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

There is a chance that it might be available from other retailers retail stores later in that configuration


Alex

 

I was going to just say that.. Bestbuy will most likely carry the scaled down CPU version of the g73.. They have done so in the past with prior models, and are currently doing just that with the Toshiba Quosmio X505 w/i5 instead of the launched i7.. Bestbuy usually delete's blue tooth as well.. If that's important to you, you need to make sure it has it.. Almost forgot.. Bestbuy also drops screen resolution (perhaps to 720p, unless no BD playback) to further help in keeping the cost down.. Something else to consider.

 

Any idea about the availability of the G73JH-A1?
did mentioned retailers sold out of the first shipment or something? lol

 

the problem is that i'm living in germany and here you could only buy the standard things. here the g73jh-a1 will cost about 2260 $ wihtout bag and mouse. its amazing that in usa many things are so cheap in confront with germany!

 

I'm waiting G73JH to come Czech Republic , the price is 1,997.35 USD, 1,461.595 EUR (With bag and mouse) And the King will come to Prague in 2 weeks

 

Yeah, unfortunately people these days don't know the difference between a review and a preview. I see it all the time when looking for info on new products. Sometimes online magazines and blogs use the word 'Review' for a cut & paste press release !

 

If you are ordering the G73JH you will be waiting sometime middle of March. The second shipment is supposed to arrive at Asus on March 2nd. Then takes time to get to reseller then to you. Unless you choose express shipping, probably near end of 2nd week of March. That's with the available information now, never know, maybe Asus will receive shipments earlier than expected like they did with the first shipment of the A2's.

GenTech/XoticPC both have their loyal customers, but they both have the most pre-orders since December/January.
- Authorized to do customizations. Warranty unaffected.

PowerNotebook I talked to say they have enough pre-orders back into March also.
- Authorized to do customizations. Warranty unaffected.

BTOTech has been discouraging pre-orders, last I talked to them on February 5th indicated they only had a few dozen pre-orders. So if they receive 50 G73JHs, then that's your best luck (Maybe get on the first shipment order. But no guarantee they will receive 50 units, maybe they only get 25 units, they you are on the 2nd shipment also).
- I have not read any review for BTOTech.
- Authorized to do customizations. Warranty unaffected.

XCaliberPC seems they did not take many pre-orders either and only sold when they had in stock. This is how 001 and I got the A2 by ordering on the same day they had in stock.
- Never new about them before, but her I am with a G73. So if you want a stock unit they are good.
- No customizations, must do it yourself.

 

Thanks Ziddy, that was perfect.

 

That is easy, we don't have a national health care to pay for, and whatever else you guys have. That is why our taxes are so much cheaper. If it weren't for your taxes, you might be cheaper then us......

Anyways I PMed Justin and hopefully get this raid thing straighten out and why it's not in bios. I'm hoping I'm one of the few lucky ones when the A1's come on the 17th... I doubt it since I pre-ordered it at the end of January. If not I'm might be shopping around and try to get it elsewhere, even if I don't get the discount.... I must have my G73!!!!

 

I thought gentech posted photos of the bios showing raid but it was something else;

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5844780#post5844780

 

Please don't bring healthcare into this lol. I'm up in Canada, and this thing is costing me $2200USD (including taxes+shipping+a couple hundred in customizations) Taxes aren't that bad here. Besides, we don't have to pay for health insurance

And I hope I get mine on the 17th too (I ordered early Feb). IIRC, the first shipment is actually the 1st+2nd shipment together, because the first one got held up at customs, so it's arriving at the same time as the 2nd shipment. Not sure if that's confirmed or not though. But here's hoping!!!

 

I checked mine. Looks same as GenTech. It's an AmeriTrends Bios with no Raid option.

Maybe Asus will release a bios update for this. Maybe need to use that Intel software?

 

Jeez, a new thread?

 

That is my understanding as well. I ordered in mid-January and was told by Ken that I would be on the 2nd shipment. Then a bunch of people bailed when told first shipment was held up at the customs. Gentechpc told me at the time I would in the 17th Feb batch.

What is a bit unclear is whether the 2rd March date is referring to "second" shipment or "third"?

 

I just checked XOTICPC site and they too have removed the raid option under customization for this machine. I won’t be the one to put the stake in, but it’s not looking good for raiding the hard drives.

 

Interesting as XOTICPC was offering raid just last night as an option. So now GenTech and XOTICPC are not offering raid. Power Notebooks is still offering raid options for new orders. Perhaps this will change soon to.

