Customer Reviews

Asus G50Vt-X5-RF Notebook PC - Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 2.13GHz, 4GB DDR2, 320GB HDD, DVDRW, 15.6", Vista Ultimate SP2

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ok, this is the fastest laptop I have ever owned. I actually bought the one with the p7450 2.13GHz, but I upgraded to the P8700 myself. I bought a Refurbished Asus G50VT.

With Vista on it is ok, but with Windows 7 on it its awesome. It can play Far Cry 2 and Call Of Duty MW2 on the highest settings. When playing these games, the video card got to 86C after an hour. My frame rate was in the High 20s mid 30s on the highest settings. The hottest the CPU ever got was 72C. Before I upgraded the CPU, it would idle at in the mid 30s(C). After I upgraded it and used Antec Formula 5 it now idles at 27-29C. The GPU idles at 42C and gets to around 50-55 while surfing the net or watching a video. This laptop runs cool compared to other laptops.

Some people have asked if it can handle 8GB of ram. After little research I found that it can take up to 8GB of memory. 8GB (2x4GB) on eBay costs about $240. Now for battery life.

On power save with the screen on the dimmest I get about 3-3.5 hours of life. Some people think that the light and design on the lid look bad, but I think it looks cool. I just wish that you could turn them off sometimes. Hard drive transfers at about 22 MBPS with Windows 7.

Overall its an excellent laptop. I paid $700 for mine on eBay. 5 Star Laptop!

Pros:
Fast Processor
Good Video Card
Big HDD
Long Battery Life
Fast Wireless Card
Excellent frame rates in latest games
Runs very cool

Cons
Lid Design looks bad to some
Screen slightly low resolution
Can't put a quad core in it

The G50Vt-X5 is quite a powerful beast of a laptop. Mine doesn't quite match the configuration at the top of the page, and more resembles the one in the description (2.15GHz). It handles games exceptionally well with the GeForce 9800M GS video card, and is quite upgradeable and expandable for a laptop. The built-in overclocking is pretty handy if you need a little more "oomph", and it handles this overclocking safely since it's part of ASUS's own software suite.

This computer has been one of the best I've owned. I'm not kidding. The only negative is that it's big. It's not a "bring it with you everywhere" kind of laptop. It's a little on the large & heavy side with the battery installed, and it might as well be a 17" system, despite the screen being 15.4" (1680x1050), because it does not fit in 15" laptop bags. You need one designed for 16" or bigger. All this size means it can run with more power, more features, and better cooling for that dedicated gaming-level graphics card.

Despite these minor negatives, the system is a joy to use. Stable, sturdy as a rock, and blazing fast-- even in games! HDMI out makes this a great home entertainment center, too. Plenty of USB ports, a firewire port, an SD card reader, a second hard drive bay, surround sound output via TOSlink (requires an adapter), and even a keypad make this a laptop for people who don't want to give up all the good things about desktop PCs. It also runs Windows 7 64-bit like a champ, and ASUS has all the updated drivers for Windows 7 on their website. Oh, and with the power off, you can instantly pop into a simple LINUX-style OS with the touch of a button if you don't feel like going into Windows for some reason.

If you're up to it, you can even upgrade the CPU. That's pretty awesome for a laptop. Every laptop I had before this one wouldn't allow it. ASUS built this system for gamers, and it shows. Heck, when you turn it on, the "Republic of Gamers" logo goes BOOM! on the screen before you even get to the BIOS.

I've been 100% happy with this system. It's not as good as a desktop, perhaps (which is why I eventually chose to part with mine) but it's as good as it gets for a gaming PC under a thousand bucks.

First I must say that I had the G50Vt-X1. It's video died, and I could no longer get a card that fit it. (Planned obsolescence sucks!) I ordered this one to replace it. I put my two hard drives in it and my ram sticks.

It has worked perfectly! I use it everyday for gaming, even dualboxing in windowed mode, etc. Never a problem!

Would give it a 5 but the 4 is because you will want Windows 7 or a downgrade to XP. That's the nice thing about this, you can put Linux, XP, W7, and even Mac OS on it if you want to get into the whole Hackintosh thing. I am buying a second one because I use this for a Pro Tools and video workstation. The GPU is still good enough for what I do so I think I will buy several more eventually and have a gaming one, etc. I paid $1200 or so with a Best Buy warranty, now they are $600 or less. Maybe I should keep quiet. I'm sure the newer ASUS laptops are great but I say once you have a good thing you might as well stick with that. Luckily as a student I can buy Windows 7 Pro x64 for like $65, otherwise I would just look for a newer model or something. XP ran pretty good (only used Pro 32 bit) and the ASUS forums were very helpful and getting that set up. I gave this to my wife for a while because I got a PC and she liked Windows 7. I switched back once I found that Pro Tools supported W7x64. My PC couldn't process multimedia like this can (was AMD based ASUS board). I will probably get one more and let my son play games on it until this one fails, and maybe even get one of the higher end i5/i7 models and let my wife use this. We had two laptops die recently but we didn't know about how good ASUS laptops were when we bought those (they were Acer and HP/Compaq and the same price but years before this-can't believe the amount of lame laptops out there going for the price of a real Macbook Pro competitor like ASUS).

