ASUS G51Vx 15" Gaming Notebook

Date: October 3, 2009 - Author: Rob Williams

To purchase a quality gaming notebook just a few years ago would have set you back at least $2,000. The situation is far better today, and it's proven with ASUS' G51Vx, coming in at $999. It comes complete with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 260M graphics card, a great feature-set and plays most of today's games at max detail settings with ease.

Introduction

It's been quite a while since I've had the chance to take a look at a "gaming notebook", so when ASUS offered me the chance to take a look at their G51Vx, an offering that comes in at $999, I couldn't pass it up. In the past, notebooks designed for gaming were expensive... far more so than regular notebooks, so the price tag of this one alone intrigued me quite a bit. How does the G51Vx earn its "gaming" moniker? Well, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M 1GB sure helps.

Before we continue onto a look at the notebook, I should mention that like most other models out there, this one has more than one version, and to say that they differ would be an understatement. While the model I received includes a modest dual-core processor, another variant has a quad-core Q9000. Then there's the ODD. To keep costs low on this particular version, we have a standard DVD-RW, while the quad-core model of the notebook includes a Blu-ray player.

As you could expect, this notebook is targetted towards one specific set of people... gamers. As such, it offers certain features that cater directly to that crowd, such as backlit keys, a full numpad, Altec Lansing speakers with subwoofer, a large 7200 RPM hard drive and of course, the graphics card that's capable of handling any current game on the market at the notebook's native screen resolution of 1366x768.

"What, only 1366x768?" you ask? I agree... it would have been nice to see an increased resolution, say, 1680x1050, but it all comes down to cost. To keep the notebook at or below $1,000 and still deliver stellar gaming performance, the display itself had to be kept modest. The quad-core version of the notebook boosts the display to 1920x1080, which is far improved. That version of the notebook costs 60% more, however.

Closer Look at ASUS' G51Vx

Instead of rambling, how about we take a tour around the G51Vx, huh? First, here's a shot of the notebook all closed up. The lone color scheme this model comes in is pearl white for the top, and black for the rest. If you have any remaining doubts that this is a gaming notebook, the "Republic of Gamers" logo should help rid them. The design surrounding the logo is part of the top itself, and not just a sticker.

After cracking open the top, we can see all the goodness that awaits us. We have the obligitory product logos, a large touchpad that's aligned with the main keyboard and some buttons under the display. Note the "HD Vision" sticker here. I believe the quad-core variant of the notebook says "True HD Vision", which denotes the 1920x1080 resolution.

Ahh, this is where my love for this notebook kicked off. I admit that I'm not much of a notebook user, and I primarily only use them when I'm out of town on business. And even then, I rarely stick to a single notebook since so many pass through here, which means I have to re-learn each one. It also means that I gain good experience with a wide-variety of notebooks out there, and I can honestly say, this is one of the absolutely best touchpads I've ever used. It's clear ASUS put extra thought into the touchpad here, just in case gamers actually wanted to use it for the odd bout of gaming.

The best way I can describe the surface is as matte, but it's not at all rough on your fingertips. Rather, fingers easily glide along the surface, without any sort of numbness over time that can occur on certain other touchpads (like the one on my HP dv2). Another bonus is the easy-to-use left and right "mouse" buttons. They're neither too difficult or too easy to push. There's also a touch scroll-wheel here, but I've always found those to be cumbersome, on any notebook.

The G51Vx features a chiclet-style keyboard which I was initially a little wary about. After using the notebook for some time, though, I found it to be fairly ideal, both for gaming and typing. It was the first notebook keyboard in a while where I could actually type fast and not typo. There were certain occasions when I'd purposely slow myself down because I felt like I was going to typo if I kept it up, because I'm so used to that occurring on other models.

The G51Vx might be what some would consider to be a "value" gamer's notebook, but ASUS spared nothing with the build quality. As a whole, I found the notebook to be very well-built, and not at all flimsy or cheap.

