ASUS X72D/K72DR: Three Cores, No Waiting

An Odd Value Proposition

To look at the ASUS X72D, you have to wonder who ASUS was gunning for with this build. The X72D seems aimed at basic users who just want decent all-around performance and an attractive if understated multimedia machine, and on that front we can say it's fairly successful. The Blu-ray reader, fast hard drive, and reasonably good screen are all signs that point to "yes" for this notebook, and with the HDMI port it can legitimately serve double duty as a media center for home users.

The problems start to creep in when performance metrics are taken into account. While it's true the X72D performs at least decently, seeing the Phenom II N830 in action starts to explain why most manufacturers are hesitant to send out AMD-based notebooks for reviews. The N830 isn't terrible, but at some points it even struggles to catch up with Intel's ultra low-voltage chips. At the same time, it draws substantially more power, and the chipset it's paired with only exacerbates things.

This only points to something that's been a continual problem for AMD for years now: they need to seriously step their game up in the mobile market. Intel is competing on power, price, and CPU performance, and with Sandy Bridge on the horizon, AMD's last foothold—integrated graphics performance—is going to disappear. AMD has their Bobcat, Bulldozer, and Llano cores all coming out next year, but for now we've got the old K10.5 designs and they're looking very long in the tooth.

Likewise, the Mobility Radeon HD 5470 just doesn't make sense—in general, and as a dedicated GPU here. The clock speed may be ramped up about as high as it can go, but that doesn't change the fact that the chip is still an underpowered dog incapable of offering a solid gaming experience even at 1366x768. Can you game on it? Yes. But I can push the 380 MHz Radeon HD 3200 in my ThinkPad X100e to deliver playable framerates in some of the games I play, so that's not really the point. The 5470 does not add enough value to justify its inclusion, and this is one point where ASUS could've done a lot better.

Of course, at the end of the day, the big question is price. Can ASUS deliver the X72D at a price point attractive enough to make up for its issues? Well, for starters, our unit is labeled the X72D, but you won't find it anywhere on ASUS's site or in retail (at least not in the US--it looks like the X72D might be a special European model). The K72Dr, on the other hand, is fairly easy to track down, and it's the same model less the Blu-ray and with a 5400 RPM hard drive. At $725 on NewEgg, you can make a fairly convincing case for it as a desktop replacement notebook. For Mom and Pop, I'd definitely choose it over competing Acer notebooks: build quality is better, and unless Mom's planning on fragging noobs in Modern Warfare 2 she's not liable to miss having a faster GPU. Finding the Blu-ray-equipped model is a lot harder, and the best price we've seen of around $950 online is frankly just too much.

And that's really what it's going to boil down to. This is a budget notebook in the performance and features arena, but it's well-built, flexible enough to handle most tasks, and ASUS' standard two-year warranty is still one of the best in the business. If you can find it for a good price—we think about $800 is right, including the BRD Combo drive—then it's definitely worthy of consideration.