Should i buy asus g74

Now the time has finally arrived and the gaming machine is slowly turning up in the first shops. Read here, how the 3D gamer fares in comparison to its predecessor, G73, and the current competition.

The Asus G74S is a mammoth gaming laptop, which has the power to play all the latest titles, and while you might not get as much for your money when compared with full form desktops, it's up there with the best. Asus G74SX review — new gaming laptop, more powerful than ever Source: Gaming Rig Asus ROG laptops have been well received during the last years, mainly because they offered solid performances and a sturdy reliable body for an affordable price tag.

Affordable for a gaming laptop of course, when compared to other devices from Alienware, Clevo or Sager. Yes, the Asus notebooks are for sure not the fastest, but for the average gaming enthusiast looking to dump their desktop units for a portable computer, they are just the thing to get. Asus G74SX with You can find it listed here. With the added benefit of WiMAX that will keep you connected to your online games, provided you're near an outlet and a metropolitan area and you are subscribed, this machine will satisfy most any gamer's needs.

After already having taken a closer look at a US variant of the Asus benchmark gaming notebook several months ago, we are now providing a review update for the German version somewhat belatedly. Does the G74 still belong among the elite? Asus packs a lot of power into the Asus G74SX, and the system has a fairly svelte body to boot. Now, if only we can get a review model that doesn't have a faulty LED backlight. The main issue is the lack of a physical toggle switch for the 3D mode.

I want the choice to switch it on and off when I please, without having to run to the control panel every single time. Finally, Asus gives you plenty of choices and configurations for all the components, leaving aside the most important one, the graphics card. These are a few, but crucial areas, which stops the G74SX from being a clear winner. Asus has built a very nice sideline over the years with its gaming laptops, including the G74SX, which is a strong, if expensive, quad-core rig that works fine, but looks like it should cost less.

Yes, Sandy Bridge is a noteworthy upgrade from Clarksfield, but we wanted more. The G74SX is the answer, bringing some minor and some not-so-minor updates to the G7 series. The pad is sufficiently sized with dimensions of Even both corresponding mouse keys can be used pleasantly with a clear key drop. Scrolling with two fingers on the pad multi-touch is basically possible, but not implemented very well.

No tested program browser, Explorer responded smoothly or immediately to our input attempts. Apart from that, the touchpad is set to be disabled and stay that way for a short time when a key is pressed ex-factory.

However, this function helps prevent unintentional mouse clicks during typing in office mode. One point where good notebooks unfortunately fail very often is the display. A too low brightness, a miserable contrast or disagreeable and annoying reflections even indoors due to fashionable glossy displays.

The recipe for satisfaction seems simple with that in mind. However, the fact that of all things a gaming notebook lines up to serve this with near perfection does surprise us. Despite all prophecies of doom, in the way of low contrast, lack of brilliance, etc.

The result: A just as outstanding contrast of Lessons have been learned in things of resolution as well. The screen has a native Full HD resolution of x pixels and thus allows the best possible viewing experience in games and picture reproduction. Naturally, that isn't very suitable for the 3D mode in games since the performance reserves of the installed GPU aren't sufficient for this.

On the other hand, who wants to sit in front of the notebook permanently wearing 3D glasses or live with x pixels the "rest of the time", as it was often the case in the past? Finally, a look at the reproducible color spectrum confirms that the installed display LGD02C5 isn't just another run of the mill screen. The near coverage of the sRGB color spectrum can be seen well in the comparison.

It clearly surpasses low-end, mainstream displays and the 3D screen might even satisfy hobby graphic designers and picture editors. Although this scenario will likely not be the case for a 17 inch gamer, even the sun worshippers in the gaming community could be pleased about the installed display. The displayed picture always remains perfectly visible. The Asus G74SX can serve with a generous work field in terms of stable viewing angles. While even very narrow viewing angles can be easily dealt with on the horizontal plane, image deviations turn up sooner vertically.

Nevertheless, the screen proves to be very generous and remains stable for a longer time in comparison to standard notebook screens. The used GF chip has been optimized in terms of power requirement in comparison to the GT This is also necessary in the case of the Asus G74SX because the device unfortunately doesn't make use of Nvidia's Optimus and thus always falls back on the dedicated graphics solution.

The chip, as the smallest representative, is an attractive choice in view of the performance for money ratio and is used in many powerful consumer notebooks in the meantime. The configuration, as it lies before us, can indubitably be classified as high-end An awesome 12 GB of main memory and even two swift rpm hard disks with a capacity of Gigabyte each join in on the QM and GTX M graphics solution.

You can discuss the sense or non-sense of the main memory configuration. But hard disk capacity never hurts. The distribution of the memory capacity over a total of four partitions is cause for a bit of bewilderment.

Be that as it may, the Asus G74SX is clearly aimed at the demanding gamer with an inclination for portable devices. The installed Full HD display should be fueled with a sufficiently smooth frame rate for indulging into a stutter-free experience in almost all current games. The matter quickly changes in 3D and gaming.

