System Performance

To start on the performance section, let’s take a look at how the ASUS G751 performs when running applications on the desktop. Powering the ASUS G751 model that was shipped for review is the Intel Core i7-4720HQ processor. At this point in the life of the fourth gen Core i7 processors, it may seem out of date, but the i7-4720HQ was actually just launched in Q1 2015. It is a quad-core, eight-thread processor with a base frequency of 2.6 GHz and turbo of 3.6 GHz. The maximum turbo is held in check by the 47 watt thermal design point, which is at the top end of the mobile processor range from Intel. It would have been nice to see ASUS move to Broadwell, but the quad-core mobile parts will likely be short lived anyway and have certainly been a long time coming.

With 24 GB of memory, the dual-channel memory is not balanced, with 8 GB on one channel and 16 GB on the other. ASUS does offer a model with a full 32 GB, or you can always order another stick of DDR3L-1600 if you want to change that. But as we will see in the scores below, performance is not impacted by this very much if at all, especially since the bandwidth-hungry iGPU is going unused.

Storage is a strong point on the ASUS G751, with ASUS being one of the first companies to start moving to PCIe based SSDs. The XP941 can achieve speeds over 1 GB/s, and while it has been surpassed by the Samsung SM951, it’s still a solid and quick PCIe SSD.

To take a look at general performance, the G751 was put through our laptop workloads. The graphs include other similar devices for comparison, but if you would like to compare the G751 against any other device we have tested, please check out our Notebook Bench.

PCMark

PCMark 8 - Home

PCMark 8 - Work

PCMark 7 (2013)

PCMark attempts to replicate real life workloads, and has several different tests which focus on specific workloads. The G751 performs very well in these tests, scoring the highest of any notebook we’ve tested. Since this is a comprehensive benchmark, the CPU is part of the equation, but so is the GPU, display resolution, and storage speed. ASUS has created a pretty well rounded notebook here.

Cinebench

Cinebench R15 - Single-Threaded Benchmark

Cinebench R15 - Multi-Threaded Benchmark

Cinebench R11.5 - Single-Threaded Benchmark

Cinebench R11.5 - Multi-Threaded Benchmark

Cinebench tests the ability for the CPU to render an image, and it loves high frequencies and plenty of instructions per clock. The Core i7-4720HQ is fairly powerful in this test, and falls in line with scores similar to other notebooks that have a similar processor. The Clevo has a desktop class 88 watt processor, and runs away in this benchmark.

x264

x264 HD 5.x

x264 HD 5.x

Much like Cinebench, the processor is the key to this score, and once again the i7-4720HQ performs right where you would expect it to, and the Clevo’s desktop processor once again reigns at the top.

Web Tests

Mozilla Kraken 1.1

WebXPRT

Google Octane 2.0

None of the laptops listed are going to struggle with web performance, but it is still handy to see where a fast quad-core system sits. The G751 performs well in the javascript benchmarks using Chrome as the browser. When Windows 10 ships, we can start to move over to Edge as the browser for our web tests.

Storage

PCMark 8 - Storage

The PCMark Storage test runs traces on a couple of different workloads, but it tends to lump pretty much all SSDs fairly close together, so I’ve also added the CrystalMark Disk benchmark to give a quick glance at the speeds that the G751 can achieve with its PCIe based SSD. It’s been a while since we’ve tested a notebook with a disk based hard drive, so I thought it would be good to test the storage drive as well just so we don’t forget why we’ve moved to SSDs.

G-SYNC Comes to the Notebook Gaming Performance
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  • meacupla - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't optimus cause a ton of problems that people just wanted to disable it permanently?
  • Dribble - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link

    You're wrong, never had any problems with it and hardly read any complaints about it.
  • Gigaplex - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link

    I've had plenty of problems with it. Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't exist.
  • Refuge - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link

    Never heard about it? Were you hiding under a rock during that fiasco? It was so bad that some review sites would mark a product down just for having Optimus enabled by default in the bios from the factory.
  • nerd1 - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link

    Optimus is terrible for everything except AAA gaming (big trouble with most online games, nightmare with linux, and so on), and does not make any sense for large caliber gaming rigs anyway. Basically you have to plug in otherwise battery won't last more than an hour.
  • DanNeely - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link

    There's a 1-2% framerate hit; and while that's a meaningless real world difference hysteria driven configuration has meant it's often not been installed in top of the line gaming laptops; and caused people to disable it in mid-range ones.
  • Samus - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link

    Optimus crashes pretty much every 3D modeling program I've ever tried on it, especially Solidworks.
  • Jorsher - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link

    I've never had a problem with it on my 2012 (perhaps older) Dell XPS with Intel and NVidia graphics. I'm glad to have it.
  • WorldWithoutMadness - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link

    I assume it has something to do with the G-sync.
    Maybe it is not compatible with optimus, switching intel hd to gtx, vice versa
  • Brett Howse - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link

    I think it has something to do with G-Sync, which is why I laid that out exactly on page 3 :)

    "In order to implement G-SYNC, the NVIDIA GPU must be directly connected to the display panel over eDP - since variable refresh doesn't currently translate through iGPUs - which means that it instantly precludes implementation of NVIDIA’s Optimus technology"

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