ASUS G74SX - The Stealth Bomber

ASUS G74SX – The Stealth Bomber

ASUS’s Republic Of Gamers (ROG) division has produced some seriously hardcore products, most recently the monster MARS II graphics card (current retail price: S$2500), so you should know when it comes to gaming machines, they don't mess around. The latest entry to their high-end gaming notebook range is the G74SX, a monstrous black beast packing an Intel Core i7-2670QM (2.2GHz) processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics module with a massive 3GB video RAM, dual 500GB Momentus Seagate hybrid drives (HDD drives with a 4GB SSD cache) and a full HD, 17.3-inch display with NVIDIA 3D Vision technology.

With a matte black rubberized finish and angular, sloping edges the G74SX looks like a stealth bomber. It also somewhat reminded us of some of Alienware’s designs but without the attributes that attract attention, like flashing lights or gaudy colors.

Sparse Interior

While we liked the exterior styling, opening up the G74SX was a bit disappointing. Aside from the track pad and keyboard, the sparse, feature-free interior has only a power button, a ROG logo button (more on that below) and some status light indicators - definitely not the most exciting interior, which isn’t helped by the thick, matte black bezel surrounding the screen.

The full-sized, backlit, chiclet keyboard sits on a strip of dark grey brushed aluminum across the middle of the notebook. While the keys are well-sized, with lots of space between them and a fairly firm response, we did notice some slight wiggling when typing. 

The entire interior sits on a 5-degree slope, which theoretically puts the keyboard in a more comfortable position for typing, but in practice it didn't seem to make much difference.

The track pad is large, utilizing most of the height of the wrist rest, but other than its size, we weren’t too impressed. Cursor tracking was generally acceptable, but gestures for middle click, and two-finger scrolling worked erratically at best. Additionally, the buttons were overly soft and mushy with poor tactile feedback.

Fortunately, the G74SX comes packaged with ASUS’s own ROG gaming mouse, a 3200 DPI 6-button ergonomic mouse that gets the job done much better:

The only other buttons you'll find inside the G74SX are the power button and the ROG logo button which has a multi-function use. With the notebook powered off, hitting it will load up ASUS's quick launch mobile OS, which has a few basic applications and isn't terribly useful.

When Windows is already loaded, the button serves as a quick and easy way of switching between different settings. Pressing it will toggle through Power-Saving mode (screen brightness and audio reduced, uses integrated GPU), Gaming mode (uses NVIDIA GPU, full screen brightness/audio, fans at full blast), and Quiet mode (audio off, fans low). Each selection is accompanied by an onscreen display change indicating your current setting. It's similar to the mode dial we saw on Samsung's Series 7 700G7A and we appreciated the ease with which we could switch between different settings.

More Ports Please!

While the G74SX has most of the essential ports, compared to other notebooks of a similar size (or even smaller) it's relatively lacking. A few extra USB 3.0 ports would definitely have helped.

The back of the unit is port free, but sports two massive cooling vents which look like the front grille of a sports car. It’s actually one of the more interesting design elements on the notebook, so it’s unfortunate that it’s facing away from you most of the time. They are designed to ensure heat is quickly and efficiently exhausted away from the critical internals with ducting and guides in place with active fans.

The underside of the G74SX has an easy access plate. A screw with a coin-sized groove on it secures the plate in place. Removing the plate will give you access to four RAM slots (our unit had 8GB of RAM) and two hard drive bays (our unit was configured with dual 500GB hybrid SSDs). With a little poking around, you can also access the wireless network module from here.

The Display Quotient

With seemingly every notebook today fitted with displays of various levels of glossiness, the matte, non-reflective screen on the G74SX was most welcome. We were also happy with the image quality, which was bright, crisp and with relatively wide viewing angles, both horizontally and vertically. 3D movies through NVIDIA’s 3D Vision glasses required a few settings tweaks (most significantly, depth of stereoscopic vision, which we reduced to 10%) but ran smoothly after that.

Audio Matters

Audio on the G74SX comprises of a single speaker bar located above the keyboard. Sound was quite disappointing overall, especially considering the size of the unit. The lack of a subwoofer (which there's definitely room for) also left audio sounding thin and tinny, and the volume was also underwhelming.

To make up for the poor audio, ASUS has included a black Steelseries Siberia V1 headset with the G74SX, one of the better quality gaming headsets out there (although it would have been nice if ASUS had opted for the updated V2 model instead). We were a bit surprised that they didn't package their own line of gaming headsets.

Benchmarking and Performance

We pitted the ASUS G74SX, which retails for S$2998, against competing gaming notebooks at around the same price range. Samsung’s Series 7 700G7A retails at S$2899, and uses the same processor, but has a higher performing AMD graphics module. Toshiba’s Qosmio X770 retails at S$3299, and uses a slightly slower processor, but the same GPU as ASUS, but with half the video memory.

 
PCMark Vantage

PCMark Vantage tests the overall performance of a system. The G74SX scored surprisingly well, winning in every category and notably achieving a massive 11904 score in the Gaming Suite.  So while the numbers look great, the important point here is to understand what the benchmark does to derive these scores.

