the new asus g51

Xotic PC also just mentioned 3rd week of july. I dont know why everyones in a rush to buy a bad unit. If you bought one right now your more likley to RMA it then if u bought it 3 or 4 weeks from now when the realize there still setup for building G50's and the paste is wrong.

 

I'm thinking about returning my G50vt-X5 that I bought on 6/5 and getting the G51 at BB if only I wasn't traveling in another country right now and won't be returning for another 2 weeks.

 

I am pretty sure in the next couple of days you will be exceeding the normal return period anyways.

 

Heh oh well, I'll continue using my X5. I won't be switching laptops for another 4-5 years. I'm sure something bigger and better will be out by then.

 

Well yesterday my asus g71 finally found a game that makes it run hoter, and harder, Keeps my cpu most of times between 90% to 100%, this would be gta 4, i am kinda worried because laptop goes hotter than usual, heres what it goes, The cpu Jumps from the normal 44º of other games, to 54º and my graphic card jumps from the usual 71º to 79º this was the max temperatures i registered since i turned gta on till i turned it off "played 4 hours" should i be worried?

 

BTW, so far I have bought three G51s from best buy (in Maine) and none of them reached 90 degrees Celsius on the gpu side, always in the 86 range when running gpu-intensive code (CUDA / GL3.1).

 

Good stuff, were all going to maine then lol.

 

Ahaha, funny, I'd do anything to be back in NY! Maine's quite boring, YMMV.

 

I always have considered myself a resolution freak. what i have learned though is that when you have a good enough graphics card for AA to run smoothly, you dont need the resolution at all. It looks absolutely beautiful with high AA, and most people would tend to throw high res and AA at graphics cards without restrictions. I heard that AA was supposed to replace the need for higher resolution in games completely.

 

The Last couple temp reports said they maxed in mid-80s. Mistaken reads, probably haha, but I have hope. Plus, as you mentioned, considering the newegg versions aren't even out yet, whose to say they wouldn't have corrected the manufacturing issue by then?

I'm just hoping that they get the issue resolved asap, I'm running out of time and this is the machine I want

 

Now, THAT is I'm talkin bout

anyways, for all the naysayers that say the slow CPU on the first one doesn't matter, here are SFIV demo scores. The game just came out, mind you.

First, 1280x720:


Second, 1680x1050:


The scores are almost identical, despite the huge increase in resolution, showing that my 2.8Ghz (it shows 2.53GHz for some reason) C2D is the real bottleneck here, not the GPU.

Settings were set to the maximum possible, w/o AA.

 

I am very confused about how this result proves the CPU is the bottleneck.

 

I have a question about the old OLED in the G50. Would it be possible to put one in the G51. I know there is no hole for it in the chassis, but would it work and would it be possible to connect it?

 

This guy is right about those pics not showing anything. That's not saying you're not right though. They only thing those show is that you can run SFIV well. And that, my friend, is awesome!

 

Kevin, the 78c was running prime95 AND furmark. Running JUST furmark the cpu gets to mid 60s

 

is the FHD panel on the G51 LED backlit too?

 

No, it is not ( at least, thats what Ive read )

 

ok some more updates.

BF2 works stutter free on high..
CSS gets 180+ fps on high..

 

2 things...
1.) Looks like you have VSync running which would cap FPS at 60.

2.) Of course at high FPS the CPU will bottleneck. Higher FPS = More work for CPU; Lower FPS = Less work for CPU
But do you really care if you have 100FPS vs. 130FPS? If a game is struggling to keep 30FPS(where lower FPS will really make a difference) then chances are the CPU won't be bottlenecking.

 

VSync is off by default. People with Quad Cores are getting 100+ fps in this game.

 

Was it built to take advantage of all 4 cores?

If so, then there's your answer, obviously.

 

A frame rate of 59.x in 2 different benchmarks is awfully suspect. Regardless though, quad core, dual core, 3GHZ, 2.8GHZ and 2.0GHZ are not going to matter if your frame rate is low enough for you to feel the effects. If a game is running at 20FPS chances are you won't be CPU bottlenecked.

 

VSYNC I tell ya!

 

He has v-sync on during both tests. I have the SFIV benchmark.


