NP8660 (M860TU) VS. Asus G50V

Well, though I'm not 100% sure it was the best decision I went ahead and switched from the NP8660 to the Asus G50V. I'll give my reasoning in a minute.

I wanted to post this here because it seems the Sager fans are pretty fair folk.

What does everyone think about Sager vs. Asus in terms of build quality and cooling. Has anyone heard any horror stories about Asus' cooling.

For me, not being an avid gamer, the gpu was not as important as the cpu, ram, and hdd (in that order). I know I'm loosing the DDR3 by going with the Asus (still DDR2 800mhz though), and of course the gpu is lower, but most of my use for that will be in video editing). My reason for making the jump is that my primary use for the laptop will be audio production, so having the raid array (which I will be upgrading from the standard 250gb sata x2 to 320gb sataII x2) will be extremely helpful when recording or using my sample liraries in real time.

Also, since Sager has officially anounced that the X9100 will not be supported as opposed to Asus which hasn't said either way, I will be one of the early testers I suppose, since I've got the X9100 on order.

I don't care so much for the orange accents and all the other rob me features, other than the status display above the keyboard.

I still like the look of the NP8660 better, and though the Asus will be plenty sturdy I'm sure, the Sager looks like it's iron clad in terms of build.

I just wanted to get some thoughts on my decision, and see what everyone thinks about how they stack up against each other.

I'll post both of my orders below in a moment.

 

Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. If the 8660 doesn't support what you need it to support there is no point in purchasing it.

The Asus doesn't look like a bad deal and it's got a good rep so you shouldn't have much to worry about.

 

Actually, ASUS has a pretty bad battery power record... not to mention their overheating C90 models.
But otherwise, ^^ what the above posted said.

 

Excellent thread, I'm in the same exact boat as you. I got a chance to play with the G50 at Best Buy but this was a much weaker version than the A1/A2 models of the G50 and I found it to be rather sturdy and well built. I don't know anything about Asus' cooling other than reading about a lot of heating issues with the G1s models but I'm hoping they're resolved. The only thing that kinda sucks is the 5400 RPM drives...and there really is no point in updating to 7200 RPM because the pricing would be similar to the A2 model which is only $200 more and includes 2 7200RPM HDDs AND a blu-ray drive but still I'd like to spend as little as possible. I think it's excellent bang for your buck...I just wanna know more about cooling and build quality.

 

Yeah, the 6cell battery in a notebook like this does concern me some.

About the C90's, so I take it there are some horror stories out there about them running hot. I'll check out the Asus section a little more, and see what I can find as well, but if you have some details on hand that would be helpful to.

 

Also, how heavy is the ASUS (as opposed to 7.1 lbs Sager NP8660) ?

 

I've had the C90S before, and the main problem with the C90s and G1 series for that matter is the 8xxx series GPU. For the C90s, although it has 4 fans at the back, it is only activated by the CPU's temp, not the the GPU. So even though the CPU was running cool, the GPU was as hot as a fryer. As for the G1 series, the cooling system was too weak to efficiently dissipate heat emitted by the defective 8600 GPU. The G50 is the replacement of the G1 and has a completely new chassis design as well as a larger heatsink and cooling system.

I believe it's 6.5lbs.

 

Only the Santa Rosa gen

Overheating C90S is all due to the video card

 

if u wan to get some discount u can config the sager on xoticpc for less.

 

Do you mean the cash discount?
Gentechpc also offers the same discount

 

But XoticPC is a Sager reseller. So the configuration/base price will be different.

 

Are you referring to the NP8660 or G50? Xotic is not only a sager reseller, but also asus and msi.
As for gentech they are only an asus reseller, but their base price is exactly the same as Xotic's ($1639) for the default configuration; but if you upgrade the HDD, gentech turns out cheaper.

 

I'm referring to the Sager.

 

my bad....

 

No problem.

 

According to the preview, it gets 2 hrs and 20 minutes with the 6 cell battery and 3 hours and 12 minutes with the 9 cell battery.

 

That version of the M50 is the Best Buy watered-down version. Weaker CPU, one HDD, lower res screen, slower ram and no bluetooth. The "real" version will probably have slightly less battery life due to it more powerful specs.

 

I agree, the more powerful versions should have less battery life.

 

grayreap:

I think the best thing you can do is to get the G50. You clearly do not need the gaming power of the m860tu and the m50 IMOP looks awesome. And - it's priced decently. Dual HD? That's just awesome. Color design works well too....lots of bonuses...

