Asus G75VX After a week of use my review.

[bignazpwns]

Lets kick this off by finding out what the G75VX is. We know its a laptop but what is it? Well its a Gaming laptop and Asus would like you to think that this is a high end gaming laptop. Well only 1/2 of that is right. It is a gaming laptop but very far from high end. These systems can be broke down into the fallowing.

Entry Gaming systems. Single GPU', Limited upgrades and the GPU will always fall into the lower to mid end of GPU's out.

Mid End. These will have more upgrades open and will come with a single high end GPU.

High End. These systems feature the most advanced upgrades and will let you put more and do more in/to them then the rest. These will have 2 of the top flag ship cards in SLI or Crossfire.

So the G75VX is a entry gaming laptop and there is nothing wrong with that. But Asus would like you to think that it can divide by 0 and is the best of the best.


Overall the G75's look nice.....But thats about it. They are very plain when you compare them to other systems. Want to run a subwoofer? To bad no optical port or subwoofer out like on every other gaming laptop. Macro keys? Nope, Extra MSATA ports? Nope unless you ditch the wifi. Only 2 slots for a harddrive or ssd unless you lose the Optical drive and even then that drive does not support SATAIII or Raid. My MX18 can not only take a MSATA SSD but i can stack upto 3 SSD's in it and put another on in the optical bay and raid the 3 together. However the G75VX does get a thunderbolt port what is very nice as it opens up the ability to use EGPU's giving the system a little more life by using a desktop GPU.

Display.

Matt. displays are nice however the picture quality looks like crap. Gaming systems should have glossy displays everything looks much better on a glossy unless you start looking unto the very highend IPS displays and even then they dont seem to pop as much as a glossy. Glare has never been a issue for me and i feel gaming laptops should have displays that offer the best picture quality. No sence in cranking up the settings to see the fine detail when it just looks like crap because of the display. Also people have complained about white lines in the display but this unit does not have them. Viewing angles are pretty good and what you would expect from a non IPS display nothing here to go crazy over.

Cooling.

Ok the G series myth is that the cooling is the best around. Its not. Every high end gaming laptop i have used has had far better cooling. Bigger heat pipes, more heat pipes or copper fins for the heatsink. The G75's cooling is good and above par but far from the best. I would of liked to see larger heat pipes used and at least 3 on the GPU. But the Temps on the i7 3630QM and GTX 670mx were all very good but if you put a 55w cpu and a high end GPU with that cooling it will show you how good the cooling system on other laptops that use these components really is.


Battery.

It works but you wont be gaming on it but then again very few systems can do this. Really wish they would of went with a 12c pack but oh well you gotta bring the cost down some how.

Wifi

My unit has a braudcom that works pretty good. I would of prefered a real 2X2 card or somthing full speed because the 65mbs N kinda sucks i dont know why they could not give a gaming system a gaming card with a 150 or 300mbs card. But it gets the job done but if you are running a 300mbs network and fios like my self then you will want to swap that out asap.

Keybord.

Asus really failed on this. No macro keys and the back light is a joke. Very dim low control over lighting and its only white. My Series 7 is easily 3 times brighter. I mean its so dim its kinda almost useless and out of every system i ever used this is the bottom in terms of back light.

Touch pad.

I really like the buttons. The touch pad size is great and tracking is good. Pinch zoom and all that works great. Useless since gamers will be using a mouse but if your not using the mouse they did a good job on the touch pad.

Sound

Crap. Really it sounds like crap. You would expect much more from this and a $599 HP system i have here with a subwoofer not only has more base but it is better overall sound and gets louder. If you adjust the settings you can get it to sound ok but its still crap. If you like deacent sound you better get a nice set of cans but just a heads up the headphone port wont push a really good set how they should. But again why would they put that kind of audophile port on a gaming system? But its a fail across the sound range but a nice set of cans to me is a requirement for this laptop.

GPU.

The GTX 670MX is very nice. Runs cool clocks high if you know what you are doing packs 3gigs of vram and when overclocked it can easily catch upto a GTX 680m. Stock i tested this card in a 25m raid in wow with everything on Ultra MSAA at 8 and at stock clocks the card did tend to dip into the lower 20's in some fights. Slight oc and it gets the card to keep the fps int he mid 30's so this is a very capable card and with wow maxed out at 1920X1080 i was only using a hair over 2gb of vram. Really Asus its about time you diteched the sad GTX660m and GTX 670m and get a real card in the system. I would of loved to see the GTX 675MX in it but i;ll take the 670MX.

