Official Waiting for the ASUS K-Series Thread

What the...? Then what region will this impressive lappy come out? I might order it bring to America and sell

 

US or North America?

I hope it's coming out in Canada

 

It's sad that ASUS thinks we want the G51 instead of the K51AB.

 

...I would not mind the g51 if the stupid thing didn't overheat so much! Now I am stuck with what laptop to buy....sigh...

 

Yeah, it would definitely be cooler (literally too!) to have the 4860 around.

 

Agree completely...I'm hoping the new MS-1651 w/ GTS 160M comes down in price soon. It seems like the only other possibility for me.

 

Hello, I don't know if anyone has mentioned it. But Newegg has the K50IN-X1,
The specs looks really good for 699.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220547

CPU Type Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 2.1G
Screen 15.6"
Memory Size 4GB DDR2
Hard Disk 250GB
Optical Drive DVD Super Multi
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce G102M
Video Memory 512MB DDR2 VRAM

Does anyone have any additional info or experience with the notebook yet? I'm not familiar with the quality of Asus' Notebooks.

Also how bad are 768 vertical pixels on a 15.6" screen exactly? This seems to be a hot topic with you guys.

 

how is the 160m ?

 

It is a higher clocked 9800m GS, exactly the same as a 9800m GTS.
The 4860 is certainly faster but the 160m is no slouch.

 

The Asus Global site has now posted the K40AB & K50AB in its "Versatile Performance" range.

Asus K40AB

Asus K50AB

There's not much between them besides the screen size.

I'm still holding out for the K51AB (that G51Vx-A1 is just a little too hot and hungry for my tastes).

 

Gentechpc didn't just say it wouldn't be available. They said that Asus was not interested in selling anything but Intel laptops.

 

That doesn't make sense.

I don't believe for a second that Asus would build a bridge and then set fire to it with a statement like that. The K40AB & K50AB would not appear on the Asus sites if they didn't intend to ship them and there are plenty of Ati GPUs in the current Asus notebook lineup.

No doubt we'll be waiting a little while for the 4860s to appear (I expect AMD will be prioritising the demand for desktop RV740 parts), but I'm pretty sure we'll see them eventually.

 

I believe what gentechpc meant by the statement is that is that Asus is not interested in selling the AMD platform (cpu+gpu). That would go along with Intel's past scheme of trying to block AMD's main revenue stream (cpus). I doubt Intel cares much what dedicated gpus are included in higher end laptops as long as their processors are the ones driving the machines and not AMD processors. Intel has nothing to compete in the dedicated market so they aren't losing any money whether people buy notebooks with AMD or Nvidia Gpus.

Oh and there are quite a few examples of laptops that are made a big deal out of and are never released in the US. ASUS and MSI are both examples where a laptop is hyped with news releases etc, only to never see the florescent light of a retailer's day.

 

Then they should do C2Q + 4860 or C2D + 4860
Problem solved

 

As soon as someone designs it.. I don't think they do that stuff "on the fly". But the Asus W90 is a platform, albeit not in 15"

 

Maybe that's true for the US market, but...

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=NXS38xMRDEOZpxWz

...shows that Asus aren't afraid to punt an "AMD platform" somewhere at least.

 

It's technically wrong of Intel to pressure Asus or any other vendor into not selling their competitor. They've been convicted of actions of monopoly before so I wouldn't be surprised if they did some similar pressures.

Mind you, I'd really like it if AMD was able to pull its mobile CPUs on a more competitive level to Intel's. Therefore, competition would occur and pricing would drop.

I think the whole point of the K51 was the potential combination of 2 of their new technologies: Tigris(assuming it'd have come into the K51) and their 40nm GPU chips.

 

The K51AB was never intended for the Tigris platform. I don't think tigris will see the light of day in the US until October. Asia will probably get it in September.

 

Yeah.. somewhere. I know you want to be optimistic, and I would be thrilled to be proven wrong. Speaking specifically of the K51AB and K70AB, which are AMD processor + Really competetive AMD GPU (a product that no doubt would compete with offerings featuring Intel CPU's + AMD gpus or Nvidia GPUs, therefore losing Intel money) these are the two truly competitive platforms from AMD that GentechPC told me we wouldn't be seeing in the USA. The only AMD platform I can think of currently that is very competitive is the MSI GT735 with the 3850. The Midrange laptop you linked to is certainly nice, but nothing that will make a huge dent in the higher end gpu notebook market.

