G751JY T7065D Potential Owner Questions - storage, thunderbolt etc

[kmROGFAN]

Hi, guys!

So I am seriously considering buying an Asus G751JY, specifically the T7065D model, since that's what's available in my country. However, I have several questions and I apologise if some of them have been already answered, but here I go anyway

1. Potential problems? - So far what I've heard mentioned as negatives are the weight of the notebook, which does not bother me, the speaker problem, which I will probably live with since I always use my Sony headphones in order not to disturb my roommates :D, and some wifi issues, which do bother me a bit, but frankly local suppliers max out at 150-200mbit/s so ac wireless will merely be for future-proofness. Is there something important I am missing?

2. Storage options - this is especially important to me as the laptop is quite expensive so at first I'll just add a SATA 3 SSD in addition to the factory 1 TB HDD and in a year or so I intend to jump on the Pcie bandwagon. I know the second slot is SATA 2 so I won't be able to use a SATA 3 and a PCIE SSD in parallel easily but I hope I can use an extension cable or something like that?

3. The M.2 slot - I've got my eyes on the Samsung SM951 or its potential successor. However, I would like to be sure that it's fully compatible with the M.2 slot in the G751JY - the XP941 shipped with the JY is PCIe 2.0x4 SSD and SM951 is PCIe 3.0x4 so is the slot PCIe 2.0 or 3.0? Also, will it be possible to use the SSD in NVMe mode for full speed (I confess I don't quite understand if this has to be enabled in hardware or is just a driver issue)? This is the most important question to me and I hope somebody else is planning the same upgrade so that I can see if it'll be possible.

4. The Thunderbolt port - I think I'll be able to find a use for it in the future, perhaps for an external SSD. Mostly out of curiosity though, is it Thunderbolt 1 or 2 - the info I've seen on the net seems ambiguous.

5. This is by no means really important for me, but I'm loving the Intel Real Sense camera put in some of ASUS's multimedia notebooks and also in a ROG notebook, a new G771 model I think. Do you think it's possible for it to be added separately to the laptop in the future, e.g. as a separate USB webcam, or its use will only be limited to successors of the JY? I just found it strange that it was put in other ROG notebooks, but not in the current flagship, especially considering most examples of its use I saw are in games (albeit still very primitive ones but I think it will catch on really quickly).

Also, I would very much love to hear from any owner of this T7065D model - what they think about it, what they liked/disliked, recommend etc

Sorry for the long post 😄 and thanks in advance for any info 🙂

[smallj53]

I bought this:

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=075938

I'm really happy with it because it really is the most mobile gaming for the buck. Yes there are problems. I had to disable rapid start because I was getting black screens after turning the unit on. It looks like the unbalanced sound issue will not be solved because Asus is making hardware changes to the latest units it is selling. The keyboard has to be cleaned regularly because it attracts fingerprints and dirt like crazy. The cpu heats up too hot in demanding games. The keyboard backlight shuts off and you can't adjust how long it stays on. And yes hitting the wrong key when you mean to hit escape can be annoying. But notice how small these problems are? They weren't a dealbreaker for me.
I couldn't follow all of your discussion about the upgrades you want to make. But I wonder if you have totalled up the cost? If your upgrades are going to go over $500.00 wouldn't you be better off considering buying an MSI? There is an MSI with a 980m that has ssds in raid arrays. It might not cost much more than the total amount of money you are thinking of spending.

[Edweird]

kmROGFAN wrote:
Hi, guys!

-snip-

I have that exact same model, purchased 29th December, built in December. No issues with CPU overheating, sound problem seems lessened for me, also comes with just the 1TB 7200RPM drive. After 1 week of use I got used to any small issues like key placement etc. and the Steam key can be remapped to open other Steam windows and the ShadowPlay key can be made to work as a second ESC key.

Is it safe to assume you do have a M.2 drive in yours? Because if you don't, you need a special brace that only comes with models that have the M.2 drive preinstalled and you can't buy this brace from ASUS (yet). Regarding using a cable, I guess you could use something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/NGFF-Extender-Cable-Case-SATA/dp/B00M8HC0Z6

The slot itself is PCIe 3.0 X4 with PCI protocols. And this is the mounting bracket I'm talking about:



I really don't know about the Thunderbolt port. I'd assume it's a V1. The software doesn't tell me and I can't find the device in device manager.
Haven't heard about that camera before but all of these camera's are connected via internal USB 2.0 connectors so it should be possible to rig up a solution - but I think it won't be worth your trouble.