EDIT: It locks you at 59.xx with it set to ON. He'll be 75-90 with it OFF.

 

Brilliant.

 

Hey guys im thinkin about preordering or buying the g51 from newegg or whereever. You think the quad core CPU would be worth the extra buck or should i just go for the 3.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo? Also, why does the Core 2 Duo have a higher Ghz than the Quad Core if the quad core is suppose to be better?

 

The quad core is better because it has double the logical cores, which under ideal situations, means it has twice the computing power at the same Mhz rating. The reason it has to be clocked lower is that each of these cores dissipate heat, and this heat goes up as frequency increases. So, if one core releases a certain amount of heat under a certain load, 4 cores together would release more heat than just two. In some situations, a higher clocked dual-core will outperform a lower-clocked quad-core because the task the CPU is currently working on is not a very parallel load. That means that the CPU can't break up the current task into 4 different jobs because the program is too linear in nature. This is why the dual-core vs. quad-core debate depends on things like the user's typical workload and how long they plan on keeping the computer (quad-cores will be better utilized as time goes along because programmers will focus on making programs multi-threaded).

 

The thing is, games are really just starting to get into multithreading. Games like Crysis, Supreme Commander and GTA4 will definitely benefit from a quad core, but a lot of stuff out there simply doesn't take advantage of it yet. However, since adding more cores is the way of the future (damn Moore's law!), software will have to adapt to hardware, so I'd think more and more games will be able to take advantage of quad-cores in the future. So it depends how you look at it. I haven't decided on going dual or quad myself. The difference isn't that huge yet in MOST cases. (I have seen a couple benches where quads actually gave a pretty major boost)

Edit: When directly comparing a 2.0Ghz Core 2 Quad to something like a 3.0Ghz Core 2 Duo, I'd say go with the Duo. Even at perfectly ideal conditions, you're talking 8Ghz for the quad vs 6Ghz for the duo - and ideal conditions will NEVER happen. You simply won't be able to use most of that power. You'll get more of a kick out of the Duo @ higher Ghz for pure gaming.

 

You probably mean physical .

 

I suppose technically it also has double the logical cores.

 

Its One Physical Processor, 4 Physical Cores. Since it does not have hyper threading there is no need to mention logical cores. An example would be the i7 it is One Physical Processor, 4 Physical Cores and 8 Logical Processors to the operating system.

I cant find a solid definition on what makes a logical processor, but its redundant to mention when the logical is no more than the physical.

 

I was being sarcastic.

When speaking of logical quantities vs physical quantities, the logical quantities implies a higher level of abstraction vs the physical. So, while it may be considered redundant to mention logical when it matches physical, it is still technically correct. Hence the sarcasm.

 

Well, I joined this forum soley for the info on the G51.

I'm not exactly a resolution freak (and I rarely run games over 1100-ish resolution) so the pixels the Best Buy version doesn't break it for me. It looks like an incredible buy, especially for the upgrade from my current G50vt-X6 (which is all of three months old).

I'm just not liking the processor and purported heating issues, though. From what I've read, the G51 can support Q9000, Q9100, and Q9200 processors. Since the Xotic version has a quad, it looks like the general model can fit a Q9000 just fine. I'm wondering if there are any BIOS or architectural differences that would prevent that from happening in the Best Buy version. I'm seeing some real cheap Q9000s and Q9100s on Ebay, and if I could stick on in there I'm set for a while.

If you haven't figured it out already, I'm the next best thing to a hardware incompetent. Are there any differences between the various Ebay models that might give me incompatibility issues?

 

Amen brother! For a solid definition, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms683194(VS.85).aspx .

 

You just had to send me an API call didnt you lol.

 

You will have no compatibility issues mixing Quads with the Best Buy G51.

Ebay models shouldn't have compatibility issues but some of them will not have temperature sensors. Unfortunately, I haven't kept up with which ES processors have the normal temp sensors so hopefully someone else will chime in.

 

Another thing: With the heat issue, I've seen/heard that some of the problems involve improperly-applied paste (say that five times fast).

I remember reading someone--Sunny?--saying that the heat pipe or whatever it's called was not fitting correctly. Is that an issue, or is it a minority?