HP also has laptops with AMD cpus and Radeon 4650 GPUs.

 

Hence the "if". Actually, lots of people speculated(once again, an "if") that the reason it was holding off was either that Asus decided to implement a new AMD platform(along with the 40nm chips) or it was simply due to the hold off in terms of the 40nm technology.

 

Highly doubtful. The specs were introduced to us with Puma, so Tigris was never planned to be used in K51. The only reason it seems logical to consumers is because we don't know why K51's not out yet.

If by the time Tigris comes out and the K51 is still not released, I can make a similar statement that "they're waiting for the next platform", when clearly they're not.

 

Well of course it's merely speculation. At this point, anything is speculation my dear Asus has no words and there isn't any official statement as to why the K51 isn't yet released when most of the K series is. The Tigris thing is a wishful speculation along with the other speculated reasons including the 40nm problems, the Intel pressure and the other stuff.

 

Considering all the evidence, I think its fairly safe to say TSMC's 40nm problems is the most likely culprit for delaying the K51AB release. The K50AB is already up on Asus.com and it is Puma based + 55nm GPU.

 

Yeah I'd be prone to say that the 40nm yield problems would be the reason for the delay as well.

Hope the Puma platform doesn't either hold back the HD4860 or provide overdue heat or machine inefficiency.

 

I am surprised nobody has yet pointed out the press release in Europe, which marks the arrival of the K70AB there. Note that it includes the 4570. BOO.

The press release also confirms my prediction that the laptop will include the same 1600x900 LED backlit display panel that is seen on other maker's models.

http://www.slashgear.com/asus-u50vg-k50ab-k50ij-and-k70ab-notebooks-arrive-0948922/

 

Thumbs down for the 4570

 

Hmm It seems we most likely will not see Asus saying anything about the 4860's until mid August (roughly 40 days from now).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20090708181719_AMD_ATI_Radeon_HD_4770_X2_Is_Great_Concept_Idea.html

And here's a teaser until then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw6JE8wPM-E

 

man am i glad i got np8662, instead of waiting for this thing

 

As always, buy when you need it. When this comes, it will offer a good alternative for those looking at things like the np8662 and G51.

 

The new MSI 1651_NEW and GT628 (DDR3 + GTS 160M) are nice-looking at this time too so I hope the K51's prices will be low

 

GT628 should be out for August, what about the K?

 

Why GTS 160M when you get a GTX 260 on the Asus G51...

 

The GTS 160M might have less of a heating problem, which the K-series might be able to handle better.

 

Because not everybody needs a ultra gaming laptop.

 

Well the fact that people want the performance of the HD4860(assuming it's as good as they say it'll be) means people do want performance.

 

If I didn't need the performance of a GTX 260, why would I not just save some money and settle for a 9800GS instead of wasting it on a GTS 160?

Flawed logic people, flawed logic.

 

The GTS 160M based laptop mentioned here, the GT628, has additional merits beyond the higher clocked GTS 160M vs the lower clocked 9800M GS. It has DDR3 support and official quad support.
Additionally, pricing should end up being the same once retailers sell through the 9800M GS models.
It doesn't seem wise to fault someone's logic over something as subjective and multifaceted as choosing a laptop.

 

Also note there's more to choosing a laptop that it's pure on paper specs. Form factor, looks, heat management, port distribution and many other things come into play when picking a machine over another. Depending on the priorities for a given person, one or more of these other factors can overpower the performance factor.

 

The G51 is bigger, heavier, more expensive (In Canada at least) and less good looking (imo)

 

K50AB review, which is as close as we can get to a K51AB review I suppose :S

Check it out here.

Seems like it has the switchable graphics (3200 IGP for battery, 4570 for performance). Unfortunately, heat was high and battery life low thanks to the AMD processor.

EDIT: though thinking about it now, a high CPU temp is only really cause for concern if the components are not rated for that temp...

 

The current AMD CPUs do run hotter and less efficiently than the Intel ones do so that's expected.

I wonder if ATI(or Nvidia for that matter) have managed to get through the initial issues with the 40nm process.

 

August has come and gone, as well as most of September, and still no word on the K51AB
Now it looks as though this thread is abandoned too...

 

The ASUS K51 has been out for a while now.. there doesnt seem to be ANY in depth reviews on it.

Anyone own one and can comment on sound/speaker quality and battery life?

How is the AMD x2 processor?