Tested: ASUS G74SX 3D and N73SV - 17-inch powerplants

ASUS G74SX 3D outside

While in the case of the ASUS N73SV, a machine sharpened to play for fun and work has fallen out of its box. The ASUS ROG series didn’t start its career today, so anyone who has seen such a machine can pretty much know what to expect now. Striking, square lines, huge air vents, a huge and high-resolution display and a player-optimized keyboard.

Which one is missing now? Well, of course, they’re all here, at ASUS, these are basic requirements when it comes to serving the needs of gamers. In terms of the exterior, the images are eloquent, yet if the essential elements were to be highlighted, what would they be? Although it belongs to the internal capabilities rather than the external ones, but somehow the 3D display is still more desirable for this site. This works with NVIDIA's shutter solution, which is probably the better solution for notebooks.

Another important thing is the keyboard. The buttons have a short path and require firm pressing. The traditional and numerical parts are at the right distance from each other, so the direction buttons are also well separated, which is an important aspect for a player. It is important that during the design, attention was also paid to the keyboard's comfortable tilt, which makes it less tiring to participate in battles lasting several hours. As with all decent notebooks, this machine also has a touchpad, and a very large one at that. The two rubberized "mouse buttons" below are almost silent, no clicking or noise can be heard when they are pressed.

Nevertheless, there is little chance of anyone using this while playing. More important than the bench, we find a soft, non-slip material on the wrist rest that fits well in our hands and makes it harder to slip our hands off the buttons even in the heat of the game.

ASUS G74SX 3D inside

After the outer one, the inner one, which I might not shoot the joke on, will be similar to the machine discussed earlier, so we’ll rather discuss the differences. We are still trying to present the different equipment options. As we have mentioned several times, the basics are the same, so then essentially the same parts can be included in this machine. The difference is that here are some of the treats that aren’t on the office machine. An example is the vga controller, which is powered by an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M with 3GB of GDDR5 memory.

The choice of processors differs in that the weakest i3 version is not available, but we will not be sad about it. Speaking of the processor and GPU, we can’t go for a solution called intelligent dual cooling. In essence, this means that the GPU and CPU have been given a separate, high-performance cooling solution with heat-conducting tubes, so that the fan speed changes automatically, depending on the temperature of the processor and the GPU, respectively.

In terms of cooling, it is also important that the system draws in cool air at the front of the machine and leaves the machine through the brute-sized heat sinks at the rear, taking in the heat generated by the CPU and GPU. The essence of the design is that the cover will not become hot from the front where our hands rest on the machine. Let's go on! There is no difference in the type of memory that can be used, but instead of three we find four slots, so the machine can manage a maximum of 16 GB of system memory.

We also find a change in vaults. The entry level for this machine is 500 GB / 5400 RPM. What is interesting about the system is the dual HDD support and the fact that up to a 160 GB SSD drive can be included in the structure. Doubling the number of hard drives can be as much as 1,5 tera when using a mass storage hard drive or 1 tera when using an SSD. The latter will only suit those with a really thick wallet.

If you want a visual type or more information than described, I can recommend the English language page of ASUS, because at the moment we do not yet have information about these machines on the Hungarian page. What is delayed is coming, they say, so it is sometimes worth visiting the Hungarian page at www.asus.hu.

ASUS G74SX 3D: Full specification