PLUS with Asus you get their RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME 2 year warranty including 1 year accidental. That's just sheer awesomeness.

 

i am in this exact same boat. the difference with me though is that the m860TU is virtually the same price since i was upgraded from the ATI 3850.

my order is through powernotebooks though and it doesnt look like they are carrying this laptop so i would have to switch companies. the warranty is the biggest thing since im going to be abroad for 2 years in a place that may be prone to accidents

id imagine these laptops are going to be shipping about the same time also. heck what i might even do is just wait for the m860tu to come, then by that time other people will have theirs and will be giving reviews. if i decide im convinced i can keep it, and if not i could leave it sealed and sell it on here, since i was upgraded free to the 9800 i wouldnt lose any money in the deal.

 

Why isnt the g50 offered with the p9500? You would think just for the sake of battery/heat they would?

 

^^ I doubt there's any dramatic increase with the P9500 in terms of battery life and more efficient cooling. I read somewhere that the G50 has an improved cooling system over the G1 series, hopefully it's true.

 

if HP can put the T9600 in their new 14' notebook. I don't think the P9500 will be too hot in the G50.

Still shocked that HP put the T9600 in their 14''. WOW

 

@ Vestibule

you didn't choose an OS for the Sager modle

 

Remember the pennryn chips run really really cool compared to previous builds. And they have a threshold of 105 degress. Even the m15x doesn't get that close.

 

Yeah, I'm hoping I'll get decent temps in the G50V with the X9100 and dual 320's. It is a pretty large 15.4 incher, so hopefully it has good cooling.

 

do you still have your pcmw order? i think this new asus is a good system if you go for it. Its watered down version of 8860 imo, thats not a bad thing though.

lower price, lower specs in some areas but still descent, and lower weight.

 

yes im aware. ebay is much cheaper.

 

No, I cancelled with PCMW a couple weeks ago in favor of XoticPC. I got a great deal on the Sager from Xotic, but I just couldn't justify to myself passing up the RAID which will be very important for what I'm using it for in favor of the nicer gpu, since I won't be gaming (other than Half Life 2: EP 2, and I think the 9700m GT can handle that).

 

what's the advantages of RAID?
tnx

 

Faster or more reliable.

 

Yeah. I'll be opting for the faster.

For audio recording it should allow me to record multi channel audio in at 24bit 96khz, where my old laptop with a single 200gb 7k2 Hitachi drive would bottleneck the recording and not allow me to record in 96khz resolution for more than 6 tracks before dropping data.

Plus I'll have 640gb (up to 1tb with 2 x 500gb) so I won't have to rely on an external drive for my sample libraries and such.

 

RAID can either mirror or stripe.

Mirror replicates the data on both drives. If you loose one, you still have a copy. Total storage is the same as the total of one drive.

Striping puts half of each byte of data on one drive, half one the other. When reading data you get data from both drives at the same time, but effectively at around double the rate of one drive. Total storage is double a single drive, but failure likelihood is double. If one drive fails, you have no data!

Hope that helps.

Pete

 

I got a question referring to the two laptops....
Which has better sound performance?

 

Your battery will be lasting only 1 hour after about a year with Asus. They really need to offer a good 9-cell battery.

 

Appearance aside, the only plus I can see for the ASUS G50V are the dual hard drives.

With the M860TU you can get WUXGA, 9800GT, 2MP webcam
With the G50V only WSXGA, 98700GT, 1.3MP camera

Not that I use the webcam anyway.

 

the Asus is pretty big saw it in bestbuy, just a tad bit smaller then the 570Tu.

 

Yeah, I've heard it was quite large for a 15.4" laptop, but it is supposedly pretty lite for its size.

 

Asus tend to have more plasticy builds on them. This doesn't appeal to some but it's an area that allows Asus to keep the cost down. The weaker build of the Asus shouldn't be too much of a problem though beause if it breaks you have the Asus Global Warranty to fall back on as well as Accidentall damage protection.
Asus especially their gaming line have always had a tendency to overheat as well as this some laptops heat up around the touchpad which some people again might see as a design flaw.
Sager generally have a better build and some users here on NBR will tell you that they have been using their Laptops for years without any hitches.
All in all im sure The G50 would be a very suitable laptop. It aint too bad on the eye and you have a strong warranty with a trusted company. If you buy through a reseller you'll have the added benefits of their customer support and tech advice so i say go for it.
good luck!