K95VM: A really great Ivy-Bridge-based deal for the budget-minded

I've been wishing for some time to purchase an Ivy-Bridge laptop, and finally I bought an Asus K95VM. I've lived with it for a few days now, I've played around with it a bit, I've even opened it up beyond its two user-oriented covers — and I thought of writing up a reviewish account of my experience with what I regard as a genuinely great deal, in hopes that this thread can be of some use to other NBR members.

Some things to note are:

1. I live in Greece, therefore all prices are in Euros — and the market situation, competitive models etc reflect how things are here. You should always compare any prices stated to the ones valid for your local market (a prudent tactics in all cases anyhow, since the PC market is so fluid) and always reach an educated choice.
2. There are topics to arise within this quest of mine, where I'll definitely need the opinions and suggestions of other owners who know their ways around Asus laptops much better than yours truly. So, I'm also counting on (some of) you, guys!

The roadmap of my K95VM NBR-quest will (more or less) be the following:

1. Selecting the K95VM.
2. What you get out of the box.
3. Upgrading the RAM, 1st take.
4. Installing an SSD as primary.
5. Upgrading the secondary HDD.
6. Upgrading the RAM, 2nd take.
7. Clean installation of Win7 x64.
8. Performance & comparisons.

1. Selecting the K95VM.

My specs for this purchase were: an Ivy-Bridge Core i7 laptop with a Full-HD screen, 16GB of RAM and a Blu-Ray writer. It'd be nice for me to have a large storage capacity built-in the machine. I didn't care for the screen size, the weight or the battery time — plus I do not play any games (so, despite the fact that I'd love to have the most powerful GPU possible, it actually didn't matter for me if such a feature would result in some major expense).

When I went shopping around, I faced the following facts:

• The Asus K95VM was the lowest-priced one, at 999 euros and fitting my specs, albeit with 8GB of RAM (nevertheless upgradable to 16GB). It came with the i7-3610QM and a 1TB hdd.
• The Sony Vaio SV-E1711W1E was at 1048 euros, but with a BD player (not writer). It had 6GB of RAM, and it came with the i7-3612QM and a 750GB hdd. It had a better GPU (HD 7650M, while the Asus had the GT 630M).
• The Dell Inspiron 7720 was at 1164 euros. It came with the i7-3610QM, 6 GB of RAM, the (better) GT 650M, a DVD (no BD here!), and a 750GB hdd.
• The Asus Asus N56VZ-DS71 was at 1369 euros — and there were some more Asuses, Dells and Vaios at even higher prices.
• At the time I was shopping around there was no Lenovo contender, but today one can get here the IdeaPad Y580 for 1199 euros and up, depending on the exact configuration.

To me it was obvious there and then what the best response to my “scope of acquisition” was; so, I bought the K95VM — and I'm oh-so glad I did!


2. What you get out of the box.

First of all, this is the Asus page for K95VM: ASUS - Notebooks - ASUS K95VM

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The exact specifications of the machine where my 999 euros got allocated were:

Processor	Intel® Core™ i7 3610QM Processor
Operating System	Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Chipset	Intel® HM76 Express Chipset
Memory	8GB of DDR3 1600 MHz SDRAM, 4 x SO-DIMM socket for expansion up to 16 GB
Display	18.4" 16:9 Full HD (1920x1080) LED Backlight
Graphic	NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 630M with 1GB DDR3 VRAM
Storage	Dual HDD Support
Storage (HDD#1)	3.5" SATA 1TB 7200rpm Barracuda 7200.12
Storage (HDD#2)	2.5" SATA empty
Optical Drive	Blu-Ray Writer
Card Reader	3 -in-1 card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC)
Camera	0.3 Mega Pixel Fixed web camera
WiFi	Integrated 802.11 b/g/n
Built-in Bluetooth™	V4.0
Ethernet	10/100/1000 Base T (RJ45 LAN Jack)
Microphone-in jack	1
Headphone-out jack	1
USB 3.0 ports	2
USB 2.0 ports	2
HDMI	1
Audio	Altec Lansing® Speakers
Battery	6Cells 4700 mAh 50 Whrs
Dimensions	44.0 x 29.5 x 3.55~4.82 cm (WxDxH)
Weight	4.1 kg (with 6 cell battery)
Manufacturer Warranty	2-year limited International hardware warranty

Now, for my personal view of the K95VM so far: It is very well built — and it feels very well, too. My pack of laptops consists of one old-timer Fujitsu, three consumer-grade Fujitsu-Siemens, one upscale-consumer HP, one entry-level Lenovo, one entry-level Toshiba and one professional-grade Dell (this K95VM was my first Asus laptop). And I admit that I sometimes find myself stroking the K95VM affectionately — something I can't remember ever doing to any other of them (save for that nice burgundy Dell). Its plastics don't look cheap. It is neatly assembled and arranged inside (I got allergic to the lack of this quality, because of my Amilos), and removing covers and/or disassembling can be performed nicely and in a straightforward way. It has a quite good chiclet keyboard. Its speakers sound very well. Its cover/screen doesn't have a lock, but it opens in a rather satisfactory way (and using one hand). Thanks to the way its bottom surface is designed in order to accommodate the 3.5" HDD, it sits in an inclined position which allows the airflow to circulate beneath it — and that's good. It doesn't get hot in normal operation (I had to use OCCT to feel it getting hot). Its screen is unexpectedly good-performing for such a budget laptop (and please keep in mind that its screen fits my scope). A disadvantage (at least, for me) is the fact that one has to remove a screwed cover to take in/out its battery.

