Best Asus Gaming 17' laptop for video editing ?

Hi guys,
I am new to this forum and wish everybody a merry x mas !

I am looking for a very fast 17' laptop.

I am not a gamer at all, but do a lot of video editing using HD, and special effect programs like after effect, adobe premiere ... so I actually need something fast to run it all.

It needs to be a laptop because I am traveling a lot.

I am wondering about those 3 laptops asus has to offer:

Asus G71V-Q1 :
http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=G71V-Q1&Category_Code=

G71g-A2 :
http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=G71G-A2

Asus G70Sg-A2:
http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=G70Sg-A2

The G70 seem top be the best over all with 8gb memory, the best graphic card with 1Gb, 8Gb ram etc .... but uses a dual core T9500.

the G71 which has a smaller graphic card , less Gb memory etc ( 4Gb )... But runs the quad core QX9300

For more infos look at the previous link .

My question is quiet simple .... video editing n needs a lot of rendering.
What is better ?
a quad core QX9300 but less GB ram and smaller graphic card with 512Mb
Or a dual core T9500 but with 8Gb memory and a higher graphic card with 1Gb .

Wich one of those 3 laptop will be faster for video editing ?

Let me know please !

Thanks a lot for your answers and enjoy the end of the year !

Bye

Jer

 

how intensive is this video editing? By any chance is it HD video editing? If so the g71v MAY make more sense

 

I find the G50V is nice for editing. Dual HDD means more space for storage and raid 0 can speed up encoding/decoding work if your CPU is fast enough.

The GPU wont really help you with anything, but the large amount of ram, dual hdds, and fast cpu definitly will

So one of the G70/71 series will work well for you. So in essence your paying for something you do not really need (strong gpu) but they are priced so well that its still a great deal.

I only use mine for video/photo editing these days and I am happy with it.

For what you linked definitely the G71G is the best middle ground, it has 6GB of RAM! and cost less than the others.

If you have a bigger budget the G71V is much better though it "only" has 4gb of ram (wich means smaller ram preview of rendering) but it has a quad core cpu, so it could cut your rendering times in HALF.

I have a quad on my desktop and the difference between a quad and dual core is night and day for encoding.

 

Hi,
thanks a lot for your answer !
So, you are saying for video editing I should go for a quad core and 4 Gb ram and the smaller grapic card,
instead of going for the dual core but with 8GB and the higher graphic card .

Thanks for your answer ...

And yes it is for a lot of HD video editing !


Jere

 

I always thought that the graphic card is more crucial for encoding than the CPU...

 

I agree with vicious here. Rendering is primarily CPU dependent so having the quad core CPU will definitely be more beneficial. Keep in mind that the G71G doesn't have raid, but if I remember correctly, the G71V does.

 

For the vast majority of apps it isn't. I mean, you'll probably need a good enough video card to run the HD video, but not much more.

However, in the future, it might. By then, any laptop bought today will be long obsolete though.

 

Hi,
thanks for your answers guys,
I'll mainly use this laptop for HD video editing,
I use adobe premiere to edit the video but also after effect to generate some advanced effects.
So having a quad core with 4Gb Ram and a 5400 T SATA hard drive ( G71v) will be better for me than having a dual core with 8 Gb Ram better graphic card and faster 7200 SATA Hard drive for advanced HD video editing (G70Sg) ?
Thanks a lot for your help

 

Yes the quad core will be the most important thing. Playing the video and encoding the video is a cpu task not a gpu task.

Ram is important but 4gb is sufficient. I know in sony vegas you have "ram preview" it render a portion of the video into your ram so more ram = longer preview.

I am not sure if the faster HDD will make a difference, that depends on how fast the cpu can render the video and how/what encoding your using. A single pass easy encode may become HDD limited (bottlenecked) but something like what I would use for HD would be a high quality 2 pass x264 encode and that takes a TON of cpu power and even the 5400rpm drive will be just fine but the cpu is going to be maxed out at 100% on all 4 cores for quite a while

 

Actually looking at the laptops, The G71V-Q1 may be the best choice with the quad core built it. It's only 4GB ram but i'm 99% sure its upgradeable. The G71g-A2 with the same chassis has 6GB of ram split 2GB x 3. Go with the G71g-Q1 and upgrade from there. Even if it turns out you can't actually fit another module in, I'm sure soon there will be 4GBx2 sticks of DDR2 800 ram on newegg.

