Pheatton

About a week ago I sold my Gateway P-6860FX and bought an Asus G50VT-X5 from Bestbuy. My main reason was I wanted something more portable and smaller but was still powerful enough to be used as a gaming notebook for me when I was traveling. I did ALOT of research online and here on OCN. Looking through pages of threads and reviews of what was currently on the market. I ended up looking at the latest Gateway but was just too big and they don’t make a smaller one. So in the end the Asus made more sense.


So once I got the PC and started looking and testing it turned out that it is a very well built notebook. Had all of the features I wanted except built in Bluetooth. So I decided to put together a review with some benchmarks and pictures since there are some people on OCN that are considering picking this one up.

On to the review.


Specs are as follows:

CPU - Intel C2D P7450
Chipset - Intel PM45/ICH9-M
RAM - 4GB DDR2-800
Networking - Realtek RTL8168 and Intel 5100 AGN
Disc Drive - DVD-RW with Lightscribe
HDD - Seagate 7200.3 320GB
Video - nVidia 9800M GS 512MB
Screen - 15.6 WXGA at 1366X768
Full Specs - http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1218044029168


The case for some is not all that attractive. It’s a black and brown color with a splash/lighting bolt orange. In the middle is a back lit Republic of Gamers logo. Lower is a horizontal light bar and on the sides are two more light bars that can be controlled by a software app. They are either on full time, off full time or flash according to CPU, RAM or fan cycles.

I found that at first I did not really like that color scheme but it has grown on me since then.







So on to some interesting features. There is a small OLED screen that can display the battery level and things like CPU and RAM usage and notifications for IM apps. The power and other buttons are white LEDS that look very cool. All buttons but the power button are all flush touch sensitive buttons, very cool. Only down side there are now dedicated volume buttons, it’s the FN plus either F10 - F12 buttons. Keyboard is nice with a 10 key pad. It’s a little small from some but I have small, skinny fingers so it’s fine with me. Touch pad is very cool as it’s surrounded by a white LED ring and is lighter near the scroll side of the pad.











On of the very cool and useful features is the Express Gate. It’s an app that allows you to boot a program, which I believe is a small Linux install, which has a web browser, media player, photo manager, chat/IM apps and Skype. I have used it bit here and there and it’s very useful to me. It’s opened with a touch key that is always on. Could lead to shorter standby battery life but LEDs don’t really use much power.





The bottom of the notebook is dominated by a large speaker like grill. I first thought it was a speaker but its not. Once I removed the cover it turns out that this is right over the area where the CPU/GPU fan sits. It may have been an intake grill but as some have thought it turned out to raise the temps of other hardware. Some have removed the cover and found that this is the case.





Under the cover are the guts of the system. Looks like the CPU, chipset and GPU are cooled by the same fan and a mix of heat pipes and heat sinks.





Off to the bottom left are the HDD bays. Contained is a Seagate 7200.3 320GB drive. It seems like it’s a very good drive and in some case beats the WD Scorpio Black. There are two bays for, what Asus states can total 640GB, two HDD. Only downside is that there is no second HDD holder/caddy. That has to be purchased from Asus.





Below are some more pictures on the locations of the ports and such.









I then proceeded to reinstall a version of Windows Vista Premium SP1 64bit. I used a program that copies the OEM windows license then after you install a trial version of the version of Vista you have it inserts that info back into windows and its just like you had typed in your key. Its very cool app and when used as intended, completely legal. I then installed that latest Intel drivers and just the minimum that was needed to run the PC with its in full features enabled.

The PC features an in Windows overclocking feature that in testing worked very well. It’s called Direct Console 2.0 and it controls the OC features along with the light features and OLED screen.

I ran 3DMark05 and 06. Vantage would not run as it stated that it needed a minimum to 1280X1024 resolution to run. I also ran Crysis, Crysis Warhead, UT3, and Lost Planet. I ran them, where I could, in both DX9 and DX10 versions and in 64bit mode.

Below are the system info screenshots of the different modes for the OC the PC can run.

Normal



Turbo



Turbo Extreme



Now for the fancy bar graphs on the benchmarks



Both Crysis and Warhead were run at 800X600 as the Crysis tool would not run at the default resolution for the LCD screen. Crysis was set to High with no AA and Warhead was set to Gamer with no AA. Basically I just ran the auto setting option in the setup on both games.





Lost Planet was set all to High with no AA again.



Unreal Tournament was left at its default settings and resolution.




Looks like the OC settings have some affect on the performances numbers. It’s not much but every bit counts. I’m not entirely sure what happened to the Lost Planet Turbo runs. I ran it three times and came up with the almost the same numbers. Temps reported by Coretemp were around 50C on both cores in all benchmarks. The GPU was between 72C and 76C with the fan ramping up the 4200RPM.


So there you have it, my first review on OCN. Thanks for looking.

Asus Mobile

Very nice! Undervolt it with RMClock!

rock3ralex

excellent review! I'm looking at buying this laptop for engineering in college. I took a look at it while in best buy today and really like it but I couldn't pick it up as it was locked down. Can you tell me, is it heavy to transport and what is the battery life on it when just web browsing and gaming on the stock battery?

Thanks

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Pheatton

Just normal websurfing its about 1:30 to 2 hours. I have not really tested it while gaming on the battery yet. The Asus power utility has some automatic power settings that work very well.

burrbit

most of the pictures arent working

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G1 Android Owners Club | DD-WRT Firmware Club

systmbox (home server) - intel e3200 @ 2.4ghz / 1gb ddr2 675mhz / 4x1tb + 2x750gb wd hds / trapped inside a shuttle kpc case
gateway fx 6831 - intel t9300 @ 2.5ghz / 3gb ddr2 667/ 250+320gb hd / 8800m gts 512mb
dell e520 - intel e4400 @ 2.0ghz / 2gb ddr2 533/ 250 hd / 7300le

Juggalo23451

heave you tried it with the modded driver??


Use 182.50Whql
http://www.overclock.net/software-ne...er-laptop.html

or
use 185.68 beta (have it on my Asus G50VT-X5)
http://www.overclock.net/hardware-ne...s-laptops.html

__________________
Water Cooled Case suggestions
Cosmos S w/Classified water cooled(1st) w/ heatkiller and feser 360 rad
NZXT Tempest mod log(360 installed) (Fiance Build)
Heatkiller Club
NZXT Tempest User Community
Xbox 360 mods thread
http://www.overclock.net/xbox/435678...dders-out.html

Pheatton

Looks like the server removed all my pics from my gallery...



I tried to modded driver on my Gateway and it led to all sorts of issues even after a clean Vista install. it always had issues going to sleep and hybernate and then would not shutdown.

Juggalo23451

I am having no problems what so ever on mine and I have had my laptop for about a month now

__________________
Water Cooled Case suggestions
Cosmos S w/Classified water cooled(1st) w/ heatkiller and feser 360 rad
NZXT Tempest mod log(360 installed) (Fiance Build)
Heatkiller Club
NZXT Tempest User Community
Xbox 360 mods thread
http://www.overclock.net/xbox/435678...dders-out.html

rock3ralex

Is it really that bad? I thought it got 2 hrs gaming?

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Pheatton

Im not sure what the exact times are. I was using it with all options set to run full bore to drain the battery after the initial first charge. It has been getting better now. iIs about 2:30 now on full normal power mode with no OCing.

Also pics are now working.