Hi all, I've had my Z80K now for about a month and thought it was time I put a review up...
First, the specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ with 512K cache - 130 nm Socket 754
15.0” SXGA+ TFT LCD (1400 x 1050)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB RAM
1024MB (512MB x 2 dimms) DDR333
Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
24x Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
Internal Asus WL-120g Wireless 802.11b/g
The processor is not a mobile AMD64 and it has only 512K of L2 cache (as compared to 1MB), meh...also, the 9700 is underclocked if you will to speeds of 390 and 180 MHz. At the moment I am running stock drivers but will soon try the omega drivers and see if there's a difference. I might also "overclock" the 9700 to its rated speeds.
Some benchmarks for you (remember, stock drivers and underclocked 9700):
3DMark2001SE = 8885
3DMark03 = 2598
3DMark05 = 1102
PCMark04 = 3151
More Benchmarks, this time with the Omega Drivers (ver. 2.5.97a - based on Catalyst 4.12), but still underclocked:
3DMark2001SE = 9210
3DMark03 = 2622
3DMark05 = 1115
PCMark04 = 3174
Same Omega drivers as above and overclocked to 425.25/202.50:
3DMark2001SE = 10,055
3DMark03 = 2934
3DMark05 = 1237
PCMark04 = 3213
New Omega drivers, version 2.6.05a (Catalyst 5.1), with underclocked 9700:
3DMark2001SE = 9733
3DMark03 = 2647
3DMark05 = 1125
PCMark04 = 3517
The stock specs on the 9700 have the core at 391.50 and the memory at 175.50. At first I overclocked to 450/250, but there was severe degradation in video quality (best way I can describe it is that everything became "spotty"). I then set it to 425.25 and 202.50 and ran the benchmarks that you see above. I've since restored to original stock (bios) ratings, but kept the Omega drivers.
If there are any other benchmarks you would like me to run, please let me know and I will try to accommodate you. I'll add benchmarks for UT2004 and HL2 later.
I cannot say that the computer gets "hot", while it does get warm, it's generally only limited to the bottom and the left side and back. The keyboard and palm rests only increase in temperature very slightly, if at all. It is a rather heavy beast, and is definitely a DTR. The fans for cooling are located underneath, so it is meant to be kept on a hard, flat surface (intakes on the sides).
Battery life is poor at best, with about an hour and a half (90 minutes) being the most I can get...a mobile AMD64 should do much better.
The keyboard is very nice, better than any desktop keyboard I've used (with exception of maybe the Logitech LX700). My only complaint is the location of the CTRL key in the bottom left corner. Actually, it's not in the corner, but one over, Asus has a "Fn" in the corner for use with secondary functions on the keyboard (see pics below). It's normally not a problem, but it does get rather inconvenient when playing games, pressing CTRL becomes a little awkward when using the WASD keys.
The touchpad is nice, just a normal touchpad with an up/down scroll button in the middle. There are 4 LEDs, one for power, battery, wifi and new mail (works only with outlook type programs). The screen latch of the slide variety, and there are 4 quick-keys located below the screen next to the power button. The speakers are pretty good for a notebook. It has a small subwoofer built into the bottom, but I don't really know how much this adds. The sound when playing games or listening to music and using headphones is quite nice.
The front of the Z80K has the Audio DJ buttons, a nice feature that lets you play audio cds without having to turn the computer on. The left side has the power connection, one PCMCIA slot, one firewire port, and the audio ports. On the back is an S-Video jack, VGA, parallel port, modem and lan connections, as well as 2 USB ports. On the right side is the combo drive, an IR port, a card reader for SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO and 3 more USB ports. Minor complaints are that the card reader does not support CF, and when plugging something into the USB ports, it seems you have to turn the plug upside from what I believe would be the top.
The screen is both very good and a little bad at the same time. It is very bright and crisp, and has a very good picture. The horizontal viewing angles are decent, but the vertical angles are pretty bad. No dead pixels (woohoo!) and as long as you have the right angle, everything is great.
So far it has handled anything I've thrown at it, all without any problems to speak of. I've played both HL2 and UT2004 on it (not the highest settings on both, but not the lowest either) and they both play very well. The fan is a little noisy, not as bad as a desktop, and not as bad as some other notebooks, but it seems to throttle a lot (changing speed rhythmically, instead of staying constant) and that can get annoying (is this normal?).
I purchased it from proportable.com, and I can't recommend them enough. Justin was great and provided a ton of info via email before the sale. Our conversation actually took place over several months, I was originally interested in the M6BNe and had emailed him to ask about it, but then decided to wait until after the New Year.
