Asus G771JW / G771 review – a capable 17 inch multimedia laptop

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Specs Sheet
Design and exterior
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware and performance
Noise, heat and speakers
Battery life
Price and availability
Final thoughts
Comments

By Andrei GirbeaAsus G771JW / G771, last updated on November 15, 2016

Asus G771JW / G771

Summary: The Asus G771JW is a capable multimedia monster, with a 17 inch ISP display, powerful hardware and a body built to last. It will handle daily activities and video content fine and it will be able to tackle most games as well. But despite being a member for the ROG family, this is not a true-gaming machine, as you'll see below.

Our score: 3.5 / 5
Price when reviewed: TBA

THE GOOD

looks alright and feels strong, good typing experience, nice IPS matte display, powerful hardware, easy to upgrade RAM and storage drives, runs fairly cool and quiet

THE BAD

throttles under heavy load, catches smudges easily, poor performance on battery, small battery, cramped left side of the keyboard, the speakers lack bass

Table of Contents

Asus G771JW video review
The specs sheet for the Asus G771
Design and exterior
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware, performance and upgrade options
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers and others
Battery life
Price and availability
Wrap-up

In this post we’re going to talk about the Asus G771 series.

The name suggests that it is, first of all, a 17 inch laptop, and then, a gaming machine, member of Asus’s G line (also known as Republic of Gamers). In reality though, despite getting the ROG branding, the G771 is imh mostly a complete multimedia computer with some gaming abilities and a follow-up of last year’s N750 series (which I also tested back in the days), as you’ll find from this review.

The G771 is by no means an ultrabook or even an ultra-portable, as it lacks the silhouette and the hardware required to get the “title”. But I’ve decided to host the review here anyways, as it’s a new and interesting product that should be available in stores in a few weeks and should have a fairly affordable pricetag.

We have the top configured Asus G771JW for this test and since it has not been officially launched yet, we are dealing with a pre-production model, but from what I can tell after playing with it for the last week or so, it’s pretty much similar to the final releases that you’d be able to buy soon.

Asus G771JW video review

The specs sheet for the Asus G771

	Asus G771JW
Screen	17.3 inch, 1920 x 1080 px resolution, IPS, matte
Processor	Intel Haswell Core i7-4710HQ CPU
Chipset	Intel HM87
Video	integrated Intel 4600 HD + Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M 4GB GDDR5
Memory	16 GB DDR3
Storage	256 GB M.2 SSD and 1TB 2.5 inch HDD
Connectivity	Wireless AC, Bluetooth, Gigabit Lan
Ports	4xUSB, SD card reader, HDMI, mini-DisplayPort, RJ45, Kensington Lock
Battery	56 Wh
Operating system	Windows 8.1
Size	418 mm or 16.8 in (L) x 284 mm or 11.1 in (W) x 37 mm or 1.45 in (H)
Weight	about 3.32 kg (7.3 pounds)
Extras	red backlit keyboard, stereo speakers, Blu-Ray combo

Design and exterior

This laptop borrows plenty of design elements from Asus’s N family, including the overall shape, the choice in materials, the keyboard and the trackpad.

However, the G771 sports a black theme, with dark textured aluminum covering the hood, dark matte metal used for the interior and dark rough plastic for the sides and the underbelly. All these are sprinkled with a few bright red elements, like the chamfered edge that stretches around the lower body and the backlit Republic of Gamers logo on the hood.

There’s a backlit ROG logo on the hood

Overall I’d say this looks nice, although perhaps a bit too simple, too plain, unlike the aggressive laptops we’ve seen before in the G family, like the G750 or the G75. But I believe some of you will actually appreciate these lines.

However, I do have one major nit with the aesthetics of this machine: both the lid-cover and the palm-rest are going to show smudges and finger-oil extremely easy and are going to be a pain to keep clean, which is just what always happens with dark metallic surfaces.

That aside, the G771 is rather massive and large. It weighs 3.3 kilos and is about 1.5 inches thick, but at the same time it is solid built, so it should not mind being lugged around to LAN parties if you can live with the extra heft.

You’ll find a good selection of ports on the sides, including 4 USBs, HDMI, Mini-DisplayPort and LAN connectors, but also an optical drive (a Blu-Ray combo on this model). There’s also a card-reader and some status LEDs on the front lip. Only some of the LEDs have cuts on the edge though, most of them have very subtle ones just beneath the trackpad, in order to make them as less intrusive as possible.

Personally, I would have preferred to have the connectors pushed towards the back of the laptop, especially those on the left edge, as this implementation means that cables will get in your way more often than you’d want if you plan on connecting peripherals like an external monitor. But Asus chose to use those spots for the hot-air exhaust on the left and the optical drive on the right, so that’s just something you will have to live with.

