Gaming Performance: Asus G1 vs Asus F3Ja

Hi forum,

I'm in the market for a new laptop which can play RTS games such as Company of Heroes, Spellforce 2, Mark of Chaos and Medieval Total War II. I'm hearing great things about the new Asus G1 with the 7700 512MB card, 2GB RAM, 15.4" 1680x1050 screen, and 2GHz processor. Can anybody tell me if I'm likely to see a significant increase in actual gaming performance over the Asus F3Ja laptop though to justify spending an extra £400? The F3Ja has a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB RAM, X1600 256MB (512MB hyperMemory) card, and a 15.4" 1280x800 screen. Asus also produce an F3Jv model which features the 7600 card, but I think this and the F3Ja are much of a muchness. I appreciate the G1 will be the superior machine, but will the actual gaming performance incease be THAT superior?

Many thanks

 

Probably not a significant increase in performance but I'd wager having 1680*1050 resolution would make things look a lot sweeter! The 2Gb ram will also make a big difference if you want to run the latest games like FEAR or Oblivion.

I'd probably take the G1 in this case.

 

I'd say go for the F3Jv. The 7600 seemed to edge the x1600 in a lot of categories but made no real difference. The point is, I like Nvidia better, haha. But honestly it should cost less than 400 to upgrade the RAM in the F3J period, so save the money.

 

Thanks so much to you both for your kind thoughts, much appreciated. I think you're right Jess, the higher screen resolution will make things look somewhat sweeter. And of the two F3J models I mentioned, I'm leaning towards your preference for the 7600 stevenator.

I'd love to run with the G1, but I have two RTS mad sons who squabble incessantly over whose turn it is on our aging desktop, so I've decided to buy them a laptop each. The £400 difference between the G1 and F3J then becomes a more substantial £800!

 

The G1 rules.

 

Even though the Asus G1 has a higher resolution, playing the latest demanding games will force you to go to a lower one to get playable framerates. Higher resolutions are nice to have in most situations, but . . . $$$.
I would go for the cheaper laptop here - it's saving you a huge amount of money, and there is not going to be a big performance difference as Jess and steve have posted.

I would recommend upgrading each laptop to 1.5GB of RAM; they'll most likely come with 2x 512MB, so take out one of those modules and put in a 1GB stick. You can always put in more later by taking out the other 512MB and doing the same thing.

 

Of that I have absolutely no doubt Dyingduck, but the price to performance ratio (or best bang for your buck), is a key issue for me, particularly as I have TWO machines to buy. G1 rules performance wise, but in an everyday actual gaming situation, are we really going to see £400/$800 of extra performance?

We recently installed an 8800GTX based desktop system at home, featuring 2GB of 800MHz RAM, E6600 processor, 700W PSU, and a beautiful Samsung 204BW 20" monitor. This may sound a little contentious... but we couldn't actually see a HUGE difference in the actual gaming and graphics experience, even though the system had a 3DMark 06 of 9300+. Sure, it ran smoothly and played great, but if I'm honest we couldn't see that it was MUCH better than the experience we had with an X700 based Asus A6 laptop we had a while back. And in a way, perhaps I've just answered my own question really: we probably won't see a huge difference between the G1 and F3J. This is just my view of course, and others may completely disagree.

Incidentally, the 8800GTX system is back for repair after a hard drive fault!!

 

Great advice Chaz, thanks for your valued thoughts. I'd love to buy my sons a couple of G1's, but I mustn't let myself be sucked in by the nice shiney cosmetic appearance of them... not for an additional £400/$800 each! And to be honest, I think I'm far more hung up about graphics performance than they are. It's more about playability for them, and maybe that's a more important factor at the end of the day. Games like Starcraft still draw a huge following, so a good gaming experience doesn't necessarily hinge on the best graphics of course.

 

For $800 your telling me you people would buy a g1 with 7700 vs f3j with x1600. For $800 more!?!?!?!?! This is a no brainer F3Ja for sure.

At what resolution were you running?
8800 with high resolution @ 16xAA / 16xAF and all eye-candy turned on is just mind blowing and incomparable in a single card solution .

 

1680x1050 resolution, link1313. Company of Heroes, for example, had all the eye candy-enabled, but as I said in a previous post, we all thought it didn't look THAT much better than on our old X700 based Asus A6 laptop. Having spent a large amount of money on the system (the gfx card alone was more than £400), we were somewhat dissapointed that this superb game didn't look and play all that different. And yes, we were running the latest drivers. Sure, it ran smooth and fast, with no stuttering or lag, but we expected to be blown away by an enhanced and enriched graphics experience. Anyway, that's just my opinion, but this is the reason I'm questioning spending an additional £800 (for two laptops) if we're not going to see much difference in performance.

