2014 Asus N550JK -DS71T quick mini review and opinion so far

Can I run Battlefield 4 at ultra on full HD with at least 30fps with overclocked gpu in this laptop?
Actually im planing to buy this notebook.
Thanks in advance.

 

Can anyone post up their temperatures after some moderate gaming (say 2-4 hours)? Really wondering how hot it will get after long hours of use.

 

The ddr3 gpu ram will choke at that. It will play at lower details ok though.

 

Is the ddr3 versions so much cheaper is why they use it? Must be or would be dumb to even use.

Anyone know where I can buy a keyboard with different back-light color? Is it certain that the back-lighting is part of the keyboard so maybe I could get a spare keyboard and swap color somehow?

The retailer that sells the JV/JK with added option to have back light color changed wont sell me just the keyboard, they want (was $60 or $65 forget which) to do it, which would be ok if they were near me, but then I have to pay to ship to them, pay to ship back to me, trust them with my PC to not get damaged, wait to get it back. Don't seem worth it for color change. Guess they want you to figure you should have just order from them and paid the $35 extra for that option, but they sell the JK for much more than I paid elsewhere so wouldn't have been an option.

 

Is 850m using gddr5 faster than the one with ddr3 in OP's laptop?

 

I would test this for you but I dont own the game.. I only get 19 fps in Crysis1 on the GPU benchmark with the 850m with an OC. It may be safe to say BF4 on Ultra at 30 fps is probably a negative.

 

Absolutely.. It's about 5-10% slower in all tests than the 860m.. Whereas the DDR3 version is 20% or more in some cases.

 

I believe company's like Asus/MSI/Razer, etc. actually have to price out the GPU chip, PCB, and then GDDR pieces seperately where they you go MXM style, it's already put together as a package.

I'd say it's not a big deal for Asus to save more bottom line by using GDDR3 in some of their laptop lines.. It's also possible Asus didn't want to see issues with a more wild card (860m) in their thinner N550 series. If you look at the '13 model of the N550JV, it also used a DDR3 version of the 750m when a GDDR5 version of the 750m existed.. Maybe heat related, i'm not sure.

 

A machine so new shouldn't see any increases in temps after the first few minutes, I left Furmark going and it was fine after an hour never changed after the first 3 minutes of heating up.. This was with the +135mhz core overclock which only added maybe 2-3 celcius more and is still wayyyyy under the max thermal limits.

 

I'll just wait until the Asus G550JK arrives, it's the same build as the N550Jk but pumped towards gaming (PS The design looks sick with the red etched iphone like edges.) Notebooks & Ultrabooks - G550JK

Pros
+ Same High Quality Build as N550JK
+ 1080p IPS and optional Matte with touch
+ 2/4GB GTX850m with GDDR5
+ Overclocked GPU

 

So besides the black and red chassis and the gpu oc there's no difference between the G and the N550? They could have thrown in a 860m instead of the 850m..

By the way, can't you perform the gpu oc at home on the n550 to reach g550 performance levels? Or is the n550's gpu somewhat locked in that regard?

EDIT: I missed the gddr5 bit on your post.. From what I read on their website I was under the impresion g550 would get regular gddr3..

 

The link you sent says it's gddr3 still

 

There's optional GDDR5 apparently from various sites like this one.
Asus G550JK-CN156H 15.6" i7 Gaming Notebook

 

It says DDR3 on the specifications page. Copy pasted below for reference.

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX850M with 2GB/4GB DDR3 VRAM

 

Any chance it's possible to switch ddr3 to gddr5 aftermarket?

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

 

I dont think this is possible, since it is soldered on motherboard, someone correct me if im wrong.

 

You're right, it's not possible.

 

No chance man!

 

Not sure I would pay $500 to get black/red color and GDDR5 though. Seen it listed (not in stock for $1100 but could be the GDDR3 like listed on the site. The site link given is misleading though cause on the front page it mentioned SSD but the specs it only shows regular hard drive options like the N550JK has. I do like the color better, but myself prefer blue over the red. Think it would be nice with the 860m or 870m in it. 860m probably to keep price down.

How hard is it to remove my keyboard module? I can mail it to the retailer that sells the JV/JK with back-light color options and they can mail it back changed to the color I want. (Probably Blue for me) $65 plus shipping to have it done. Might not do till I get an SSD first, that's more important.

 

This is interesting.. The n550jk CPU is computing far slower than my g750jm even though they are both 4700hq..

 

Definately not worth $500... For less than $500 you can get a laptop with 860m GDDR5 instead.. Like the Asus G750JM ROG.. And get two HDD bays, a Thunderbolt port.. and better cooling for about $200 more.

