Need some encouragement on buying a G50Vt-X1/X5 :D

Hey all, I'm THIS close to buying a G50Vt-X1 or X5 (depending on my luck at Best Buy I guess), but I had some questions that I haven't been able to find answers for before I take the plunge :

1. How easy will it be to replace the DVD drive with a BR drive later on down the road when they hopefully become more affordable? I don't change laptops often and don't want to regret not getting a BR drive later on down the road if there is no option to upgrade later...

2. Is it worth purchasing the G50Vt-X1 (or X5) now or should I wait and see what the next month will bring? I will be buying a new notebook before mid-May regardless, but I need some reassurance! (a little 'push' if you will haha). There's no crazy XX model coming out for the same price or anything crazy like that is what I'm asking lol...

3. I have a 17" laptop now, and was really interested in getting a more portable 15.4" for my replacement, then this beast shows up lol. I know that this one is slightly larger, is it overly cumbersome as far as taking it with you for travel/finding a decent carrying case (one of my biggest pet peeves of having a large laptop).

I buy a new laptop roughly once every 2-3 years, my current laptop is a Dell e1705 with a Radeon x1400 so I'm definitely in need of an upgrade across the board, and will most likely be completely satisfied. This laptop will not be my desktop's replacement, but I definitely want to be able to use it as such.

All in all, the minor cons are no match for the value of this notebook...I just need some words of encouragement, or even some words of discouragement!

 

the msi gt627 competes with it and it's more of a 15in(but it has a lesser build quality) than the asus but other than that go for it, you probably won't get ripped off like the owners of the asus g50 v did

 

1. It's extremely easy to swap your optical drive out for a blu-ray drive. The one Asus uses is the 12.7mm SATA Sony BC-5500S

2. Technologies are constantly improving and always getting cheaper. If you don't need to buy now, I'd wait for a while.

3. This will be a personal preference, but for myself, it is quite the hassle to lug around the G50 everyday.

 

Haha..., thanks for the gt627 recommendation, now the competition is heating up ugh...choices choices...I wasn't aware of people gettin ripped off on the g50v, can you elaborate?

 

the g50v is the older version of the g50vt which had the 9700m gt which came out in july but two months later the g50vt came out with the 9800m gs which is far more powerful. also i would recommend you get the msi gt627 but from what i heard the build quality isn't the best but some people disagree i would suggest you read this thread first before making your decision
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=347317

 

lol, typical david this is the perfect answer

 

Heh yea thanks for the link, I actually just finished reading that thread in its entirety before seeing your comment, definitely have some thinking to do now...

 

Keyboard issue has been fixed as far as I can tell. I've never needed to use "gaming mode" on the keyboard while playing.

Dunno what you're talking about when it comes to heat, the G50 has one of the more efficient cooling systems out there.

USB/headphone interference is actually quite common in notebooks and is not ASUS-specific.

 

I own a G50vt-X1 and just wanted to chime in. I have had none of these issues. I have heard that some X1s do have the audio issue and keyboard issue, but mine has been great. I also have no idea where the heat thing is coming from... one of the best parts of the G50s IMHO.

 

love mine pwns my old g1sn

 

I am getting the X6 next week. I'll let you know how it goes

 

I saw that the C2D P7450 (g50vt-x5), had a better benchkmark that the p8400 (g50vt-x1) in http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php 1785 to 1545. I'm also trying to decide between one of them..

 

The difference in performance between these two CPU's will appear in synthetic benchmarks, but in real world use the difference will be negligible.

 

Yeah, my X2 has no key lag, good temps w/o a cooler, and I haven't had the audio problem. The audio problem seems to be showing up when using the USB port right next to the audio jacks. Hell, there are four USB ports on this thing, I only used 4 on my desktop when I had my Lycosa, Copperhead, and Linksys USB Wireless-N receiver all plugged in. If I needed another USB, I would just unplug one of the Lycosa USBs or use the built in USB on it (thus why it needed two USB slots).

Now - built in keyboard, built in WiFi... I only have one USB, sometimes two, occupied (Copperhead and sometimes a USB drive).

 

Selling my A1 to upgrade, much better than the X1

No audio issues, definitely no heat issues (this thing runs ice cold) the key lag I noticed in firefox only and it seemed ot have gone away after I updated something. I fixed it so long ago I forgot what I did.