Speaking of the cooling grills, I find it somewhat surprising that there are very few intake cuts on the bottom of this laptop (in fact, there’s only one on top of the RAM, but nothing over the CPU or GPU) and that does have a negative impact on internal temperatures, as you’ll see a bit later. On the other hand, the battery is removable and actually accessing the storage drives and the RAM is a very simple task, in case you want to perform upgrades. We’ll talk about this further down in this post.

As expected from a 17 inch laptop, the G771 offers a roomy interior, with a large arm-rest, full-size keyboard and trackpad, plus the speakers placed towards the top. I didn’t enjoy the tall front-lip though, which is in the way when placing this on a desk, but at least the edge is chamfered and not as sharp as on some other Asus machines I’ve tested in the past.

The interior is roomy and sober

Keyboard and trackpad

However, this laptop inherits the keyboard arrangement from previous N Series laptops, which translates in narrower keys used for the arrows and the entire NumPad area, or the Power button integrated in the top-right position, despite having more than enough room for a better spaced layout. I could leave with the latter, but I would have definitely appreciated larger directional keys, similar to what Asus offers on the G750 and the G751 laptops.

That aside though, I was quite happy with the typing experience on this computer. The keys are firm and responsive, coated in a rubbery material and travel deep within the frame for excellent feedback. They are also backlit and you can adjust the red illumination intensity or turn it OFF if you want to.

Asus also worked on the aesthetics and added a RED border around the WASD keys, which makes them stick out easily and will probably appeal to most of you. I for one sure liked this fine touch.

The trackpad is fairly good as well, although it doesn’t seem to be made out of glass, but of plastic instead, as it’s not as smooth as some of the others I’ve tested lately. One might also find it clunky and somewhat stiff if actually going to perform physical clicks on it, but I usually rely on taps and these aspects did not bother me much.

Overall though, I’m satisfied, this trackpad was accurate and reliable, replied fast to my taps and the various gestures I’d perform on a modern computer these days (Asus also include a Smart Gesture app to enhance what you can perform on this laptop with one, two or three fingers).

Screen

The screen is another major aspect a laptop needs to ace and on this version of the G771 there’s a 17.3 inch 1920 x 1980 px display with what looks like an IPS panel from its wide viewing angles, solid contrast and popping colors. It’s made by LG and I haven’t seen it on other laptops before, judging by its HardwareID: LGD046C.

And the truth is most manufacturers (Asus included) offered TN panels on their 17 inchers in the last years and having an IPS screen on this one is a much appreciated novelty, although it does have one drawback: longer response time, which might bother the heavy gamers amongst you.

The panel is quite good, although not great. It covers 92% of the sRGB, 69% of the NTSC and 71% of the AdobeRGB gamuts and you can find its main features below (measured with a Spyder4 Elite bundle):

measured gamma: 2.0 ;
max brightness in the middle of the screen: 302 cd/m2;
contrast at max brightness: 690:1;
white point: 7400 K;
black on max brightness: 0.44 cd/m2;
average DeltaE: 2.65 uncalibrated, 1.46 calibrated .

That translates in fair brightness and contrast, good enough for indoor use, a rather cold white point and fairly accurate colors, especially after calibration. This is not a display meant for professionals (photo/video editing, etc), but it will do fine enough for casual use, multimedia and games.

However keep in mind that out of the box the colors might appear over-saturated, and that’s because the Vivid mode is selected by default in the Splendid app. You’ll probably want to switch that to Natural and I can’t understand why Asus are doing that, I noticed the exact same thing on the Zenbook NX500 I tested a while ago.

Before we move on, I will also add that this is a non-touch screen with a matte finishing, which paired with the ONLY 1080p resolution, makes it imh ideal for gaming and eliminates the potential scaling problems or the annoying reflections and glare in bright environments we usually get on higher density touchscreens. Yes, pixels are visible when dealing with fonts and maybe some of you might have appreciated a larger canvas, but given Window’s inability to deal perfectly with scaling (especially on third party apps), I’d rather get a panel like this one over a higher resolution option.

Hardware, performance and upgrade options

Alright, so far we can conclude that the G771 has what it’s required from a proper multimedia machine, with a few quirks here and there, like the cramped arrows keys or the limited intake cooling grids.

I was worried the latter spelled trouble and I was not entirely wrong. This laptop gets an Intel HQ Core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 860M chip (with standard frequencies) and given the 1080p screen, these should allow it to fly in most programs and games even with details set to High or Ultra.

And it does most of the time, as proven by the benchmarks below, but in certain conditions the CPU shows signs of throttling so I did investigate this a bit deeper.