CPU.

Its a i7, Its a 3630QM not much more i can say. Lock the multi to turbo and let it go.

PSU.

They made it thinner and its still the same specs as the old one and the one i been using does not get to hot during use. Anyone who has used a gaming laptop psu knows that come can get very hot.


Overall the price tag on this system was $1250. And that buys you

i7 3630QM
GTX 670MX
8 gigs of samsung DDR3 1600 ram
DVD multi drive
1tb 5,300 rpm drive

Honestly if you look you can still find better systems for the same price. But if you like the looks of the G75's then this is not all that bad of a price. It is much easyer to give this system a look for $1250 then the VW. The thunderbolt port and the upgraded GPU and CPU make it worth to atleast look at and just not pass it up for another brand.

Would i advise anyone to buy this system? No. Its still missing some key points for me to give this system the thumbs up. If they did some minor improvements then i could very easily give this system the thumbs up and earn a spot as the $1300 system i advise people to buy. The 17inch gaming laptop market is not small. This system is very unimpressive when you look at the competition. But if you are buying a system locally from a Best Buy and you will only buy one in person not order one online and you do not have a place like Frys around you then the G75VX will be the best system you can get for $1300 new. Also i will point out that another reason i can not give this the $1300 spot if because the lack of support from Asus and the large number of issues the G75's have had as well as the large number of systems sent in for repair only to return with the same issues. I tell people not to expect a warranty from Asus and they are buying it as is. I also tell them o take any warranty the store offers as that will be the easiest and fastest way to fix it.


Links to temp logs running 3DMArk 2013. Please note the overclock was 800 on the core the program was reading the freq. wrong. Also the temp reading were accurate this was confirmed via a temp probe installed on the gpu. The bottom panel was reinstalled with the probe installed and ran on sitting on a table. CPU was also locked at 3.3ghz.

Stock

http://www.2shared.com/document/A8NmjM0H/GPUZ3DMSTOCK.html

Overclocked 800/2500

http://www.2shared.com/document/T9hBjo4H/GPUZ3DMARKOC.html


My final thoughts are this. The G75 is the 6cyl Camaro or Mustang of the computer world. Yeah it can beat the focus's and Cobalts but it is just a 6cyl and it will get spanked by a real car. Looks are not always everything. They do play a key role in the system but to what point really? I mean right now the way i see Asus's G series is the Apple Macbook pro's of the gaming laptop world. They look good but lack the power, ports and options and the fact is if Asus really baleaved that their cooling system was the best they would have the bios unlocked and be putting their money where their mouth is. I mean the ROG mobo's have a ton of options. What i baleave is they know they over hyped the living crap out of the system and limit the option to keep it looking good in reviews and on paper. The ROG logo on the laptop is a joke it should just be replaced with a Apple logo because this system is locked down.

Overall i give it a 7/10 in the $1000 to $1300 category

[chrsplmr]

BigNaz+ for your honest, no bull, well informed opinion.

The 6cyl camaro and apple logo comments had me rolling on the floor. (to my shagrin.)

I was left with really only one question in this.
What laptops, in your opinion, beats this G in this price range? .c.

[DRAKON]

Good total overview with a lot of personal input in it. I just totally disagree with the comment about the mat screen...

It's a laptop. The screen should be mat (so far the only exception I could make is for 3D screens cause the technology there requires it - hope they will advance in this department also). If you are not using it as a laptop but as DTR all the time then reconsider buying PC.

[Shawnnepc]

I'm not sure that i'd consider the G series as 'entry level'

Entry level - 650m (Razer tablet, ASUS N series, Clevo 11in, MBP)

Midrange - 660m,670m,670mx, 675m

Highend - Any of the above SLI, 680m+

And really, I've yet to meet a laptop (except Clevo) that are easily upgradeable. Dell tends to be OK with their Alienware line, but their part quality has always been a sore point for me.

I get very few gamer customers who request glossy displays as most of them want matte for it's anti-glare capabilities.

As a previous owner of the G75VW-3D, one of my favorite features of the unit was it's display.