Do yourself a favor and get a A1 isntead of an X1 - http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=362287

 

I would support that Vicious, but they are looking at a G50 Vt-X1, not G50V-X1. Unless they are planning on playing processor heavy games, the Vt is the better choice due to the perormance increase of the 9800M GS over the 9700M GT. If they are playing lots of games that eat CPUs alive, then the A1 you are selling is the better bargain since it has the T9XXX series CPU. GPU heavy games, on the other hand, will run better on the Vt models.

 

The difference is not very big at all between the gpu's, but in addition to the cpu difference you missed the screen resolution being higher, and the extra hard drive. Add that into the price and I think its a no brainer.

 

The 9800M GS is significantly more capable than the 9700M GT.

 

Proof please?

Its only a bit higher in 3dmark06 and thats the best case scenario, in actual gaming its not as big of a change.

Not everybody wants max gaming, some people like me really liked the dual hard drives and things for media and encoding use. Thats where the cpu pays off more and the main reason I want the W90 for the quad core and bigger HDD's I would be fine with a chopped down video card in the W90.

Keep in mind something I always have said, no matter how good your computer is the monitor is how you interact with it all. The fastest computer in the world means nothing on a crap monitor. Im on my desktop right now with my 37" HD LCD and it was the best thing I ever got. It felt more like an upgrade when I hooked this monitor to my old P4 computer than it did when I replaced that computer with dual 4850's and a quadcore cpu.

Same applies for Laptops, except your pretty much stuck with that screen. the X series from BB does not have nearly as high of a quality screen or resolution. So have fun with your 3fps more in a game while your cripple yourself with the low resolution to enjoy it with, and every other task you ever want to do as well like web browsing, watching movies, or god forbid spreadsheet work.

You have to look at the big picture.

 

Double the shaders, 256-bit bus, etc. I don't know that I'd call a couple thousand 3dmark points "a bit higher". Are you confusing the 9700M GT with the 9700M GTS?

As for laptop screen, I don't see the point in a super-high resolution on a 15" inch screen. Aside from making everything on your desktop tiny, it doesn't seem to have a purpose. 1440x900 I can see, but beyond that seems pointless. That's what external screens are for.

When it comes to your personal preference, I can't argue with that. I'm just correcting a misleading statement.

 

From GPUReview.com:

9700M GT:

Core Clock: 625 MHz
Shader Clock: 1550 MHz
Memory Clock: 400 MHz (800 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 25.6 GB/sec
FLOPS: 148.8 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate: 5000 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 10000 MTexels/sec


9800M GS:

Core Clock: 530 MHz
Shader Clock: 1325 MHz
Memory Clock: 800 MHz (1600 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 51.2 GB/sec
FLOPS: 254.4 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate: 8480 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 16960 MTexels/sec


As has also been proven, the 9800M GS in the G50Vt models can be flashed to very near GTS speeds, as the GS cards in the G50Vt are actually downclocked GTS cards:

Core Clock: 600 MHz
Shader Clock: 1500 MHz
Memory Clock: 800 MHz (1600 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 51.2 GB/sec
FLOPS: 288 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate: 9600 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 19200 MTexels/sec


On the other hand, the G50V-A1 you have for sale does have the advantage in processing and HDD capacity (and RAID-0 capability right out of the box), giving a good advantage if the OP is looking for a multimedia machine and plays processor heavy games like Supreme Commander. That is why I said I can't just go out and recommend it, I don't know what the OP is playing. A FPS / Action player doesn't need as much CPU and HDD speed as a RTS player. MMOs fall all over the board, it depends on the game, so once again it will depend.

Please, don't misunderstand me Vicious, I think you have a great machine for sale and that it is a hell of a deal - we are just trying to find what is the best deal on the market for the OP. If the OP turns out to be a major RTS and audio/video junkie, I will fully shift my recommendation your way.

One more point though - screen resolution is all personal preferance. The 1440x900 is nice for a 15" screen, it looks every bit as crisp as my old 22" viewsonic that ran 1680x1050. Now, I wouldn't want 1440x900 on that 37", that would look terrible. My G50Vt-X2 has a 1680x1050 and I find it hard to read on sometimes and I'm only mildly nearsighted. So please, keep in mind that screen resolution is all personal preference. High res will display a crisper image, low res will be less demanding on the GPU and will allow for better performance (3 FPS might be accurate for Crysis, but most games will see a larger increase).