3DMark 11: P5006;
3DMark 13: Ice Storm – 92735, Cloud Gate –13612, Sky Driver – 11119, Fire Strike – 3564;
PCMark 08: Home Conventional – 3214;
CineBench 11.5: OpenGL 59.54 fps, CPU 5.76 pts;
CineBench R15: OpenGL 93.93 fps, CPU 537 cb.

All these were performed with Nvidia’s 333.37 driver installed.

For the first test I’ve tried paying various games on Ultra/Highest settings for a few hours and I did encounter occasional glitches and frame drops after a while in titles like Grid 2 and even Dirt 3. Restarting the laptop would solve the problems though and even so, the hiccups were only occasional and did not actually hinder the gaming experience. I haven’t played too many FPSes though, where instant response is a must and a freeze at the wrong moment might completely break a close match.

OK, so this happens, but why? I’ve logged my activity with HWInfo and GPU-Z and I’ve noticed that both the CPU and the GPU occasionally drop their frequency below the nominal rates. By default, the Core i7-4710HQ processor runs all cores at 2.5 GHz, with Turbo boost up to 3.5 GHz, while the Nvidia GTX 860M chip runs at 1.1 GHz (with the memory clocked at 1.25 GHz) on this implementation. The logs show that the CPU tends to drop to as low as 2.0 GHz during gaming, with Thread loads of around 40-50%, while the graphics rarely also drop to 950 MHz, but under continuous 95-99% load. That’s corroborated with temperatures around 86-87 C for the CPU cores and around 80 C for the GPU Cores, which are high, but not really as high as I’ve seen on other laptops.

So it looks to me like Asus went with a safe thermal approach and decided to lower frequencies once these temperatures are hit. And that takes me back to the cooling solution and the lack of proper intake grills, which could have actually helped lower the temperatures and diminish the throttling effect.

Under stress-test with Prime95 and FurMark though, the CPU drops fairly quickly to an average of 1.5-1.6GHz but the graphics chip runs firmly at stock speed for the entire duration of my test (about 15 minutes, but everything seems to stabilize to these values after only 3-5 minutes). Temperatures registered under stress are similar to those mentioned before.

So overall, the G771 does throttle to some extent under heavy load and especially the CPU’s Core frequency is affected at high temperatures. This is rarely visible in some modern games if you play them on the highest possible settings, but dropping the details to High or Medium is enough to get rid of any problems (I’ve played several titles for an entire afternoon on Medium and haven’t encountered any noticeable glitch).

	19 x 10 Medium	19 x 10 Medium on battery	19 x 10 Ultra / Very High
Dirt 3	95 fps	–	45 fps
Grid 2	108 fps	–	45 fps
Tomb Raider	89 fps	–	27 fps
NFS Most Wanted	56 fps	–	36 fps
Bioshock Infinite	75 fps	27 fps	42 fps
Metro Last Light	56 fps	32 fps	30 fps

There is however one other thing worth mentioning: on battery, the G771 performs significantly poorer than while plugged in and the logs show that the CPU’s cores are constantly jumping between a 2.5 GHz and a 0.8 GHz frequency, while the Nvidia graphics jumps between the 1.1 GHz stock frequency and a 275 MHz frequency, despite the fact that neither are under serious load. And that translates in poor performance in all the games I’ve tested. For instance, while on power I’ve got an average of 75 fps while playing BioShock Infinite with Medium details on 19 x 10 resolution, on battery I only registered about 25-27 in similar conditions, and the same huge difference is visible in other titles. Thus, if you plan on playing games on the go, the G771 won’t deliver.

Gaming aside, this Asus G771 offered a flawless everyday experience. Having the OS on a very fast M.2 SSD leads to fast boot (under 10 s) and resume from sleep times and basic activities, plus fast loading programs, while all sorts of multimedia files are easy bites for it, including 4K content.

I did test a top-tier configuration of the G771 here, equipped with 16 GB of RAM by default and two storage drives, a 256 GB Samsung MZHPU256HCGL SSD and a 1 TB Hitachi Travelstar 7K1000 HDD. But you can actually get a lower-end configuration and upgrade it yourself, as Asus actually encourages you to do that, by allowing simple access to the RAM and Storage bays.

They are hidden behind a plastic cover on the back and you need to unscrew a single Philips screw to get to them. There are two 2.5 inch bays on this device and they can fit 9.5 mm or 7 mm drives. Each drive cage is hold in place by four Philips screws. And there’s also an M.2 80 mm slot, protected by a metallic shield which is also hold in place by only two screws. See the pictures below for more details and make sure you remove the battery before getting messy with the components.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers and others

We already talked about inner temperatures in the section below. On the outside, the G771 remains fairly cool. Hot air is blown through the massive exhaust grill on the left side, so you better make sure there’s nothing susceptible to heat-damage near it.