Other than being able to run some games at 1680x1050 resolution, I think there's not going to be a HUGE leap in performance to justify spending all that extra money on a couple of G1's. Of course, if money were no object... well, it would be no contest, but for most of us we end up buying best bang for our buck... or pound in my case!

Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts, much appreciated.

 

Perhaps your expectations of the new GPU were too high--so whatever you got was a bit of a letdown with the 8800 GTX. As you get closer and closer to the top-end of settings, you're looking at subtle detail changes like lighting and shadows.

I definitely would not spend $800 more for the G1's relatively small increase in performance over the F3J (when you factor in the price difference, especially). Sure, it's the top dog today...but for how long? That $1600 is a whole new system down the line.

BTW--I think it's awesome you have such a powerful gaming rig for your kids and are buying them their own gaming laptops on top of that!

 

as chrisyano said, i think you expected way too much from the gpu

its not like as if a newer better gpu gets more textures or polygon meshes to work with, a better gpu gives you better fps and allows you to turn on more options that make the game more lifelike (aa,af, hdr, bloom, etc). also, being a dx10 card means you'll be able to turn on more special effects when dx10 games roll out


and i don't think you really needed the gtx for a 1680x1050 monitor. that gtx beast is meant to play games at 2560x1600. you should at least notice a huge difference playing at even 1900x1200


as said previously, F3J is the better deal. you can upgrade to 2 gig of ram for both laptops for $200-400 (depending of they give you 2x 512mb or 1x 1gb sticks).

the F3J and G1 will show differences in gaming but you can close a lot of the gap with another gig of ram.

 

Great advice chrisyano / hmmmmm. Thank you. I'm sure you're right about not getting the most out of the card using a sub 1900x1200 monitor. I'll definitely take that on board should I be able to afford something like the BenQ FP241W 24" screen, but in the meantime I think you're right in as much that our (my) expectations were too high for the gfx card from the outset. As I said before, the 8800GTX enabled ultra smooth game play (and the card was VERY quiet), but it just didn't blow us away visually... and that, as you have suggested, was the result of a lower resolution monitor, albeit a 1680x1050 one.

Chrisyano, the 8800GTX setup was a bit of a present to the whole family, as I get enjoyment out of seeing my boys having a great time on the RTS games. OK, who am I kidding, the PC was for them! Santa very kindly delivered them some great PS2 games this year, but they just want to play Company of Heroes, Mark of Chaos, Medieval Total War II... and the old favourite, Warcraft 3. It's their squabbling over who gets to go on the PC that made me realise a couple of capable laptops would probably be a better choice... and for the same price as the desktop setup. Anyway, sorry, I'm waffling...

Asus F3J looking the better bet for our needs. Now do I go 7600 or X1600? LOL

 

well it is designed with dx10 games in mind. once dx10 games come out it will be visually mind-blowing and the x700 won't be able to play it.

 

Both cards are very close in overall performance, so as long as the laptops you are looking at have one of them, decide based on other factors (amount of RAM, and so on).

 

x1600 > 7600 because of better image quality (more pipelines/shaders). 7600 keeps up in terms of benchmarks only because it has higher memory bandwidth.

 

I've enjoyed reading some of the threads on X1600 vs GO7600, and the debate over which is the better mobile card. I'm sure we'll be happy with either one, although I seem to have a vague recollection of reading a few comments on the Rock Direct forum along the lines that the GO7600 was a tiny bit on the noisey side, at least compared to the X700 which was a staple in many of their laptops a while back. I could be having a funny five minutes though, so please excuse me if this isn't the case.

 

Hi

I am also looking to buy the F3Ja asus laptop hopefully put the order in the next day or so,

i just wanted to ask you a quick question, i haven't seen a site in the UK that has the asus F3 series with the 7600 card dedicated memory at 256mb, the ones i have seen with the 7600 card are all turbocache which i have heard is not the best as it slows the performance of the laptop as it takes the memory out of the ram.

I have checked nearly most asus resellers in the UK there arn't many inlcuding

asuslaptop.co.uk
nexus13.co.uk
laptopsdirect.co.uk

maybe i have got it wrong?

