Asus G51vx-rx05 (old model) questions

Hi,

I am considering buying the old G51 best buy model (from buy.com now).
Is this computer still the best option for a budget gaming laptop? are there any close competitors in the near $799 price range that you can get these for now?

Thanks for the help

 

Hey! I just went through the same thing your going through right now. I was debating buying that RX05. You can scroll down to the bottom for the "bottom" line or if you're bored you can read my post.

While I just ordered my laptop today (I wnet with a G51VX-X3A), I have been researching getting a laptop for about 1.5 ~ 2 months and I've poured over forum after forum. SO I might not be the best help, but I'll do what I can.

Here goes... The first thing all my uber geek friends have pointed out to me is that games are typically more restricted by GPU's rather than CPU's. Additionally, the CPU's are easaier to replace on a laptop as well. If you get a chance head over to ASUS's site and you'll see that under the processor there are like 10 different processors used with this laptop. That doesn't always ensure compatibility from what I understand, but it sure gets you going in the right direction. GPU's aren't impossible to replace, but certainly more difficult. That being said, you'll want to try and maximize the quality of your graphics card before anything else.

The GTX 260M, by most people's standards and for a budget gaming laptop, is certainly a capable card. If you get a chance head over to tomsguide.com and check out this very basic laptop buying guide. They put the GPU's in layman's attainable table. It helped put things in order in my head. I don't think I've seen any other non-ASUS laptop with this GPU under $1500 (and I was looking everywhere; ibuypower, cyberpowerpc, powernotebooks, newegg, etc.) with this card. Almost all the others in this price range had the ATI 4650.

The 2.0 Core 2 Duo is a modest processor, but you are buying a BUDGET gaming laptop. While not being a racehorse, it no slouch either. Do a quick search for reviews on it and you'll see it's not bad when it comes to the fps benchmarks at it's native resolution (1366x768).

I went down to my local Best Buy, because I knew they had a model on display that was almost exactly like the RX05 (same resolution & case w/ a different graphic on the case) just to get a feel for it. The case is really nice. It's big for a 15.6" laptop and the keyboard will take some getting used to (easier thanks to backlit keys), but it's much smaller than an Alienware.

I ended up going with X3A because I wanted the higher resolution, built-in bluetooth, and the better processor. I also wanted to buy new; not refurbished, but I paid $400 more for those things. Pound for pound the RX05 is a better deal.

Bottom line: there is no other laptop out there for $800 that comes close to this thing. The closest thing I've seen is the CZ-10 for $900ish from iBuyPower.com, but that come with a ATI 4650 and it's only 512MB compared to the GTX 260M which has 1GB and is a better overall card. Also, from what I hear, the G51VX's are capable of RAID. And don't forget that lighted keyboard (the other huge selling point for me)!

Hope that helps! Let me know what you end up doing!

 

One pretty huge difference, future upgradability wise, is that the G51VX-X3A (newegg model I believe) is compatible with quad core chips whereas the RX05's bios is locked to dual cores. Notebook GPUs are practically impossible to upgrade but there are a few and I mean a few exceptions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=86864. GTA4 is a recent example of a game that is both taxing for the CPU and GPU but a majority of games would benefit more from a better GPU as long as the CPU can keep up (ex. Crysis). IIRC, a stock 260M (which is factory underclocked by ASUS due to heat concerns) is on par with a desktop 9800GT and it is much more than capable, it's flat out beastly for the price range it's in. One of the main problems with the Asus gaming laptops is heat and this one is no exception, fortunately mine has some reasonable temps.

I have had my RX05 for about a week now and couldn't be happier. I got it brand new in box at a Best Buy outside my local area for $700 with the 1 year warranty so I suggest stopping by any nearby ones and try to snag one if you can or ask the workers to check other stores. The 2.0GHz CPU clock is working fine for me but can easily be overclocked to a max around 2.5GHz though around 2.2-2.4 seems to be the sweetspot and the low resolution allows me to max out my games on the native resolution. For a pure gaming system at $700-799 nothing comes close.

 

This has been confirmed?

 

I remember one of the newegg models accepted quad cores, I may be wrong though.

 

the G51VX-A1 iirc, was available at newegg (a stock config) and it had quads, but there has been no definitive test for the X3A. I have an X1A (X3A stock with vista instead of win7) and I'll be hopefully testing a QX9300 soon.

 

Thanks a lot for the help everyone, very informative. Do you think that the max of 4gb DDR2 RAM will be a problem in the future? i know 4 gigs is enough for pretty much anything right now, but i'm concerned (maybe wrongly) that the max of 4 gigs may pose a threat in the future..

 

and by the way, Kfactor, are you a tennis player??
just wondering, because Kfactor is a model of Wilson tennis racket

 

4GB of ram will be fine, and DDR2-DDR3 performance difference is negligible at best.

 

Hehe yes I am. Gots me two Kpro Tours. My favorite is the K61 but I am anxiously awaiting the BLX line (I'm assuming you are a tennis player? If not don't mind this nonsense )

 

haha yes, I am a tennis player, to put it lightly.
I play college tennis at UT Tyler.
I play the Head Youtek Speed Pro myself

So does anyone else have any possible substitutes for this computer?

Thanks again for all of the Advice!

 

Whoa UT Tyler? Going to UT Arlington myself...small world eh? I always wanted to hit with the Speed Pro, I'm a sucker for flat beams .

 

wow man, thats pretty cool. maybe i'll see you on the court sometime