Our testing methods
As mentioned earlier, benchmarking the G50V-A1 proved problematic. We ran our gaming tests with Asus' Power4Gear software set to "Entertainment" mode, but had to resort to Vista's own power management scheme, which we set to "Balanced," to handle MobileMark and WorldBench. We also had to switch to a 32-bit version of Windows Vista in order to get MobileMark to work properly—a problem we've encountered with the MobileMark test before. Laptops and overclocking generally don't mix, so we stayed clear of the G50V's turbo mode settings. A 100-200MHz CPU overclock won't affect performance that much, anyway.

All benchmarks were run under Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP1 except for MobileMark, which was run under Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP1. Driver versions were the latest available on Asus' website.

All tests were run three times and their results were averaged.

Model Asus G50V-A1
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53GHz
System bus 1066MHz (266MHz quad-pumped)
Bios revision 207
North bridge Intel PM45
South bridge Intel ICH9M
Chipset drivers INF update 8.2.0.1001
Memory size 4GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz
CAS latency (CL) 6
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) 6
RAS precharge (tRP) 6
Cycle time (tRAS) 18
Audio codec Realtek ALC663 with 6.0.1.5643 drivers
Graphics GeForce 9700M GT 512MB with ForceWare 175.80 drivers
Hard drive 2 Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVS 250GB SATA
OS Windows Vista Home Premium x64 with Service Pack 1

We used the following versions of our test applications:

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.