I did however notice that the area that sits between the Y and U keys and the top of the trackpad get slightly warm under daily-use on this machine, and even warmer under load. It never gets hot and it probably won’t bother you much, but if you’re living in a hot environment, it can cause unpleasantly sweaty hands. The palm-rest remains mostly cool though and merely gets slightly warm even when playing games for hours or running other demanding tasks.

As for noise, the fans inside the laptop are constantly spinning and they do get a bit loud when pushing the machine, but are once again never too loud. I’ve measured a noise-level of around 46 dB at head-height with several phone apps, which is not bad. I do lack the tools for a more accurate reading though.

The speakers are fairly good on this laptop as well, pushing loud and decent quality sound. But they’re not on par with the sound solution on the older Ns or on the other Gs I’ve tested before, as they lack any sort of subwoofer, thus push little to no bass. But they will do alright for daily use. And if you do care a lot about sound-quality, you probably have a solid pair of headphones anyway and you’ll be happy to know that the audio-output on the G771 works well and lacks any kind of hiss.

The speakers are hidden behind the two cuts on top of the keyboard

Connectivity wise, there’s Wireless AC, Bluetooth and Gigabit Lan on this laptop, but also a Blu-Ray optical unit (lower end configurations will probably be available with DVD writers). The Intel Dual Band 7260AC Wi-Fi solution was reliable and after using the laptop constantly on wireless for the last week, there’s really nothing to complain about: the speed matches my Internet connection and the signal is strong and consistent even a bit further away from the router.

Battery life

One final aspect I wanted to mention here regards the battery. The G771 offers a removable one, which I’m sure many of you will appreciate, but it’s at the same time rather small (56Wh). And this translates in:

up to 5, 5 and half hours or really light use, with the screen dimmed down, PowerSaving Mode and Wi-Fi switched OFF;
about 3-4 hours of daily use on Balanced mode, with the screen at about 60% (that’s roughly 120 nits), Wi-Fi ON and the keyboard’s brightness occasionally activated, while performing casual tasks;
roughly 1 hour and 40 minutes of gaming.

The laptop is paired with a 120 W brick, massive, but capable of delivering the power the G771 needs under load.

There’s a 56 Wh removable battery on the Asus G771

Price and availability

The Asus G771 series is already available in stores a few different configurations. Follow this link for more details and potential discounts.

Wrap-up

To wrap this up, I had high expectations from this G771 and it mostly delivered, except for the occasional stuttering in games due to throttling, the poor performance on battery and some minor other decisions here and there (cramped right-side of the keyboard, average quality speakers, small battery, smudgy case).

But I did appreciate the solid build quality, the excellent typing experience, the IPS matte screen, the powerful hardware and the ease of upgrading it, and I do believe this Asus G771JW is going to be a solid option for those of you looking for a 17 inch multimedia laptop.

The Asus G771JW is a competent multimedia laptop, but not the ideal 17 incher for heavy gaming

At the end of the day though, Asus’s pricing policy will need to make the difference here, as the G771 only offers a mid-level graphics solution after all (with a limited cooling implementation) and can’t compete with the higher end gaming machines out there, including its kin, the G751. That’s why this is imh mostly a complete multimedia laptop meant to tackle daily tasks, specialized activities (programing software, video/photo editing, etc) and video content, but still capable of handling games fairly well, just not on the highest detail levels.

If you’re interested in this laptop’s more compact and more powerful version, you should also check out my detailed review of the Asus G551JM, a 15.6 incher with Nvidia GTX 860M graphics.

Alright, there you have it, these were my impressions on the Asus G771JW. Let me know what you think about it in the comments section below and if you have any questions or do you want me to test anything in particular on this laptop, drop me a line and I’ll do my best to help. Just be hasty, it’s going back to Asus in a few days.

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Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com. I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.

62 Comments

Nukos

September 18, 2014 at 1:50 am

Is there a chance for you to open more of the internal. I’m curious if it really is a dual-fan design, seeing that the exhaust port on the side.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  September 18, 2014 at 9:13 am
  
  I’ll try to do this today and will get back
  
  Reply
jj

September 24, 2014 at 5:03 am

Thank you so much mike for an extremely informative and
Great site. I’m on a quest to find a desktop replacement for my aging core 2 quad machine and have my eyes on the new Asus N751, N551, G751 and the older G750.

Any plans to get asus to send you the n751 and g751 to review?

Thanks!

