Asus z70v/Refresh vs z71v?

First post~

Okay, my old faithful Inspiron 500m, after 2+ years of intense use every day, is starting to fall apart. The power connector's so loose that I can't usually even get it to turn on, and the battery has been badly damaged. It's time to replace it, and I've settled on one of Asus's z7x models.

The question is, which one? The choice would be a no-brainer (z70va Refresh!) except for one thing: I run Gentoo Linux, and ATI has been about as supportive of Linux as a broken boxspring is of a sumo wrestler.

In all respects except the video card, I much prefer the z70v/va Refresh, but I'm really worried about Linux support for ATI products. Should I get the z71v just because it has the nVidia card, or go with the Refresh and try to tough it out?

 

Tough it out and you'll be happier I believe. Right now if you were looking at the Z70v I'd say you'll be out because it takes 3-4 months for all the Linux guys to get on top of everything. If you get a Z70va, I'd make a dual boot system, at least for now. It's going to be months before things are squared away to the point where you'll be happy.

We've got a customer who set up a linux forum for the M6 series (which is now the Z70 series) about a year and a half ago.... he's someone you might want to talk to. If he can't help you out, someone he knows or someone on his forum will be on top of it. Then again, if you could help, they'd certainly be interested in talking to you too...

By the way, now that I look for the link, the site is down.. I'll try to contact him this week and see if they still have the forum - just maybe moved to another place.

 

WOW that was a fast response ^_^ Thank you~

Um, I do dualboot actually, XP Pro and Gentoo Linux. Windows is mostly there because I run some MIDI apps that won't run in WINE (and native sequencers in Linux like Rosegarden are just awful).

I've actually had a very good experience dualbooting with Gentoo and would be happy to help write up guides or tutorials on getting the most out of it on a Pentium-M. The speed increase is phenomenal--compiled with NPTL support and optimized for Pentium-M as GCC 3.4.x allows, the speedup over Windows is at least 1.5x for comparable applications. If you can get in contact, let me know if there's any way I can help--thanks~!

 

Just going off topic: Is your avatar from Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabito?

If not, hmmm it looks very familiar...

 

Wow, yes...thought no one else knew about that series *^^* Well...kind of tells you something about me I guess, that avatar.

Um, on-topic, I'm selling an HP nx6125 notebook here at school and will use the proceeds plus some of my saved money to purchase the z70va Refresh. Would anyone here like it? I'll sell it for $1100 here instead of $1200 like at school (list price was $1249 + shipping + tax). If anyone's interested just IM or email me~

 

LOL

It's pretty interesting but I go through about one episiode a week

I finished episiode 7 recently

Depending on the notebook's age + specs, it should go for around $1000-$1100

eBay is an option

 

Ah, forgot to mention...I just took it out of the box, booted it, saw some hardware diagnostics, went "Um...this isn't what I ordered...dammit, dad!" and put it back. It's had about 3 hours of use total x_x Need to sell~

 

Can't you return it?

Doesn't look that bad..

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1830443,00.asp

It may be at the $850~ area then..

 

Is the X700 128MB better than the GF Go6600 128MB?
The FAQ in the hardware section says otherwise..

 

x700 = 6600 Go.

It's about the same, but ATi/nVidia fans can say otherwise...

I've also heard they perform better for certain games, etc. but seriously, does it matter that much?

 

the 6600 go is comparable to the x700 in most systems, but the z71v's 6600 go is underclocked because of its poor cooling system.

So for specific systems, the z70refresh's x700 performs better than the z71v's 6600 go.

You'll see toshibas and sagers with 6600 gos benchmarking 2200+ on 3dmark05, while the z71v will only hit over 1800.

 

Interesting. Looks like buying a laptop is more complicated than I thought. How does the z71v's 6600 compare to the z70v's x700 64MB (ie. not the refresh version)?

 

The non refresh version actually has the 64mb dedicated x600 (note x7000. To make a long story short, they don't compare. The 6600 dominate it on synthetic benchmarks. The x700 does outperform the 6600 on the Z71V in benchmarks because it is under clocked due to heat issues (like someone else said above me).

 

The x700 in the Z70VA also has decently low clocks there has been ppl that have gotten 3000+ in 3dmark 05 with the x700 128MB overclocked.

 

Hi Justin,

After months of research, I've decided to get the z70va. I was wondering if you ever found the linux forum for this series. Thanks in advance for your help.

Steve

 

The guy who actually used to run that, doesn't anymore and I couldn't find it online... I tried calling up the customer and he must have moved.... sorry, but no luck there.