Thanks for sharing your opinions and your review 😄

[bignazpwns]

Shawnnepc wrote:
I'm not sure that i'd consider the G series as 'entry level'

Entry level - 650m (Razer tablet, ASUS N series, Clevo 11in, MBP)

Midrange - 660m,670m,670mx, 675m

Highend - Any of the above SLI, 680m+

And really, I've yet to meet a laptop (except Clevo) that are easily upgradeable. Dell tends to be OK with their Alienware line, but their part quality has always been a sore point for me.

I get very few gamer customers who request glossy displays as most of them want matte for it's anti-glare capabilities.

As a previous owner of the G75VW-3D, one of my favorite features of the unit was it's display.

Thanks for sharing your opinions and your review 😄

Well what is a GT 650m at the end of the day? Pretty much a GTX 660m Ask anyone midend is a single GTX 680m high end systems are all SLI rigs.

Glossy displays are a pref. However i will say it is a FACT they look better i pointed this all out. I never had issues on Glossy displays maybe its because i dont play them with a spotlight over my shoulder. People love matt displays however they look much worse for gaming then glossys. Personally i dont even case outside of look at the color repro and what not this system was hooked upto a 60 inch plasma . Im just saying its a gaming pc the LCD should of been more then what it is because really when you compair them side by side with a system like my MX18 or Sager the G75's display blows.

I will say Alienware is very easy to upgrade and QC issues are better then Asus. I really do hate the price point of Alienware and i really wanna find a reason to bash them but outside of a price i cant. I always seen solid quality backed by a very good warranty. Also i add that its not because you need to take apart the G75's for upgrades its just the limited ports for them and how the system was set up in terms of cabling and what not.

The wifi is what it is. Its a $18 card and has no place in a gaming pc. All caming pc's should support dual band and nothing less then 300mbs that's just a fact. My fios connection is just to much for the card making downloads and what not all that much faster on other systems with them. Does this affect gaming performance? Yes it does when you start talking about pulling update's why you play and useing vent and other stuff. It's rare but i did see it when streaming some stuff for wow when i was talking on vent. Something none of my other systems have ever done and i wont sugar coat anything to make fan boys feel good about their systems im going to tell you how it is because i did not spend a dime on this system so really i could care less if it rocks or sucks. If its good i can buy it for a discounted price of $1,000. Im not going to try and defend the system.


As for the cooling i can see you never used a high end system in your life. The G75's cooling is not impressive. I have another system sitting here that gets better temps with pretty much the same specs. i7 3630qm gtx 675mx and thats because the heatsinks heatpipes are larger. The gpu has a 3rd heatpipe and the base is flatter. If you look at my temps you can see my temps are better then what 90% of the people get on here stock because i did repast the system right and used the stock thermal compound. Its the same as Dell, Alienware and all them use. The system is far less impressive if you used a real gaming laptop. Hey but did i not say its above par for the 17 inch systems cooling? Yes i did above par but not the best.


What it comes down to is people are sheep. They also dont want to here their precious new G75 was not the best deal ever they thought it was or that its not the uber l33t gaming system they think it is. Brings us back to being fanboys. And as we all know fanboys opinions mean nothing since a Apple fanboy will tell you a Macbook pro 17 inch can play games fast then a G75VX runs cooler and all that when that could not even be close to being true.


However your Shawnnepc's idea of entery level pc's are flawed. MBP's are never gaming pc's and never will be. Those are just high end laptops. The Razer blade why may carry the specs of entry this falls into the whole designer class where specs mean nothing everything is based off looks. The razer tablit is not a gaming laptop thats a tablet you can put that in this class since its not a laptop that will be in its own category for tablets and bump the MS surface pro to mid end. Gaming systems are made for the only reason to game. This means the Asus N series and MBP's are not in this class they are laptops you can game on thats it they are not gaming laptops due to the fact they dont have the cooling needed to be a gaming laptop.

