ASUS G73JH-A1 with ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 - Part 2

Special Lighting for Total Gaming Experience, the Complete Gaming Kit

As you dig deep into your game the G Series comes alive with cool side bar, speakers and logo LED lights. Get the full gaming package when you buy a G Series notebook: the must have Republic of Gamers backpack – the right look for your next LAN party; the ideal gaming mouse from ASUS offering real time sensitive adjustment and 1600dpi.

ASUS Total Video Communication

With three cutting-edge technologies – LifeFrame, SmartLogon and Virtual Camera, ASUS offers you a complete solution to communicate wirelessly, making it easier for you to log on to your system, capture and edit images, and video conference with multiple parties in separate locations at the same time. Totally convenient and totally innovative – that´s the ASUS way!

Smart Technology – Smart Bootups in 8 Seconds and Fast Internet Connectivity with Express Gate

In addition to the unique technologies and software features, G73JH unveils the latest Express Gate that empowers users with the simplest usage experience. This additional built-in operating system enables ultra fast boot up for access to a host of most commonly used features, including web browser, instant messenger, Skype, photo manager, music player and online gaming.

The Unbelievable Visual Realism - The ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5870 3D Graphic Card with 1024 MB GDDR5 VRAM

The ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5870 3D Graphic Card with 1024 MB GDDR5 VRAM delivers remarkable performance and an unsurpassed acceleration for spectacular gaming. Experience a more fluid, more detailed, more realistic 3D high-definition while playing the game or watching movie. Never a moment of delay to occur, feel the excitement!

A display to meet a gamer´s needs

A row of backlit touch-capacitive buttons located at the top of the keyboard serves as intuitive and convenient point of multimedia control for instantaneous multimedia enjoyment

Greater freedom from more storage space

Play more games, watch more DVDs and download more sounds with the double SATA hard disc drive (up to 1 Terra Byte) that lets you load up more, so you can make sure you get plenty of action whilst on the road.

Pump up the power

Click into extreme performances when you need. The CPU Level Up gives you a choice of performance modes – and when you hit Extreme – hold on like hell for a processor that will punch out with its speed and substance.

Clearly a Bigger, Better Definition

The G73JH displays HD content with full HD 1920 x 1080p resolution picture source delivers unmatched visual and audio quality.

High Definition Data Highway

With HDMI – the industry standard digital interface, a single cable will support standard, enhanced, or high-definition video and plus multi-channel digital audio while ensuring data integrity during transfers offering a smooth highway for HD contents to get from any device to your notebook for display!

Powered By Intel Core i7 Mobile Processor

With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that applies processing power where its needed most, the G73JH powered by new Intel Core i7 mobile processor delivers an incredible breakthrough in gaming performance. The unit relies on the combination of Intel Turbo Boost technology and Intel Hyper-Threading technology to activate full processing power exactly where and when you need it most.

Tech Specs

Display

* 17.3" FHD, Color-Shine (Glare-type) (1920x1080)

Processor & Chipset

* Intel® Core™ Mobile i7 Quad Core Mobile Processors
* Chipset: Intel® PM55 Express Chipset

Storage & Drives

* 2 Detachable 2.5" 9.5mm (H) SATA Hard Disk Drives
* 1 12.7mm (H) Optical Drive Bay, ATA Interface, Interchangeable with DVD±R/RW Combo drive, Blu-ray/DVD±R/RW Combo Drive

Memory

* 64-bit wide DDRIII data channel
* Four 204 Pin SODIMM sockets
* Expandable up to 16GB DDRIII 1333MHz

Video Controller

* ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5870 GDDR5 1024MB
* PCI-Express™ 16X
* Microsoft® DirectX® 11 Compatible
* Dual-View capable Supports two different applications open at one time; one on the External Monitor, and one on the Laptop Screen. Multi-tasking has never been more convenient.

