Thinking of getting an Asus G71, good choice?

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new here, and I just wanted to know is it worth getting an Asus G71?

BTW, sorry if I'm too new to post my own thread, I don't know much about this place.

Anyway, my current laptop is good, but I'd really like a high end gaming laptop like the Asus G71, like something with a 9800M GS or better, so I was wondering if there are any problems with it, whether it's worth the money (I'm Australian, so expect a high price), and if its a good overall laptop.

If there is anything else that's cheaper or better for the same price, I'd certainly consider that option.

BTW, I'd like my next laptop to be a 17".

 

Which variant are you looking at? There are several types of G71 notebooks. The newest and most powerful, the G71gx-A1, is (still) in pre-order status. It's kid brother, the G71gx-RX05, is only sold in Best Buy.

There are also variants with 9800m GS, 9600m GT (I think), and some other various cards.

I've never owned one--unlike you, I tend to shy away from 17-inchers--but if they're comparable to the 15-inchers they should be great. They're plenty powerful, I'll tell you that much.


If you're willing to look at other brands, though, there are various Clevo/Sager laptops which should fit your needs perfectly. Try to find Soviet Sunrise and bug him about Clevos.

 

What is this a manhunt? Why is everyone always out to find the renegade Russian?

 

Because you're a Clevo owner/specialist/modder hanging out/faux-trolling/helping/suggesting on an Asus forum. Go figure.

 

The Clevo forum is very small and unpopulated and is very slow most of the day, and even across the span of several days atmost, especially when no new Clevo is around the corner. So I decided to find another manufacturer forum that always has a large number of users viewing, around 50 or more, to crash in. And after deciding which forum I wanted to make my second home, I chose Asus because I find that the users in this forum share a common goal and ideal with me. Essentially, to me, you guys are like Cheers where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came.

 

Wasn't saying you weren't welcome, just explaining why I sent someone to manhunt you.

Glad you didn't pick Alienware. Tee hee.

 

And I was just going off on a tangent as to why I suddenly started crashing in this particular forum. It was in no way influenced by your post and is just something I pulled out of my Asus hole.

The reason why I didn't decide to go to Alienware is because all they do is benchmark all the live long day. All the threads on the front page alone are either overclock threads, benchmark threads, driver threads, e-peen threads, and the owners/future owners lounge. I don't see any fun or taste in that.

 

I have a g71g-A2 and I believe I can give you an honest opinion about this product. As a previous Sony Vaio user (I don't know I was thinking back then), Asus is the most affordable and best priced laptop for getting top of the line parts at a really reasonable price. I am able to run gpu intense games such as Crysis with very high settings at around 1200x800 (i can't remember the resolution) very well but it does heat up after an hour of game play. The 6 gb of ram makes multitasking a breeze (I do some pretty heavy video editing and I have yet to have freeze ups with my laptop). Asus also offers a 2 year warranty that other companies don't (or they do but they charge you an exorbitant amount).

With all the pros being said : price, top-notch parts and service. Now, the downsides to this laptop. There are some flaws in the laptop keyboard giving rise to a double keystroke problem. I have tried to fix the problem myself by looking at the registry, changing sensitivity of the keyboard and changing the actual keyboard through asus. Nothing has fixed this problem tho (its not hardware for suree (the double e shows the double keystroke problem here). Next, the fan issue. The fan will boot up with a loud scratching noise but it will disappear around 2-5 minutes. This can easily be repaired by changing to a new fan.


Overall, I say its a good buy. This laptop is the best deal for a 17 inch laptop compared to its competitors in terms of performance and price. If you can live with the keyboard issue then go ahead and get this laptop (btw, the keyboard issue is a 50-50 chance since some users do not have this problem). Thats my two cent... hope it helped.

 

Out of my curiosity, may I ask which Sony you had before your G71, kiwibuddy?

 

I think the variant that I'm getting has a 2Ghz C2Q, and a GTX 260M. G71GX?

Remember, I live in Australia, so I can't buy from Bestbuy, although I wish I could.