Also i wounder why you picked the GT 650m and not a GT 640m. The GT 650m and GTX 660m are so close in terms of preformace to the point it really makes no diff unless the GT 650m is based of DDR3. I mean you skipped the GT 620,624,630,635,640,645 all entry level cards from Nvidia that you can play games on. I mean what is a GTX 660m? Its a low end gaming card that's just a fact and when you attempt to play games maxed out at 1080 this point is proven. Hell even wow brought down the GTX 670MX to the point it needed lower settings or a slight overclock and this card is much faster then the GTX 660m. Not to mention these lower end cards all have 192bit bus's and you only get a 256bit with the GTX 675M and up. Meaning a mid end system will come with a GTX 675m or higher,. And res that bus does make a diff. when you crank up the settings and stuff like MSAA if people say just lower the settings well i can also do that on my HD 7660g and run wow at 32fps on ultra but it does not make it a entery gaming system because the second i bump something like MSAA up it gets killed and if i do anything then a 5 man those settings have to come down.

When fan boys say a system is perfect that's when you end up with the g series that over the years has shown no true progress. Since the G73 we have not even gained the ability to use surround sound on it. Something every gaming system i ever seen has. Why because fan boys will defend a brick with a ROG logo on it till the end. Asus puts more thought into making it look good then progressing it as a series gaming machine and last time i took my Sager to a CODBO2 lan party a guy had a VW there and was amazed at my MX18 i was using and the Sager i had that i was letting a friend use. Even more so he almost head a stroke when he found out my Sager was only $2,000 cheaper then what he payed for his 3D VW and was shocked at the hardware that was inside it but to me it was pretty blan for a system for that price.


I said it before and i will say it again. The G73 is what made me take note of the G series. After that the G74,and 75 were disappointments who never lived to the expectations that the G73 set. Now i said and i will say again the VX is on its way back to those G73 roots but its still not there they need to make a few small changes to get it there and when they make those the G 7X series will again be my personal pick for a $1000-$1300 laptop. Why the VX at this price is much better then the VW it still has a bunch of stuff that was never addressed and to me it just seems like them avoiding the problem like they do on the warranty support.


And another thing is they will give us a useless feature like fan filters other then something we can use. And why they do collect some dust you need to realize its only going to stop large things from getting clogged not dust and the G75's should never have anything that big in the system to get sucked in in the first place. Dust will still clog the fan and build on the fan blades with or without them because dust is dust and the filters are set up to stop dust bunnys not dust. To me they should of scraped that idea and just upgraded the keyboard backlight as that is more useful then the filters that dont really do anything because i ran them with and without them on a G75VW in a very dusty environment and there was the same amount of dust build up with or without the fan filters nothing like what they advertise it as but remember in advertisements companies love to make stuff like 1000X worse just watch late night tv advertisement.

I do baleave with the proper changes the G series can take the low end gaming crown and make a pretty solid presence in the mid end market. But they have to make the few small changes to get them there.

[Kriss1]

First of all, Respect for the effort of bignazpwns of writing such a detailed review.

But if you take your time for writing such a review you have to keep in mind that many will read it, so you are responsible for not misguide them while being impersonal in your writings.

What I mean:

1. bignazpwns forgot to mention that the G75 has the slickest chassis of almost all gaming laptops which is a major advantage in front of the competition.
2. Every guy that considers himself as a computer enthusiast knows that glossy screen is everything but “high end” because of the totally messed up and way too vibrant colors. There is not a single mid-range to high class display, which uses a glossy panel. In addition to that, after calibration with a colorimeter the screen is calibrated to display over 95% of RGB, again a value good enough to be respected.
3. I agree that, the GTX 670M is definitely not strong enough for a machine that pretends to be a gaming rig. I guess, that is why asus updated the model with the 670MX version, which is faster than GTX 675M. That puts it straight in the lower high end. Of course there are laptops with SLI solutions but seriously guys who buys such stuff ?! Who gives over 2000 eur for a laptop ?!
4. There is nothing said about the build quality and the chassis design of the G75 which is very good. OK no macro keys but still very good overall.
5. Yes there is no optical out BUT, you have SPDIF which is basically the same only over coaxial cable.
6. Sound is crap I do admit, but all in all it is laptop dude. Nobody is playing on a laptop using the speakers. Normally you use headphones with a mic remember. If you play with the loudspeakers on I can’t imagine what will happen when the mic catches the sound from the speakers ….
7. About warranty… OK I am in Europe. Here I don’t have any problems with warranty on asus devices. I cannot say about the rest of the world. Also can you imagine how much G75s are sold worldwide having no problems at all and and how many are the complaints in this forum ? I gues 3-5% of all sold units which is not that tragic as well.
8. Cooling …. Well OK. There are systems that are running cooler than the G75 but again. It has the slickest body, it is almost inaudible under load ( which is VERY important to some people ) and despite that the cooling is more than adequate.

