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[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
The ASUS G75VW is a gaming laptop computer with a third-generation Core i7 processor, 17.3” 3D screen, two hard disk drives, a GeForce GTX 670M discrete video card, sound system with a subwoofer, and much more. Let’s analyze this powerful machine.
The G75VW is part of the ROG (Republic of Games) family, which means it is a high-end product aimed at the gaming audience.
The box of the ASUS G75VW, shown in Figure 1, is huge and comes in black and red colors.
Figure 1: Box
The G75VW is very big, especially to anyone accustomed to typical laptops with 14-inch screens. It measures 16.3 x 12.6 x 2.04 inches (415 x 320 x 52 mm) and weighs 8.7 lbs (3.95 kg). Of course, such a big notebook is not intended to be carried around all day long in your backpack. It is a mobile gaming PC.
Figure 2: The ASUS G75VW
Figure 3 shows the set of accessories that come with the ASUS G75VW: manuals, a driver disc, a set of stickers, two spare dust filters, and the 180 W power supply. Just for comparison purposes, the power supply of typical value laptops is around 65 W.
Figure 3: Accessories
The G75VW also comes with a pair of NVIDIA 3D glasses. Of course, this means the laptop’s screen and video card are compatible with NVIDIA’s 3D technology, 3D Vision.
Figure 4: 3D glasses
[nextpage title=”The ASUS G75VW”]
At the front side of the ASUS G75VW, there is no connector or lock. There are only the indicator LEDs, shown in Figure 6.
Figure 5: Front view
Figure 6: LEDs
At the left side of the notebook, we see two USB 3.0 ports, a Blu-Ray burner, a card reader (compatible with SD, MS, and MMC cards), and microphone and earphone jacks.
Figure 7: Left side
At the right side, there are another two USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort connector, HDMI output, Gigabit Ethernet port, VGA output, and the power supply connector.
Figure 8: Right side
The rear side of the notebook reveals two big ventilation openings, one for the CPU cooler and one for the video card cooler.
Figure 9: Rear side
[nextpage title=”The ASUS G75VW (Cont’d)”]
Figure 10 shows the ASUS G75VW with its cover lifted. The big 17.3” screen is reflexive, which may not be good if you work (or play) with light sources at your back. The screen resolution is Full HD (1080p, i.e. 1920 x 1080), which is excellent.
Figure 10: The laptop opened
At the top of the screen, you can see the HD webcam, the IR emitter that controls the 3D glasses, and the microphone.
Figure 11: Webcam
Such a big laptop has no reason to have a compact keyboard, and the G75VW is excellent on this point. The full keyboard is comfortable and precise. The keyboard also shows that it is a gaming notebook; there is a raised dot on the “W” key. The multi-touch sensitive touchpad is big and feels excellent to use. The area around the keyboard is made of brushed aluminum, and the black area around the touchpad is covered by a rubber-like layer.
At the top-right corner are two buttons. One turns the power on and off, and the other turns the 3D feature on and off.
Figure 12: Keyboard
[nextpage title=”Internal Components”]
Figure 13 shows the bottom of the ASUS G75VW. At the lower right corner, you can see the subwoofer.
Figure 13: Bottom
The battery of the G75VW is shown in Figure 14. It has a tension of 14.4 V, and 5,200 mAh capacity.
Figure 14: Battery
The small cover at the corner of the notebook gives access to the air filter of the CPU cooler, as shown in Figure 15.
Figure 15: Air filter
Figure 16 shows the ASUS G75VW with its main cover removed. This cover is held by only one screw. Notice that there are two memory sockets, and one of them is unused. The laptop has another two memory sockets under the keyboard, as we will shown on the next page. You can also see two 2.5” storage bays.
Figure 16: Main cover removed
[nextpage title=”Internal Components (Cont’t)”]
As you can see in Figure 17, the ASUS G75VW that we analyzed comes with two Seagate ST9500423AS hard drives (7,200 rpm, 16 MB cache, SATA 300). This notebook can be found, however, with several other drive configurations, including 1 TB and 750 GB hard drives, and a 256 GB SSD.
This configuration (two 500 GB hard drives) only makes sense if you combine them to make a RAID array, but the G75VW didn’t come with such a RAID array configured.
In our opinion, a better configuration for such a laptop would be combining an SSD as the primary (boot) drive with a 1 TB hard drive as a second drive, in order to get the best of both worlds: high-speed for loading the operating system and programs and high storage capacity for data.
Figure 17: Hard drives
The optical drive of this laptop is a Panasonic/Matsushita UJ-260 Blu-Ray burner. It can burn BD-R at 6x, BD-RE at 2x, DVD-R at 8x, DVD-RW at 6x, DVD+R at 8x, DVD+RW at 8x, DVD-RAM at 5x, and CD-R at 24x.
Figure 18: Optical drive
In order to access the rest of the components, we removed the cover where the keyboard and touchpad are mounted. Here you can see another two memory sockets, both of them populated.
Figure 19: Keyboard removed
[nextpage title=”Internal Components (Cont’t)”]
Figure 20 shows the Wi-Fi card of the ASUS G75VW. It is an Atheros AR9485WB-EG, compatible with IEEE 802.11b/g/n standards, using a single-band and, therefore, supporting up to 150 Mbps transfer rate.