Audio & Multimedia Features

* Support Dolby® Home Theater
* 3D Stereo Enhanced Sound System
* S/PDIF output
* 1 Built-in Microphone
* 4 Built-in Altec Lansing Speakers + Subwoofer
* Sound Blaster compatible

Network / Communication

* Integrated V.92 MDC Fax/Modem, with AC-Link Version. 2.1 Compliant
* Built-in Gigabit Ethernet LAN
* Built-in Bluetooth™ V2.1+EDR
* Integrated 802.11 b/g/n

Keyboard / Pointing Device

* Full Sized Keyboard with Numeric Key Pad
* Windows Hot keys
* Integrated Touchpad with Scrolling function

Operating System / Utilities

* Genuine Windows 7® Home Premium 64-Bit
* XP Available (loses some functionality)
* Asus Win flash for BIOS and Driver live Update
* ASUS CopyProtect
* ASUS SmartLogon
* ASUS Net 4 switch
* Asus Power4Gear eXtreme
* Asus Live Update
* Asus Multi-Frame
* Power 4 Phone
* Asus NB Probe +
* ASUS Life Frame 3
* Asus Data Security Management(ADSM)
* Virtual Camera
* Asus Wireless Console
* ASUS Splendid
* ASUS Direct Console
* ASUS Express Gate

Slots

* 8 in 1 card reader, SD,MMC,MS,MS-Pro,xD,mini SD w/ adapter,MS-Duo,MS-Pro Duo via adapter

Hot Keys

* Function Keys:
Fn+F1 Suspend switch
Fn+F2 WLAN switch
Fn+F2 Bluetooth switch
Fn+F3 Access to the E-mail
Fn+F4 Access to the Internet
Fn+F5 Brightness down
Fn+F6 Brightness up
Fn+F7 LCD on/off
Fn+F9 TouchPad Lock
Fn+F10 Volume on/mute
Fn+F11 Volume down
Fn+F12 Volume up
Fn+Num Lk: Scroll Lock on/off
Fn+Space Power 4Gear eXtreme
Fn+C Splendid
Fn+T Power4Phone
Fn+V Camera capture
Fn+↑: Stop
Fn+↓: Play/Pause
Fn+ ←：Skip to Previous Track
Fn+ →：Skip to Next Track

Input / Output Ports

* 1 x Microphone-in jack
* 2 x Headphone-out jack (S/PDIF)
* 1 x VGA port/Mini D-sub 15-pin for external monitor
* 4 x USB 2.0 ports
* 1 x RJ45 LAN
* 1 x HDMI

Power System

* 8 cells: 5200 mAh, smart Lithium-Ion battery pack
* Output: 19 V DC, 6.32 A, 120W
* Input: 100~240 V AC, 50/60 Hz universal

Cooling

* Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound optional
* Copper CPU Heatsink

Size & Weight

* 8.5lbs with 8-cell battery
* 16"x11.6"x1.8" (W x D x H)

Additional Features

* Kensington® Lock
* Built-in 2.0M Digital Video Camera
* Optical Mouse & Carrying Bag Included

Warranty

* ASUS 2-year limited global hardware warranty
* 24/7 ASUS Telephone Technical Support
* 1 Year Accidental Damage Protection. (Must be registered in 60 days of order. North American Only)
* Free two-way standard overnight shipping when sending laptops in for repair/service
* 1-year battery pack warranty
* On-line problem resolution through web interface (BIOS, Driver update)

XOTIC (US) Link

GenTech (US) Link

PowerNotebooks (US) Link

Gigastore (EU) Link

Ordered

 

This is the new G73 thread - the old one can be found here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=447065

 

1more week to go!

 

I have an old Zalman NC1000 for my G1S (15"). Since the G73 pulls in air from the top, does anyone thing that a cooler would help at all? I suppose there are some vents in the bottom for the ram, but I've never heard of ram overheating in any normal circumstances. I would think that at least cooling down the bottom surface of the laptop would lead to some amount of decrease in temperature, or would it just be totally insignificant?

 

I'd also like to repost this link for all of our newcomers.

Everything You Need To Know About the ASUS G73JH
http://www.em-zero.com/index.php/2010/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-asus-g73jh/

 

Cooler will be useless in this case since g73jh pulls air in from the keyboard.

