Asus N56VZ-DS71 first impressions

[nipsen]

and the temps with OCCT are (maximum) 67 to 70ºC to four CPU nucles and 68ºC for GPU

That's more like it Ordered one right now.

I'm still kind of annoyed that it's literally impossible to get a flat 13 inch laptop with half-decent 3d performance.. You would think that AMD and Intel would want to show off either of their solutions with the new 22/32nm cpus and motherboards/graphics cards. Certainly saw that with the a6/7670m on the n53, that this is definitely possible to put inside a smaller chassis, even when overclocked. And that if they designed it that way, one of the trinity apus would be a perfect fit for a 1cm deep ultraslim notebook.. Took a small peek at the mainboard - there's a lot of air in the chassis, to put it like that..

But this is at least not too far off. At least when there's an actual 1920x1080 screen (and nvidia display drivers.. miss those..).

Is it any good for using just to type on, by the way? In the sense that the computer idles and becomes completely cool/silent when you're just typing?

[JXulo]

That's more like it Ordered one right now.

I'm still kind of annoyed that it's literally impossible to get a flat 13 inch laptop with half-decent 3d performance.. You would think that AMD and Intel would want to show off either of their solutions with the new 22/32nm cpus and motherboards/graphics cards. Certainly saw that with the a6/7670m on the n53, that this is definitely possible to put inside a smaller chassis, even when overclocked. And that if they designed it that way, one of the trinity apus would be a perfect fit for a 1cm deep ultraslim notebook.. Took a small peek at the mainboard - there's a lot of air in the chassis, to put it like that..

But this is at least not too far off. At least when there's an actual 1920x1080 screen (and nvidia display drivers.. miss those..).

Is it any good for using just to type on, by the way? In the sense that the computer idles and becomes completely cool/silent when you're just typing?

Yes, it is very silent, even when i play (at least with COD and AC) i barely hear the fan working, and with the subwoofer and this amazing sound you really don't hear anything lol.

[nipsen]

.. that bucket seems like the weirdest idea ever.. I'm probably going to be sitting with headphones on, though.

Btw, could you check something for me? If you can. With Sisoft Sandra, for example. The mainboard tab should have some info on the Sata speeds. I'm wondering if I should buy a bigger sdd. But I won't spend a ridiculous amount to get an sdd with "sata 600", or sata 3, if the bus is locked on sata 2/300.

Might say something like "Bandwidth/Signaling speeds: 3Gb/s", or "6Gb/s".

The hdd tab will be unhelpful, because it reports the drive's signature and capabilities instead of the actual performance..

Annoying thing, because I checked the motherboard on the n53tk - this supports sata 3. That model specifically has it, since the graphics card is running on a pci-ex16 bus. So the signaling speeds need to be that high on the external bus. But the laptop is limited to detecting sata 2 for some reason. While the bandwidth is halved in some kind of hardware layer.. very strange thing.

And support is obviously extremely helpful when it comes to figuring any of this out, or perhaps noting that enabling sata 3 would not actually be a problem, and then let the ahci layer limit the transfer speeds instead. In the way it's supposed to be done.. But they had just turned it off in the bios instead..

The n56 mainboard is the same thing. It does support sata 3. But... is it disabled? "For any number of good reasons", to quote the guy on support

[JoshPiger]

Product Showcase: Asus N56VZ Unboxing & Review - YouTube

just found that review on the n56vz. seems like a great machine

[OC-Freak]

Anyonethat can check the monitor ID of the N56? To see which model/manufacturer it is.

Device manager -->monitor-->generic pnp monitor-->details and choose Hardware ID in the dropdown menu. Should say MONITOR\?????

Wonder if it's better than my N55, which has an very good panel.

[nipsen]

Still a bit skeptical about the 3d performance, though. If it really is much ahead of the n53tk with the apu/7670m setup.

Will be interesting to test that out. I mean, if it can't run The Witcher 2 in high at 1080p anyway(won't happen). And it actually will be much warmer and use more battery while running dx9 games, or less detailed games, or 3d accelerated video/desktop, etc. -- then it's difficult to justify it practically. (..Apart from the fact that the nvidia drivers actually work, and the ati drivers don't, I mean..).

Did anyone with the laptop run a 3dmark11 test yet? 720p, normal test, etc.

edit: For example.. here are some stats from a clevo with a 650m:
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3612QM Processor,CLEVO CO. W110ER score: P2406 3DMarks

vs. One of the 53/43tk laptops:
AMD Radeon HD 7670M video card benchmark result - AMD A6-3420M APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics,ASUSTeK Computer Inc. K43TK score: P1566 3DMarks

(...also, a 660m score - graphics score virtually identical to the 650m:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. G55VW score: P2701 3DMarks
- this I don't understand. The 660m test should have been with gddr5 ram vs. gddr3. No difference in the score at all.)

But - apu - if you look at the numbers, the biggest difference is the cpu-score. Which is understandable since the test is ran at 1.5Ghz vs. 2Ghz. The graphics score is higher, of course - but by how much in practical performance?

Also note that the apu system in the test runs below "boost", with half timing on the memory bus. If you just raise the clock to 2.2Ghz, the 3dmark test jumps to 1700 - while the timing is still running at "half-rate".

And while it does that, the temperature never goes above 40 degrees, with a pretty low effect-drain. Obviously the apu also has pretty good performance while on battery and not using the discrete card..

[rfs830]

I had first put this laptop on pre order but went with the g75 for now. This laptop is still on my list to replace my ul30vt. Thanks for the reviews.

[escapist]

Just gave in to temptation and ordered one up through Amazon (ships from, sold by J&R).

Can't wait for it to land. I also grabbed a slickdeal on a samsung 256gig, 830 series SSD. This should be one slick machine once I get everything configured.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

[Andrew33]

I wonder if they'll make a version with i5 + regular dvdrw, later in june-july...

[OC-Freak]

I wonder if they'll make a version with i5 + regular dvdrw, later in june-july...

Yes, they just have to wait for intel releasing the new i5 CPU line.