Asus Gaming 156 Rog G551vw Review Ssd Compatible

We continue the list of reviews on ASUS ROG products with the refreshed G551 series laptops that feature the new GeForce GTX 960M GPU which volition add a marginal operation over last yr's model and a bit better energy efficiency. Dissimilar well-nigh refreshed notebooks, this 1 also has a slightly better screen than 2014'due south model, but this might exist more than of a personal opinion on the matter. You will find out why in the "Display" department below.

Before we brainstorm, nosotros would like to question the existence of the G551 notebook since the release of the G501. Both notebooks take the same powerful hardware, but the G551 is bulkier and heavier. On the other manus, the G551 could be considered as more affordable variant since the price tag is significantly lower and the cooling system should be a chip meliorate because of the extra airflow due to the bigger trunk. Even so, we can't be certain unless we accept a closer wait of what ASUS has to offering with this machine.

Cheque the current cost of ASUS ROG G551 here: http://geni.the states/152u

Contents

1. Video review
2. Retail package
3. Design and structure
4. Brandish and sound
5. Specs sheet
6. ASUS ROG G551 configurations
7. Software
8. Battery
9. CPU
10. GPU
11. Temperatures
12. Verdict

Video review

Retail package

As usual, the notebook comes in a carmine and black box with the ROG logo on top of it. Inside you volition notice the AC charging cablevision, adapter, user manuals, DVD with drivers, and a small tie for easier cable management.

Design and construction

As nosotros said earlier, this notebook is heavier and bulkier than the G501, but information technology doesn't stay too far backside when it comes to design and build quality. ASUS has used mainly polycarbonate with aluminum touches here and at that place.

Starting with the lid that's made of brushed aluminum, it'due south somewhat thin and has the usual ASUS ROG logo in the center. The concluding one is backed upwards by LED backlight when the notebook is on. Going around the peak encompass, you lot will see the 15.half dozen-inch Full Hd display, the webcam, integrated microphone, and another ASUS logo at the lesser. The bottom of the chassis, however, isn't featuring whatever aluminum parts – just plain plastic. Virtually the back is located the battery with a little lock switch preventing it from falling while the front end holds the principal service embrace. Under information technology, you will notice the most common upgrade options – HDD/SSD, G.2 SATA SSD (2280, M&B type cardinal) slot and RAM chips.

Moving abroad from the dorsum and on the sides of the machine, the plastic is withal the principal fabric. The left side contains the DC charging port, HDMI, mini DisplayPort, LAN and 2 USB 3.0 ports forth with the primary estrus dispersing grill. The right side, however, has the optical bulldoze, 1 USB 3.0 port and the three.five mm jack for headphones or headphones with microphone.

The interior of the notebook follows the same blueprint signature with red chamfered aluminum edges and matte plastic around the keyboard. Unfortunately, the plate, just like the top lid, is prone to smudges and fingerprints. Right in a higher place the keyboard are the stereo loudspeakers from Bang & Olufsen Sonic Master. Nonetheless, nosotros would like to comment a bit more on the keyboard. The keys are just about the same equally the ones we saw in the GL552 and N751 with cool crimson LED backlight, which is a little dim, but yet provides enough light when you need information technology. Yous tin can adjust the effulgence rapidly with the "Fn"+ F3 or F4 keys, only you might want to go out it at maximum. The keyboard is comfy, keys take enough travel and the "WASD" keys are easily distinguished by the red color around them.

The touchpad, on the other hand, felt a bit wobbly at times, and you can even hear a strange clicky sound when touching information technology. But fortunately, we didn't find this to be getting in the way. It'due south responsive, mouse click piece of work well (well, most of the times) and it's fairly stable.

So the N551 has the same blueprint signature as the G771 notebook but in a smaller course factor. It inherits all of the advantages and disadvantages of its big blood brother, and there are no special features that come with it. We are happy with the blueprint quality with our merely complaint about leaving smudges easily, and it'south thick profile (32.2 mm) and big weight (ii.vii kg). Most of its competitors (even including the G501) carry the same hardware just in a significantly smaller chassis. We do, nonetheless, suspect that this machine will handle high temperatures better than its thin rivals.

Display and sound

ASUS G551JW's display has been changed from concluding year'south model with LG AH-IPS console with a model number (LP156WF4-SPH1). The diagonal is 15.6″ and the resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels leading to a pixel density of 141 PPI. Also, the space between each pixel is 0.xviii x 0.18.

You can see how the image quality changes when viewed from 45-caste angle.

The maximum brightness we were able to measure is 291 cd/m2 with a deviation of 12% (insignificant). The effulgence provided by the panel would be suitable fifty-fifty for bright rooms, only it will not remain visible under straight sunlight. The color temperature is 5916K – close to the optimal 1 of 6500K (D65). At that place is no aberrant deviation on the surface.