[Tomislav]

Kriss1 wrote:
First of all, Respect for the effort of bignazpwns of writing such a detailed review.

But if you take your time for writing such a review you have to keep in mind that many will read it, so you are responsible for not misguide them while being impersonal in your writings.

What I mean:

1. bignazpwns forgot to mention that the G75 has the slickest chassis of almost all gaming laptops which is a major advantage in front of the competition.
2. Every guy that considers himself as a computer enthusiast knows that glossy screen is everything but “high end” because of the totally messed up and way too vibrant colors. There is not a single mid-range to high class display, which uses a glossy panel. In addition to that, after calibration with a colorimeter the screen is calibrated to display over 95% of RGB, again a value good enough to be respected.
3. I agree that, the GTX 670M is definitely not strong enough for a machine that pretends to be a gaming rig. I guess, that is why asus updated the model with the 670MX version, which is faster than GTX 675M. That puts it straight in the lower high end. Of course there are laptops with SLI solutions but seriously guys who buys such stuff ?! Who gives over 2000 eur for a laptop ?!
4. There is nothing said about the build quality and the chassis design of the G75 which is very good. OK no macro keys but still very good overall.
5. Yes there is no optical out BUT, you have SPDIF which is basically the same only over coaxial cable.
6. Sound is crap I do admit, but all in all it is laptop dude. Nobody is playing on a laptop using the speakers. Normally you use headphones with a mic remember. If you play with the loudspeakers on I can’t imagine what will happen when the mic catches the sound from the speakers ….
7. About warranty… OK I am in Europe. Here I don’t have any problems with warranty on asus devices. I cannot say about the rest of the world. Also can you imagine how much G75s are sold worldwide having no problems at all and and how many are the complaints in this forum ? I gues 3-5% of all sold units which is not that tragic as well.
8. Cooling …. Well OK. There are systems that are running cooler than the G75 but again. It has the slickest body, it is almost inaudible under load ( which is VERY important to some people ) and despite that the cooling is more than adequate.

I agree with everything you've said. I would just add this. How can you even slightly compare g75 to a mac? I'm a graphic designer, I bought this over a mac! I would say that alienware is the mac of gaming laptops...overpriced. I don't know about the never models but I used an older mx17 for a wile and it was hot as hell it self. (it was new when I used it). G75 has a reasonably low price, and for that you get some awesome hardware and yes less premium features (like macros, fancy lightning)...don't know about you guys in the states but here in Europe an Alienware laptop withe the same specs would cost twice as more as the G75 would. And if you want something that's like super high end in gaming and superbly upgradeable just build a deskop.

[bignazpwns]

Tomislav wrote:
I agree with everything you've said. I would just add this. How can you even slightly compare g75 to a mac? I'm a graphic designer, I bought this over a mac! I would say that alienware is the mac of gaming laptops...overpriced. I don't know about the never models but I used an older mx17 for a wile and it was hot as hell it self. (it was new when I used it). G75 has a reasonably low price, and for that you get some awesome hardware and yes less premium features (like macros, fancy lightning)...don't know about you guys in the states but here in Europe an Alienware laptop withe the same specs would cost twice as more as the G75 would. And if you want something that's like super high end in gaming and superbly upgradeable just build a deskop.

Remember Alienware you are paying for the Name and warranty. They are also much more customizable and that demands a price prem. Macs on the other hand have very limited upgrades and Apple decides what you get much like what Asus is doing. But im with you the system is better suited for graphic work then a MBP unless you get the retnia display then the price and software advantages of the MAc do overshadow the cost for stuff like graphic work.