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  September 25, 2014 at 8:41 am
  
  I’m reviewing the N551 right now. Not sure about the N751, but the G751 is definitely coming in a few weeks in a beastly config (with the Nvidia GTX 980 chip :P). So stay close
  
  Reply
  - alit putra
    
    September 27, 2014 at 8:36 am
    
    are you surious nVidia GTX 980 ?
    not GTX 880 one ?
Erik Jamin

September 27, 2014 at 6:17 am

I still don’t understand why they even bother putting weak graphics card in their so called gaming laptop while this next gen gaming era has just begun. I thought the real purpose for gaming laptop is to be able to play recent or even upcoming video games with maxed out graphics settings with decent performance as well. Yet they still put 860m or even 850m in their laptop instead of 880m or 880m SLI. What’s the point of having a gaming laptop that has so underpowered graphics card? Seriously why don’t they just make a real gaming laptop with the performance worth spend the money. I can barely find a gaming laptop out there with 880m equipped in it. Btw the article is great though. Keep up the good work.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  September 27, 2014 at 12:56 pm
  
  I don’t see this as a gaming laptop. That’s the G751 which will offer GTX 980 graphics. As a larger and fairly affordable multimedia laptop though, this G771 does have a chance imh.
  
  Reply
Rajiv

October 6, 2014 at 2:13 pm

Nice review Andries.
Just wondering whether the G771 is an upgrade of G750JZ or a model to fill the gapjust below G750JZ. Just looking at the specs, doesn’t look like an upgrade except for the exterior looks and less weight. What’s your view ? I still prefer the G750JZ as a power machine.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 6, 2014 at 4:41 pm
  
  It’s not, it’s a new model that sits somewhere between the old N750 and the new G751.
  
  Reply
Ryan

October 20, 2014 at 7:51 pm

Is this a Maxwell 860 or Kepler?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 20, 2014 at 8:01 pm
  
  Maxwell ofc : https://www.ultrabookreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hwinfo.jpg
  
  Reply
Kerry

November 29, 2014 at 6:32 pm

So Should I Go for this one or the G751?

Reply
Adrian

December 17, 2014 at 3:31 am

Nice review…. Keep up the good work. Thank you

Reply
Anant

December 25, 2014 at 1:13 am

Hi Andrew,
Thank you very much for perfect review. So, would like to ask you, is there anything new in this product G751 for coming 2015 year?, or where can I find a detailed review?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  January 3, 2015 at 10:33 am
  
  well, I reviewed this one here: https://www.ultrabookreview.com/5919-asus-g751jy-review/
  
  Reply
Anant

December 25, 2014 at 4:07 am

Hi Andrei,
Thank you for nice review. I was just wondering that where Can I buy the ASUS G771JW Laptop. Because, in ASUS site it shows that ASUS G771JM 17.3-inch Gaming Notebook – Black Aluminum – G771JM-DH71-CA .

So, I could not find anywhere the ASUU G771 JW series. Please advise me where can I get the ASUS G771 JW Laptop.
Thanks

Reply
Rob

January 6, 2015 at 8:22 pm

Hi, Im considering this Asus – Republic of Gamers G Series 17.3″ Laptop – Intel Core i7 – 8GB Memory – 1TB Hard Drive – Black Model: G771JM. I am also considering TOSHIBA SATELLITE RADIUS P55W-B5318. I want a great performing laptop. I know the Toshiba bends in various positions which Im not interested in. I will be working from this computer and need really good resolution. I will be designing plan from CT and MRI and will be logging in remotely to various customers servers. So Im more concerned with a better performing laptop than I am with anything else. Im not really a gamer but figured getting a gamer laptop that I would most likely get great performing laptop. I don’t mind spending in this price range but would prefer to remain as inexpensive as possible. If I could buy a $200 laptop that would serve my needs that would be fine with me. Guess I just want the best performing laptop. I was looking at Macbook Pro with retina but that is getting higher than Im comfortable spending, maybe in the future. Thanks for any and all recommendations. Which would you recommend.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  January 7, 2015 at 10:08 pm
  
  This is surely a capable laptop. if you’re not playing games you could get the JT model with Nvidia 970m graphics and the upgrade the ram and storage yourself.
  
  I’m not familiar with that Toshiba, so can’t comment on that.
  
  There are some cheaper options though, like the Asus G771, for instance. Powerful laptops aren’t exactly my field, i’ve only reviewed a few, so I’m probably not the best person to ask for advice from. sry
  
  Reply
Jonas

January 8, 2015 at 7:04 pm

SO, I just bought this laptop and this may seem like a stupid question, but is the audio Jack for speaker input really placed on the right side where my hand is?? It kinda gets in the way

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  January 9, 2015 at 6:26 pm
  
  Maybe an L shape 3.5 mm jack will help, if it’s possible to replace the cable on what you’re using.
  