The only other trade-off is the video card. Don't expect to play games anywhere near native res with the 9700m GT. If you don't game much then its fine.

EDIT: scratch that. Buy the G71g-A2 and upgrade the CPU yourself. Only costs just under a thousand dollars. Sell off the T9400 and you'll end up with a total less than the cost of the G71V-Q1 but with significantly better specs.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-OEM-Core2...ItemQQimsxZ20081215?IMSfp=TL081215111001r8720

 

Im not sure the quad core & dual core versions are the same. I would imagine it has different cooling inside, and maybe even a different bios.

 

thanks for you advices guys !
I appreciate !
I'm not sure I can get more than 4Gb ram on the G71v ... that's why .
But after watching all your advices I would go for the G71v, I just can't find it anywhere to buy now, it has been sold out .. hahaha !

Thanks a lot 'll look more into it

Jere

 

I actually would like to know if it is possible to upgrade the ram on the G71V-7T043G, it would solve most of the problem.
thx
Jere

 

Oh yea... cooling and bios. May possibly be different.

Theoretically you should be able to upgrade the ram. The sister model has space for 3 ram modules. You may end up being stuck with 4GB ram though...

 

HI guys,
I just received the G71v with 4 Gb memory and the quad core !!!!
It looks very very nice , but preinstalled with vista ultimate 32 bits !
So it recognized only 3 Gb memory.
As I said I will be doing a lot of video editing and might want to upgrade my ram later .
How and should I instal a 64 bit version of vista for it o recognize the 4 Gb memory ?
What the point of installing a 4 Gb memory in the laptop and instal the 32 bit version ?
Let me know please !

happy new year to all of you

jere

 

Jere, Congratulations, you dog......can't find a G71V-Q1 anywhere where I am!
Looking at the G71V-Q1 link that was posted in the 1st post of this thread, it specs the hard disks at 640 GB (X2) at 7200 RPM.
It also specs Vista Ultimate 64 bit, with capacity to read all of the 4GB of ram.
Perhaps you live elseware than USA, I do notice different configurations based on different locals/countries.

FYI:
For video editing/encoding, Quad Core will complete task in approx. half the time at same clock speed Dual Core.
Example: For 23.5GB BD-HD video encoding project, expect 6 to 9 hours processing time on Quad Core versus 26 to 30 hours on Dual Core of same clock speed..
Best performance for me is writing from one internal Sata-HD to another internal Sata-HD.
Worst performance is writing from HD to external USB/firewire HD, adds hours to task.
Writing from external USB/firewire HD to internal HD is actually close to internal HD to internal HD.
You might want to consider a dedicated HD with just the OS with updates, Premier (no anti-virus, no internet connections with programs running in background) that you can swap into your laptop for the best performance.
A friend is doing just that & it has made the impossible; ie: crashed/hung system when encoding in Premier when running his standard HD/OS full programs. To something doable on his Dual Core laptop with dedicated HD as described.

The 9700M/512MB GPU is the major negative for me on the G71V. Although this does not affect video editing/encoding speeds.
I hope the next G71V iteration will offer a 1GB GPU, ie: the 9800GT/1GB DDR3 as I like my Quad Core systems to do double duty as HTPC if necessary.
Also a clear path for ram expansion would be appreciated.

Make no doubt for what it is, at the price offered & with bugs corrected, the
G71V-Q1 or European equivalent seems to be a great deal.......if you can find one available!

 

Jerekite-

You Lucky dog!

Ive been browsing the forums & vendors sites to learn anything I can about the g71g-Q1, because I want to do the same thing you are (image, audio, & video editing) with one of my own.

It appears you CAN upgrade the memory on the G71's up to 12gb (when the 4gb ram sticks come out -they are already out for speeds under 800MHz, so 800MHz & Up should be out very soon) --Vista ultimate 64bit will recognize up to 15gb or so, IF the chipset (and the number of sockets on the motherboard) will allow it.

I dont know if the G71-Q1 has the chipset that can go that high though. All my spec reading is turning up conflicting results on the chipsets so far, so maybe you can help solve this mystery for all of us!

Our Holy grail here is the Intel PM45 +ICH10 chipset. (some vendors say yours comes with this, some say its something different) -this chipset will cap the ram limit at a whopping 16gb if you have enough sockets on the motherboard. -very cool.