Dont get me wrong i hate Apple and everything that is a Mac. They are over priced and you cant really do anything to them to demand the price prem and if someone was looking at a normal MBP 17 inch and a G75VX i'll tell them to go with the VX every time for any graphic work however if they are doing more high end graphic work and the MBP 17 inch had a retna display i would push them to that as its what they will be happy with and make them more productive. I cant really let me personal hate for Apple affect something that is the better choice for someone. When i look at systems i put all feeling aside and i treat them all equal and really give them a chance to wow me and win me over. Hell i even gave the new Razer blade a chance before i nailed it to a cross for being that much with a GTX 660m but then i found not only could it be used as a hot plate it preformed less then a GTX 660m should of pulled. And i could of bought that system after for $1500 and i mean it was a sexy sexy system but its not worth more then $1000 because its just a polished turd that runs worse because its polished.

[bignazpwns]

Tomislav wrote:
I agree with everything you've said. I would just add this. How can you even slightly compare g75 to a mac? I'm a graphic designer, I bought this over a mac! I would say that alienware is the mac of gaming laptops...overpriced. I don't know about the never models but I used an older mx17 for a wile and it was hot as hell it self. (it was new when I used it). G75 has a reasonably low price, and for that you get some awesome hardware and yes less premium features (like macros, fancy lightning)...don't know about you guys in the states but here in Europe an Alienware laptop withe the same specs would cost twice as more as the G75 would. And if you want something that's like super high end in gaming and superbly upgradeable just build a deskop.

Remember Alienware you are paying for the Name and warranty. They are also much more customizable and that demands a price prem. Macs on the other hand have very limited upgrades and Apple decides what you get much like what Asus is doing. But im with you the system is better suited for graphic work then a MBP unless you get the retnia display then the price and software advantages of the MAc do overshadow the cost for stuff like graphic work.

Dont get me wrong i hate Apple and everything that is a Mac. They are over priced and you cant really do anything to them to demand the price prem and if someone was looking at a normal MBP 17 inch and a G75VX i'll tell them to go with the VX every time for any graphic work however if they are doing more high end graphic work and the MBP 17 inch had a retna display i would push them to that as its what they will be happy with and make them more productive. I cant really let me personal hate for Apple affect something that is the better choice for someone. When i look at systems i put all feeling aside and i treat them all equal and really give them a chance to wow me and win me over. Hell i even gave the new Razer blade a chance before i nailed it to a cross for being that much with a GTX 660m but then i found not only could it be used as a hot plate it preformed less then a GTX 660m should of pulled. And i could of bought that system after for $1500 and i mean it was a sexy sexy system but its not worth more then $1000 because its just a polished turd that runs worse because its polished.

[httuner]

Lets not get into 6cyl, 8 cyl vehicles, you should know that that cyl's don't matter. you can have 4 and still beat any 8cyl, 12cyl or even 16cyl cars. It's all about proper tuning.

This sort of misinform information won't do others any good.

Have you ever used a Glossy screen laptop in an office or home environment where you have overhead fluorescent lighting? it reflects everything overhead and becomes annoying, including if your using your screen close to windows. The glossiness that is put on all laptops is just there for effects, in fact its been known to be a selling point for laptops. People think the picture seems more high def. with a glossy screen, but thats just the effect it gives, its a marketing thing. Working as a graphic designer for a living, I know that matte screens always give a more accurate color reproduction/matching compared to glossy screens. The glossy thing is just a marketing trick and it has worked wonderfully in sales.

Cooling= Find me another laptop with the same specs that can out cool the Asus G75 <-- I still haven't been able to locate one yet. The MSi machines run much hotter, Alienware runs hotter, Sager, Clevo, ect. All these other brands runs hotter, google around you'll see that most postings of temp readings are always hotter than the Asus G75. I mean this has to prove something right?

I'm not trying to defend the Asus brand, but just think about it for a minute. For an Alienware with the same specs you paid nearly almost over 2000USD for it. Sager/Clevo, your getting near 2000 ect. You simply have to consider that the Asus laptop is the best value for the money. Laptop gear is always overpriced and Asus got the pricing just right.

If your a gamer, you know SLi is overrated and simply isn't worth its cost. Majority of video games don't support SLi and even if they do support it, the framerate bump in SLi is too small to be worth it. SLi is a benchmarking thing and will always be. The real numbers shows up in benchmarking but in real life usage, SLi is simply not worth it. I have two SLi machines at home(i72600k w/SLi GTX580)(i73770K w/SLi GTX660's) and I still can't justify the cost of the extra GPU because clearly the jump in framerate is so little that its not worth the money. Plus its buggy in some games. (Microstuttering is annoying)