Figure 20: Wi-Fi card
The ASUS G75VW has four memory sockets with three of them populated with Elpida DDR3-1600 4 GB modules, for a total of 12 GB, expandable up to 16 GB.
Figure 21: Memory modules
Figure 22 shows the motherboard of the ASUS G75VW removed from the chassis. You can see the video card cooler at the left and the CPU cooler at the right.
The processor here is an Intel Core i7-3610QM (2.3 GHz, 3.3 GHz turbo clock, four cores, eight threads, 6 MB L3 cache). You can also find this laptop equipped with a Core i7-3720 CPU (2.6 GHz, 3.6 GHz turbo clock, four cores, eight threads, 6 MB L3 cache).
Figure 22: Motherboard
Figure 23 shows the video card of this G75VW. In this model, it is a GeForce GTX 670M, with 3 GB of video memory at 1.5 GHz, accessed through a 192-bit bus, for a bandwidth of 72 GB/s. There are also models of the G75VW with a GeForce GTX 660M video card instead.
Figure 23: Video card
[nextpage title=”Software”]
The ASUS G75VW comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, but retailers are including a free Windows 8 upgrade.
There are a few programs installed, such as Google Chrome browser, Roxio CinePlayer, CyberLink Media Suite, and a bunch of small demos for games.
The Microsoft Office 2012 also comes preinstalled, and you can choose to buy a commercial version, insert your own key if you already have one, or use the Starter version, which offers limited versions of Word and Excel.
There is also a trial version of the Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012.
Figure 23 shows how the desktop looks after turning on the notebook for the first time.
Figure 24: Desktop
[nextpage title=”Usage”]
Unlike most typical laptops, the ASUS G75VW has a hardware configuration that beats most mainstream desktop computers. The Core i7-3610QM has four physical cores, and thanks to the Hyper-Threading technology, it is detected as an eight-core CPU by the operating system. The default clock rate is 2.3 GHz (3.3 GHz in Turbo Boost mode); using the G75VW is a great experience due to its robust configuration.
The video card is also one of the highlights of the G75VW. The GeForce GTX 670M with 3 GB of dedicated memory (accessed through a 192-bit bus) is powerful enough for most current games.
The Full HD (1080p, i.e. 1920 x 1080) resolution screen is excellent for both work and gaming. Furthermore, the 3D technology is a real plus, allowing you to play games based on this technology or watch 3D movies.
The sound quality is excellent, due to the high-quality speakers and to the built-in subwoofer.
The keyboard grants precise and quick typing, as well as a comfortable gaming experience. We also noticed the lack of a retro illumination.
In order to check battery life, we ran the Powermark program from Futuremark, which simulates the average usage of the laptop (web browsing, text typing, video playing, and 3D graphics) and estimates the battery duration. Powermark estimated battery life at one hour and 33 minutes.
[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]
The main specifications of the ASUS G75VW which we analyzed (keep in mind that the manufacturer also offers this product with different configurations) include:
- Dimensions: 2.05 x 16.3 x 12.6 inches (52 x 415 x 320 mm) (H x D x W)
- Weight: 8.7 lbs (3.95 kg)
- Screen: 17.3”, 1920×1080 native resolution
- Processor: Intel Core i7 3610QM (four cores, 2.3 GHz, 6 MB cache)
- Chipset: Intel Mobile HM77 Express
- Memory: 12 GB DDR3-1600 (three modules of 4 GB)
- Graphics chip: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M
- Hard disk drives: Two Seagate ST9500423AS (500 GB, SATA-300, 7200 rpm)
- Optical drive: Panasonic/Matsushita UJ-260 Blu-ray drive
- Webcam: 1.0 Megapixel
- Network: Gigabit Ethernet
- Wireless network: IEEE 802.11b/g/n Atheros AR9485WB-EG
- Ports: Four USB 3.0, VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet
- Memory card reader: SD, MS, and MMC
- Operating System: Windows 7
- More information: https://usa.asus.com/
- Average price in the US*: USD 2,000
* Researched at Newegg.com on the day this First Look article was published.
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
The ASUS G75VW is a true gaming station. It has a powerful hardware configuration, providing a gaming experience that is comparable to the best desktop gaming computers.
Of course, the G75VW is not recommended if you are looking for an easy-to-carry laptop. It is big and heavy, made to be used on a good desk, connected to the AC power.
The combination of a full HD 3D screen and a Blu-Ray reader/burner makes the G75VW also great for watching Blu-Ray movies.
The only “problem” we found is the hard disk drive configuration, since two 500 GB hard drives only make sense if they come configured in a RAID0 array. It would be better to equip this laptop with an SSD as the boot drive and a 1 TB hard drive as the secondary drive.
Strong Points
- Powerful hardware configuration
- Full HD 3D screen
- Blu-Ray burner
- Excellent audio quality
- Four USB 3.0 ports
- No useless preinstalled programs (“bloatware”)
- Excellent keyboard
- Support for two 2.5” storage devices
Weak Points
- Expensive
- Too big and heavy
- Such a high-end configuration should have come with an SSD