Couple Questions About Asus G1S-B2

I was all set to buy the G1S-B2, but then I saw the thread here that there is a majpr CPU problem with the G1S where the CPU only runs at half speed anytime the battery is below 90% or when it's plugged into an outlet. Now, I may have misinterpreted that, but if that is indeed the issue, does it also affect the G1S-B2?

The other question I have is also regarding the CPU. It runs at 2.4Ghz with 4GB cache and it is Santa Rosa (whatever that means...I guess that's a good thing). How would this compare to the Penryn 9300 which is 2.5Ghz with a 6MB cache? Is the difference significant?

Thanks for any help.

 

Well, if you had done your research more carefully, you would have found out that the problem is not at all "major", and the main reason is that:

is incorrect. The correct statement is:

See the difference? The first makes for perhaps 99% of the notebook lifetime. The second is maybe under 5%.

Another reason is that there is an easy and safe fix that eliminates the issue.

CPU: Well there will be a speed difference (mainly because of the cache, and not because of the .1GHz delta). I cannot give numbers though, maybe google can help you there.

As to how significant it is, depends on what you do with the notebook. If you game, many people would say that it doesn't matter because the bottleneck is the GPU. However, it appears there is evidence that the CPU can also help quite a lot.

 

Wow, thanks for the prompt reply. That clarifies things for me. I think I will go ahead and order it today when I get out of work. Thanks again.

 

Glad I helped. Take into account that the CPU question has not actually been fully answered. (And I don't think it can be without actual benchmarks in the CPU-intensive applications like games that you use)

 

I will be doing some gaming on it, but also a lot of PhotoShop and some video/music editing. I'm hoping the processor will be good all of these applications. I had narrowed my choices down to the Asus M50SV-A1, but some people were telling me that its 1400x900 screen resolution would not be great for PhotoShop so I started rethinking it which led me to the G1S-B2.
It's about $300 more, but the screen has a higher resolution (1680x1050), the HD is faster, and it the graphics card is better. The downside is that the processor is slightly slower and has a smaller cache.

I think overall, the G1S-B2 will be the better choice for my needs, but then again, I'm pretty much a noob when it comes to this (this will be my first ever laptop). If you think I'm making a bad decision, please let me know, otherwise I'll be ordering the G1S later today.

Thanks.

 

For the needs you describe, the difference in cpu speed and cache is mostly irrelevant; the vast majority of users will NEVER notice the difference in daily usage (although benchmarks are a different story) until more software is engineered to take advantage of Penryn's new SSE4 instruction set, and as noted the bottleneck in notebook gaming is pretty much always the gpu. Battery life improvements with the Penryn procs are modest, and Asus isn't known recently for anything resembling long battery life (most of their 14-17" models top out at 2-2.5 hours or less with standard batts, never more than 3). Higher res lcd's and faster HDD will definitely be better for Photoshop, but it depends on what you're used to using there - 1400x900 is essentially standard 19" desktop lcd res and may be adequate for you, and higher res for your notebook lcd will shrink your icons etc on the screen.

 

Arrrgh..now you got me second guessing the G1S-B2 because maybe the screen resolution WILL be too high for me. I am used to 1200x800 as that's what I've been using for the past 5 years. I wish I could just see what 1680x1050 looks like so I could decide. But, if I decided that icons and text were too small for comfort, couldn't I just go into display settings and lower the resolution? Or does it not work that way?

 

While you can lower the resolution on a lcd, the quality of the screen text etc plummets (the screen starts to look fuzzy) when you do so because text scaling is ineffective in LCDs. You can adjust the dpi for the icons to make them larget, but that does nothing for text quality. Some people have no problems with smaller text because their eyesight is good, others really hate it or it causes eyestrain with prolonged use; ymmv.

If you're used to 1200x800, 1400x900 should be fine for you. Else, see if you can find a WSXGA+ screen in person at a local retailer, or find somebody with a CRT screen and check if it supports a horizontal resolution around 1600 so you can get a feel for appearance.

 

Thanks, ClearSKies. I was checking Best Buy and Circuit City's inventory to see if they have any 15.4" monitors with a res of 1680x1050, but I apparently they don't carry any. Not sure where else I could go to see in person what that resolution looks like...

 

i think you can read the notebook screen guide here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1147074