 

Could anyone explain how it pulls in the air from the keyboard? I just cannot wrap my head around that :/

 

Don't spill anything on your keyboard. There are probably small vents under the keyboard to allow air to flow through or something similar.

Not entirely, there'll probably will be some minute improvement.

 

Has it been confirmed that this has 2.1 Bluetooth and not 2.0 or is that a typo in the OP?

 

It sounds like a great design, but all I can think about is the crumbs and junk that always seem to drop into the keyboard area...

 

Well apparently our conversation about mystical ninja was deleted...touche admins

 

It pulls air from above the keyboard into the vents above the keyboard (between keyboard and screen) and then pushes it out the two vents on the back as the picture above illustrates.

 

That's quite a good question. GenTech lists "Built-in Bluetooth™ V2.0+EDR" under the customization options, but in the actual specs further down the same page it states "Built-in Bluetooth™ V2.1+EDR". Xotic PC and others state "Bluetooth V2.1 + EDR".

I suppose it would be on-topic if I stated that the G73 will be an awesome Mystical Ninja gaming rig.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veDZe2pZldU

 

I am lol'ing, but you guys are asking for it especially after what Charles said in the other thread!

Quad/Ziddy/Vic:

Could you please remove the keyboard and get us a picture and impressions on where the vents are and how they are set up?

Thanks!

 

That picture above looks like it's going through some mystery vents behind the keyboard. Also, is that gap between the keyboard and screen big enough to pull in enough air?

 

This might be a dumb question. After a clean install, are functions specific to the 'Fn' key go away. For example, screen brightness, functions to turn off WLAN and TouchPad lock. If so, can they be remapped? Thanks mod, for keeping the peace, btw.

And Justin@XoticPC, if you're passing by and reading this, just a word on stock mebbe? I can't put an order down for this lappy until I get my tax refund and student loan cut. Oh, these good ol' college days, ya know? =D

 

Requested.

Furmark test. Ultimate GPU burning tool

Temps before test


Temps after 5 minutes of death


If the core is 82c like I think it is thats not bad at all, the RAM or PWM can both be @100C without issue, still not sure what all the temps are but during the benchmark it was stable with no errors.

If you have not used this benchmark before you dont know how mean it is, its way harder than any game is going to be on the gpu.

 

You use the Asus disk to reinstall those functions. Or download them from Asus's website.

 

You are correct, as I explained in the thread in the owners lounge. The air intake is through the mesh grill above the keyboard. You can feel the air being pulled in on either side near the buttons respectively.

 

There are some drivers you can download on ASUS's support website to re-enable those keys. I think they're called something like General ATK Function, or ATK Hotkeys, or ATK Media, or things of that nature. Of course, G73's might be named differently.

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

I see what you mean, but the thread execution isn't steady like flowing water...

Assuming the thread scheduler spreads the running threads evenly among the cores (which Windows has been getting better and better at since post-Windows 2000):

Each pair of threads share a core. When one of the pair of threads pauses for something like no data in cache, the other can take advantage of those idle clock ticks to do some work (this idle time happens enough on threads to where Intel claims up to 30% more work done with hyperthreading, and it really does work - not always 30% increase of course). Switching threads on a non-hyperthreading core is a relatively expensive operation, but the hyperthreaded processors are designed to do that thread context switch much more efficiently.

 

Ok thanks for that info.

I did the wprime tests at the stock 1.6ghz and again with twin turbo 1.7ghz I repeated the test several times and have my difference in score for a 100mhz increase. I know from using this benchmark a lot and using it on many different machines that it scales nice and linearly.

So I can take my 100mhz difference number now and just multiply it to get a good rough score for how good it would be if we managed to get the cpu overclocked higher. I of course have a personal goal of meeting or beating the 14 second time I can get with the 2.8ghz OC from my old W90. The main reason I got the G73 was for the cpu upgrade as I knew it was a gpu downgrade from dual 4870's. If I cant meet my goal I will be a bit upset.

