Product Listing

3D Wonder - ASUS G51J 3D

By Aloysius Low - 30 Mar 2010
Launch SRP: S$3098

Dissecting the Performance

Dissecting the Performance

Fact is, the ASUS G51J comes packed with such powerful hardware we're not sure why it hasn't yet turned sentient and taken over the world. It packs an Intel Core i7-720QM (1.6GHz) processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 2 x 500GB HDDs and a blazing fast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M. That should be enough to get pretty high scores in our usual benchmarks, so let's take a look at how it stacks up against some of it competition.

 

Notebook Comparison Table
Specifications / Notebook ASUS G51J Dell Alienware m15x Acer Aspire  8935G
Processor Intel Core i7-720QM (1.60GHz, with turbo up to 2.80GHz) Intel Core i7-920XM (2.0GHz, with 8MB L2 cache) Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q9000 (2.0GHz, with 6MB L2 cache)
Chipset Intel PM55 Intel PM55 Intel PM45
Memory 4GB DDR3 8GB DDR3 4GB DDR3
HDD 2 x 500GB SATA 5400RPM 1 x 500GB SATA 5400 RPM 2 x 500GB SATA 5400 RPM
Video NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670

 On PCMark Vantage, the ASUS G51J showed its muscle with a pretty decent score of 5942 PCMarks. It comes with a pretty decent quad-core Core i7 processor. Note that despite the low 1.6GHz base speed, it excelled better than the Acer Aspire 8935G notebook's 2GHz quad-core processor because of the new Core i7 processor's Turbo Boost feature. Of course, it was no match for the Alienware's Extreme processor class that it was equipped with and rightfully so since the differential in processor price between them is about 300%. Otherwise, the ASUS G51J handled pretty well for its specs.

And in 3DMark06, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M discrete GPU made its presence felt with a respectable 10888 3DMarks. We also re-tested it with 3D Vision enabled to check out its impact on overall performance and we noted that it scored 7461 3DMarks - about 30% lower since the GPU had to do more work to pump out a 120Hz output, which is double the norm.

As can be seen from our previous benchmark, the Dell Alienware m15x continued to beat the ASUS G51J down in 3DMark06 due to its better overall specs, but we like to note that the G51J's benchmark scores in this department are more than sufficient to make most notebooks turn green with envy. It also means that the notebook has enough capability to handle modern 3D games with no issues even at high settings.

On Far Cry 2, the card showed its capabilities, delivering a solid average 25.3 fps on Very High settings, while easily going up to 41.36 fps on Medium settings. For some reason,  turning on stereoscopic rending hardly affected the scores on this particular benchmark.

Note that we aren't quite able to compare the G51J's scores to the other notebooks as our usual testing for Far Cry 2 is done at a 1280 x 1024 resolution, as we pretty much figured that this test would only be run on higher end gaming notebooks whose screens are capable of displaying at this resolution. Sadly, the G51J, despite its more than adequate specifications, is capped at a 1366 x 768 pixels resolution, which means we were only able to test at a resolution of 1024 x 768 and not at our usual settings. Hence, there are no direct comparisons for this particular set of results.

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8.5
  • Design 8
  • Features 8.5
  • Performance 8.5
  • Value 8
  • Mobility 7
The Good
Decent performance
Affordable gaming notebook
World's first 3D Vision enabled notebook
The Bad
Battery life is weak like all gaming notebooks
Screen resolution could be higher
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