I don't have any trouble with the wireless.

[kmROGFAN]

Thanks for the info!
In response to your comments, I'd like to make some clarifications. First of all, most of the upgrades I won't be doing right now so the problem is not so much with the total sum as with not having such a large amount of money in bulk. Also, this model does not come with an M.2 bracket but the vendor I approached informed me of this and have offered to fabricate a solution should I decide to buy from them - I think they mentioned something about securing the SSD themselves, I suppose they could fix sth up?
As I said, I don't plan making such an upgrade for an year - plenty of time to save up. I just wanted to make sure that when I do decide to upgrade storage, I will be able to do so and that is why MSI is not an option for me - I've got my eye on PCIe SSDs and this SM951 is supposed to be capable of 2.15GB/s read and 1.5GB/s writes on it's own when plugged into a 3.0x4 slot - I think that beats even MSI's RAID solution and this technology is just starting to evolve (the theoretical limit should be around 3.2GB/s throughput). That's why I was hoping that the G751JY has exactly that kind of slot 😄 .Hopefully by the time I upgrade it'll be more affordable (besides, the MSI are not cheap either, not to mention I haven't been able to find their top model in my country 😄 - in fact the G series are the only 980M notebooks available to local vendors as far as I've seen and I've researched at least a dozen of them).
Also, what do you guys think of the G750JY? I was very surprised to find it at a local vendor and it is quite a bit pricier, probably because of the RAID0 SSDs and the 8GB GPU. However, I don't think it'll be able to keep up with the PCIe SSDs I've mentioned above and I'm also not sure whether having Optimus is a good thing - I've heard of a lot of issues.
Anyways, thanks and if anybody else has any further info, please feel free to share it 🙂

[Edweird]

kmROGFAN wrote:
-snip-

Optimus is not a good thing on such performance-driven machines. Not from anything you'll find on this forum. Also, I don't think we're sure enough of how that system's cooling is. I assume it's just some of the 751's guts in a 750's body if you like that one more. the differences between the two models are pretty much the components and the screen.

Also, I checked the G750JY page and it says double USB3 speeds - 10Gbits...but G751JY says double USB3 speeds - 20Gbits...idk what to think.

[kmROGFAN]

Yes, that thing about double USB 3.0 is what confused me as well 😄 I know USB 3.0 is 5Gb/s and Thunderbolt 1 is 10 Gb/s so the G750 page is accurate but 20Gb/s is Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3.1 is 10Gb/s so something in the G751 page is mixed up - it's either 3.1 they mean or simply not 20Gb/s and not TB 2, I just don't know which one it is 😄 Also, 2 reviews I read explicitly commented on it being TB 2 as one of the positives, but notebookcheck list it as TB 1 definitely. Maybe there is some difference between models or people were misled in different ways? Either way, I was curious where the truth lies 😄

[smallj53]

Hi again,

I see where you are coming from. Yes the MSI's are quite a bit more expensive. And upgrading can be quite satisfying. It looks like I was even a little premature about saying that there will not be a fix to the sound issue in our laptops. I have sent off a request to try out a beta bios to fix my laptop. (manufactured in October)

[Edweird]

smallj53 wrote:
Hi again,

I see where you are coming from. Yes the MSI's are quite a bit more expensive. And upgrading can be quite satisfying. It looks like I was even a little premature about saying that there will not be a fix to the sound issue in our laptops. I have sent off a request to try out a beta bios to fix my laptop. (manufactured in October)

If you look in the audio thread you'll see that mine seems to work much better. I'm fairly sure we'll get some sort of fix eventually.
Anyways - I thought it was TB2.0 because it also mentions dual protocols.

[kmROGFAN]

Great news about the sound fix, I'll pay close attention to the sound thread then. Also, here's a little background for my main question:

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-sm951-pcie-m-2-ssds-now-in-volume-production.html
This is the successor of XP941 and the SSD I was talking about

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1846366
Here you can find some early benchmarks of it (it's not been widely released yet)

You can see that its performance is amazing but it requires a pretty fast connection to reach it's peak - the speeds in the benchmarks are when it's plugged into PCIe 2.0 express lanes. But if the M.2 is PCIe 3.0x4 as you say, then the G751 will be able to utilize it's full power and that would be a great upgrade!