I'll do the math later tonight when I get done with my work and find some downtime. But I will post the theoretical speed the i7 needs to be running to meet the Q9000 and then we can see how much better the i7 is clock for clock power.
</marks>

 

Cool. I'm interested in the results, just because of the new CPU technology. It's already pretty amazing what can be done with lower CPU clock rates.

I'm just a programmer so I leave the OC testing to you guys

 

I believe that air is pulled in from around each and every key on the keyboard, as opposed to that area between the keyboard and the screen. If you look at that pic with the air flowing over the laptop, pay close attention to the ASUS logo below the screen. Now, look straight down and to the right. You will see a small circular thing. That's a speaker. There is another speaker at the same distance to the left of the ASUS logo. I put my mouth on that mesh area (not directly on the speaker itself) and was not able to blow any air into the laptop. Therefore, I believe that the mesh is there to provide a clean look, since the speakers need the mesh for output. The only openings where air can get into the machine are around each key on the keypad, and the slotted bay door direcly over the 3 accessible RAM modules.

 

So is there anyway you can access the fan to clean them? As time past by dust build up and it would be a big factor when gaming especially when you dont clean them

 

Time to break out the screwdrivers and find out?

 

Most of any buildup should be on the heatskink portion and those are always removable, but usually just blowing it out with air is all you need to do and not even remove them.

 

Yeah, I am an idiot. I apologize all. I removed the bottom RAM door, and used a flashlight to peer in. I first thought that the round black object was the speaker enclosure. But upon further inspection, it appears to be mounted slightly to the outside of the right speaker. That black round enclosure is held down by some pretty heavy-duty pin/screws. That must be one of the fans. So, the main intake must be to the left and right of each respective speaker in the grille between the keyboard and the screen.

I also did the tissue paper trick, and there was suction in those two areas, as well as the vented RAM door. So there must be open areas on the underside to help facilitate the cooling of the RAM, in addition to pulling air in from under the computer.

 

This may be a dumb question but how compatible is a powerful notebook such as this with some of the older games available through steam download service? Ive have pre-ordered a G73JH and this will be my first chance to play some of the epic PC games that I have been missing through the years (never owned a PC before)...

Some of the games I really have been wanting to play are Fallout 1&2, Half Life 1&2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, and Elderscrolls 3 to name a few. Im really hoping I don't have to jump through too many hoops to play these on my Beastly G73.

Any feed back on this subject will help me out a great deal in deciding if this is the right PC for me . Thanks

 

It should max out all those games without any problems.

 

it will run everyone of your games maxed out without problems!

 

I really wonder how dust will accumulate itself inside the laptop between al the hardware parts, due to the airvents on the keyboard. Or is the air chanelled trough some kind of seperate ventilation shafs which only affect the gpu and cpu cooling heatsinks?

This question also applies to water/moisture problems:
I usualy use square shaped plastic ice holders (shaped liked like the WD 2.5" external hard drives) to put on my gaming laptop during summer, which is great to stop your laptop from shutting down during cod4 party's. But...ice attracts moister so I have to dry the ice holders (which are completly sealed off btw) with a towel every 5-10 mins. If air vents in the keyboard of the g73jh will spread the air trough all the hardware parts, this might risk moisture or even water drops getting into contact with them.

Eventhough this g73 has better cooling than the current G series (and way better cooling than my laptop) I'm still intending to use ice (if tis possible with the g73 cooling system) during the hot summers to keep the hardware parts cooler and insure myself a longer lasting laptop.

to sum up for the ones who don't want to read my whole message: Can dust or water get to the hardware parts because of the position of the airvents/holes integrated in the keyboard?

 

I cant complain about the mouse at all but I'm play a couple of MMOs and was wondering if someone can recomend a mouse that has multiple buttons but would also match the G73JH design. I thought the razer Orochi would go well with it but other options are welcome..
Thanks

 

Thats great news! Thanks Guys!

 

I got 2 questions if anyone can answer it and I couldn't find them.

1. Is the raid option not in bios? I still see this at xoticpc's website as an option. Do they have to enable it? I wanted raid 0 for the 1TB HD.