Color gamut coverage (CIE)

G551's brandish covers 84% of the sRGB and 63% of the Adobe RGB color gamut.

The gamma curve has a small deviation going really close to the optimal one – 2.2.

Colour reproduction

Nosotros calibrated the display to accomplish 140 cd/m2 (48%) brightness with two dissimilar calibrators.

We were also aiming for 6500K color temperature.

The next graph is afterward the calibration.

The results can be seen on the colour map below.

This time nosotros used i1Display Pro for scale, again with a colour temperature equal to 6500K.

After calibration, the boilerplate DeltaE(76) is 1.75, and the contrast is 507:i.

Below you will come across some other profile, but this time with its native color temperature.

The contrast ratio is 800:one and DeltaE(76) is one.31.

Pulse-width modulation (PWM, Screen flickering)

Unlike final year'due south model, this ane features an IPS panel manufactured by LG that does not emit ambitious light or simply put – screen flickering. PWM was not recorded across all brightness levels.

Gaming capabilities (Response time)

We recorded the refresh time of the pixels from black to white and white to black for x to xc%. And then nosotros were able to measure out Fall Time + Rise Time = 31 ms, which is more than than three times the response time a TN panel would attain. But the TN console cannot be compared to an IPS console in terms of image quality.

Conclusion

The new panel provided with the ASUS G551 scores a bit worse than its predecessor in terms of image quality, but nosotros didn't record any PWM (screen flickering) beyond all brightness levels. This can be considered as user-friendly, and it volition non crusade eye fatigue. However, you will be pleased with the colour accuracy, viewing angles, relatively adept dissimilarity ratio, and high maximum effulgence. On the other hand, gamers may see the display equally "non good plenty" due to the slow response time, simply keep in mind that this could be seen only by hardcore gamers and more in particular – when playing beginning-person shooter games.

Screen compariosn

If we assume a distance of 58cm (~23in) between the homo eye and the notebook monitor, then normal (20/xx) vision would require a pixel density of at least 150ppi in order to interpret an paradigm as perfectly detailed.

	Laptop	Results	Issue difference	Price	Price difference
	ASUS ROG G551JW (GeForce GTX 960M) xv.6-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	141
	ASUS ROG G501 15.half dozen-inch, Samsung, 1920 ten 1080 pixels	141
	Lenovo Y50 xv.6-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	141
	Acer Aspire V15 Nitro (VN7-591G, 960M) 15.6-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	141

Higher panel effulgence is of cardinal importance for visual comfort when working outside or in a brightly lit room.

	Laptop	Results	Result difference	Price	Toll difference
	ASUS ROG G551JW (GeForce GTX 960M) 15.half-dozen-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	292
	ASUS ROG G501 15.6-inch, Samsung, 1920 x 1080 pixels	322	+ten.27%
	Lenovo Y50 15.6-inch, LG, 1920 10 1080 pixels	235	-19.52%
	Acer Aspire V15 Nitro (VN7-591G, 960M) 15.6-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	300	+2.74%

Delta E is a CIE measurement unit of color difference. Higher values bespeak that the brandish produces less accurate colors. (lower results are desirable).

	Laptop	Results	Upshot difference	Price	Price difference
	ASUS ROG G551JW (GeForce GTX 960M) 15.half dozen-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	1.31
	ASUS ROG G501 15.six-inch, Samsung, 1920 x 1080 pixels	3.48	+165.65%
	Lenovo Y50 15.half dozen-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	1.47	+12.21%
	Acer Aspire V15 Nitro (VN7-591G, 960M) fifteen.vi-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	one.24	-five.34%

The sRGB color gamut, introduced as a standard for the Web, shows the percentage of colors used on the Spider web that can be displayed on the screen of the device being tested (higher values are better).

	Laptop	Results	Event deviation	Toll	Cost deviation
	ASUS ROG G551JW (GeForce GTX 960M) xv.vi-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	84
	ASUS ROG G501 xv.six-inch, Samsung, 1920 10 1080 pixels	94	+11.9%
	Lenovo Y50 15.6-inch, LG, 1920 ten 1080 pixels	64	-23.81%
	Acer Aspire V15 Nitro (VN7-591G, 960M) fifteen.6-inch, LG, 1920 x 1080 pixels	91	+8.33%

Sound

The audio quality from the loudspeakers is good covering frequencies from +/-six dB.