The Gaming Suite score weighs heavily on loading times from the unit’s hard drive, so the hybrid drives found in the G74SX with their built-in 4GB SSD cache may be the secret to the G74SX’s success here. If you look at the System Storage score, you’ll also see that the G74SX easily outperformed both of its competitors. In reality however, the advantage of the hybrid drives weren't really as apparent, other than loading applications.

While speedy loading is a good thing, this advantage is only had for momentary periods like these and it's not like normal disk drive based machines are unbearably slow either. True gamers would really prefer a competent graphics crunching machine and you'll see that's where the ASUS doesn't quite live up to expectations in the following benchmarks.

3DMark 06

3Dmark06 tests a unit’s GPU (and involved some aspects of the CPU too). While the NVIDIA GTX 560M found in the G74SX has a whopping 3GB of VRAM, it only slightly outperformed the 1.5GB VRAM in the X770, proving the age-old understanding that VRAM doesn't actually make that much of a difference to a system’s performance. In fact, the differential is mostly due to the X770's slower CPU. The high-end AMD Radeon HD 6970M GPU with 2GB VRAM on the Samsung machine attained a much higher score than either NVIDIA models.

Far Cry 2

We were interested in seeing if the ASUS G74SX’s superior system benchmark scores, thanks to its hybrid drives, would translate into better in-game performance, despite its mid-range graphics card.

Unfortunately, in terms of actual in-game frame rates, the hybrid drives' advantage was hardly felt and the G74SX scored only a nary better than the X770 by virtue of a speedier CPU. It goes without saying that the Samsung 700G7A was ahead of the compared machines. When comparing game play on the ASUS machine against the Samsung, on Very High settings, there was a small but noticeable decrease in frame rates between the two, although having said that, frame rates were still well above acceptable for game play.

Far Cry 2 with 3D

With 3D Vision turned on, we did see the G74SX pull ahead of the X770, with a significant performance difference on both Medium and Very High settings. We found Medium settings to be playable with only minor frame rate drops during very intensive scenes. However on Very High settings, it was a different story, with frame rates dropping as low as 7 - definitely unplayable. The Samsung Series 7 700G7A was a much better choice for 3D gaming, with frame rates remaining acceptable even at Very High settings.

Battery Performance

Just one look at the sheer size of the G74SX is all you need to know that it wasn’t built with portability in mind. Weighing a back straining 4.3kg, you probably don’t want to be carrying it around too much (or probably, not at all). In fact, we bet the only time you’ll be running the G74SX on battery is if there’s a power outage, in which case you’ll be relying on the unit’s 8-cell 14.4V 74Wh capacity battery.

In our DVD video looping test to drain the system's battery (with screen brightness and audio both set to 50%), the G74SX lasted just over two hours, longer than both of its competitors and on par with the Dell Alienware M17X R3. Power consumption was about average for a 17.3-inch desktop replacement and slightly worse than Toshiba's X770, despite the longer battery life. It's not outstanding, but we would rank it as reasonable for a machine of this class and bulk.

Portability Index

With its bulky dimensions and heavy weight, the G74SX was never going to score well in our portability index. Even so, it fared slightly better than the X770 due to its longer battery life, and also beat out the even heavier Alienware M17X R3, which weighs a back breaking 5.3kg.

One thing we did find ourselves wondering is, just why is the G74SX so heavy anyway? It's not packing any bulky speakers, uses only a mid-range graphics card, and it doesn't have any special technology or feature. What exactly did ASUS put in there? We're not quite sure of that, but we do know why it's so thick. One of the reasons is to accommodate its special ducted exhaust system that's built into the unit and contributes to the fancy rear exhaust.

Nevertheless, despite this ASUS notebook having a Portability Index that's better than the Toshiba notebook, its weight is just too much for us to even consider ranking them on equal footing. Hence, we've marked down its portability score.

Conclusion

The Asus G74SX is a decent and reasonably priced gaming notebook that will handle most games just fine. If you’re looking for something similar to Alienware styling but without the S$4k price tag, this might be a consideration but if not, there are definitely better choices out there. While the exterior looks pretty awesome with its sports car grille and stealth bomber style, the interior is a ho-hum affair and not likely to draw any second looks. We appreciated the bundled peripherals, and both the ROG mouse and Steelseries headset are excellent, but in the end they just emphasize how lacking the notebook’s own track pad and audio are. Its battery life is quite decent, but it's notably heavier than other 17.3-inch notebooks, and there doesn't seem to be any solid reason.

ASUS opted for the mid-range NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M and packed 3GB VRAM into the G74SX. While impressive on paper, our benchmarks showed that the extra VRAM did very little to improve performance. We did see it more helpful while testing 3D gaming, as it scored a lot better than the Toshiba Qosmio X770 for the same test. However, it still wasn't powerful enough for smooth 3D gaming as we encountered performance dips that did make gameplay jerky occasionally. The compared Samsung Series 7 700G7A notebook on the other hand had no problems and managed smoother gameplay in 3D with its more powerful GPU. Also, the hybrid HDD drives scored well in our benchmark tests, but did not seem to have much effect on in-game performance other than speeding up loading of applications somewhat.

Ultimately, we expected more from the Republic of Gamers brand, with more unique features, better graphics horsepower and better audio from the unit among others. Besides the ROG branding, the ASUS G74SX does little to separate itself from the crowd, and in the end was a bit of a let down.

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