Anyway, what about the Clevos? I'll bug you later, since I'm going now.

 

You should probably also look at the MSI GT729, which is being released mid-August. It has a better GPU, but lacks a second HDD and it has less RAM. It's also hundreds of dollars cheaper than the G71.

 

That would be the G71gx-A1, which, sadly, is still in pre-sale mode

 

I don't think he 4850 is better than the 260M. I could be better in some games, but both cards have a nearly same score in 3DMark06.

 

Notebookcheck only rated the 512MB 4850 instead of the 1GB 4850 that comes in the MSI and even then the 4850 was about equal to the GTX260m

 

Actually, according to Toms Hardware - the 4850 is almost on par with the GTX 280m (more powerful than the GTX 260m). There's a big article (8 pages long) talking about it on Toms Hardware, the only thing holding the 4850 from taking over the GTX 280m is because the current 4850 configuration is 512mb on the MSI GT725, it will change when the MSI GT729 comes out- which will have the 4850 at 1GB.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...er,2354-5.html

This below link has a article that is good as well, tells you that the GTX 280m is only half the power (somewhat) than it's desktop counter part (GTX 280m is more around the desktop GTX 9800). The laptop's 4850 has the same architecture as the desktop 4850 but just at lower clock speeds (closer to desktop 4830).

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...280m,2353.html

EDIT: Crap... Nothing is Real beat me to the answer !

 

If the 1GB 4850 is better than the GTX280M than I really don't see how the MSI could be cheaper than the G71 or G51, even without the extra HD and less RAM.

 

Plus I'm still willing to bet that the 260 and 280Ms can be overclocked better.

 

Oh, and NotebookCheck DOES have the 1GB 4850 and 1GB 4870. The 4870 was just barely better than the GTX260M, and that's while performing similarly to the desktop 4850.

 

MSI laptops are just always consistently cheaper than the competition, often with slightly better specs (great GPUs and cheap Bluray options). You lose the ASUS ADP warranty when you go with MSI (although I think MSI really beefed up their warranties/ADP packages recently). Also, "some" will say the MSI build quality is not on par with the Asus/Sagers of the world: ie, keyboard flex (easily fixable), touchpad quality (finish seems to quickly rub off... if you care), and screen quality. Oh and MSI's frequently carry the 32-bit version of Windows for some odd reason.

As a relatively new Asus owner, I did a lot of looking at MSI but ended up going with Asus when Newegg had its great $1150 G50VT-X6 offer.

The GT628 (Nvidia 160MGTS) and GT729 (ATI 1GB 4850) both look like solid laptops being released from MSI. I love it because more competition means lower prices, more emphasis on quality, and more options for us the consumer.

 

If you go to the benchmarks section and click "more details" you will see the processor and GPU memory for each of the benchmarks. Both the 4850 and 4870 show 512MB; however, the 4870 benchmarks were done on a desktop which is pretty retarded.

http://go.notebookreview.com/?id=525X832&url=http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...er,2354-5.html

Also this ^ review was probably the dumbest thing I have ever read.

 

I agree, the comparison of those 2 very different laptops is very strange.

 

I just got a G71GX-RX05 two weeks ago and I am beyond happy. I would think its a great choice but it also depends on your personal taste.

Its a bit flashy and is a huge laptop. It is heavy, wont fit some 17" cases, and will drain a battery lickity split (like 2 hours). The screen is 720p not 1080p.

But I love the looks myself. Most lights can be can be controlled, it is sleek and has nice lines. It screams gamer laptop so if you like that style you will love it. If you prefer a more stealthy/discrete laptop you may prefer a different make.

Performance wise it is a great deal for what you get. One thing to note is the gpu is a tad underclocked. Stock it is more along the lines of a 9800m gtx. But it will play all games currently out, many at max settings. Crysis at high plays nicely. It is also simple to overclock it to stock settings(or beyond )

Screen resolution is also something to consider. This is a gaming laptop. It is not 1080p but also the lappy doesn't have a blu ray drive. I like the resolution myself as it plays most games out with high settings on at its native resolution, and when I do watch movies while it isn't 1080p, 720p isn't exactly suffering.

