The chassis ASUS has come up with for the G2P is certainly distinctive. The system is mainly composed of plastic, but it’s quite rugged, definitely not the garden-variety plastic you see on your typical notebook. For added flair, ASUS uses brushed aluminum on the front edge of the notebook, just below the touchpad. Here you’ll also find quick launch buttons for media playback, say for instance, watching DVDs on the PC.
Moving to the back of the system, you’ll find both DVI and VGA outputs as well as an S-Video out. Hot air from the system exhausts out the vent to the left of the S-Video connection, while four USB ports are also located on the back of the system. The G2P sports dimensions of 410.6 x 315.6 x 46.8 mm according to ASUS, and weighs 4.39 kg. It’s surprisingly thin and lightweight for a 17” widescreen notebook, although clearly with its large screen it’s probably a little too large for comfortable use on an airplane (unless you’re flying first class of course).
Gaming-focused keyboard
Since this notebook is intended for gamers, ASUS adds their “gaming-focused” keyboard to the G2P. Frankly it’s a pretty typical notebook keyboard in our opinion, although ASUS highlights the “W”, “A”, “S”, and “D” keys.
We’d honestly rather see ASUS provide a backlit keyboard than the highlighted keys and Direct Flash, as the highlighted keys are actually slightly harder to read since they have black rather than white lettering, but oh well.
Just above the keyboard are quick launch keys for applications such as Outlook (email) and the Internet, while ASUS has integrated speakers to the left and right sides of the system’s keyboard.
Performance
In order to test the performance of the system, we ran a few quick benchmarks with 3DMark 06, Quake, and F.E.A.R., but first, a little on our G2P system.
The notebook was outfitted with a Core 2 Duo T7200 CPU, good for 2.0GHz, 2GB of DDR2-667 RAM and a 160GB hard drive. ASUS clocks the notebook’s Mobility Radeon X1700 GPU at 460MHz core/495MHz memory for gaming. 3DMark 06 reported a score of 2088 3DMarks at 1280x768, while performance in Quake 4 and F.E.A.R was 32.4 and 29 frames per second respectively at 1440x900 with no AA/AF applied. We’re hunting for better graphics drivers for the system though.
These are just our preliminary thoughts on the ASUS G2P notebook so far, there’s still a lot of testing left for us to do. We don’t have any data on price or availability just yet, so we’ll definitely have to reserve final judgment on the system until then. So far it looks like a nice notebook. Since its limited to the Mobility Radeon X1700 GPU, it won’t give a high-end Alienware or Dell XPS notebook a run for its money in gaming, but it’s not designed to. We’ll push the system a little more in our final review…
Phenom II Gets A New Revision: 125W AMD Phenom II X4 965 Performance Preview
Promising lower power consumption, lower temps, and most importantly for enthusiasts, more OC'ing, AMD is back with a new CPU revision for the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, which now boasts a 125W TDP. Is AMD able to deliver on their promises though? Find out in today's article!
Shattered Horizon Review
FutureMark, well known for their popular 3DMark benchmarks, is venturing into new territory with Shattered Horizon. This multiplayer shooter is perhaps best known for its system requirements -- the game supports DX10 only -- but there's more underneath the surface of this game than fancy visuals. Is it worth its $20 price tag though? Read Vandy's take inside!
Borderlands PC Review
Is it an RPG or is it an FPS? Borderlands blends the best elements of both in one entertaining package. Vandy has spent the past week playing the PC version of the game and came away rather impressed. Read his full thoughts on the game in today's review!
AMD Athlon II X3 435/Athlon II X2 240e Performance Preview
Today AMD is introducing 8 new Athlon II CPUs intended to service different segments of the budget CPU market. For HTPC users, new 45W dual, triple, and quad core offerings should deliver good performance along with low power, while performance junkies on a budget will want to look at AMD's new Athlon II X3 CPUs. See how the new chips stack up in terms of performance and OC'ing in this article!
EVGA P55 FTW Review
Looking for a good P55 motherboard to OC your CPU beyond 4GHz? If so, you may want to check out EVGA's P55 FTW. With its extra ATX12V connector, this motherboard can send up to 600W of juice to the CPU, and it's got more voltage settings in BIOS than 95% of the general public needs. But that's just barely scratching the surface of what this board can do. Check out today's review for the full details!
ATI Radeon HD 5770/5750 Performance Preview
With prices ranging from $109-$159, ATI's Radeon 5700 series of cards bring DX11 gaming to mainstream price points and usher in new levels of energy efficiency. But are they powerful enough to dethrone ATI's Radeon 4800 series cards? Yes and no. Read today's article for more info!
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Review
While it's not the true sequel to Operation Flashpoint, Dragon Rising is billed as a modern tactical sim just like its predecessor. Does it live up to these claims? Read Vandy's take in today's review!
Batman: Arkham Asylum PhysX Features and Performance
One eye candy feature PC users can enjoy over the console edition of Batman: AA is PhysX. Rocksteady's PhysX implementation is more than just tearing cloth and added objects too, although that's of course in there. Vandy goes over the features and performance of PhysX in Batman: AA in this article!
ATI Radeon 5850 Performance Preview
Not everyone's got $400 to spend on a shiny new Radeon 5870 card, which is why it can be argued that ATI's Radeon 5850 is the more relevant GPU for a lot of gamers and hardware enthusiasts. Based on the same DX11 RV870 architecture as the 5870, the 5850 delivers next-generation performance in a smaller, more efficient package, and most importantly it's priced for less than $300. ATI pitches it as their answer to the GeForce GTX 285...See how it compares in this article!
Overclocking the Radeon HD 5870
We weren't satisfied with the 900MHz core/1300MHz memory speeds we hit last week with our Radeon 5870 boards. We wanted to see how far ATI's latest flagship GPU could be pushed, and how well it could perform at those speeds. We also wanted to see which component delivered better performance results: OC'ing the memory, or OC'ing the GPU?
Fortunately thanks to AMD's GPU Clock Tool, we now have unlimited speeds on tap for OC'ing. Is 1GHz within reach? Find out in today's article!