How's the G74SX-XN1?

Hi all,
I'm hesitating to upgrade to G74X-XN1 from my G53JW due to questions on my mind. As you know there were well-known problems with G53 series such as power pin breakage problem and the problem of AC-pin jack. Also i read numerous problems about G73JH series such as VBIOS problems, thermal re-pastings etc....BIOS flashes..etc, lots of things.

Now i wonder whether Asus has fixed these issues on G74SX series?

Are there known problems with this release including the problems that are meant to be solved by BIOS/driver update?

Thanks a lot!

 

Just to correct you the G73JH problems were fixed and it beats all other G73's in performance terms of gaming and competes with the G74 so dont mock it

If you have the GTX 460M 192bit which you will have in the JW you are only going to notice a slight increase in performance in gaming terms although your CPU is probably going to suffer so if you wanted to keep it you could consider the 920XM. The G74 is a good model and if you are looking to stay with Asus its really your only choice but do not expect miracles, the Sandy bridge is going to be a nice gainer but the 560M is only a higher clocked 460M same core etc. If you are not solely looking for an Asus and want to future proof look at jumping to a higher end GPU 256bit Bus Nvidia/ATI with one of the other sellers MSI,Clevo,Sager, Alienware etc

 

Yep, but my main concern is whether brand-new G74 has factory-default problems and such problems that can be fixed by owner later such as having BIOS flashing nightmare experience / thermal repaste like G73JH owners have had.

I really want to know the solidness and whether G74 is now a problem-free gaming notebook of Asus, at least? Forget about performance, i want to know how stable-ready its hardware is!

Thanks a lot.

 

I have a friend who has a G74 (he felt jealous of my JH ), it's been working flawlessly for a couple of months.

 

From what I have read:

The keyboard is crap
The touchpad is fine
The sound system is poor and tinny
There can be a fault with a speaker vibration requiring disassembly
There has been a BIOS update released
Temp are very very low for a Gaming laptop
The screens are fine
Performance is fine but not a major jump from the JH or 460M 192bit
No major issues

For the price you would expect better to be honest.

I like the G74 for its style and would have picked it up but I have bitten the bullet finally and gone for performance over looks and I have now come to the conclusion that curves a backlit keyboard and fancy features do not contend with a near 50% increase in performance in CPU/GPU with my new setup.

Alienware is the way if its in your price range performance + looks.

 

Hi Yiddo,
Thanks a lot for your reply, so what my conclusion is, based on the information you've posted.

- G74 has the same poor speaker / audio system like G53
- Keyboard is OK
- BIOS updates still in progress and about to be released because of poor engineering of initial releases.
- Screen is very crisp for a gaming notebook, full hd is fine for 17.3" whereas too high for my 15.6" of my G53JW.

However if the G74SX-XN is stable which i saw on newegg (now sold out!) seems a great deal if the issues above are meant to be tolerated.

Still looking for your and others' insights.

Thanks!

 

As long as its the 192bit version and you are specifically looking for an Asus gaming upgrade the G74SX is your only real choice, it really depends if you are happy with mid range or looking to go higher up.

The G74 has the same great styling as the 73 series so you will be happy with its looks and it appears a BIOS update has recently come out the other bits and pieces are fixable. The biggest complaint is the keyboard being springy and really poor for key misses. The sound is said to be poor also tinny and low bass but then again it is a laptop so the sound system is never great, even my clevo with 5 speakers and a sub in 5.1 people complain its not fantastic so you just cant please some people.

I personally loved the sound out of my G73JH and the tiny sub so its a question of opinion.

 

As far as the keyboard goes, the g74SX doesn't have a "Num LK" button, which means you can't switch between number inputs and direction inputs on the fly. There's a dedicated calculator button it its place. Maybe this can be remedied in a future bios update?

 

Why did they change audio? It sounds like from reviews I read that G73 had great audio. Keyboard is upgrade over 73 though. Still don't know why you can't get a better GPU with the g74 though, for price you pay. Or add optimus!

 

I haven't seen it but maybe that's why N55 series is for. As it's priced above 1100 bucks, i expect noticable amount of audio quality better than gaming notebook. My G53JW's sucks, i admit, its speakers' volume level worse than my 10 year-old ancient Toshiba Satellite S1800, but sound quality is nearly great. Maybe N55 series has great speakers close to Toshiba's Harman-Kardon's like some Asus K / N series Altec-Lansing's.

But that's certain that, it's totally unacceptable to have a poor speaker inside a monster gaming notebook, even it's a G74!

 

just got G74Sx last night... so far no problems, getting ready to throw in some ssd's and fresh install of win7