ASUS K93SV review wanted

Hi guys. Im looking for any review or experience with ASUS K93SV as in this link:

ASUS K93SV-YZ107V - Intel i7-2630QM - Føniks A/S

I enjoy gaming

 

There's one here:
Asus K93SV-YZ094V Notebook im Test Dampfhammer à la Asus auf notebookjournal.de

Google Translate

This article says it can support 3.5" hard drives

Asus K93SV Notebook Supports 3.5-Inch Hard Drives - Softpedia

 

Then you'll want to look at something else. The GPU in this model isn't all that great for gaming. Consider a G73 or G74 instead.

 

I bought it last month here in Italy for a cheap price and I'm very happy about it.

I'm not a gamer, so I'm not worried about the GT540M card. It performs very well for my needs together with the integrated Intel HD graphics. Video playback is really smooth, the 18 inch screen with the splendid function totally satisfy my taste.

Keyboard layout is also very good, I can type with ease and the controls are pretty much complete.

The memory access is really fast: I upgraded it with additional 8 GB of 1333 RAM and with 12 gigs I can run like six virtual machines with no slow downs and in the same time I do have like 800 threads open.

The storage is another sweet thing about this notebook: it do have a primary 3.5 drive (in my case a fast 7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda 7200.12, 1 TB size. U can install everything u want if needed, also a 3 Gigs drive.

There is a 2'5 expansion bay for the second hard drive and I installed a blazing fast SSD Crucial M4 and I converted the original master disk to a slave data disk simply using the basic, then complete bios.

I also bought an additional BD-ROM burder (mine original had a DVD-RW drive) and I can watch and burn BD-ROMS very very well.

The notebook is solid and made with alluminium and some hard plastic, totally solid.

It do have the advanced pointing device made by Elan and it do have a lot of nice features and it work very well.

The USB 3 port is definitely fast (130 MB using a Verbatim 2 GB USB 3).

Mine had an Atheros wireless card. I worked well, then I needed bluwtooth so I bought a fast and unexpensive Intel 1030 with integrated wireless/bluetooth function and it worked pretty ok out of the box.

It is also very silent and - incredible to say - the battery - with some tweak and using power for gear - stand even for THREE!!! HOURS if the use is simple surfing, document writing, reading. Like 2 hours and half if u watch a movie.

The only real cons of this notebook - for me - is the keyboard in the sense it is not illuminated. I always known keyboard wasn't illuminated when I bought the notebook, then now I really miss an illuminated keyboard. I hope I can find some compatible, maybe some illuminated keyboard from another Asus model to upgrade with.

Another great cons is the Nvidia GT540M video card is SOLDERED on the motherboard, so u can't upgrade the video card :-(((

Here the Windows 7 Performance Index:

Processor: 7.4
Memory: 7.6
Video card: 5.7
Video card 3D: 6.7
Primary hard drive (in my case the SSD): 7.9

Very very happy. If u have any question, please feel free to ask.

I forgot to say I would advice to do like I did: I bought the basic model and I upgraded myself. Doing so It was really much more cheap then bought the top version from Asus and I choose the components myself.

For some disassembly guide, Ken on this forum was very helpfull and it is quietly easy to upgrade RAM, HD, optical drive, memory, wireless/bluetooth card. Obviously u need some skills.

Please feel free to ask if u need more.

 

I bought a K93SV for little money. The deal sounded too good to be true.
Unlike about any other portable system, this one comes with 4 memory slots so I plugged in 16GB and an SSD in the 2.5" slot (the machine has a 3.5" drive with slot too). Everything worked flawlessly from the beginning and I am very happy with my sytem. It's very quiet and it has a great thermal design which is a show stopper in many portable systems. I am monitoring the temperatures of my thermal zones and they all stay below 70 degrees C even under heavy load, I am living in a hot place in Italy without A/C.

Over the years I have had a whole lot of laptops from about all common brands that exist but my (other) ASUS is the only one that is still up and running after 12 years. I have good faith in the ASUS brand as they are the largest MB supplier.

This however might not be the best machine for gaming, it comes with an Intel graphics adapter which uses 1.5 GB of shared memory.

 

No! This is not true. If u don't want to use the Integrated graphic card, u can configure Lucid Virtue Utility to just use discreet video card (GT540M soldered on board) and doing so use all your RAM for your applications.

As I said, I mostly think the soldered GT540M Nvidia card is the only flawness of this brilliant machine, especially becouse it is soldered and so it can't be upgraded.

Integrated HD is pretty much the same in performance, in fact SandyBridge integrated video card is really good.