Asus Owners; need advice

All right - so I've been shopping around for a new laptop for quite a while now. I don't play many games but I want something fast for a change. I do a lot of multi-tasking though (i.e.; will run several applications at the same time, including Firefox with TONS of tabs, Photoshop, music, torrents, etc.)

I've narrowed it down to the following models;

N50N-A1 (T9600 (2.8 Ghz, 6MB), 4 GB, 320 GB, GT 240M)
M60J (i7 720QM, 4 GB, 500 GB, GT 240M)

G51VX-X2a (T9600 (2.8 Ghz, 6MB), 4 GB, 320 GB, GT 260M)
G51J-A1 (i7 720QM, 4 GB, 320 x 2 GB, GT 260M)

Now one of the things that has always been a bit of a pain in the fopr laptops and me is that the speakers have often not being loud enough for me to hear a tv-show or movie I was watching on my laptop so that I had to connect external speakers (Toshiba, Acer). I understand that this is apparently the case with most laptops. The M60J is equipped with an Altec system which I assume would give better sound. Is the sound on the other laptops *really* bad? I'm not sure if I so keen with all the "media buttons" on this model.

Any input on any of these models would be greatly appreciated (right now, the G51J-A1 is probably on the top of the list, despite reports of weak sound). I'm also having difficulty picking between the dual 2.8 Ghz and the new i7 1.6 GHz...


Thanks!


Trishia.

 

I'd get the G51j and a good pair of USB headphones (circum-aural or supra-aural). Ghz isn't everything. The Core i7 architecture is the way things are going for Intel so I'd stick with that one. Remember the Core i7 is a quad-core processor...

... My $0.02

 

The i7 will clock to 2.8GHz on a dual threaded app anyways, no?

 

The Mobile i7 720 only has 4 cores and is not hyper-threaded...I believe the 9xx series is the only one that is hyperthreaded (i.e 2 logical threads per core). As far as overclocking it goes...I am not sure as I have only really read some of the architectural specs for the series.

 

Thats not what I meant. The turbo boost will turn off 2 cores and OC the other 2 cores to 2.8GHz if only 2 cores are being used. so in a dual threaded app, the i7 720 is equivalent (with more cache and better architecture) to a 2.8GHz dual core.

 

@EIement
You are right about the turbo kicking the processor up to 2.8Ghz...

Intel® Core™ i7 Mobile Processor Specifications

 

Well, thanks for the reply!

Now if only they can get it back in stock in Canada.


Trishia.

 

I will say the asus g51j's speakers are not loud that is the only bad point i have with this laptop, and even if you put headphones on. As the other person suggested, usb headphones, since it would use a different sound system

 

Usually if I watch a show or movie though, I don't wear headphones. With my current laptop, I tend to plug in external speakers and put them way up instead. I'm not looking for amazingly loud sound, just enough to hear episodes where the sound is sometimes not as good a quality as it should be. By the way, I read the following in a review for the G51J;

"One note, for some stupid reason there is sound control in the bios, it is set to 4 by default, it goes to 8 but really its still kinda quiet."

But as he seems to state, don't know if it'll be much help.


Trishia.

 

I think its goes to 2.8 on single, 2.4 on dual core.

 

Yup; from another post:

Here are the Turbo Mode boosts.

i7 820QM: 2/8/10(4 core/2 core/1 core)
i7 720QM: 1/6/9

So the speed will turn out to be:

i7 820QM: 1.73GHz base/2.0GHz 4 cores/2.8GHz 2 cores/3.06GHz 1 core
i7 720QM: 1.6GHz base/1.73GHz 4 cores/2.4GHz 2 cores/2.8GHz 1 core

Which I guess is why I'm hesitating on the i7 720QM vs the T9600 (2.8 GHz, dual)... I wonder if the better architecture is worth it. The 820QM is nice, but so much pricier!

 

Well i haven't seen a head to head comparison, but my guess is even at 2.4 the i7 should be close or better than the T9600, clocks aren't always the best way to compare CPU. But even if it lose at 2core (i don't think it will), having the extra 2 cores for the future will be a lot better. If i were buying a laptop atm, specially a G5X series and i had $1400 the G51J would be my choice, a G60 + T9600 would pass this price, the newegg version only comes with P8700 at $1279, upgrading the cpu would put it over the G51J aswell. I think for what the G51J offers there is not much to think, unless you have to money to go up to a sager.