. That would require two different chassis designs and would cost them more money than it's worth to manage. 17" in one might but who knows.
3. There are no 1TB M.2 drives to this date but they will surely be coming in the next year or so. They will almost definitely be expensive, especially the PCI-E variant. The 500GB drive they use in the NX500 is $500 retail.
4. Assuming there's two slots as advertised, you're looking at 1TB(2x 500 GB). That is until there are larger M.2 drives available, which should be soon.
5. Nobody knows yet. Mike in the NX500 thread posted his results of the NX500 cooling but it's not very reassuring. There's still no actual numbers but since there is no underside intake vents, the NX500 is probably as hot as he says it is. The only thing I see different in the GX500 is the grill they cut out on the underside, but when pausing the video it looks like it's not an intake at all. I hope I'm wrong because it's going to get pretty hot if it relies on intake and exhaust to and from the screen.
6. It's likely Maxwell, like the NX500. I wouldn't rely on a reseller - wait for a reviewer to prove it.

 

Thanks for the detailed answers.

Could you clarify a few things for me.

Your answer to my third and fourth question, does the NX500 hold the same SSD's and slots as the GX500? I know one is more of a gaming built laptop than the other. Is it the NX or GX model that is advertised as having 2 slots that can accommodate 2 x 500GB SSD's?

If so are these SSD's interchangeable one year down the line or are they soldered in? The fact that it is possible to upgrade these components in the near future makes a big difference to me. I could settle in the short term on size until something bigger arrives.

Also what is the difference or advantage of the PCI-E Variant that makes it so costly over the others? Is the PCI-E variant included in the GX500 as a base model SSD already? Do both the NX and GX models have the dual cooling system?

Could you link me to Mike's review on the NX500 please.

 

Link is here: Asus Zenbook NX500 - initial impressions

Asus's marketing literature at Computex suggested that both devices will have the same storage options. There will be options for SATA based and PCI-E based M.2 slots as well. So from my understanding, each unit will have 2x M.2 slots. I highly doubt they will be soldered, as only tablets have done that in the past. As for the differences between SATA and PCI-E, the short version is PCI-E is faster and is the future. SATA is still fast but it has limits which we are already at. There's plenty of reading material on this with a quick search.

 

PCI-E can be much faster depending on the number of lanes dedicated to it, twice to four times the bandwidth which should let SSDs continue to get faster.

 

faster only in sequential though, 4k speeds are not that much of a difference compared to sata 3, at least not enough to justify the cost increase let's say

 

For now, but with new faster controllers and 3d NAND that could change.

 

it's definitely gonna be the future standard, but for now it's basically marketing bs, not to mention you can't really boot up from PCIe drives without special adapters with hm87 anyways. in a few years, it'll be trend, for now it's not really worth the investment

 

M.2 is the replacement for mSATA. The successor to SATA 3 is SATA Express. They had problems scaling up the speed of a serial communications channel past 6 Gbps (the S in SATA is for Serial), so they decided to go with a parallel solution like PCIe. Then they realized how silly it was to make up a new standard when PCIe was already there, and just went with PCIe.

Desktops are getting a new connector (which you can plug old SATA cables into for legacy drives). Laptops are moving from mSATA to the M.2 connector. (For that matter, the mSATA slot was originally a miniPCIe slot for things like wireless cards, which got subverted for use with SATA due to a lack of an existing smaller slot for laptop SATA drives.) Most of the current M.2 implementations will only operate as SATA slots, with a few working as only PCIe slots (e.g. the MSI GS60 uses SATA-only M.2 slots so is limited to 6 Gbps). But a full implementation of the spec would allow the slot to accept either type of M.2 drive.

SATA Express - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
M.2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

All the machines with the 87 chipsets are likely in SATA mode due to the booting issue.

They will move to pci express as time goes on, it does mean you will be able to migrate drives to newer machines or upgrade them more easily in the future.

 

I know, what I'm saying is that currently PCIe storage are not that much faster compared to SATA drives in 4k reads, which is what matters to most people. you can't boot from PCIe drives anyways until HM97 is out, unless you get special adapters. the point is PCIe is not really worth investing as of now, even it may seem very promising.

 

Like I said though it's reasonable future proofing to start putting the slots into machines now.

 

I would rather the laptop cost $300 less and have sata m.2 over pci-e m.2. I can upgrade in a couple years when the drives are a little faster and cheaper(and bigger).

 

Has anyone see shots of the power supply? I'm looking for lightweight including it. thanks!