 

Hi Patel,

I'm not the best person to answer your question about the Turbo Cache issue, so hopefully another member will address that one for you... although I think the model you refer to has 256MB of dedicated graphics memory. My preference is to run with the X1600 version of the F3J, and I say this predominantly because I have had an ATI based laptop before (X700), and it ran exceptionally well, and was very quiet. The X1600 is the newer of the two cards (7600 vs X1600), and has 12 pixel-pipelines as apposed to 8 with the 7600. From viewing various threads on this forum, it seems there's not a huge amount to choose between the two cards in terms of actual day-to-day performance, so I'm sure either one would suit you well in the F3J. As I say though, I think I'll run with the X1600 version, but only because my previous ATI based laptop was so good.

By the way Patel, www.technoworld.com also offer the F3J range, and appear quite competitive price wise.

 

Hi

I think you should check out nexus13.co.uk thats where i am planning to buy the F3Ja which has a x1600 for about 885 pounds good specs and thats the cheapest price i have seen on the net so far in the uk. I had a look on the asus website before and thats why i think that the F3 series with the geforce 7600 card model F3Jv only support turbocache, here is the link for this information

http://uk.asus.com/440/html/share/5/txt/256/price_list.pdf

also you should get a free digital tv tuner included, which sweetens the deal

just saw the same model from that link you sent me, its cheaper but it doesn't say anything about the free tv tuner?

Thanks

p.s that laptop looks pretty gd but have have you heard about the grain problem with the screen effects only the ATI cards but it can be fixed by flashing the BIOS, i have no idea if they will have fixed the issue before sending the laptop

 

Hi Patel,

Yes, I'm not sure if the Technoworld price includes delivery either.

Take a look at this Newegg link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834220046 as they have lots of customer reviews for the F3Jm with a 7600 card. Newegg quotes this model as having 512MB of video memory, but maybe this is a different spec for the American market, I'm not sure. It gets great customer feedback though, which is reassuring, particularly from a gaming point of view.

Re the graininess issue, I think this is/was something affecting ATI cards in a number of Asus models, and not specifically the F3J. As you say, there is a bios fix. Found a forum thread addressing this issue: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=80149

 

hi

Thanks for such a quick reply i had a look at the newegg site yesterday and the reviews were pretty reassuring and as you say i think there is a differernt spec for the american market about the 7600 card, i beleive UK consumers get ripped off but nothing we can do about that.

I am planning to put my order in soon with nexus13 but i have been researching this lappy alot and hopefully the F3JA will be a good choice for both of us

thanks

 

The Nvidia go 7600 does not support TurboCache. So whatever VRAM you see listed with the go 7600 will be dedicated.

The x1600, on the other hand, does support HyperMemory.

 

As long as the Go7600/X1600 you are getting have 256MB of RAM, you'll be fine. The chips are not powerful enough to use more than that anyway.

 

So, which way are you going Patel, X1600 OR GO7600?

 

Hi

I had to go with the ATI x1600 because i remained confused about the dedicated versus turbocache memory on the 7600 card, specially considering that the price list which i linked up earlier from ASUS specified that it had 256mb Turbo cache,

But i think both cards equal each other, and you would hardly see any difference in performance,

I have to say that this forum is amazing people are very helpful to each other

Thanks Again

 

I ran with the Asus F3Jp in the end. It's got a 2GHz processor, 1GB RAM, and an X1700 gfx card. As it has one stick of 1024MB RAM I can always upgrade this in the future if need be. I thought the extra £90 over the F3Ja was worth it given the better processor / gfx card, and one stick of RAM instead of two. Anyway, I'll let you know how I get on with it. Good luck with yours patel

 

Fantastic choice there, I'm sure your sons will be more than happy with their new machines. I also think it was worth the extra money. 1GB of RAM should be fine for now, just be sure to let them know to shut down unnecessary applications when they go to game. The latest games are RAM hungry.

 

Thanks Chaz. They're due tomorrow so I'll post some initial thoughts, followed by a more detailed review in due course. I think it will be interesting for visitors to this forum to see how a spec like the F3Jp actually compares to the 'lappy with the go-faster stripes' (G1). Incidentally, it will be great to see a few more reviews of the G1 as and when people have a chance to post them on here.

 

Have you considered an Asus Z96J? It has a X1600 256mb dedicated as well.

I got mine from www.geared2play.com and have been very satisfied.