As I mentioned earlier, there are a few different buttons up top, three of which are touch-sensitive. The first touch button, which has the icon of the RoG logo, controls the color schemes that come with ASUS' own Splendid utility. The second controls the power mode, while the third disables the touchpad (really important when gaming with a mouse). The two "real" buttons both act as power buttons, but when the notebook is turned off, the first button will boot up with Splashtop mode, while the second will boot straight to Windows. To learn a little bit more about Splashtop, you can read an older article of ours here, or check out the official website.

Where connectivity is concerned, the G51Vx delivers. On the right-side of the notebook we have the ODD, two USB ports and our audio jacks.

On the left, we can find a VGA port close to the display, another USB, a FireWire, eSATA, HDMI and the card reader.

At the back is yet another USB port, a LAN port (the modem port is blocked as it doesn't exist on this model) and also the power adapter port. There's also a Kensington security lock, which is found at the opposite corner.

Finally, the notebook also features a 2.0 megapixel webcam, which is pretty-much a standard on mid-range notebooks nowadays.

That wraps up our physical tour of the notebook, so let's continue onto a look at the specifications in more detail, and also the software bundle.

Specifications, Software

As a gaming notebook at $1,000, you can probably already guess how things will be configured. Given the price, ASUS has to strategically decide which parts to cut back on, in order to keep the gaming performance high. Despite that goal though, the G51Vx is, overall, a very capable notebook, even with gaming aside. Really, the only thing that could be considered scaled-back would be the CPU, a modest 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo.

In the world of gaming, more often than not, it's the GPU that makes the most difference, not the CPU. So it's with that, that ASUS decided to bolster a larger GPU and include a modest CPU. There are some games that take great advantage of the CPU, but since the G51Vx is designed to be an affordable gaming notebook, this configuration makes all the sense in the world.

Aside from the CPU and GPU, we also have 4GB of RAM (and thanks to the 64-bit OS, we can actually use it), a 320GB Seagate Momentus hard drive, at 7200 RPM with 16 MB of Cache, a 6-cell battery, a whole lot of peripheral support as we saw on the previous page, and more. Since this is a 15.4" notebook, it is a bit weighty at 7.3lbs, so you probably won't want to lug it along for your nature walk.

The G51Vx includes Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit, but includes an upgrade certificate to make the move to Windows 7 when that OS gets officially launched later this month. Also, I should note that this notebook is a Best Buy exclusive SKU, and that will become obvious in a minute.

After the first boot, we're greeted with a wallpaper showing off the model we're using, and numerous icons on the desktop. Notice the Best Buy icon... in all its low-resolution glory. That's to install various games, although none are free. You'll also likely notice the LoJack advertisement that pops-up in the middle of the screen. ASUS includes the security software here, and as far as I can tell, it's not a trial. I couldn't find out without going through a full sign-up process, however.

To get an idea of the "bloat" that comes included on this notebook, you can check out the Add/Remove screen in the screenshot below. Overall, about half of the software bundled is either free, free commercial or is ASUS' own. If you're like me, you'll likely uninstall a lot of this very quickly, although the ASUS software itself is generally useful.

Two unique applications to the G51Vx that I haven't stumbled on while testing an ASUS notebook before is "ASUS Data Security" and "ASUS Fancy Start". If you guessed that Data Security allowed you to store files of any sort via a password-protected means, you're certainly correct. I found the software to be a little clunky, but it worked well in my tests.

Fancy Start is arguably the more interesting of the two. If you've ever wanted to customize the graphics during the POST process, you're able to here. You can add your own images, or sequence of images, along with audio.

There's a lot of what I'd consider to be bloatware included here, but given the relatively affordable price of the notebook, it's no surprise to see all. It took me about a half-hour to remove whatever I personally didn't want to keep, with the longest program to uninstall being Microsoft Office (which comes as a 60-day trial).

