Asus G55VW (DS71 or RS71?) Where to find info...

[CoderGirl]

Hello everyone, this is my first thread!

I was wondering what the difference between DS71 and RS71 is? What does DS stand for? What does RS stand for? Where do I find these things out?

I'm looking into buying another ASUS laptop. I'd like to customize it myself, and so I found http://www.gentechpc.com (anyone buy from these guys?). There's a lot of customization available that seem off from the ASUS and intel processor spec (it may be asus or intels wording that I'm taking differently), but I don't understand why the DS is more expensive since I can customize both to be identical. For future upgrading purposes, I'd like to know what I'm dealing with. According to the site I'm looking at you can install SSD SATA II in the DS71 Optical Drive Bay but not in the RS71, is that the only difference?

These are the 2 laptops I'm looking at:
http://www.gentechpc.com/config.asp?config_id=Asus-G55VW-DS71
http://www.gentechpc.com/config.asp?config_id=Asus-G55VW-RS71

Thanks guys!

[cl-scott]

Based on what I am seeing, the DS has 12GB of RAM standard, and the RS has 8GB standard. They appear to be equal in every other respect as far as their base specs go.

[CoderGirl]

cl-scott wrote:
Based on what I am seeing, the DS has 12GB of RAM standard, and the RS has 8GB standard. They appear to be equal in every other respect as far as their base specs go.

Thanks for replying. Yeah I don't really care what it comes with I'm more concerned with what you could turn it into. I poked around this forum and found this thread:
http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?18118-g75vw-ds71-or-no

Which states

put it this way, if you want Blu Ray badly get DS71 other wise get the RS72 like i said the RS72 is 400$ cheaper and you get a better video card.

This doesn't make sense to me given they have the same graphics card. But it does seem that the optic drive can hold a wider array of options on the ds according to the website I mentioned above (or any other website you go onto that make customized ASUS laptops...I've been on several).

[john_from_ohio]

CoderGirl wrote:
Hello everyone, this is my first thread!

I was wondering what the difference between DS71 and RS71 is?

Everyone has perference but if you are at all still considering the G55 think seriously about a G75 instead.

Having dual easily accessible hard drives and still having a DVD ( and/or blue ray if one wants to install the panasonic UJ 40 replacement ) is worth a whole bunch to most of the coders I know.

Bringing a G75 to any LAN party is gonna be a big hit!

[Zygomorphic]

john_from_ohio wrote:
Everyone has perference but if you are at all still considering the G55 think seriously about a G75 instead.

Having dual easily accessible hard drives and still having a DVD ( and/or blue ray if one wants to install the panasonic UJ 40 replacement ) is worth a whole bunch to most of the coders I know.

Bringing a G75 to any LAN party is gonna be a big hit!

I would go with the cheaper G55, since you can upgrade the RAM to 16 GB for less than $150. Hey, for $150, you could upgrade to 16 GB and[\B] put in a small mSata SSD if you are willing to totally disassemble the computer. Alternately, if you need maximum RAM, $180 would allow you to put in 32 GB, if you really felt like you needed it. 🙂 Everything else appears to be the same, so from there just customize to your heart's content! 🙂

Yes, @john, I agree, dual HDD is a big deal for some, but people who do not need as much storage and want some semblence of portability 😉 will like the G55 more. Still, comes down to 2 2.5" HDD's versus better battery life and less weight. Portability is bad on both, but worse on the G75.

[CoderGirl]

^No dice. This is basically going to replace my EeePC (haha what a replacement). I think adjusting to a 15.6" is bad enough. Plus, I really don't need the extra hard drive, and I intend to take out the DVD player to turn it into an external anyhow (since I do still have the eee). That means I have a primary drive, a mSATA, and an optical drive free for SSDs galore.

[Zygomorphic]

CoderGirl wrote:
^No dice. This is basically going to replace my EeePC (haha what a replacement). I think adjusting to a 15.6" is bad enough. Plus, I really don't need the extra hard drive, and I intend to take out the DVD player to turn it into an external anyhow (since I do still have the eee). That means I have a primary drive, a mSATA, and an optical drive free for SSDs galore.

@CoderGirl, awesome sig! Very clever, except you forgot the semi-colon :). If you remove the DVD drive, then you should put the HDD there, and the SATA III SSD in where the HDD was. That will maximize your performance! We can all use better performance, can't we?

[CoderGirl]

Zygomorphic wrote:
@CoderGirl, awesome sig! Very clever, except you forgot the semi-colon :). If you remove the DVD drive, then you should put the HDD there, and the SATA III SSD in where the HDD was. That will maximize your performance! We can all use better performance, can't we?

Thanks. It came from a conversation I had with a friend when we were talking about Java. He was complaining how people should pre-increment more, in which I replied preIncrement++! It just doesn't have the same ring to it otherwise. And post just fit really well here for obvious reasons.

P.S. Some scripting languages don't need semi-colons 😛 Funny that though, I typed the semi-colon and took it out since I'm use to people not knowing what that means anyhow.

Since my desktop died and my eeePC is getting old I intend on getting a TB portable, so I probably won't be putting a heavy slow HDD in there to eat up my gargantuan battery of heaviness. I plan on putting a >=240 SSD in the primary...and well...I'm not sure what I'll be doing with my optical drive since I want to turn it into an external...empty caddy of opportunity? lol. Cheap suggestions (since I don't really need anything else but also don't need a gaping hole in my new laptop)?

I'm also wondering what's faster, primary SSD I'm assuming...but what about a optical SSD vs a equivalent mSATA?

[lanceezy]

hey i did a few research. i believe the ASUS G55VW RS71 you can extend the ram to 32gb. and the ds71 you can extend to only 16gb.

here link for the rs71

http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/ASUS_G55VW_RS71/G55VWRS71/11718300/


heres link for the ds71

http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/ASUS_G55VW_DS71/G55VWDS71/11594680/



go to extended specs you should see it

[RPXZ]

lanceezy wrote:
hey i did a few research. i believe the ASUS G55VW RS71 you can extend the ram to 32gb. and the ds71 you can extend to only 16gb.

here link for the rs71

http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/ASUS_G55VW_RS71/G55VWRS71/11718300/


heres link for the ds71

http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/ASUS_G55VW_DS71/G55VWDS71/11594680/



go to extended specs you should see it

Both can take 32. However make sure you have the proper version of windows to actually be able to allocate it.

I have 20gigs in my ds71.