I'm returning my N550JK.. It IS a super nice laptop I just want more GPU performance and I could use the Thunderbolt port (I have two Apple Thunderbolt Cinema displays). I also like the RAID0 dual hdd bays too..

I still highly recommend the N550JK to anybody who wants really good gaming potential and nice hardware (IPS, touch, etc.).. It runs quiet and fast, can't get a much better laptop than the N550JK for what you get for the money.

 

yeah G750JM is definitely the beast! Too bad it's out of my budget, otherwise I'd get it even despite huge size.

 

They do fit quite different roles lol.

 

This site seems to say that the G550JK starts at 1099. ASUS G550JK-DS71 15.6" Full HD Nvidia GeForce GTX-850M Touchscreen Notebook - ASUS - By Brand - Laptops | Computer Upgrade King

Another site said "release date in mid-may"

 

Agreed.. my role is needing something not too expensive but has medium-to-high gaming.. The 860m machine fits my needs very well so far.. Runs most games at nearly ultra settings at 1080p.. After an overclockable bios the guys over in the gaming forum are getting very close to 780m speeds.. Very excited to see the little guy (860m) doing so well. And sad to see 870m/880m is still on Kepler.. although they should overclock well enough to put them out of 860m reach.

 

Still.. even if it has gddr5.. the 850m and 860m are binned cards.. Meaning if they are still the same core GPUs, the ones that weren't stable to support 860m base clocks (not sure how the chip makers test this) were destined to be 850ms.. I expect all 850m cards to not reach a higher core clock ceiling as the 860m cards. Like i said previously, a ddr5 version of the 850m will be no slouch (its no slouch with ddr3) and will prove to be a great card for gamers.. way better than the 750m ever was at least.

 

that site linked has no stock, places list items then have out of stock till stock arrives, some take pre-orders as well. Assume that is the GDDR3 version since seen the GDDR5 version for much more $, but that link they do not say if ddr3 or ddr5 for the 850m

But GDDR3, GDDR5, 850m, 860m, whatever, look at my avatar, my N550JK crushes them both... :laugh:

 

The G550 looks great.. all black, etc.. has IPS.. it's just a N550 with a new look.. With the possibility of having a dd5 850m.. But for that cash, i'd get the Asus G750 instead with 860m.. All 860ms should have ddr5.. I dont think the 860m is slated to ever receive ddr3.. seems pointless when the core clock speeds are essentially the same with the 850m. Asus upped the base clock speed to 1019mhz i believe on the N550JK which is higher than Nvidia's base for it.

 

For the price, I would have surely bough that one had it been in stock and had glossy screen, ddr3 or ddr5 either one cause it looks much better (but only thing that would make me probably not buy it is the matte screen, I hate matte screens, just do not have the color pop that glossy does, I do have a Samsung 1080p 22" matte led LCD TV I got last week that looks great but it still cant compare to glossy - to me anyway). The 860m is only ddr5 I think.

 

If it has a touch screen and a 4GB GTX850m GDDR5, I'm completely sold. Any stated release date yet? I've been also eyeballing the Y50 for a couple months now.

 

Looks like the "best" configuration will be a 4gb 850m gddr3. An Asus customer service person just told me that she didn't know the release date..this place says mid-may but who knows. Asus ROG G550JK 15.6'' FHD IPS 4GB-GTX850M/16GB/1TB HDD | Buy DVDs, Games, Computer Hardware and more - Next Day Delivery in NZ

 

Whats the point of 4gb.. I had it in my 680m.. and now my 780m.. I haven't found any evidence games will need this memory size for a long time. By the time they do, I can promise you that you wont have your 4gb 850m by then. Get a N550JK today for cheaper and deal with a silver chassis

 

Yeah, the regular N550JK sounds like the best option.

Amazon.com: ASUS N550JK-DS71T 15.6-Inch Touchscreen Laptop: Computers & Accessories Any idea whether this comes with a regular optical drive or a bluray reader/writer? Also, does it have an extra sata/msata slot for an ssd, or do I have to get an optical drive caddy?

Edit: amazon reviews say to put the original hdd in an optical drive caddy (sata ii) and an ssd in the hdd slot (sata iii)

 

Thats the exact model sitting on my coffee table right now. Its just a standard DVD writer. You missed the sale last weekend.. it was 1049.. Anyways, if you were local enough, i'd just sell you mine so I dont have to return it to Amazon lol.

 

Where (in the us?) are you?

