Harkonne's G51Vx-A1 Review, The New Asus Gaming Laptop coming out in Aus Options

[Harkonnen]

Basics
15.6" 1080p LED backlit Screen
Q9000 2.0 Quad Core Processor
4GB 800mhz DDR2 Ram
Nvidia GTX260M 1GB GDRR3
2x 320gb 7200rpm HDD's
Backlit ciclet full-size keyboard with numpad

Introduction

My G51Vx-A1 arrived on Thursday the 6th, in Australia from Red Barn Computers, New York. Just going to mention how great customer service at RBC was, they were very patient with my questions, got the product out asap and helped me get it through customs without hassle. I've read this is going for AUD$3000 when it is released, but USD$1650+$120S&H brings it to a total of only AUD$2200 when imported, so great savings there.




Case + Build
I had a bit of regret that I didn't go the Sager-route when I first witnessed the change in lid from white to black with blue abstract designs, as I am buying this gaming notebook for the military, and I would feel a little conspicuous bringing out a plastic lightning bolt-streaked toy in a room full of trained killers.
Luckily, the blue pattern is not as obnoxious as I thought, and the lights on the side are almost tastefully done, and definately very cool, although you can’t see during gaming. Still, I digress - the G51Vx-A1 has great build quality, although I would have liked to see a little more aluminium, and there is some dissapointing flex in the keyboard near the top F6-F10 keys, although this is the only downpoint I could find. The keyboard wrist rest has a rubber coating with is comfortable and the chiclet keyboard is very easy to type on, with keys that are even larger than my Reclusa gaming keyboard and intelligent placed and organised. The backlight lighting is fantastic in a darkroom, and can be controlled from off, to dim or bright via Fn shortkeys.


Addons
You get a Razor Copperhead mouse, a pair of Eee controllers, and an Asus backpack. Nice value, but not really a deal breaker for me, or I think for other people.


Screen
This is where the G51Vx-A1 shines. The screen is gorgeous, ans easily one of the best I have ever seen on a laptop. Bright with no discernible leakage or bright spots, crisp 1080p resolution on a 15”, and excellent colour contrast/reproduction. Thumbs up all around. Although, you’ll definately want to increase font and cursor size in Windows if you want to avoid squinting.

Raid
I’ve always wanted a laptop with RAID 0 ability, as I find myself moving a lot of large files (100gb) around & video editing, and I have a seperate backup so data loss has never been a critical issue for me. I had people telling me RAID0 in a laptop only generates more heat, wear, noise and error possibility for virtually no performance gain – but I’ve found it great. A 75% speed increase for sequential reads, one nice big 600gb logical drive, and no temperature increase. I would recommended this for anyone who uses a laptop with an external hard drive.



Benchmarks
STOCK CONFIGURATION
Asus-Installed Vista 64bit with bloatware
Stock Thermal Paste

Benchmarks
CPU Stats - 2ghz @ 1.388v
GPU Stats - 500/900/1250
Vista Score - 5.8
3D Mark Score - 9606

CPU Temps
CPU Max Temp Under Load - 72 degrees
CPU Average Temp Under Load – 66 degrees
CPU Idle Temp - 42 degrees

GPU Temps
GPU Max Temp Under Load - 94 degrees
GPU Average Temp Under Load - 86 degrees
GPU Idle Temp -52 degrees

HDTune Pro Results (Sequential Read)
2x320GB 7200RPM Independent
Peak Read Speed – 82mb/s
Average Read Speed – 74mb/s
CPU Overhead – 1%

EXPERIMENTAL CONFIGURATION
(Overclock/Undervolt, ARTIC MX-2 Thermal Paste, Cooling Paste, Optimised DOX Drivers, Fresh OS)
Fresh Vista 64bit running Dox Optimised Drivers 185.85
Artic MX-2 Thermal Paste (CPU-only)
+ Antec Notebook Cooler 200

Benchmark
CPU Stats - 2.4ghz @ 1.275v
GPU Stats - 550/1375/950
Vista Score - 5.9
3D Mark Score - 10404

CPU Temperatures
CPU Peak Temp Under Load – 75 degrees
CPU Average Temp Under Load – 72 degrees
CPU Idle Temp – 44 degrees

GPU Temperatures
GPU Peak Temp Under Load (OCCT Benchmark) – 102 degrees
GPU Peak Temp Under Load (Crysis) – 92 degrees
GPU Average Temp Under Load – 88 degrees
GPU Idle Temp – 55 degrees

HDTune Pro Results (Sequential Read)
2x320GB 7200RPM RAID 0
Peak Read Speed – 149 mb/s
Average Read Speed – 131mb/s
Cpu Overhead – 3%

Gaming Performance
At native 1920x1080 res, Crysis is just playable on all Medium/Mainstream, no AA, at beteen 24-30fps.
Every other game I have been able to run at HIGH, 1920x1080, 2xAA at playable framerates.
I would venture to say that the GTX260M will pack enough punch to keep up this performance with upcoming games for another 18 months.

Summary
This is a solidly built notebook with a gorgeous, bright and contrasting 1080p screen with features aimed directly at gamers and enthusiasts. It is a great mobile performer, but its powerful components have some serious heat byproduct issues - it remains for time to see whether these components can take the heat they generate, or if the G51Vx will be dropping like flies within a year from now. If you are interested in something to overclock, it has great potential, but beware - I’m running a gpu 10% faster and a quad core cpu 25% faster without much additional heat, but any serious gamer worth his or her salt will definately be investing in a cooling pad for this beast and be very wary of high ambient temps and the dangers of overvolting.
I bought this notebook because I want to be able to continue gaming in my spare time and a desktop was out of the question due to space/travel. I can safely say that after a week of putting the G51VX-A1 through its paces, I am happy with my purchase for its intended purpose.