 

It should not make a huge impact on price but it does need the new chipset to be bootable and that will take time to be validated.

 

I'm not following what you mean. PCI-e is already bootable. Apple and Sony use them and now Asus. The NX500 has a PCI-e drive and was tested in the other thread.

 

Ah I had been mislead that they were not bootable on the HM87 chipset, nevermind then.

 

it's bootable probably because it has special adapters for it. HM87 does not support officially booting from PCIe drives

 

Do those adapters convert it to SATA or are they controllers that replace the intel ones?

 

Doubtful considering the speeds he got were over 6 Gbps

 

from the video it shows SATA 6Gb/s on hwinfo so probably sata I guess

check 2:54 on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVS1Iul5Oms

his results differed a lot between crystal disk and AS SSD so I would question that

 

Here's a pic of the power adapter for the NX500. I'm guessing the GX500 will use the same PSU:

 

What is the power plug like? I know there are some Acer laptops with the plug attached to the AC-DC converter and IMO that is a horrible solution because that covers up 2 plugs.

 

It needs a little too much power at full load for that design to work with the machine..

 

Is it just me or did razer design a really good form factor for an adapter? Seems like the smallest one I know, to bad it's for the razer though

 

It's not bad but as power delivery goes up it makes it harder and harder to make them smaller.

 

Awesome! Looks nice and small. Much better than my Clevo brick!

 

So, my next question is... The laptop takes two MSATA 1TB EVO 840's?

 

Do we know if a removable battery will be in this laptop?

If not, what is the average battery life of a non-removable battery in an ultrabook / laptop?

Historically do ROG laptops have removable batteries?

 

M.2 not msata

 

Wait, I thought: Only flash storage will be offered and users can choose from two configurations: dual mSATA drives in RAID 0 or a single M.2 PCIe-based SSD

http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/feature-hands-asus-ultra-slim-rog-gx500-4k-gaming-notebook

 

The cooling on the bottom of this laptop looks 'limited', and have seen early pre production model reports of nx500 saying its gets a little hot with the 850m. Anyone looked into their crystal ball and seen if the final model will have solid or vented bottom? The vids I've seen make it look like its solid with no intake vents...

 

I think that's still up in the air. Asus' GX500 info placard at Computex said 2x mSATA or one M.2 PCIe drive:
http://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/Notebooks/News/_nc2/asus_G500_01.jpg

But their website now just says M.2 PCIe.
GX500 - Meet The Coolest Ultra-thin 15.6” Gaming Notebook

So either they've decided to only offer M.2 on the GX500, or the person making their website forgot to type in a line from the copy s/he was given.

If I had to guess, the NX500 will probably be configured with mSATA drives, while the GX500 being a "performance" version will have the M.2 drive. It doesn't make sense to clutter up their mainboard supply chain with both versions of drive interfaces for both laptops.

One difference that's strongly implied but I haven't seen anyone come out and say it is whether or not the GX500 has a touch screen. The NX500 has a touch screen. The GX500 uses the same glossy panel, same chassis, and has the same specs (dimensions and weight). So it would make sense that it too has a touch screen. Yet none of the reviews (written or video) say it or touch the screen, implying it lacks the touch screen.

 

Why would they make a whole different motherboard just to allow for an obsolete form factor storage device? I think your sources mistook sata m.2 for msata. Chances are it will have an m.2 slot that's either compatible with pci-e and sata or one of each. It looks like the nx500 has one of each.

 

I'm just being hopeful. I need capacity > speed.

 

I think you're right. Here's the info placard for the NX500.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/Notebooks/News/_nc/asus_nx500chi_10.jpg

Both PCIe and SATA3 options are listed as being NGFF (aka M.2). No mention of mSATA. So it would seem both the NX500 and GX500 have two M.2 slots capable of operating in SATA3 or PCIe mode.

Of course that begs the question, why isn't RAID-0 mentioned as an option with dual PCIe drives? Are they just not offering it as a standard configuration? Or are there technical reasons why it's not a good idea or won't work? So many questions. Can't wait for September.

 

It may be as a result of what they use to make it bootable from PCI-E.

 

I don't think they have 4 PCI lanes each lined up to both the ports. There probably is barely enough lanes for 1 slot as it is. It would be overkill anyways considering they are nowhere near being bottlenecked by the PCI-E x4 slot.

 

Plenty of lanes if you give the GPU 8x which is overkill anyway.

 

I wonder if the delay is for the new Maxwell's that are supposedly coming out in Oct.