 

I'm fine with the 1366x768 screen on my G51. 1080p on a 56" television is fine, but it's way too small (for me at last) on a 15.6 inch screen.

The lack of BluRay drive is easy to get around: Download them instead

That or go the legit route and buy a new drive. But only squares buy things.

 

I was looking at one of these, preferable the G71, because it's a 17".

http://www.myshopping.com.au/PR--326096_Asus_G71Gx_Q9000_2_00_GHz_4_GB_640_GB_17_1_Laptop

Or, I could go for a Clevo/Metabox from here:

http://www.p4laptops.com.au/gaming-laptops-laptops-for-games.htm

So what are your opinions?

 

The G71 in that link looks good for the price compared to the Clevo in the other link. The CPU options on the Clevo at that store are ridiculous. You can easily buy a Q9000 or Q9100 seperate for $200 USD and sell the T9550. If you can pony up a bit more money, I'd say go for the Clevo with the base CPU and buy a quad for cheap. If you don't want to go through a three-point deal and go straight for the best bargain, go with the G71.

 

just wait till Core i7 is more affordable on laptops.. C2Q's technology doesnt allow it to turn off unused cores and redirect more power to the other cores.. More than 2 cores on a gaming system is pretty useless, unless you have a pretty high clocked CPU.. Think of it this way, its pretty hard for most games to make use of multiple threads, so having 2 more does a whole lot of not much. In reality the game is using maybe 2 cores, and they're both at 2GHz, vs say, 2 cores clocked at 2.5-3ghz in a C2D

 

Most games rarely need more than 2 GHz. And the games that do need high CPU juice-- Supreme Commander, GTA4, to name two--benefit from more cores.

 

Or four instances of a single threaded game.

 

Another good reason to wait for the Core i7, 8 cores, 4 on die 4 HT.. along with the new Nehalem technology TurboBoost, it allows essentially adaptive clocking, based on the number of cores being used. Idle cores are turned off and active cores are given more frequency. Also, even when all cores are used, those that arent being used to full potential give clock speed to ones that are. Why not wait a little while longer, and be on cutting edge especially with how fast hardware goes out of "style"

[EDIT]
Im a G71GX owner myself, i love the thing, but im saddened by the fact that in less than a year this thing will be old, and outdated. guess its all about the price you wanna pay to stay ahead of the curve. Sure it will still play most newer games, but like all systems, fast forward 6 months.. new game comes out.. now you have to lower the graphics settings.. fast forward again, new game comes out.. "now do i upgrade ram/cpu/vid card?".. FF>> new game comes out, lower graphics settings.. etc.

 

No, I reckon I would benefit from a Quad. I play a lot of GTA IV and Crysis, which are games that use all cores.

Besides, the Quad would be better at encoding, multitasking, and apps that use more than two threads.

 

If you always wait for new tech you will never buy. Ever. Things are outdated as they are released. Core i7 is nice but if you wait till i7 mobile comes out, you might as well wait for the nvidia 300 series, but those may be pricey so you will most likely want to wait for them to become a little cheaper. It is called the bleeding edge for a reason and there is a hefty price to pay if you want those bragging rights.

You are right, i7 will be nice and is better. But the core 2 intels are not bad, the faster ones play most games out there extremely well. What games are coming out in the next year that are so intensive that a fast core 2 couldn't play well?

I am asking as I am not sure, I could be wrong. But aside from Alan Wake what is there. By the time a i7 lappy is needed I am pretty sure the price will have come down a bit but I think the current sagers/asus/alienware/msi/ect that have core 2's in them and decent video cards will hold up well for the next year or two.

 

I had a Vaio VGN A690 that was bought my freshmen year in college around 2005 September. The laptop then was around 4k purchased fresh from sonystyle. I was an idiot with laptops back then. Didn't really look into specs and only cared about the laptops aesthetics.