ASUS G74SX
Category : Notebooks / Tablets
Published by Marc Büchel on 27.07.11
With the G74SX, ASUS has another high-end gaming notebook in its portfolio. What it offers is a lot of performance as well as a high quality 3D display and very well built peripherals as well as a unique design. 
On the following pages we will show you the strenghts and weaknesses of the G74SX Gaming Notebook from ASUS.
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Preview
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Specifications / Chassis
| CPU | Intel Core i7-2630QM |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate |
| Chipset | Intel HM65 Express Chipset |
| Memory | DDR3 1333 MHz, 4 x SODIMM, 16 GByte |
| Display | 17.3'' Full HD 3D 120Hz, 1920 x 1080 |
| Graphics card | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M, 3 GByte GDDR5 |
| Hard drive | 2 x 500 GByte (2.5'') |
| Video Camera | HD Web Camera |
| Connectors | 1 x Microphone-in jack 1 x Headphone-out jack 1 x USB 3.0 3 x USB 2.0 1 x RJ45 LAN jack 1 x HDMI |
| Audio | Built-in Speakers and
Microphone EAX Advanced HD 5.0 THX TruStudio |
| Battery | 5200 mAh, 74 Whrs, 8 cell |
| Dimensions | 325 x 420 x 62 mm (W x D x H) |
| Weight | 4.28 kg |
Chassis / Design / Verarbeitung
As soon as you take the G74SX out of its box you'll see that this is one hell of a gaming notebook. No wonder it weighs 4.28 kilogram and it therefore leaves lasting impressions - positive as well as maybe negative ones. Nevertheless two hard drives, a high-end notbook GPU, a quad core CPU, 16 GByte memory, a 17.3 inch display which is capable displaying 3D and a very adequate coolling solution do need some space and therefore cause some additional weight. As a matter of fact the G74SX can produce way more than 100 Watts of dissipation power power and therefore the cooling is highly important. ASUS decided to put GPU and CPU underneath the speakers, CPU on the left side and GPU on the right side. Furhtermore there are two radial fans which blow hot air out of the case. The entire cooling solution is very efficient and keeps the temperatures low and even the noise level is very reasonable.
Like its predecessor, the G73, the G74 also comes with a rubber coated
surface. Paired up with its destinctive shape and black color the design itself
reminds of a stealth bomber. Therefore ASUS decided to stick to their design
theme. Generally the design left a very good impression and even for LAN party
gamers it should be tough enough.
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Display / Input Devices
Display
ASUS equipped the G74SX with a 17.3'' display that features Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. Furthermore the display comes with LED backlight and it is 3D capable with a 120 Hz refresh rate. We liked that it wasn't a glare type display which is why there are no reflections when your in a brightly lit room. Astonishingly good were the colors and the contrast ratio. Also the brightness is on a very good level with an anverage of almost 270 Candela per squaremeter. What might increase the lifespan of the display is the fact that is has been moved about two millimeters into the chassis.
Input Devices
The G74SX Gaming Notebook comes with a full-size keyboard and a number pad next to it. Inbetween you also find, usefully placed, arrow keys which are suitable not only for gamers, office users will enjoy them equally. Generally the keyboard is much alike an Apple keyboard. The key drop is well chosen and the pressure point leaves a good impression. The keys themselves come with a slightly rough surface and provide good grip. Furthermore the chassis doesn't bend. This is another indicator for high build quality.
Centered, below the keyboard you can find the touchpad. Fortunately this has
not been integrated into the material of this case and offers a left and a right
key. The touchpad also offers scrolling functionality but this doesn't work very
properly. In on situation it reacts too quickly and in another it doesn't show
any responsiveness at all. Nevertheless the material is very good and even if
you tend to have sweaty fingers it is comfortable to use.
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Test setup
Regarding our notebook reviews we use a practical approach. To get a detailed impresson of the device the tester uses it to work with. In case of gaming notebooks it replaces the testers gaming PC during the time of the test. These methods allow us to provide detailed user experience to you.Regarding performance benchmarks - which are listed below - we don't go very deep. What we do, is that we use benchmarking software which over the years have established as standards for reviewing purposes. Furthermore the specific game benchmarks give insight to the playability of recent games.