Now let's see how it performs. I'll start with a kinda-benchmark that will make most of you chuckle: the WEI. I understand that the WEI means very close to utterly nothing, but as you will see in the 3rd part later on, it did help me in a way.


Some other benchmarks:
PCMark7 = 2948 PCMarks (analytically: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. K95VM score: 2948 PCMarks)
3DMark 2011 = 1291 3DMarks (analytically: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. K95VM score: P1291 3DMarks)
3DMark Vantage = 5517 3DMarks (analytically: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. K95VM score: P5517 3DMarks)
3DMark 2006 = 9625 3DMarks (analytically: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. K95VM score: 9625 3DMarks)
GeekBench2 score = 9766 (analytically: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. K95VM - Geekbench Browser)
NovaBench3 score (but it tested the secondary GPU only) = 1004 (analytically: https://novabench.com/view/302575)

And here's the results of Performance Test 7:


Sandra can act as a means of comparing K95VM to other laptops:


OK, that's enough for now; I sincerely hope I didn't bore you to death. And I promise (or threaten — depends on how one sees it) that there's more to come.

 

Where are you from and may I know where you bought it? I want to buy this one too.
How was the pos-sell service?
Thanks you if can tell me

 

I also own this notebook. But for me someone bought in France and sold to me. When I bought it , I dint realized that it has a different key board.The english alphabets are messed up(not all).Specially the one you want like dot ,coma, question mark, brackets everything.All the time I have to search for.
I manage to interchange the alphabets and others I could not do.I got it with 12 GB of Ram and 1TB + 500GB HDD with bluray player for 1,200 euros., then I didnt know the exact rate.I was impressed with the processor and the graphic card gt-630.

Now I have a question. Do anyone knows it has UEFI in the BIOS? I am planning to install Mac OS X mountain Lion as a duel boot.

 

I bought mine from this company: MgManager.
But, as I've already said in my original post, this model is no longer sold in my country (Greece), as one can see here — and I'm not aware of the reason why.
Prices well below 1000€ can be found in other European countries, though — e.g. in Italy: Asus k95vm yz002v, confronta prezzi e offerte asus k95vm yz002v su Trova Prezzi.
Until now I haven't needed any post-sale service, therefore I cannot provide any relevant rating and such.
Hope this helps.

 

Regarding the keyboard, the French don't have the standard QWERTY but rather the AZERTY. Yup, one should always be careful regarding the keyboard issue, because variations exist even in pure English-language versions (e.g. US vs UK).
However, changing the keyboard is a piece of cake in this lappie — provided, of course, that you can get hold of the right one you need.

This I do not know the answer to — and I'd love if someone who does know tells us.

 

Does this help?

 

Hello,

I've seen that the K93SV was made from a Compal motherboard : PBL80 LA-7441P.
Do you think this K95VM is a real ASUS, or still based on a Compal motherboard ?

@+

 

Well, I can always open it up and see what is printed on its m/b.

 

---

 

I've found the NB that fit my need. Still... thank you anyway .

 

It's required to be enabled when you want to install Windows with UEFI (for making GPT instead of MBR partitions).

 

The board says QCL90 LA-8223P Rev:1.0

Sorry for the belated response, but I was away, on laptop-less (and lap-topless :yes vacation — therefore I wasn't able to check it out.

Yup, I have it enabled in my case.

 

Thank you for this.Do you know how to change the DVMT or Vram values?

 

hi there 18.4 mates
I got same like this yesterday, K95VM. about 1000 euro .No OS pre-installed, so I was going directly for upgrade instead ( ram and ssd) ☺.
I didn't know that I am actually a nub , since I was spent more than 3 hours trying to open bottom part!. I was looking for other 2 memory slots, since are visible so far just 2 !. Also, seems no dedicated video card slot!.
I think I have to take out a few more screws which are not visible, but this will take me some more time for sure .
Anyway, does anyone have knowledge if it actually have 4 memory slots and dedicated video card slot ?. Until than , I will keep trying opening case ☻.
After all, seems nice Intel CPU quad core... while I am an AMD user at all . Very good performance..for such notebook CPU, and I am actually impressed. I have version with intel HD 4000 integrated video card, and this the second one, GeForce 630M, for which I was expecting at a dedicate slot..free for further upgrade..etc.
thanks and good luck from Romania.