  Reply
Paul S

January 22, 2015 at 5:27 am

Thank you for clarifying the heat concerns in terms of gaming i’m having as I’m wondering if the 300 dollar savings between this model and the G751JT model. I think I will just spend the extra dough to get an improved cooling system with the 751 and the nicer 970 graphics.

Reply
Intrepidtron

January 28, 2015 at 5:34 pm

How does the G771JW compare to the G771JM? Does the G771JM suffer from the same throttling issues as the G771JW, or has that problem been solved as with the G551JM (which you also reviewed).

Thanks!

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  January 28, 2015 at 9:14 pm
  
  I can’t say for sure. And I can’t say whether the retail version of the G771JW suffer from any throttling as well. As mentioned in the review, I tested a pre-production model and things might have been fixed for the final retails versions. There’s actually a fair chance that happens, since the G551JM that I tested was faster than the G771JW and had a smaller body, thus a greater chance og overheating and throttling. And it did not.
  
  Best thing you can do is to try to find some actual users, people who bought the retail versions, and ask them about the throttling.
  
  Reply
  - Intrepidtron
    
    January 29, 2015 at 2:37 pm
    
    The model G771JM is the same as the G771JW then?
    
    Thanks.
Tudor Bercea

January 30, 2015 at 1:58 am

I recently ordered a G771JM-T7017D from pcgarage.ro
On the website they mention there are only 2 RAM slots available, but I’ve seen other G771 models which allegedly have 4 slots. My question is: are there any other RAM slots, perhaps harder to access that require you to disassemble the laptop to get to them, or are there just 2 RAM slots?
Thanks.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  January 30, 2015 at 9:31 am
  
  There are two more behind the motherboard if I remember correctly and only two are accessible through the service bay on the back. But why would you want to have access to those?
  
  Reply
  - Tudor Bercea
    
    January 30, 2015 at 12:51 pm
    
    Because I want to insert more RAM from my old laptop.
    I just got my G771 and although I’m not really an expert, I’ll take my chance and try to disassemble it. I have looked all over the internet for a disassembly tutorial and haven’t found any yet. Do you know any tutorials that would shouw me how to get to those hidden ram slots?
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    January 30, 2015 at 2:49 pm
    
    I see that model has only 8 gigs of RAM. I’d reckon there’s one stick or two put in those DIMMs on the back and those accessible are free? Is that so?
    
    Opening the laptop to get access to those other two dimms is quite complicated though, I don’t have a guide and might void warranty.
Tudor Bercea

January 30, 2015 at 3:04 pm

Well the deed’s been done.
I disassembled the laptop and I’ve just finished putting it back together. It was pretty unknown territory for me but I did it. Apparently even windows mentions that the PC has only 1 out of 4 ram slots occupied. So that means that beside the 2 slots in the accessible bay area, there are 2 more hidden slots!

However, I’ve only opened the back of the laptop and couldn’t see them, so the only place they could be is right behind the keyboard. I didn’t have the courage to completely disassemble my PC because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to put it back together, but at least now I know there are 4 ram slots in total and I will probably send my laptop into service to upgrade the other empty ram slots.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  January 30, 2015 at 3:28 pm
  
  Good, you’re a brave one :P Yes, those slots are behind the keyboard, on the other side of the motherboard. You can either unscrew the motherboard from the bottom to get to them, or remove the keyboard. Just be careful about static charges and disconnect the battery before proceeding. I haven’t done it so can’t help much.
  
  Reply
Marius

January 30, 2015 at 5:27 pm

I need to know the steps for install Win8.1 for G 771. Please help me.

Reply
Muz

February 14, 2015 at 2:38 pm

Is it possible to upgrade the graphics for the Asus G771? Will be using this machine for work only: Cinema 4D and Adobe CS. Your thoughts?

Thanks

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  February 15, 2015 at 8:58 am
  
  No
  
  Reply
Jacek

February 25, 2015 at 4:22 pm

Hi,
What about M.2 SSD can it be on SATA3 or it has to be PCie?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  February 25, 2015 at 6:09 pm
  
  It’s a SATA M.2 from what I know, PCIe drives won’t work. I’m not 100% sure though.
  