We've taken a look at the notebook itself, and its software, so how about some performance and gaming information?

Performance, Gaming

Before we tackle the results, let's quickly review our basic notebook testing methodology. The first step in preparing the notebook is to completely wipe the factory OS and install our own (Vista Home Premium 64-bit). This is to prevent pre-installed applications from skewing our performance results. We then use the included DVD-ROM to install all of the necessary drivers. Also, Windows Search Indexing and a few other Windows services are manually disabled, to further help with producing accurate and repeatable results.

Once the machine is prepared for benchmarking, it's shut down and set on a flat surface with plenty of room for airflow until it's completely cooled down. Once benchmarking gets underway, the machine is boot and left to sit idle at the Windows desktop for five minutes, at which point testing begins. Each test is run through twice, with a reboot taking place in between each run.

To test notebooks out through some common usage scenarios, we use PCMark Vantage to do a full run through our machine to see where it excels, and also a couple of real-world applications, such as Adobe Lightroom, TMPGEnc Xpress, dBpoweramp and 3ds Max 2009. Each benchmark we use is run twice over (with a reboot in between) to assure that what we saw the first time is accurate. Our temperature tests are captured with the help of a temperature gun.

Compared to a few ASUS notebooks we've reviewed in the past few months, the G51Vx offers ample performance overall. The N50Vn offers a CPU about 20% faster, while the W90 is a quad-core, so it will beat out any other notebook we've ever tested (we hope to review more quad-core notebooks in the near-future). From a temperatures perspective, the G51Vx by no means got too hot after a long period of time, even when stressing the CPU. Note that these temperatures don't include stressing of the GPU as I wanted the results to be comparable. Adding a GPU stress will increase the exhaust temperature to about 45°C.

Gaming Performance

Of course, the moment you've been waiting for. Below are screenshots from various games we loaded up on the notebook, with the basic setting configuration listed below each one. Rather than deliver Min/Avg/Max FPS reports, for our notebook reviews we instead just take a screenshot of the game with FRAPS, and you can see what our frames-per-second performance was at that exact moment during the gameplay.

Batman Arkham Asylum - 1366x768, Max Detail, 4xAA

Bionic Commando - 1366x768, Max Detail, 4xAA

Call of Duty: World at War - 1366x768, Max Detail, 4xAA

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood - 1366x768, Max Detail, 4xAA

Crysis Warhead - 1366x768, Mainstream Detail, 0xAA

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin - 1366x768, Max Detail, 4xAA

FUEL - 1366x768, Max Detail, 4xAA

GRID - 1366x768, Max Detail, 4xAA

GTA IV - 1366x768, Low Texture, Medium Other Details, 0xAA

Resident Evil 5 - 1280x720, Max Detail, 4xAA

For the most part, I was quite happy with the gaming performance that the GTX 260M delivered, and it was about on par with what I expected to see. The vast majority of today's games will run at max detail settings just fine, and some can even use anti-aliasing. The exceptions are of course Crysis Warhead and GTA IV (which as far as games are concerned, is a total glutton for system resources). The former is actually rather worthless here... even at low detail settings, it's too sluggish.

Final Thoughts

The G51Vx is the kind of notebook that depresses me. When I purchased a $3,000 Dell notebook almost five years ago, it barely played any of the games that were on the market at the time. But here, we have a $1,000 notebook of the same size that plays all of the current games on the market. Sure, it's depressing to think about what we paid for back then, but as the tech world goes, we'll likely look back at this in five years and think, "What a rip-off!".

For the current day, though, this notebook kicks ass. The first reason for this is of course the general performance. The CPU might be modest, but the it's hardly slow, and I'm highly doubtful anyone is going to be tapping their feet waiting for an application, unless we're talking about a rendering or encode job. For gaming, the CPU is more than competent. We also have the benefit of it running relatively cool, as well, which is an appreciated bonus when gaming on the notebook for a few hours at a time.

