Laptop Decision: Asus z70v or z71v?

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Cryogen Glacien · Post by **Cryogen Glacien** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 5:08 pm

Okay, so after 2+ years of intensive (several hours per day, every day) use, my Inspiron 500m is starting to fall apart. The power conenctor's so loose that I can barely get it to stay on, and the battery is broken. I'm considering getting one of Asus's new models, the z70v or the z71v.

Here's the dilemma: I prefer the z70v in every way except one, and that's its video card. It has an ATI X600 PCI-E card, and we all know what that means for Linux. In every other respect the z70v is superior to its sister, the z71v, at least for my needs. But the z71v has an nVidia GeForce Go 6600, and I've never had a problem with nVidia cards under Linux before.

I plan to get the same components in either one, aside from the video card which the buyer has no choice over: 1.7 or 1.86 GHz Sonoma Pentium-M, 40 GB 5400 RPM HD, DVD burner, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, etc. I don't plan to do anything more graphics-heavy than PSX emulation (yes, I own the console, and just want to play the discs on my laptop), and the most CPU-intensive tasts will be compiling and emulation. Should I still go with the z70v, or is the ATI card so hopelessly difficult to configure that I should get the z71v, or another model entirely? I need something with SXGA+ or WSXGA for under $1500. [/url]

user118696 · Post by **user118696** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 1:44 pm

ATI chipsets are always a mess. Avoid them at all cost.

ph03n1x · Post by **ph03n1x** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 4:04 pm

Well it is true that ati-cards can be a pain in the a... better go for the nvidia if you want to avoid trouble.

But on the other hand I'm using an ati-card as well don't use tv-out etc and can't say that I had big troubles apart from the fact that it can take some time till you have it running as you want.

Cryogen Glacien · Post by **Cryogen Glacien** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 4:30 pm

Well...it's a moot point now. Someone stole the nx6125 I was planning to sell to help raise the money for the Z7Xv>_< Thanks for the replies anyway but it looks like I won't be getting it. I ordered parts for a micro-atx desktop in one of Aspire's cube cases instead.