  Reply
  - jacek
    
    February 26, 2015 at 10:47 am
    
    But the disk which you tested on this laptop was PCIe
    
    SSD SAMSUNG XP941 MZHPU256HCGL-00004 M.2 256GB PCI Express
    
    I tried M.2 Sata 3 and it didnt work (Dysk SSD A-Data Premier Pro SP900M.2 2280 128GB SATA3 8cm (ASP900NS38-128GM-C)
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    February 26, 2015 at 7:35 pm
    
    Darn, so sorry, I got confused but double checked it right now. Yes, the G771 actually works with PCI-E sticks, thus a standard M.2 is not compatible (the slot only works in PCI-E mode and lacks a connection to the SATA controller). I found mentions of other people complaining about this same thing in the past months. Sry for the confusion :(
Marius Ionescu

June 10, 2015 at 1:50 pm

Hello, i got an Asus G771JW with GTX 960m inside, windows 8.1 doesn’t seem to be compatible with my dedicated video processor, any idea? Thank you!

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 10, 2015 at 2:56 pm
  
  What do you mean it’s not compatible? The laptop ships with Windows 8.1 by default, right?
  
  Reply
Emmanuel

July 24, 2015 at 9:11 am

How much is the G771 Asus Laptop and can I get some in Ghana?

Reply
cosmin

August 10, 2015 at 12:13 pm

Great review :-)
Thanks!

Is font large enough for this resolution, or kinda small ?

Reply
alex

August 17, 2015 at 8:03 am

Hi, what are your thoughts on the latest improved version of this laptop with the GTX 960M and 4GB of DDR5 memory? I plan to buy it and use it as an occasional gamer but mostly work and fun multimedia and surfing? can you give me any information that I might find useful? here in Serbia it costs about 1200e so do you have any other reccomendations in the similar price range with a 17,3 display and a strong graphic card with a i7 inside?

Thank you :)

Reply
cosmin

August 17, 2015 at 9:26 am

This would be my ideal laptop,
but I cannot stand the red keyboard,

do you have in mind a similar laptop ?
but with a keyboard which is not red :-)

Reply
- Giant Pineapple
  
  October 8, 2015 at 9:39 am
  
  While a little more expensive, the Digital Storm gaming laptops great performance from a gaming laptop, and have a lot of customisation options on the website (digitalstorm.com/gaming-laptops.asp) .
  
  Reply
Giant Pineapple

October 8, 2015 at 4:01 am

Does anyone know how much RAM this laptop is capable of? (I think there’s a limit…). I want to put these in skycomp.com.au/ddr3l-1866mhz-16gb-2×204-sodimm-unbuffered-10-10-10-32-black-pcb-1-35v.html?CAWELAID=120121040000244091&CAGPSPN=pla&catargetid=120121040000219073&cadevice=c but I was wondering if the laptop would be ok with even more.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 8, 2015 at 8:14 am
  
  Not sure if the 16 GB DIMMs will work here. It’s supposed to handle up to 32 GB of RAM, so 8 GB DIMMs only. Haven’t tried 16 gigs ones, perhaps you can ask other owners on the forums on notebookreview.com
  
  Reply
  - Giant Pineapple
    
    October 8, 2015 at 9:35 am
    
    Thanks for your help, I’ll make sure to have a look!
- Jacek
  
  April 28, 2016 at 9:57 am
  
  Hi and how about adding ram upt to 32 GB is it possible?
  
  Reply
Robert Hristov

October 11, 2015 at 1:50 pm

Hello ultrabookreview team,

Thank you for the good review.
I recenty bought G771JW with GTX 960m (2gb) and I experience a huge amount of thermal throttling.
I took it to the service, they changed the whole motherboard and I still have the same issue. I can’t play any game due to the huge fps drops that occur each second or two.
Do you have a solution for this problem and is every single G771JW device having this issue, and if so, why is ASUS continuing to place this model on the market?

P.S. I also read multiple complaints in the ROG forums for this model and still haven’t found a solution.

Best regards,

Robert Hristov

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 11, 2015 at 2:18 pm
  
  Hmm, I don’t think there’s much you could do, except for:
  
  1. Lower in-game details to the point where the hardware no longer throttles
  2. Try to downclock the GPU. Not sure if it’s even possible, but is worth a look
  
  Reply
  - Rober Hristov
    
    October 11, 2015 at 2:29 pm
    
    In-game tests (per example Battlefield 4) show that I can run it on High at 60 fps.
    This is why I bought 1100 euro machine. If I lower the settings to Low… I could’ve just bought 750 euro worth machine. :)
    
    P.S. Even on lowest settings I experience the same problem. (on really undemanding games like BF4 and FIFA 16)
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    October 11, 2015 at 2:47 pm
    
    Yeah, I know it sucks, but I can’t think of something else. Sry
  - John John
    
    December 4, 2015 at 6:51 am
    
    Yeah so i bought G771JW model and had it for 6 days untill I decided to return it. Beautiful machine on the outside, screen looks great keyboard great mouse pad er…3 out of 10
    