 

Hi Vasichko. Not sure we can buy the model you mentioned here in the UK.

I'm hoping that Mark of Chaos, Medieval Total War II, and Spellforce 2 will all play at medium to high settings on the F3Jp. We loaded Spellforce 2 on a new 8800GTX system (before the hard drive died on us), and the game looked fantastic. My children, who are big RTS & RPG fans, were very impressed. They can't wait for the new Command & Conquer game when it's released too, some time in March I believe.

 

I wouldn't worry about being able to play games with your new F3Jps. They'll handle a lot. If anything an extra stick of 1 GB RAM will help out a little in the future.

 

Thanks Chrisyano. I like your avatar by the way. Is that Gregory Peck?

I was hoping to post my first impressions of the F3Jp today, but darn courier failed to turn up. I'll post some feedback, Futuremark scores, and actual gaming impressions etc in due course, and this might give prospective laptop gamers an idea of what these machines can handle. My boys are literally lining up their new RTS titles, trying to decide which ones to install first on the new machine

 

If you're interested in writing a full review for us, that would be great. You'll be rewarded for your efforts too:
http://www.notebookreview.com/writeReview

 

Yes it is .

We can always use more reviews here, definitely!

 

I just got the F3Ja, you will be happy with your purchase

Only cost me £770 and I got a free bag, free mouse and a free asus usb tv tuner.

 

Looking forward to your review. I've got my eye on the F3JP, though it's above my price range. Your review could be the deciding factor.

 

More than happy to post a review in due course guys In the meantime, I took delivery of the laptop today so here are a few initial thoughts to tide you over:

Great packing from Asus, as always. I don't think anything's going to get broken in there during delivery. First impressions upon opening up the boxes and seeing the F3Jp in the flesh, so-to-speak, are very, very good. I'm sure other owners have said this before, but the pictures really don't do this laptop justice. I previously had an Asus A6 series, and the F3J series looks a lot sleeker, and possibly a tad smaller, at least that's how it appears. I think this is down to the laptop edges being rather more rounded and not as straight and clinical as the A6. Anyway, the F3J is an altogether more pleasing design to the eye. So far so good then...

A few goodies supplied as standard with the laptop, namely an optical mouse and carry bag. I'd say that both of these items are a little better than the ones we received with the A6. The bag is of a similar design, but feels a little less garish than the black/blue we had previously. This one's a more sombre yet classy dark brown / grey. And the optical mouse is a bit smaller this time, but feels a bit 'sportier' if that makes any sense Again, I prefer the mouse this time around too.

The F3J is more silver to the dark grey of the A6, and I think it benefits from this. It just looks a more attractive and pleasing design. I'd say it's marginally lighter too, although this is just an initial feeling, as I've not weighed it or anything. The battery on this one protrudes a little from the back of the laptop, but it's in no way a problem. I mention it only because I've been used to the flush fit of the A6. And talking of battery... no full tests as yet, but the battery life seems, upon early usage, much better than the A6. Sorry if I keep comparing things to the A6, but it's my benchmark on things as I've never owned any other laptops. Anyway, I think battery life is going to be a great improvement over the A6 series, and that wasn't exactly poor.

Screen is great. Very glossy, as with most screens these days, but very vibrant and pleasing for gaming and watching DVD's. No dead pixels, although I've just noticed whilst playing Company of Heroes that there's a very narrow line of light to the left-hand side of the screen, noticeable mainly against a dark background. Not noticed this until now, but will keep any eye on it as it's a bit annoying seeing a faint line of light at the side (almost as though someone's taken a knife to it). Maybe it's just in the COH game though. Other than that though I have to say that Asus put together a superb laptop, and one that inspires confidence. I don't imagine for one moment that this things going to fall apart, break down, or give me hassle; at least that's how it feels anyway.

I'll try and get round to doing a full and in-depth review in due course, but I must just conclude by saying that the 2GHz processor, coupled with 1GB RAM, and an X1700 card, definitely enable some enthusiastic gaming. Don't think for one moment that you need to go up to a G1, G2 or, (much higher) the XPS M1710 to play the latest games at high settings. Medieval Total War II, Spellforce 2, Company of Heroes, Battle for Middle Earth 2, Mark of Chaos, etc, all play at high settings, and some with all the eye candy cranked up. Of course, the screen resolution is only 1280x800, but we've noticed a marked improvement in the detail, sharpness, smoothness and vibrancy of the games on the F3J over the X700-based A6... and that was no slouch.

