The ASUS Republic of Gamers G751 Review: G-SYNC Comes To The Notebook Computer
by Brett Howse on July 29, 2015 8:30 AM EST
At Computex 2015, NVIDIA announced what will almost certainly be one of their marquee features on gaming notebooks going forward, with NVIDIA’S G-SYNC variable display refresh rate technology coming to notebooks. We’ll dive into this more in a bit, but perhaps the best part of the announcement was that it was going to be a hard launch, with several vendors offering notebooks featuring G-SYNC right away.
One of those was ASUS, and NVIDIA shipped me the ASUS G751JY model with G-SYNC to take a look at. The G751 was first introduced in October 2014. It is a 17.3-inch laptop targeted towards gamers under ASUS’s Republic of Gamers (ROG) branding. ASUS these days seems to have a focus on offering value, and by that I mean they often offer more computer for your money than most other brands. The ASUS Zenbook UX305 is a perfect example of this, offering excellent performance, specifications, and build materials for much less than the competition. Of the initial announcements of G-SYNC notebooks, ASUS has certainly come in with a lot of value here too.
The G751 has a couple of configuration options, with the G751JT model featuring the GTX 970M and G-SYNC, but this review is on the higher end G751JY model, which features the Intel Core i7-4720HQ processor, with four cores and eight threads available in a 47 Watt envelope. In order to have G-SYNC, you will need a NVIDIA GPU, and the JY model features NVIDIA's highest end mobile GPU, the GTX 980M, with 4 GB of memory onboard the graphics card. System memory is 24 GB on the model I received, with 3x8GB of DDR3L-1600, and a 256 GB SSD, which is the very fast Samsung XP941 PCIe model, and a 1 TB 7200 RPM drive for extra storage. Although optical media is certainly on the way out, with a 17.3-inch notebook there is plenty of room for an optical drive, and the G751JY features a 6x Blu-Ray writer.
| ASUS ROG G751JY | |||||
| As Tested, Core i7-4720HQ, 24 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD + 1TB HDD | |||||
| Processor | Intel Core i7-4720HQ (4C/8T, 2.6-3.6GHz, 6MB L3, 22nm, 47W) Intel Core i7-4870HQ (4C/8T, 2.5-3.7GHz, 6MB L3, 22nm, 47W) |
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| Memory | 24GB-32GB DDR3L-1600 MHz | ||||
| Graphics | NVIDIA GTX 980M 4GB | ||||
| Display | 17.3" 1920x1080 IPS Matte, 75Hz, G-SYNC | ||||
| Storage | 256GB-512GB Samsung XP941 PCIe SSD 1 TB 7200rpm HDD |
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| Networking | Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 Realtek 1 Gbps Ethernet |
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| Audio | Waves MAXX Audio Two speakers plus subwoofer |
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| Battery | 90 Wh Battery 230 Watt A/C Adapter |
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| Right Side | 2 x USB 3.0 Ports Headphone Jack Microphone Jack DisplayPort HDMI VGA SPDIF (3.5mm) |
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| Left Side | 2 x USB 3.0 Ports SD Card Reader Blu-Ray Burner |
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| Dimensions | 317.5 x 416.6 x 43.2mm (12.50 x 16.40 x 1.70 inches) | ||||
| Weight | 3.81 kg (8.4 lbs) | ||||
| Extras | 720p Webcam Backlit Keyboard |
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| Pricing | $2150 MSRP (i7-4720HQ, 24GB, 256GB SSD) Amazon.com $1900 $2650 MSRP (i7-4870HQ, 32GB, 512GBSSD) Amazon.com $2460 |
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A laptop that comes in at over $2000 may seem like a difficult thing to consider as a value play, but once again ASUS has really packed in a lot of performance for the price. For a bit more money, you can add in another 8 GB of memory and double the SSD capacity to 512 GB if you want to keep less of your data on the spinning disk. If you want G-SYNC with a GTX 980M, the ASUS offers a pretty good price to performance ratio.
At 8.4lbs, or 3.8 kg, this is no lightweight laptop, but there is certainly a market for people who want a desktop replacement-style laptop with lots of performance and a big display. The larger chassis is a bit more of a hassle to move around, but the extra display size makes for a very good gaming experience, and the larger chassis of a 17.3-inch notebook provides an opportunity for better system cooling with less noise. We’ll see how it measures up to the competition, with the MSI GT72 Dominator Pro likely being its direct competitor.
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Notmyusualid - Saturday, August 1, 2015 - link
^ Also this is true.Guys in work bemoanded my M3800 purchase back in December due to only having Haswell, and supposedly Broadwell was due out any day... But a machine was required immediately.
Broadwell shipped 8 months later, and in no numbers too! I'm not ever buying a 'U' Intel cpu, so those don't count.
Turns out my instinct (likely due to places like this), was right.
BMNify - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
Around the corner?? Skylake H mobile will take atleast 6 months before launching in a new product like this, people buy when they need and don't wait half a year for updates.shadowjk - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
Exactly. I'm still on 4700MQ + 780M.With "Skylake around the corner", nobody seems to want to sell even the few Broadwell-H laptops that allegedly exist, atleast in Europe. I'm guessing we'll be stuck on Haswell another 9-16 months..
boeush - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
My guess is, nobody wanted to invest in Broadwell H inventory, when Skylake is soon to render it obsolete. OEMs are simply waiting for Skylake to refresh their models; they are skipping Broadwell pretty much just as Intel did.Refuge - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
Yes, this. No OEM's are paying Broadwell much mind. It was a flubbed launch when you look at its placement in the timeline. Timing was all wrong.Intel shouldn't have even bothered with it if they weren't going to push back Skylake, but oh well. At least the limited it to a very small launch.
douglord - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
Totally pointless system for anyone that's not an engineer or architect that has to be able to take 3D drawings to customers.Why can't we get a 4 Core 45w chip with Iris Pro in a 5lb 15" laptop with all day battery life (10 hours)?
No we have to choose between a pointless 10lb gayming system with 1 hour battery life and 2 core ULP garbage in a 2lb folder.
BMNify - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
I doubt you even read the article's first paragraph before commenting here, You are blabering about Engineers and architects and ignoring the name of the product itself: "Republic of Gamers", Hope you got a clue and its gaming not gayming. Hope i didn't hurt your gay feelings, homophobic people generally are just hiding their own insecurities and can be cured with proper help in coming out of the closet.Notmyusualid - Saturday, August 1, 2015 - link
doug sounds clueless to me.benzosaurus - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
I believe the low-end Retina Macbook Pro is exactly the machine you're describing.boeush - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
As an engineer (SW) who periodically deals with 3D graphics and modeling, I wouldn't bother with any 16:9 screen no matter the resolution. 16:10 is the minimal aspect ratio that is remotely acceptable for a workstation. 1080p is only suitable for movie watching, and is counter-productive for anything else.