2. The clean install, does this mean using the recovery disk? I have windows 7 Pro, but I doubt it'll work for the G73 since it's just the regular windows 7 home.

 

1.) Raid not in the bios... currently probably nothing more than a bios update to enable it soon, or maybe we just need to use the intel storage matrix and not enable raid in the bios at all.

2.) Its a recovery disk, its just like a clean install but has the drivers and a few preloaded applications. Took me like 4 minutes to uninstall the bloatware I didnt want. You can use a regular win 7 disk just fine, but you will have to manually go install all the drivers.

 

Thank you!!

 

So preliminary wprime testing is giving me some very strange results.

According to cpuz normal mode for the computer under load is 1.6ghz and with turbo mode on its 1.7ghz.

HWinfo32 also said the same thing I swear when I was testing earlier at home, but for some reason HWinfo32 is now saying 1.7ghz for normal and 1.7ghz for turbo also (like 20mhz difference) so I know HWinfo is not working right for some reason.

That aside here is the really strange crazy part of my first set of tests.

I ran 20 tests for wprime 1.55

5 of them with 4 threads turbo mode
5 of them with 4 threads normal mode
5 of them with 8 threads turbo mode
5 of them with 8 threads normal mode

I am also going to repeat it all with wprime 2.0 when I get time.

The results very clearly show a pretty solid boost in performance using 8 threads instead of 4 in every case.

The part that is confusing and keeps me from being able to estimate the power of overclocking the cpu is how the results did not work how they should have.

1.6ghz 4 threads average - 20.489 seconds
1.7ghz 4 threads average - 21.347 seconds

Yep you are not reading wrong and that is not a typo! It was faster and scoring better with turbo OFF and the slower CPU speed.

I triple triple triple checked my settings to verify I was not making some error.

Now here is what is even more strange about it. The 8 thread results.

1.6ghz 8 threads average - 15.796 seconds
1.7ghz 8 threads average - 15.263 seconds

Yep, that is not a typo, its the exact opposite behavior of the 4 thread testing, the score got better/faster in turbo mode!

What the hell this means I a not sure, but it makes evaluating this cpu even harder now.

 

I thought that there are speakers under mesh...

 

Hi all

I'm ready to order it, but with i5 540m processor, 4gb of ram n' native resolution 1600x900, no bluray. In my country it's much cheaper than i7 one. And I'm thinking 'bout this resolution - what's the real difference between hd+ and yours full hd? This is important only in films or somewhere else too? Coz' I think that playing in smaller resolution isn't so bad, too.

 

I don't think G73JH comes in the configuration you described

 

http://x-kom.pl/index.php?show_prod=51892 ;>

 

wow, thanks for the link.

.pl stands for Poland, right?

First time I see an i5 on G73JH

 

.PL is poland yes.

 

Yep, Poland. i5 shouldn't be much slower than i7 one... I hope so ;d

 

It's only dual core though, so..

To me it would only be worth while if the integrated GPU on the i5 is usable on this particular chipset.

 

i would prefer to buy the G73JH-A1 only thing i would change is the cpu, from i7 to the i5 like in poland!

that would be great =)

i think the i5 is much faster than the i7, because of the higher velocity from the cores

 

Worth exploring further???
Approximately 2:35 into XOTICPC "Video Review PART 1", they mention the 2 hard drives and say they can be configured in raid 0 or raid 1. At least as of this posting.

 

I have not seen that review yet but I did tell Justin that you cant do a real review in 1 day. The got the unit mid day Friday and he had a review posted on Saturday.... You cant know a unit in and out or do a proper review that fast so half of what hey said is probably product specs sheet stuff, as the product specs say it supports raid.

Im sure it does its probably a flaw in the initial bios that they didnt put it on there, but it also like I said just maybe doesn't need a "raid" setting as the raid was never setup in the bios it was setup by the intel storage matrix on previous models you just had to enable "raid" in bios so it would know to read the data the ISM offers.

That is the difference between a real review and a preview. You test things first before you state them in a review

I'll test raid later this week.