Oh yes, and to round this up, I must say that one of the biggest surprises has been the improvement in sound quality in the F3JP, at least compared with the A6. I'd intended to buy some extra speakers for this laptop, but in my humble opinion the sound is so good I'm not going to bother. I must admit that I'm not the best judge of sound, but the speakers in this laptop are way, way better than I'd expected. Not the usual tinny effort found in laptops, but more a deeper, richer sound. Very pleased.

I'm still using the gfx card drivers as installed on the laptop, and I must admit I've not been in too much of a hurry to research possible updates. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't seem to be able to find Catalyst drivers for the X1700 card, so any suggestions for updates most welcome.

If these were my initial thoughts, the full review will possibly be 45+ pages in length!!

 

Thanks for posting your initial response to your new laptops. Your boys will love them, I'm sure.

 

I too am planning to go in for one of the F3J series.. but for me it's a toss up b/w the x1700 and the 7600 card. It may sound like a no-brainer, but i know absolutely nothing when it comes to laptop graphics, as this is gonna be my first. As far as i've seen, it's always a contest b/w th 1600 and th 7600, wd 7600 edging out the 1600. However, which will be better, the 1700, or the 7600?

 

You might want to read through the GPU guide to catch up a little on mobile GPUs. The x1700 is ATI's replacement for the x1600. I'd get it if there wasn't a price premium involved.

 

Sesshomaru, I went for the 2GHz processor, X1700 card, and 1GB stick of RAM, but in all honesty I'm not sure there's going to be a huge performance gain over the 1.83 GHz processor and either X1600 or 7600 card. And I paid an extra £140 for these upgrades. That said, we're very happy so far with the performance and build quality of the F3Jp

If anybody has any suggestions for good drivers for the X1700 card please do let me know. Many thanks.

 

You can look through the Video Card Driver Update guide and see if you can find anything, but from what I recall, people have not had much success installing new drivers on X1700-based laptops due to the fact that they don't recognize the card. You will most likely have to wait for newer driver releases before you can update your drivers.

 

Thanks Chaz, that's what I thought. Maybe this sounds really naive, but why do ATI and NVIDIA release new cards without the latest drivers to support them? Or is it perfectly normal to utilise current drivers already in use? I believe the same situation may exist for owners of the new G1 with its 7700 card.

 

Although Nvidia's/ATI's drivers may not support the Go7700/X1700, the manufacturer of the laptop's drivers do. The manufacturer of the laptop wants you to use their drivers. Nvidia may not update their drivers until later on.

 

Thanks chrisyano, and aceimager.
@ chrisyano:
All three cards are listed under Performance video card. Given by benchmarks, the 1700 is somewhat better than th 7600. However, i read that ati's HyperMemory is rather inefficent, compared to nvidia's turbocache. And at some places it mentions that the 7600 has dedicated 512 mb vram. The upshot is that i am really confused...

@Aceimager
I've already made up my mind as regards the processor, and will be getting a T7200.. The 4 MB really sounds better, since C2D doesn't have an on chip memory controller... Also, the 2 Ghz is kinda nice....

 

In relation with my topic here : http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=97136

I am curious to know what perfomances you get on Oblivion ( and Neverwinter Nights 2) using the mid high range CPU that equip the G1, G2 and A8Js. I'm hoping at least full distance view, bloom or HRD, 1400x900, no shadows, a bit of grass, high detailed textures and No AA or AF. Am I too optimistic ?

 

Most likely. You would need a card along the lines of a Go7900GS or X1800 to run at a relatively high resolution like 1440x900 in Oblivion. 1280x800 should be playable though.

 

Hi Buzaow.

I can't comment on G1, G2, A8Js, but will load Oblivion on our F3Jp tomorrow and give you my opinion of what it's capable of. Hopefully owners of the afore-mentioned laptops will give you some feedback also.

 

That is correct. All three cards (and you can add the go 7700 to that list to make four) are in the same class. The x1700/go 7700 are basically refreshes of the previous generation. It seems the go 7700 has more of a hardware upgrade over its predecessor (the go 7600) than the x1700 over the x1600.

The newer cards will have better performance than their predecessors, as can be expected. They are not, however, night and day differences.

In regards to the VRAM. I wouldn't worry about 256 MB vs. 512 MB, as this level of cards cannot effectively use the second 256 MB of VRAM. You will not see much difference in performance between a 256 MB go 7600 and a 512 MB one.