    Now function is impaired by heat, it seems they rushed this model or something so it only has 2 states normal – no load= 40 degrees Celsius and full load =80 + degrees Celsius
    
    it seems wiered as even if you down clock it by 30 % to 2.2 GHz from 3.6 Ghz (yess funny thing it comes overclocked out of the box – turbo boost 2.0 tech at it’s finest)THE TEMPERATURE JUMPS TO 80
    
    SO What? well in a play session the keyboard over hits- not the inner components BUT THE FRIKIN KEYBOARD- and the surrounding aluminum casing
    
    How bad can it be? – Imagine u can fry an egg on it – seriously, temp stays at 80degrees if anything 3D related is on the screen – this includes browsing- open a free unity web browser game and enjoy your 80 degrees – ironically fan speed doesn’t go to 100 % stays around 86% initially for quite a while untill going full speed which tells me it’s by design
    
    2 long cooper wires pass trough it’s body to the only fan on the left which helps with distributing the heat evenly on your keyboard hands – in case you’re playing
    
    SO….reducing it from 3.6 to 2.2 and cutting up the turbo boost and reducing graphic clock gets you about 10 degrees less in load so the whole thing runs at 70 degrees – and yes it does heat the whole thing after a short gaming session, as the thermal thronging starts now both in games and in browsing as you reduced it’s capability by 30%
    
    Conclusion Poorest laptop ever, a piece of crap not meant for gaming, DO NOT BUY THIS UNLESS YOU LIKE PAIN, troubleshooting it will be a pain and your experience will suck BADLY, no support for windows 7 so no drivers on manufacturer so don’t even think about it unless u own win 8 or higher
    
    No long gaming sessions as the heat will probably scare you into giving it up (if not the throttle will)
    No point in playing with the clock speeds as it seems Nvidia clocked the GPU by factory to go to 80 degrees = as a sweet performance point in their pretty little heads. At 100 % fan speed that’s 3k+ RPM temp is still at 80% after 30seconds of stress testing of processor or GPU (so not together, o no! because they are on the same FAN they heat each other up )
    
    O com’on u just hate asus!
    Not true I own a x751L machine that has cool palm rest, and doesn’t pass 40 degrees in browsing NOR GAMING so it’s possible (850M Gpu + Full HD. Honestly after this Frustrating frustrating experience i would just buy another x751L but it seems it’s not on the market here anymore…. now if i want similar specs from asus i need to pay double…
- Giant Pineapple
  
  October 11, 2015 at 8:21 pm
  
  I bought my G771JW from msy.com.au as their version featured a 4GB GTX 960M, and I have had no issues with thermal throttling. Perhaps you should return yours and see if you can find a different configuration of the G771JW.
  
  Reply
Ciprian Adumitroaie

November 12, 2015 at 11:37 pm

Hello,

In the first of all I want to ask you if you had throttling problems only in games with the tested laptop or in windows to when you did multitasking?

I’ve also bought a G771JW version featured a 4GB GDDR5 GTX 960M, with i7-4720HQ, 1TB and 8 GB of RAM, you think that this should throttle in games but most of all when I do heavy widows multitasking and online streaming or I should reinstall windows (I have it from one week now..)?

I also had a GL552JX i7-4720HQ 16GB, 1TB, GeForce GTX 950M 4GB DDR3 for a week and I think it was handling better multitasking that this..

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  November 13, 2015 at 2:47 pm
  
  Sry Ciprian, this review is more than a year old, I can’t remember anything besides what I wrote in the article.
  
  Reply
dany

June 3, 2016 at 8:07 am

its posible to change the video card on this laptop ????

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 3, 2016 at 8:08 am
  
  NO, that’s actually impossible on pretty much all the existing laptops, with very few exceptions.
  
  Reply
Sergio de Jesus Sufy

August 7, 2016 at 9:59 am

I’m about to buy a used laptop, do you recommend the g771 or the g551

Reply
Slaven

March 6, 2017 at 8:21 am

Hi,

I have a G771JM model and I'd like to upgrade it with a m.2 pci-e ssd disk. Do you know if my laptop supports NVMe ssd drives and is it possible to make it a bootable drive?

thx

Reply
Trent

May 29, 2017 at 12:33 pm

Ha Bud , i bought a ASUS G771JW , It came with a 4 GB GTX 960m video card and 16 GB Ram ,runs grate does everything i need it to do but Jams on some games not many, wondering if i can upgrade the video card to GTX 980m Plus???. if you could let us no. Thanks

Hosre

Reply
GHumto

September 13, 2018 at 8:33 pm

It’s supposed to handle up to 32 GB of RAM????

Reply

Asus G771JW / G771 review – a capable 17 inch multimedia laptop

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