The other chipset I also see on G71's is the PM35 +ICH9 chipset. -This one will cap your ram at only 8GB. For media editing, this cap will limit your laptop's future-proofing potential in the long-term.

for more on the P35+ich9 / P45+ich10, I went to tom's hardware & read some reports like this one:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-p45-chipset,1961-2.html


I believe all g71's have only 3 ram sockets like the g71g-A2 does, but to be certain, we'd love to see you pop off the access cover underneath yours and tell us if this is true on your g71g-Q1 version as well.

As for the Chipset, maybe someone else on here can tell us how to get Windows Vista to say if it's got the P35 or P45, (I'm still using XP for now)

But I do know this on Vista: when you open your device manager, look inside the "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" section near the bottom of the list, inside that folder, it will show if it's got the PM35's "ICH9" companion chip,or the PM45's "ICH10" companion chip. that ICH number should appear lots of times in there. If you can tell us what your G71G-Q1 says there, we would have this mystery 99.9% solved.


Another option to get even faster speed out of your portable media workshop is to install a pair of Solid State Hard Drives. Their read/write response time is nearly instantaneous, and brands like OCZ & Patriot are offering assorted sizes up to 250gb in size for about $900 & on down, depending on size, and adobe CS4 installs & works fine on these things.

 

How to determine Chipset info within Vista:

A free program to use to check your Chipset as well as just about everything else hardware wise on your computer is "SisSoft Sandra Lite". It will tell you your current ram, who made it, Part number, CAS timing, etc. Google for it.

Another program that's great to use especially when you want to re-install a corrupted or new OS is "DriverMax" It will also display Chipset information when you check for current drivers.
The program will update your drivers and save them to a file that you can access to save you time in reinstalling drivers. Again, Google for it.

Hope that helps in determining what Chipset you have and from that info how much ram you can run.

 

I have seriously considered trying this option myself!

But I have some questions for anyone out there who may have done this kind of an upgrade on one of these, or any other model.

Here are the processor's specs I found on intel's site:
Here's asus' default processor for the G71 series, the intel T9400: 2.53GHz core2 duo core.

http://ark.intel.com/cpu.aspx?groupID=35562

Here are the specs for the Hot Rod quad core processor Asus made available in the G71V-Q1, the Intel QX9300. 2,53GHz Core2extreme QUAD CORE.

http://ark.intel.com/cpu.aspx?groupId=36727

That being said:

One DESKTOP system builder I met says that since these processors are from the same socket family ("socket P"?) its just a plug & play solution, you'll be done & enjoying your new quad core in about 15 minutes. -he says.

I wasnt able to ask him if there are any cooling or bios issues to be concerned with before he had to leave.

So look at the thermal ("tdp") specs on those two intel pages I linked...

I have seen some custom system builders like BTOtech, Xotic pc, etc... offer processor upgrades on G71G-a2's, to faster dual core processors in the same family with similar thermal specs as the quad core. I doubt that the vendor, (or Asus!) will go thru the cost of getting/making a whole new chip cooler for such an upgrade. Maybe they will add some arctic silver heatsink compound to improve the efficiency of the laptop's existing cooler, but the vendors probably wont spend for a new cooler in an upgrade to a faster duo core processor (which happens get just as hot as that quad core, according to specs).

And as far as changing the processor, I've seen photos of the insides of the G71's already, if you're not afraid of upgrading your ram, upgrading the processor (or even video card-!) on a G71 is just about as easy- Asus made everything modular inside! Lookie here!:

http://www.gentechpc.com/Asus/G71g_review/asus_g71g_review.htm

just flip the computer over & pull off the back, the processor is labeled! you may need to loosen the fan assembly to get to the chip itself, but as long as you remember where everything came from, putting it back would be easy.

So if cooling capacity isnt a huge issue, and physically changing the processor isnt a huge issue,

what about Bios? (forgive me, but I never changed/flashed a bios before. -everyone I spoke to around here says doing so is dangerous and is a last resort to be feared, & wont tell me how)

are there any software issues or settings that must be done in this processor upgrade?

Can anybody post a "How-To" procedure for upgrading the processor in this machine?

 

The G71G* models do indeed have 3 200-pin SODIMM slots. The G71G-Q1 has a PM45 Chipset with ICH9-M. The G71V* has 2 DDR3-1066 SODIMMS, a PM45 and ICH9-M. A question I have for anyone is it states on intel's website that the PM45 motherboard is supposed to take 1066MHZ RAM (DDR3). Does anyone know if the G71G is capable of DDR2-1066, since the bus capability on the chipset is 1066MHZ.