Specs sheet

The technical specifications listed below are for the current model we've tested and may vary depending on your region

Processor	Intel Core i7-4720HQ (iv-core, two.60 – 3.60 Ghz, 6MB cache)
RAM	8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR3, 1600GHz
Graphics card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (2GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSD	1TB HDD (7200rpm)
Display	15.6-inch (39.62 cm.) – 1920×1080 (Full Hard disk), IPS matte
Optical bulldoze	DVD burner
Connectivity	LAN x/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11a/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
Other features	3x USB iii.0 born webcam built-in microphone 2x 3.5 mm jack for headphones and external microphone LAN HDMI VGA card reader (SD, MMC, MS) Sonic Master loudspeakers keyboard LED backlight mini DisplayPort
Battery	half-dozen-prison cell 5000 mAh (52Wh) Li-Polymer Battery
Thickness	32.two mm (1.27″)
Weight	2.6 kg (5.95 lbs)

ASUS ROG G551 configurations

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Software

For the writing of this review, we used Windows viii.1 (64-bit) and all tests were conducted on this OS. If yous need to perform a clean install of Windows 8.i, you tin discover all the needed drivers here: http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/G551JW/HelpDesk_Download/

Battery

For a gaming notebook packed with serious horsepower under the hood, we cannot expect a decent battery life. However, nosotros got some pretty good readings from our battery tests that indicated a slightly better bombardment performance than its competitors. The G551 uses a 56Wh / 5000 mAh battery manufactured by Simplo Technologies with a model number of LC32LG126Q-8. We ran the usual tests with the same conditions – Wi-Fi turned on, Bluetooth is off, power saver is on, and screen effulgence is set to 120 cd/m2.

Web browsing

In society to simulate existent-life weather condition, nosotros used our ain script for automated web browsing through over 70 websites.

Surprisingly good issue for a gaming notebook – 273 minutes (iv hours and 33 minutes).

Watching a moving picture

For every exam like this, we use the aforementioned video in HD.

Similar result hither – 235 minutes (3 hours and 55 minutes).

Gaming

For accurate simulation, we used the Metro Last Lite benchmark running on a loop with graphic settings gear up to minimum.

Surely the virtually demanding test got the most of the bombardment with a result of just 64 minutes. Yes, we know that this is a gaming auto, and it's not intended for gaming on battery, just fo evaluation reasons we run these sorts of tests.

CPU

Although Intel Core i7-4720HQ debuts in Q1 of 2015, this high-end processor is function of the Haswell family, since the Broadwell generation represents simply energy-efficient "U" series chips. The Core i7-4720HQ is a straight successor of the i7-4710HQ which is ordinarily used in gaming laptops due to its higher clock speeds and high power consumption for more raw performance boost. As usual, the Cadre i7-4720HQ uses the then-called HyperThreading engineering, allowing the CPU to emulate one virtual core for each physical i, thus running 8 threads at the aforementioned time with only four physical cores. The CPU has a base frequency of 2.6GHz and Turbo Boost upwards to iii.4GHz for 4 agile cores, 3.5GHz for ii active cores and 3.6GHz for one active cadre. This makes the Cadre i7-4720HQ faster than the Core i7-4710HQ with but 100MHz.

The CPU is designed with 22nm manufacturing process (since information technology'south part of the Haswell generation). The enshroud levels are high and are as follows: 256KB at level ane, 1024KB at level ii, 6144KB at level iii. The maximum operating temperature is 100°C and as for the maximum TDP – 47W and that includes the memory controller, VRMs, and integrated graphics. Speaking of which, the Core i7-4720HQ accommodates Intel HD Graphics 4600 with xx EU (Execution Units) clocked at 400MHz and can go up to 1200MHz. The maximum supported memory of the chip is 32GB DDR3L 1333/1600 with ii memory channels. Other notable features are HyperThreading, AVX, AVX2, Quick Sync, Virtualization, AES-NI.

You can scan through our elevation CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you lot will find other useful information and every notebook we've tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-cadre-i7-4720hq/

Adobe Photoshop

Results are from our Photoshop criterion exam (the lower the score, the better)

Raw performance

Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Cadre i7-4720HQ managed to go 13.001 million moves per second. For comparison, one of the nearly powerful PCs, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue fifty-fifty beat the famous Garry Kasparov with iii.5 to 2.five.

GPU

The GeForce GTX 960M (4GB GDDR5) is placed as a high-end graphics bill of fare, but used by and large in upkeep gaming laptops. It is part of the Maxwell family unit of GPUs. It features 640 CUDA cores or simply – shading units, along with 32 ROPs and 53 texture units. It has 4GB of dedicated VRAM and in this case GDDR5 blazon. The speed bandwidth of the memory is fourscore.2 GB/s and 128-fleck passenger vehicle width.

The GTX 960M uses the same GM107 GPU core that nosotros've seen in last year's 860M, merely this one is mainly oriented to bump the notebook'southward battery life and add some extra functioning, but that's non stressed every bit much. However, the GM107 is clocked a bit higher than final yr's model – 1097MHz of base clock and heave up to 1176MHz. It also supports 2048×1536 resolution through VGA port and 3840×2160 with DisplayPort and HDMI.