Details about Nvidia's 3D Vision can be found in this review. In the meantime, there is a vast amount of benchmarks concerning the installed iQM. Intel's Turbo Monitor tool records an almost constant 2. The clock rate drops to 2. Result: 4. The clock rate's decline from the maximum of 2. The Intel tool even records 2. But it is immediately followed by a surprise: The total score is 4.

Another test shows just about the same clock rate course. It can boost the total score slightly to 4. A clock rate of 2. So, not the CPU's maximum possible 2. A look in the task manager shows light load on four threads at the same time. The result is adequate. The same phenomenon can be seen in the CB 10 32 bit test. It is again confirmed in the SuperPi benchmark test. The CPU can't go beyond 2.

By the way, according to our observations, it doesn't matter if Windows' high performance energy profile or Asus' high performance Power4Gear is selected. The CPU ultimately stays at this level for the entire remaining testing period about 30 minutes.

A Cinebench R11 CPU benchmark test executed immediately afterwards finally records a result of similar 4. In contrast to all other reviewed laptops with the same CPU, no conspicuous losses due to excessive Turbo throttling could be observed in the multi core optimized tests. However, the G74SX obviously doesn't exploit the iQM's maximum possible clock rate when only one core is put under load. It also only remains at the lower end of identically equipped comparison devices in the according benchmarks.

We check if this behavior also has an impact on practical use with the following tests. Even if gamers won't be quite as interested in this part of the review, and it's hard to imagine that the G74SX won't supply enough performance for any end user scenario in view of the installed hardware, we would like to take a look at the system's overall performance for the sake of completeness.

PCMark Vantage delivers a total score of points. Basically, you will find multimedia and gaming machines from all manufacturers in the G74SX's immediate vicinity - usually based on Sandy Bridge, though. The HDD score rewards both conventional rpm disks with an average result of points.

The idea of combining a solid state drive SSD with a conventional hard disk for achieving a good and proper performance boost is close. This should even be possible for a non-expert thanks to both hard disk slots. Thus, we especially want to check if the hardware can also develop its full performance potential in this configuration in the Asus G74SX at hand. Basically, the picture is repeated anyway. Both with the same CPU, mind you. We use the Unigine Heaven 2. It especially demands the DirectX 11 features tessellation.

The Asus G74SX lags slightly behind with Both the GTR and the P can excel slightly with We will take a closer look at both installed hard disks in the last part of our general performance assessment. The user has a total memory capacity of 1. At least on paper, because the operating system naturally reserves itself an according part of this apparent excess. Should this not be enough, Asus also offers a 3GB web storage for free, which allows saving single documents in Cloud, for example.

HDTune gives the built-in hard disk array a very good and low access rate of The average transfer rate of Actually, the only things that can improve this is a hybrid drive or a SSD. Asus likely doesn't use the latter in order to simply reach the G74SX's price target. A hardcore gamer also wants to show its gaming performance. Thus, we now come to the practical part.

As usual, we check the hardware with many current and known games. Our GPU game comparison provides a comprehensive comparison with other current graphic cards and frame rates of the most various resolution levels. Let's start with a both new and demanding game, Dirt 3. The games built-in benchmark test supplies an average of That may not sound smooth, but the frame rate doesn't stutter subjectively. The frame course shows that the G74SX stays constantly above 20 fps here.

In high settings x, high , the frame rate soars up to The well-known Mafia 2 also doesn't necessarily treat resources sparingly and beyond that, it has a standardized, built-in benchmark test. The gaming notebook can even distance itself from both aforementioned opponents with The previous GTX M comes close with You are also perfectly served with the Asus G74SX if you want to see your strategy games with their best possible graphics quality. Our in-game run through reveals an average frame rate of 35 fps in the highest graphic details FHD, ultra.

Both the GTR , with The GTX in Alienware's M17x R3 also wants to belong to the absolute upper league here and delivers an impressive Finally, action in its highest standard is also shown on the battlefields of BF: BC2. By and large, you can be happy with the GTX M's performance. The GPU can display current games smoothly across the board in the highest resolution and graphic details with few exceptions Metro , Crysis 2 in the preceding tests.

To what extent the GTX M can surpass its predecessor depends on each game and then probably also on the used graphics driver. The just released Geforce GTX M will likely provide new performance records, but the price will also be located in the absolute top field. Screenshot by CBS Interactive. Performance, as to be expected, is rather spectacular. That's some serious power right there, sitting at the base end of high-level gaming machines. If you need more, you'll likely need to look at Alienware's M18x.

High power typically means low battery life, and with all power-saving features turned off, screen brightness and volume set to maximum and an XviD video played back, the battery lasted one hour and 36 minutes — this isn't something designed to be away from the wall for long.

The G74SX is a good laptop marred by painful concessions — namely the awful trackpad, cheap speakers and droves of crapware. All of these things can be overcome by the user spending more time and money, but we sure wish this wasn't the case. Craig Simms. Pricing Not Available. The Good High level performance. More RAM than you can poke a stick at.

Is that even necessary?. Easy access panel for upgrading. Terrible Sentelic touch pad makes a return. Bad quality speakers considering the size of the laptop.