Benchmarkprogramme
- Futuremark PCMark 7
- Total Score
- Video playback and transcoding / Video playback Score
- Video playback and transcoding / Video transcoding - downscaling Score
- System storage - gaming / System storage - gaming Score
- Graphics - DirectX 9 / Graphics - DirectX 9 Score
- Image manipulation / Image manipulation Score
- System storage - importing pictures / System storage - importing pictures Score
- Web browsing and decrypting / Web browsing Score
- Web browsing and decrypting / Data decrypting Score
- System storage - Windows Defender / System storage - Windows Defender Score
- Total Score
- Futuremark 3DMark 11
- Total
- CPU
- Physics
- Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
- Total
- Grafik
- CPU
- Unigine Heaven
- High / Extreme / 16x AF / 8x AA / Max Resolution
- Resident Evil 5
- High / 16x AF / 8x AA / Max Resolution
- Far Cry 2
- High / 16x AF / 8x AA / Max Resolution
- Battery Eater
- Classic
- Idle
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PCMark 7 - Video Playback / Downscaling / Transcoding / Storage
PCMark 7 is a benchmark suite which consists of 20 different workloads. The following results reflect the PCMark 7's standard selection, which provides a good insight regarding overall system performance. For a comfortable presentation we chose to split the results onto three different sites.| Futuremark PCMark 7 | Punkte |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 3'015 |
| ASUS G74SX | 2'500 |
| Video playback and transcoding / Video playback | fps |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 23.11 |
| ASUS G74SX | 23.04 |
| Video playback and transcoding / Video transcoding - downscaling | KByte/s |
| ASUS G74SX | 5'251.03 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 4'922.64 |
| System storage - gaming / System storage - gaming | MByte/s |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 7.93 MByte/s |
| ASUS G74SX | 4.34 MByte/s |
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DirectX 9 / Image Manipulation / Importing Pictures
| Graphics - DirectX 9 / Graphics - DirectX 9 | fps |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 47.51 |
| ASUS G74SX | 48.96 |
| Image manipulation / Image manipulation | Mpx/s |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 8.86 |
| ASUS G74SX | 8.80 |
| System storage - importing pictures / System storage - importing pictures | MByte/s |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 11.08 |
| ASUS G74SX | 6.30 |
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Web browsing / Data decryption / Windows Defender
| Web browsing and decrypting / Web browsing | Pages/s |
| ASUS G74SX | 10.66 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 9.8 |
| Web browsing and decrypting / Data decryption | MByte/s |
| ASUS G74SX | 55.94 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 47.63 |
| System storage - Windows Defender / System storage - Windows Defender | MByte/s |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 3.29 |
| ASUS G74SX | 1.4 |
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Futuremark
| 3DMark 11 Total | Punkte |
| ASUS G74SX | 1'980 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 1'781 |
| 3DMark 11 GPU | Punkte |
| ASUS G74SX | 1'773 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 1'593 |
| 3DMark 11 Physics | Punkte |
| ASUS G74SX | 6'208 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 5'941 |
| 3DMark Vantage Total | Punkte |
| ASUS G74SX | 9'029 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 8'134 |
| 3DMark Vantage GPU | Punkte |
| ASUS G74SX | 7'770 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 6'904 |
| 3DMark Vantage CPU | Punkte |
| ASUS G74SX | 17'575 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 17'473 |
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Gaming Benchmarks
| Unigine Heaven Benchmark | fps |
| ASUS G74SX | 10.0 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 9.0 |
| Resident Evil 5 | fps |
| ASUS G74SX | 51.0 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 44.4 |
| Far Cry 2 | fps |
| ASUS G74SX | 39.07 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 34.48 |
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Battery Eater / Power Consumption
| Battery Eater Classic | min |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 2 h 16 min 11 sec |
| ASUS G74SX | 1 h 31 min 41 sec |
| Power Consumption Load | Watt |
| ASUS G74SX | 145 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 128 |
| Power Consumption Idle | Watt |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 37 |
| ASUS G74SX | 42 |
| Power Consumption while power off | Watt |
| ASUS G74SX | 9.3 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 9.1 |
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Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| Generally the ASUS G74SX leaves a good impression and it is a solid gaming notebook. We especially liked the big display with the very good colors as well as brightness. Additionally you get a well built keyboard. Impressive is the cooling system. Although the G74SX draws more than 140 Watts out of the wall the notbook isn't noisy at all. ASUS really did its homework very well. | - Display -Cooling |
- Batter
life - Weight |
|
| Display / Input devices | + | - | |
| ASUS
equipped the G74SX with a very good 17.3 inch display. The colors and
contrast ratio as well as the brightness were able to convince us.
Thanks to the NVIDIA shutter glasses which are included in the delivery
you can even enjoy 3D with the 120 Hz capable display. Altoghter it is
simply perfect for a gaming notebook. The keyobard which includes a number pad as well as separate arrow keys also leave as very good impression. Therefore build quality and responsiveness are very accurate. The only weakness concerns the touchpad. Especially the scrolling functionality could have been better. |
- Display size - Readability - Colors - 3D |
- Touchpad scroll functionality | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| Equipped with a Core i7-2630QM quad core CPU that features eitght threads clocked at 2.0 GHz there is plenty of performance slumbering. Ufortunately in PCMark 7 it wasn't able to outperform the ASUS Lamorghini VX7 which remains on the top. As soon as you start the gaming benchmarks you see where this thing has its roots. Therefore the GTX 560M is more than ten percent faster than its predecessor which can be found in the Lamborghini notebook. | - Gaming Performance | ||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you should be looking for a gaming notebook that comes with a big display and is able to display 3D then the G74SX will definitely be a good choice | -
Gaming Notebook - DesktopReplacement |
- Mobile Computing | |
| Rating | |||
| With the G74SX Gaming Notebook ASUS has a convincing product in its portfolio. Because of the touchpad which could have been better we give it four out of five stars. | |||
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