You tin can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/peak-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook nosotros've tested with this GPU: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-gtx-960m/

3DMark Fire Strike (Thou)

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Unigine Heaven three.0

Results are from the Unigine Heaven three.0 benchmark (higher the score, the improve)

Unigine Heaven 4.0

Results are from the Unigine Heaven iv.0 criterion (higher the score, the better)

Gaming tests

All gaming tests were performed with the latest drivers from NVIDIA installed and in this case – 352.86 WHQL.

Metro: LL (1080p, Low)	Metro: LL (1080p, Medium)	Metro: LL (1080p, Max)
62 fps	47 fps	17 fps

Tomb Raider (1080p, Depression)	Tomb Raider (1080p, Medium)	Tomb Raider (1080p, Max)
134 fps	64 fps	33 fps

F1 2014 (1080p, Depression)	F1 2014 (1080p, Medium)	F1 2014 (1080p, Max)
114 fps	91 fps	75 fps

Thief (1080p, Low)	Thief (1080p, Medium)	Thief (1080p, Max)
47 fps	37 fps	24 fps

GTA 5 (1080p, Low)	GTA five (1080p, Medium)	GTA five (1080p, Max)
99 fps	39 fps	xx fps

Temperatures

Each notebook we go to test nosotros perform this unproblematic, yet important and efficient test. Nonetheless, our main goal is to cheque the overall stability and reliability of the system in the long run. Nosotros start off with a CPU stress test that brings 100% CPU load and this goes on for almost an hour. At normal state the CPU operates at around 41-42°C, then it got up to 88-xc°C for a few seconds and the fans cooled down the cores to 83-84°C. Interestingly, the CPU remained near its maximum operating frequency for four agile cores during the kickoff half of the test. To exist exact, the CPU was ticking at 3.2GHz and the maximum operating frequency for four active cores is three.4GHz. The hardware passed this test with flying colors. You tin also come across the results on the graph below (scarlet line for temperatures and the green one for CPU load).

After this, nosotros started a GPU burn in examination alongside the CPU stress test. This way we tin can encounter if the cooling organisation is designed well and if the GPU and CPU share the estrus. The CPU temperature went up a few digits reaching 88-xc°C, only still far away from the maximum operating temperature of 100°C. The GPU, nevertheless, was working at 73°C without whatever signs of overheating. As well, the CPU's frequency remained at 3.0GHz, so non just we didn't see any throttling, just the processor was able to keep upward the rate almost 400MHz more than the base 1.

We've also provided a heat map below, so you can see how the inner temperatures touch on user experience. We are happy with the cooling system and the only estrus nosotros felt was at the middle of the keyboard, but even this didn't strike us as uncomfortable.

UPDATE: It has come to our attending that the GPU inside (GTX 960M) throttles during long gaming sessions or, if the load is about to 100%, the event occurs after only a couple of minutes. The sensor is set to underclock the graphics processor when it reaches 74°C leading to really low performance. We are talking about a big subtract – from 1176MHz (maximum operating frequency) to effectually 500MHz. So keeping the internals cool might be a challenge for you and the notebook volition underperform. We would expect more into the matter and will try to contact ASUS' client back up for annotate.

Verdict

Despite our initial thoughts of the notebook, the G551 proved to exist a much better selection than the G501 when it comes to screen quality and cooling system. Firstly, the cooling system maintained relatively high CPU temperature, but the frequency didn't drib a bit and even went manner college than expected. Likewise, the surface of the car remained cool throughout the whole temperature tests. Secondly, the screen is much amend when it comes to PWM (screen flickering) and this will assure comfortable long-hour usage without any fatigue.

The design is likewise nice if you lot are willing to make clean your notebook more often due to the fingerprint magnet surface on the chapeau and interior. Nonetheless, the keyboard additionally provides the much-desired comfort along with the responsive touchpad. The price of the motorcar could besides be considered as an advantage every bit it has the same hardware as some of its competitors, but keeping way ameliorate temperatures than the Y50 and Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition. So if y'all are considering either the G501 or the G551, the G551 will be much more reliable while the G501 volition provide better mobility due to its lightweight and thin profile.

Check the current toll of ASUS ROG G551 here: http://geni.us/152u

Pros

• Quality IPS panel without PWM
• Skilful blueprint
• Comfortable touchpad and keyboard
• Fantabulous heat direction inside and out of the chassis
• M.ii SATA SSD slot
• Affordable cost

Cons

• The chassis leaves nasty smudges and fingerprints
• Bulky (32.two mm) and heavy (2.7 kg)
• The GPU throttles during longer gaming sessions

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Source: https://laptopmedia.com/review/asus-rog-g551jw-geforce-gtx-960m-review-despite-the-obvious-advantage-of-the-g501-the-g551-proves-that-its-not-obsolete-yet/

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