 

Correcting the paste on most is a good idea, hopefully ASUS has already caught that, but from what i saw on one of them with 99% coverage shouldnt have been a huge issue.

Improperly seated pipes should be a minority issue, but as we saw him and the user with a properly seated pipe still had the same temps. The plate can be warped or the pipe could be not "bent correctly" and cause the surface to not to contact the core properly.

 

Daunting.

I'd be willing to be the forum guinea pig and try some upgrades to the G51, since it doesn't come with the Asus' special warranties.

I've never poked around a computer's guts--laptop or otherwise--but I've watched people who have. Doesn't look like rocket science, but I'm stressing over what components I should get. I once had a cousin try to upgrade an old family computer with additional RAM, and when he turned it on it... did nothing. Even after putting in all the old RAM. I don't want to plug in a new processor--which voids any warranties I get--and have the thing go explody on me.

Disregarding price (Since the G51 is only $999.99, I've got oodles in my budget) which would work best.

Examples:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-INTEL-CORE-...trkparms=65:12|66:2|39:1|72:1234|293:1|294:50

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Intel-Quad-...trkparms=65:12|66:2|39:1|72:1234|293:1|294:50

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Intel-Quad-...trkparms=65:12|66:2|39:1|72:1234|293:1|294:50

Or, hell, why not a Q9200


And I'm not worrying about heat in a general sense, since my notebook is always mounted on a cooler. By the way, Clutch, that Zalmon you reviewed looks like a great cooler for this beast.

 

Q9200 is 60 something watts TDP isnt it? Not what you want Q9000 Q9100 and QX9300 are the list of what works and is normal.

That seller lists the steppings just need to find out which stepping is better/has temp sensors and buy it. CPU swap on these is simple, pick up some paste though your gonna need to replace the old paste. I really like the ArtiClean for removing and purifying but there are common household stuff that works as well.

 

See what I mean about being hardware challenged?

Anyway, I noticed the same processor, like the Q9100, have multiple models, like QAVK versus QDRS. Is one better than the other?

 

Because these are all Engineering Samples (You will see ES on the black part of the chip), they are test units from Intel sent out to various places for reviews, benching, to assist with designing motherboards and cooling equipment.

ES arent techinically legal for sale, Intel owns the chip and its against terms to sell it. Companies do anyways and this is why they are so cheap. Different Steppings (design phase) of the cpu will have different model numbers. The closer the stepping is to the release version the better the chance that its a good design/chip like the retail one. Sometimes early versions are perfectly fine but as noted before they often are missing things like temperature sensors.

 

Heh. Voiding my warrants and breaking the law. Fun times all around.

Jokes aside, I think it's better to ask you rather than blunder around like a caveman.

What would Q9100 would you get, Clutch, if you wanted an upgrade? (Yeah, I know your G50vt doesn't do quads, but hypothetically).

I'm shuffling closer and closer to just getting the G51 and putting it on the workbench.

 

I'm not positive about this but I think it is 45w tdp like the rest of the mobile quads. I've heard a couple people say 65w but I've seen nothing to confirm that. I believe people are getting the mobile Q9200 confused with a desktop Q9200 which is/was 65w with a 1333mhz fsb.
Info on desktop version:
http://techiton.blogspot.com/2008/11/intel-low-power-q9550-q9400-q9200.html

 

Yes, you're right. The mobile Q9200 is indeed 45W TDP while the desktop version is 65W.

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=347&pgno=8

 

Look who decides to come back and prove me wrong lol.

 

Well, with that resolved, would, say this Q9200 be a good choice?

 

hehe, i have a little bit of free time tonight

That CPU is an ES, so it's hard to speculate if it would be a "good choice". But if it were a retail or OEM version, the Q9200 is a very solid processor, just one step below the insanely priced Q9300.

 

Clutch kind of explained that early, but I still wonder. Would a test chip be that inferior to an officially released chip?

Are there any reliable places to find the officially released chips? I noticed Newegg only has P and T mobile CPUs.


But, what I really meant in my previous post was " will it work/not fry something".

 

I tried finding a Q9200 with no luck, looks like it was a short release OEM only chip not sold at retail.

If you end up buying a reseller version and want a retail cpu just get it from GenTechPC and mark the upgrade box.