Then there's the graphics card, of course. It's not fair to compare the GeForce GTX 260M to the desktop GTX 260, because the performance is nowhere the same, but on this 1366x768 monitor, the 260M delivers in droves. Most of the games we tested could utilize max detail settings along with anti-aliasing, and that in itself is impressive. I'm not quite sure how the higher-end G51Vx would fare with its 1920x1080 resolution, but I'd no doubt be quite good. You sure wouldn't be able to max out detail settings in every game like you can with 1366x768, as at 1080p, you're pushing almost exactly double the pixels.

Aside from the resolution, as I was using this notebook I couldn't help but feel as though I was using a much more expensive machine. Technology is moving fast, so as the months pass, we continually see much better hardware at the same, or lower, price point, and that's great. I find the value with the G51Vx to be incredibly good. It plays all the latest games at nice detail settings... what's not to like about that?

With a six-cell battery, the notebook will last about two and a half hours with regular use (light web-browsing, listening to music). If you are more of a power user and watch YouTube videos the entire time, then you can expect the life to be closer to 2h - 2h 15m, depending. It's actually too bad that a 12-cell battery isn't made available as an upgrade, because it'd likely be worth it. We'd bump up to 4 hours of battery-life, or more, and still retain a desirable price-point.

The design of the notebook is what completes this package for me. The keyboard is cleanly-designed and nice to use over long periods of time, as is the touchpad (which I still consider to be the best I've ever used). There's also a numpad here, so for games that use it, you won't be left without (it's also a nice feature for your spreadsheet marathons!). A really nice touch is the backlit keys, which help a lot if you game in the dark, which really, is the best way to play them. The backlight is bright, but not so much that it becomes annoying.

Extremely nice peripheral connectivity isn't so much a luxury anymore, and the G51Vx proves it. As far as I recall, this is the first notebook I've used that features 4 USB ports rather than 2 or 3. In addition to those, there's FireWire, eSATA and even VGA and HDMI outputs. There's simply nothing missing here (unless you are one of the few modem users left).

Perhaps one of the best features of this notebook is that even after long periods of gaming, the temperature from any side never gets so hot that it becomes a real problem, either from a performance or touch perspective. After playing a game for even an hour, the keyboard is barely warm (except from your fingers). Your left hand will be sitting near the left exhaust when you are using the WASD keys though, so you will feel more heat then. The G51Vx isn't only designed to allow you to play the latest games, but play the latest games for hours at a time.

One thing I will mention (or rather, NVIDIA asked me to mention), is that the GeForce GTX 260M found here includes two nice features... CUDA support and also user-upgradeable drivers. Although GPGPU is still in its infancy, relatively, if you do happen to want to take advantage of CUDA-based apps, you'll have a really nice GPU here to take care of them. Also, in the past year, NVIDIA finally started putting their mobile drivers on their website, so fishing around an OEM's convoluted website is no longer a requirement. This is a huge deal to me, as I've been very frustrated by the lack of this ability in the past.

I've been using the G51Vx off and on for the past three weeks, and I can confidently say that it's a solid product. It offers superb gaming performance, runs well after long gaming sessions and has cool gamer-esque features on the side to boot. For the $999 price tag, you can't go wrong with this notebook if you're looking to get the best mobile gaming performance for the buck.

Pros
• Great design and aesthetics.
• Solid CPU performance, awesome GPU performance.
• Peripheral connectivty is top-rate (4x USB, HDMI).
• Chiclet-style keyboard is easy to type on.
• Touchpad is one of the best I've used.
• Price ($999).
• Free Windows 7 upgrade.

Cons
• If only the resolution was a wee bit higher!
• Display looks best when looked at straight-on.
• Software bloat (even if it's understandable from a pricing perspective).
• Battery-life is a little weak (the graphics card could be mostly to blame).

ASUS G51Vx (RX05) Gaming Notebook

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