I recently put a few games on (had completely wiped all games/unnecessary progs to do work), and it is still great. Played the Test Drive Unlimited Beta, Frontlines Fuel of War, and got Mass Effect 2 because they were having deals everywhere just before Halloween. One thing that is nice is that this GPU can rock without burning up. You can flash it to it's higher settings, but WHY? I'd rather have this last and will probably remove the games again just so it isn't working it hard and put them on the one I am getting for my son or something.

I have yet to install a second hard drive, they seem a little close together (wouldn't that make heat issues?)

On the technical/useful info side, I currently have the Eleven Rack interface via USB, an Oyen Digital Oxford 934 500gb via eSata, Kensington Expert Mouse (trackball and I mention this because it is a must have for audio/video editing and is so much better for you). Edius 5 can render a lossless 15 gig video in less than 5 minutes. Xilisoft Video Converter with it's GPU acceleration is noticeably better when you need h264 mov or something. Photoshop Light Room 2 is really fast (had a photo class and used that on 100+ photos at once. Once in a while I boot up Express Gate or my youngest accidentally boots it for me lol.

THE DOWN SIDE of this and every laptop I have ever had is that the disc drives are loud and gradually seem to stop reading as well. And on this laptop the built in speakers are actually the worst I have ever had. Luckily, I hardly ever use the laptop in a situation where I don't have external speakers. If I still traveled a lot, I might find it a pain to have to lug speakers around and keep hooking them up.

OH! They keyboard is VERY COMFORTABLE. I had to find a keyboard for my wife that was like it for PC. I believe it was the Kensington Slim Type. It also solved the problem of waking up our toddler because the keyboard we used before on PC was loud.

Can't say enough about ASUS, try one out at a Best Buy or get one of these older ones!

I'm going to make this short.

This is the first laptop that I'm truly happy with. I have gone through many laptops and desktops in the last couple of years and this is the first time that I'm able to do everything I would do on a desktop on a laptop.

The graphics card is pretty good, I'm able to play everything I throw at it at ultra high settings while using the laptop's native resolution. I upgraded to Windows 7 and all drivers work fine. The one touch overclocking works really well, and everything else is just perfect.

I didn't give it 5 stars because I think ASUS should update bios to allow more than 4GB of Ram. The motherboard should be able to handle at least 8GB if not 16GB, but ASUS says that max memory is 4GB (if anyone has tried putting 8GB in and it worked please let me know, because it will make this an awesome laptop).

This is the second Asus notebook I have owned, both gamming. Overall I will have to say Impressive laptop for the price per performace. IT far out performes other laptops in its price range. The G50 lays down some serous gamming numbers for a laptop. its a perfet size and weight. Product qty overal is incredible for the price. Not much else i can say but got a free laptop backpack with purchase nice qty also. Asus backs there products periode! I tell you this becuse this is the second asus i have owned they pay shiping to get it to them and back and fix problems very fast. I ussaly have it back withen 5 days or less. I shouldent have to buy an extended warrentys for somthing that should work. so I buy asus they back there products at no extra charge for 2 years and at a great value for you money periode. buy the time the warrenty up technology changed so much its about time to buy a new laptop anyways. Hope this helps.

I had an ASUS G1S before this. That machine fried itself with it's 8600GT-M video card (if you have this watch out for your ticking timebomb).
Anyway, got this as a refurb from Asus when I sent in my G1S.

The G50VT is about an inch or 2 wider in the case. It doesn't fit in my laptop bag now. It's got this really hideous graphic on the cover. I mean, something from Ed Hardy ugly. This is why it's staying home.

It came with 4gb ram/320gb hd (5400rpm boohoo), Vista Home Premium 64bit. It's a quick machine. Takes a while to get out of sleep mode, but that'll be rectified (I hope) with a fresh copy of Win7. Screen resolution is blech. The G1S had 1680x1050. I was in love. Now I'm back to 1366x768 (oh my god..my icons are big enough for grandma to read without glasses). Oh and no Bluetooth. Had trouble connecting to my Linksys WiFi router. Didn't like WEP. I had to use WPA (the preferred way), but now I have to reconfigure everything else in my house..ugh.

Get it, like it, and don't take it out of the house for fear of ridicule from anyone over 15 years old.