 

Jacksonville, Florida.. PM me, I can't seem to figure out how to PM people on here

 

Thought link was posted with a GDDR5 version.. http://123done.com.au/Asus-G550JK-CN156H-Notebook

I said that about the sata ii and sata iii, only from info I have ready on here about the JV/JK. No msata though.

 

I'm near DC, so shipping might not be worth it. Is there even a pm function?

 

How much more?

Whoops, I must have overlooked it. Sorry.

 

yes, click on their name first, don't see it for you though, must be turned off on yours or something?

 

He's got a new account or not enough posts..

 

I get a huge shipping discount through work if you're interested,. Like 15~ bucks to ship maybe less.. I can get you a quote.

 

2GB of GDDR5 costs about 20$, 2GB of DDR3 about 10$. (Based on PS4 BOM and DramExchange).
So GDDR5 would add about 10$ to BOM.

850M with DDR3 has about 32 GB/s bandwidth - so if a game is using full 2GB of memory, it will have less than 16 fps (32/2).
Actual framerate would be even lower, as this is the limit by bandwidth alone.

Desktop 780 Ti has 336 BG/s bandwidth and 3GB = 112 fps theoretical limit by memory bandwidth, if full 3GB is used.

Geforce 256 DDR had usually 32MB of memory and 4.8 GB/s bandwidth = (4,8/0,032) = 75 fps theoretical limitation from memory speed when all memory is in used.
So we can see this ratio has held true for long time. I suppose something around Bandwidth/60 rounded to next full GB is definetely "enough with a safe margin" memory.
That would mean
Desktop 780 Ti = 336/100 = 5.6 GB = round to 6 GB
850M GDDR5 = 80/60 = 1.33 GB = round to 2 GB
850M DDR3 = 32/60 = 0.53 GB = round to 1 GB
Geforce256 DDR = 4.8/60 = 80 MB

This is oversimplification, but gives you some kind of idea would 4GB of DDR3 be useful (answer = not).
780 Ti does not seem to be held back by being just 3 GB, so this must not be very far off.

 

I'm not sure how you're talking about the viewing angles of the Y50 TN panel. Nobody has seen one yet. All the videos of the CES demo model were with the 4K IPS panel, so there is nothing out there in the wild that would let you know what the viewing angles on the Y50 TN screen will be.

I don't think the G550JK has a touchscreen option. It's not listed on Asus' website. And as discussed above and elsewhere, I'm fairly certain GDDR5 is not available on the G550JK. Everyone seems to be placing a ton of hope on one random Australian resller's page stating that, but I'm almost positive it's a mistake.

Where are you coming up with the $500 figure. I think the site you were looking at was in Australia so that price was in Australian dollars, so it's not comparable to the US price. The G550JK should cost about the same as the N550JK. It doesn't have a touchscreen, so you lose a little bit there and that probably pays for the slight tweaks in the cosmetics.

 

any links or comments on how to remove the bluray drive and put in harddrive caddy? any links to which caddys work?

 

Hi! I'm planning on getting a N550JK as well.

Question:
- Is it safe to run the unit on AC adapter alone? (battery removed)
I'm aware that the battery is removable (it's just screwed to the inside of the chassis). But since it is not hot-swappable like others, I'm not sure if this is safe, or if it will affect the laptop/circuitry in anyway.

Reason:
- I'll be using it as a desktop replacement so it'll probably never leave the computer table. (I can always place the battery back - if ever needed).
- I assume this should prolong the battery life.

This would be my first laptop so feel free to correct me
Thank you!

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I'm also considering the G550JK.
The only difference with N550JK are: (1) Color scheme which I think I like; (2) No more external sub-woofer.
Decision will depend on availability and price difference.

 

If there is no GDDR5 in the G550JK, I dont see what was the point in releasing a gamer branded version of the N550JK with just a black tone color.

Seems like a poor call by Asus if that is the case in my opinion.

 

I noticed that later but didnt edit my post.

 

Same thing happened with the N56JR -> G56JR
Maybe they just want to get more money out of the models

The difference in price is not that big though. At least not in the model I saw.
A seller in Malaysia sells these laptops (both have the same specs):
G56JR-CN183H (USD $1,230.56) -vs- N56JR-S4018H (USD $1,198.59) -- $31.97 difference

For gamers, that is a bummer.
For people like me though, I wouldn't mind since I like the color. I'd buy the black version But then again, availability here in the Philippines sucks!

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If anyone can answer my previous post that would help a lot:
N550JK powered by AC adapter alone (non-hot-swappable battery removed)

 

Same with N56 vs G56. Although they added an IPS display in the G56.