I think that's about everything, let me know if I missed anything or if there's something specific you would like to know...now here are the pictures:
Asus Z80K with Logitech MX510 mouse:
The Front, Left, Back, and Right sides:
The Keyboard:
The Screen:
Asus Z80K:
Windows - sorry, I couldn't get a frames-per-second reading for this
:
First, the specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ with 512K cache - 130 nm Socket 754
15.0” SXGA+ TFT LCD (1400 x 1050)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB RAM
1024MB (512MB x 2 dimms) DDR333
Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
24x Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
Internal Asus WL-120g Wireless 802.11b/g
The processor is not a mobile AMD64 and it has only 512K of L2 cache (as compared to 1MB), meh...also, the 9700 is underclocked if you will to speeds of 390 and 180 MHz. At the moment I am running stock drivers but will soon try the omega drivers and see if there's a difference. I might also "overclock" the 9700 to its rated speeds.
Some benchmarks for you (remember, stock drivers and underclocked 9700):
3DMark2001SE = 8885
3DMark03 = 2598
3DMark05 = 1102
PCMark04 = 3151
More Benchmarks, this time with the Omega Drivers (ver. 2.5.97a - based on Catalyst 4.12), but still underclocked:
3DMark2001SE = 9210
3DMark03 = 2622
3DMark05 = 1115
PCMark04 = 3174
Same Omega drivers as above and overclocked to 425.25/202.50:
3DMark2001SE = 10,055
3DMark03 = 2934
3DMark05 = 1237
PCMark04 = 3213
New Omega drivers, version 2.6.05a (Catalyst 5.1), with underclocked 9700:
3DMark2001SE = 9733
3DMark03 = 2647
3DMark05 = 1125
PCMark04 = 3517
The stock specs on the 9700 have the core at 391.50 and the memory at 175.50. At first I overclocked to 450/250, but there was severe degradation in video quality (best way I can describe it is that everything became "spotty"). I then set it to 425.25 and 202.50 and ran the benchmarks that you see above. I've since restored to original stock (bios) ratings, but kept the Omega drivers.
If there are any other benchmarks you would like me to run, please let me know and I will try to accommodate you. I'll add benchmarks for UT2004 and HL2 later.
I cannot say that the computer gets "hot", while it does get warm, it's generally only limited to the bottom and the left side and back. The keyboard and palm rests only increase in temperature very slightly, if at all. It is a rather heavy beast, and is definitely a DTR. The fans for cooling are located underneath, so it is meant to be kept on a hard, flat surface (intakes on the sides).
Battery life is poor at best, with about an hour and a half (90 minutes) being the most I can get...a mobile AMD64 should do much better.
The keyboard is very nice, better than any desktop keyboard I've used (with exception of maybe the Logitech LX700). My only complaint is the location of the CTRL key in the bottom left corner. Actually, it's not in the corner, but one over, Asus has a "Fn" in the corner for use with secondary functions on the keyboard (see pics below). It's normally not a problem, but it does get rather inconvenient when playing games, pressing CTRL becomes a little awkward when using the WASD keys.
The touchpad is nice, just a normal touchpad with an up/down scroll button in the middle. There are 4 LEDs, one for power, battery, wifi and new mail (works only with outlook type programs). The screen latch of the slide variety, and there are 4 quick-keys located below the screen next to the power button. The speakers are pretty good for a notebook. It has a small subwoofer built into the bottom, but I don't really know how much this adds. The sound when playing games or listening to music and using headphones is quite nice.
The front of the Z80K has the Audio DJ buttons, a nice feature that lets you play audio cds without having to turn the computer on. The left side has the power connection, one PCMCIA slot, one firewire port, and the audio ports. On the back is an S-Video jack, VGA, parallel port, modem and lan connections, as well as 2 USB ports. On the right side is the combo drive, an IR port, a card reader for SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO and 3 more USB ports. Minor complaints are that the card reader does not support CF, and when plugging something into the USB ports, it seems you have to turn the plug upside from what I believe would be the top.
The screen is both very good and a little bad at the same time. It is very bright and crisp, and has a very good picture. The horizontal viewing angles are decent, but the vertical angles are pretty bad. No dead pixels (woohoo!) and as long as you have the right angle, everything is great.
So far it has handled anything I've thrown at it, all without any problems to speak of. I've played both HL2 and UT2004 on it (not the highest settings on both, but not the lowest either) and they both play very well. The fan is a little noisy, not as bad as a desktop, and not as bad as some other notebooks, but it seems to throttle a lot (changing speed rhythmically, instead of staying constant) and that can get annoying (is this normal?).
I purchased it from proportable.com, and I can't recommend them enough. Justin was great and provided a ton of info via email before the sale. Our conversation actually took place over several months, I was originally interested in the M6BNe and had emailed him to ask about it, but then decided to wait until after the New Year.
I think that's about everything, let me know if I missed anything or if there's something specific you would like to know...now here are the pictures:
Asus Z80K with Logitech MX510 mouse:
The Front, Left, Back, and Right sides:
The Keyboard:
The Screen:
Asus Z80K:
Windows - sorry, I couldn't get a frames-per-second reading for this
:
Can hardly wait to go pure 64-bit ... some people are reporting a 3.5 times increase in numeric performance. 
