Asus M51Ta Owners' Lounge

[Tshroom]

As of 5 October 2008, this thread is also the owners' lounge for ASUS M51Ta. Enjoy! E.B.E.

Long time reader, first time poster..

I have been researching laptops for a while and I am in the market for a 15 inch with moderately nice features. I have several candidates in mind, but all that is beside the point.

I recently noticed a new posting on newegg for a puma based Asus called the M51ta. It has comparable features to the new intel based M50 and its a few hundred dollars cheaper. The only problem is there is no information on it what so ever. The only info is in the newegg listing and it isn't very specific.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220349

It features one of the new puma processors, and the radeon 3650, but it doesn't specify if its ddr3, if there is crossfire, or even how big the thing is.

If anyone has any info on this it would be greatly appreciated. I am sure we can solve this mystery together.
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In honor of making it to the Owners Lounge Status I dug up an old unboxing photo I found from when i first got my M51ta.



It is still the best bang for the buck laptop in its class and it handles everything I throw at it.

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Useful Links by E.B.E.

• bacon612's M51TA Issues Thread

[David]

It's most likely DDR2 since all the other 3650 GPUs Asus uses are DDR2.
As for size, it is the same as any other M51 notebook - 36.5 x 26.9 x 2.8 - 4cm (from Asus website)

[Tshroom]

I figured it would be ddr2, but the fact that it has 512mb of memory makes me curious. The other ones have 1GB. Why would they use the 512mb card if it didn't have faster memory.

Also considering it is the Puma platform there is a possibility that the new crossfire solution is being used, but it is strange that this laptop isn't even listed on Asus's site, yet it is already for sale.

You are most likely right about the dimensions, but the weight is still a total mystery. I wonder how well this system stacks up next to the montevina Asus systems. (battery life, synthetic benchmarks, etc.)

It seems like Puma is late to the party.

[aethelbert]

The G50v is for sale and not 'really' listed on the Asus website. You have to hunting for an information page.

[Tshroom]

True. No one hear seems to be partial to AMD. I know they are behind in the race, but they really are a good value. Puma is nearly on par with Santa Rosa at least in terms of performance.

[Tshroom]

After some extensive research, and translating, and more research.. I found a glimmer of hope that may or may not spark some more interest in this elusive yet temptingly cheap laptop.

http://www.notebookjournal.de/news/1015

It is in german, but if you scroll down to the laptops specs you will see it lists it as having the 3200 and the 3650. Now if we can just get some benchmarks on how well those two gpus will run in hybrid crossfire we might have a cheap but effective gaming laptop here.

Then again I don't know how reliable this source is.

[bjterry62]

After some extensive research, and translating, and more research.. I found a glimmer of hope that may or may not spark some more interest in this elusive yet temptingly cheap laptop.

http://www.notebookjournal.de/news/1015

It is in german, but if you scroll down to the laptops specs you will see it lists it as having the 3200 and the 3650. Now if we can just get some benchmarks on how well those two gpus will run in hybrid crossfire we might have a cheap but effective gaming laptop here.

Then again I don't know how reliable this source is.

Hybrid Crossfire only works with the combination of the HD3200 IGP and the HD34xx series GPUs. The HD3650 is better than the combination of the HD3200 and the HD34xx, so they just disabled it for anything higher than the HD34xx. The HD3650 is a very adequate gaming GPU, unless you like Crysis at high res. :-)

BTW, anyone know if XP drivers are available for this model (or if the Vista ones work with XP)? I've searched all over the Asus websites and only found Vista drivers. My son is wanting to get one of these, but he also has older games that will not run with Vista.

Thanks,

BT

[E.B.E.]

Not all Vista drivers will work for XP (this is for Intel notebooks, but may apply to AMD as well: usually the chipset drivers, and the ATK drivers and utilities will work). Video drivers are not a problem usually (ATI -- Mobility Modder).

Given this is not a very popular model, you may need to go hunting for the rest of the drivers yourself, on component manufacturer websites, and for related, older ASUS models with similar hardware...

[Tshroom]

Hybrid Crossfire only works with the combination of the HD3200 IGP and the HD34xx series GPUs. The HD3650 is better than the combination of the HD3200 and the HD34xx, so they just disabled it for anything higher than the HD34xx. The HD3650 is a very adequate gaming GPU, unless you like Crysis at high res. :-)

BTW, anyone know if XP drivers are available for this model (or if the Vista ones work with XP)? I've searched all over the Asus websites and only found Vista drivers. My son is wanting to get one of these, but he also has older games that will not run with Vista.

Thanks,

BT

I heard that it was for 34xx only somewhere, but I also heard they would be able to update it to work with the 36xx series. At any rate I would feel more comfortable with a 3650 than a 9600m at this point due to all the nvidia failure rumors. So we might be able to rule out hybrid xfire, but what about gpu switching to save power.

I mainly want to be able to play some of the upcoming strategy and rpg titles like diablo 3, starcraft 2, spore, dragon age, red alert 3, maybe the warhammer mmo..

I am really interested in this model so if anyone does take the plunge I would love to see a review and some benchmarks. OOooh and expressgate looks pretty cool.

[mtc85]

I think I might take the plunge on this system. I have been looking around and this seems to be a pretty intriguing system based on the price. I don't think you can do a whole lot better for the 1k price tag.

I did see something about having both graphics cards and that it would use the integrated card normally, but switch to the dedicated card when needed. It seems to be available in Europe mainstream, but I haven't been able to find much mention of it in the US yet.