I just got a G71G-Q1 and I added on 1TB (2x500GB 7200rpm SATA-150 HDD) and an Intel QX9300 CPU (2.53GHZ Core 2 Extreme 1066MHZ Front Side Bus with 12MB L2 Cache). It is my theory that since the G71G-Q1 accepts the QX9300 that it has 1066mhz bus speed capability. I am going to call ASUS and see if it is capable of accepting DDR2-1066. The Q9000 didn't seem like enough bang compared to my desktop server with 3TB, 16GB DDR2-1066, 2GB DDR3 VRAM (4x 24" HD monitors) and a 3GHZ Core 2 Extreme QX9650; it totally screams at everything even under heavy strain. My new G71 should come close since it isn't heavily loaded.

I want to upgrade to 12GB eventually, and I found Kingston ValueRAM 4GB 200-pin SODIMMs Kingston Part #'s: 4GB Module: KVR800D2S6/4G. And an 8GB Kit (2x4GB): KVR800D2S6K2/8G. Kingston does not show in their search engine that these work for the G71, but they only list the G71V which actually uses DDR3, so their engine is not accurate. It shows that Kingston ValueRAM 2GB is what can be added Part#: KVR800D2S6K2/4G - which is a DDR2-800 SDRAM SODIMM NON-ECC CL6 200-pin (but pointless because the G71G* comes with 3x2GB). The people at ASUS are supposed to get back to me with what modules are compatible within the next day or two. HP makes a 4GB but they're expensive, same for Corsair and they don't know if their 4GB is compatible. The crappy part is that the ASUS BIOS won't support 12GB until September . So for now I am going to buy the 8GB kit in hopes that the BIOS will support 10GB.

Does anyone know how much RAM Kubuntu AMD64, OpenSUSE AMD64, Fedora AMD64 support, Debian AMD64, and MacOS 10.5 x64 support? I want to install Vista then these after, but I will forget about one of them if they don't support at least 10GB.

Does anyone know what kernel and version of MacOS would offer the best support for the G71G-Q1? I am not very familiar with Apple software.

It sad that ASUS discontinued the G71V series, they were really awesome, they cost significantly less than converting the G71G-Q1 to the same processor (QX9300=$950). Plus it came with an internal ATSC/NTSC TV Tuner/AM/FM Radio, which is not available on the G71G. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. But, DDR3 is not available in 4GB modules right now, and the G71V only has 2 SODIMM slots, so you can have a lot more volatile memory in the G71G, but the bus isn't as fast.

What made up my mind to buy was the eye candy, it is an artful masterpiece, it has such great curves, colors and trim. Pictures on a computer screen or in a magazine do not give this Notebook its due justice. You have to see it in person to know its appeal. The only thing that I am impartial to is the glitter/sparkles on the keyboard, so ladies, this one will suit you well if you don't mind 7.8 pounds which is significantly lighter than any other 17" notebook capable of 1TB/12GB/Quad-core.

Does anyone have one of these yet, I am wondering about the battery life, it has a lot of power and only 8 cells. I am charging it now until tomorrow afternoon. I hope there is a rechargeable battery charger for it because I fly a lot and it will need to last at least 3 hours without the battery charger.

There is 3 performance settings on it (High Performance, Extreme, and Turbo Extreme) :wink: so maybe the high performance will last a little longer.

4GB Module:
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/PartsInfo.asp?root=us&LinkBack=http://www.kingston.com&ktcpartno=KVR800D2S6/4G

4GB Datasheet PDF:
http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KVR800D2S6_G.pdf

8GB Kit (2x4GB)
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/PartsInfo.asp?root=us&LinkBack=http://www.kingston.com&ktcpartno=KVR800D2S6K2/8G

8GB (2x4GB) Datasheet PDF:
http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KVR800D2S6K2_8G.pdf

4GB Kit (2x2GB)
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/partsinfo.asp?root=us&LinkBack=http://www.kingston.com&ktcpartno=KVR800D2S6K2/4G

4GB 2x2GB Datasheet PDF:
http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KVR800D2S6K2_4G.pdf

If you don't care about the Quad core, another option is to wait for the ASUS M70, it can be configured with 1GB VRAM (ATI Raedon) and capable of 1TB. Although, you could always add a better GPU to the G71G