 

Hey all been watching this thread for a while and I just wanted to toss in another place to get an A-1 before march. I got mine at www.shopblt.com and they still have like 14 pre orders left before they get them on the 20th. Their inventory is updated automatically. I don't have any personal experience with them but they did get a pretty good resellers.com rating (9.8 or something I believe). Just my .02 for helping people get theirs before march. Good luck.

 

where did you seen that it will be in stock in cz in about 2 weeks for that price? what for a keyboard? qwertz ?

thanks

 

Thank you very much for pointing this out 0100, +rep, it's pretty much what I was expecting from the beginning and confirms to me that cool air blown in through the memory slots by the Zalman cooler would assist the Asus cooling design (variable speed to find the sweet spot). I won't bother test flipping the fans as it would be counterproductive to the design.

Hi Vicious, I see MarkS was talking to you about it first, but this is not surprising to i7 weekend encoders. MarkS explained it to you well and to put it in your water analogy, you were just missing all the operating valves in the pipes.

I can encode the same project with 4 threads (full cores) and 8 threads (shared cores) and the work always gets done faster, usually in the 20%+ with 8 threads.

The turbo mode on the desktop i7 is way different than mobile (desktop i7 increases speed of just the first core), but I also leave that off when encoding and just run 4 even core speeds with HT ON as it provides the fastest overall encoding time. Knowing how the turbo mode works on the mobile i7 ( http://hothardware.com/Articles/Intel-Core-i7-Mobile-Processor-Launch-Review/?page=3), I suspect turbo off and all 8 threads will also be best for encoding on the G73JH. The turtle seems to be retaking the lead. Right now, I suspect most games will run better under turbo mode and let the i7 decide how many cores/speed under the workload.

Thank you very much for all your work, +rep; your testing numbers are what I hoped for and a little better than expected. I can see those results are going to be hard to evaluate from a hardware/wprime standpoint, I'll just run the same encoding project and find out what config is best.

Programs are starting to catch up and this is just weekend warrior stuff, the pro stuff is better I hear. http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1175714228541#tabview=tab2
New! GPU and CPU Acceleration
Dramatically speed up your entire movie making process with NVIDIA® CUDA™ and Intel® Core™ i7 optimization.

This whole i7 / HT / Windows 7 / SSD / encoding combination is what I've been waiting a couple of years for. Just wait until base i7 clocks are caught up with current C2D/C2Q clocks.

Q

 

Just want to say thanks to vicious for running furmark!!!

I'll rep you gain when I can....

 

Ok, so I don't get it...

I thought this laptop was supposed to run at:

1.6GHz in normal mode and...
2.8Ghz in turbo mode

Am I missing something here?

What does the 1.6-2.8 mean?

 

I bet the raid was removed because of compatibility issues with Express gate.

I was reading another forum that someone was having problems with raid locking up when trying to load the OS. If they disabled the Expressgate the raid worked okay. This was on an Asus motherboard, but the same problem could easily be on the laptops as well.

Just a thought….

 

There's the processor turbo mode where it'll go up to 2.8GHz if it's running only one core, but there's also the Asus turbo software that'll up the speed while running 4 cores to 1.7GHz, so they're turboing different things.

 

I'm taking an educated guess by posting this, but...

• The i7-720QM runs stock @ 1.6GHz.
• I think the laptop has a "turbo button" that sends an ACPI signal to the motherboard to overclock it (to 1.7GHz? This I'm unsure of.)
• Then the i7-720QM has its own turbo boost mode that will run a single core to 2.8GHz.

 

Turbo boost increases the GHz of the active core(s) when other cores are idle.

If only one core is active, turbo boost can use the spare head room to increase that core to 2.8 GHz.

If two cores are active, then turbo mode will still function, but the gain will not be as much.

If all four cores are active, then the frequency of 1.6 GHz is supposed to apply.

Edit: I am not sure of Turbo mode. I thought you were referring to Turbo Boost due to the 1.6-2.8GHz reference.

 

ugh... feb 17th hurry up! This laptop is about to go... ugh.

Question for the owners, it's about the bag. I know someone said that it was a pretty tight fit for the G73JH, how much additional space is there in this bag? Is it big enough to fit a few books,cable etc?

Thanks guys.

 

I wonder if the laptop is "overclocked" to 1.7GHz using the button above the keyboard, if the CPU would "Turbo Boost" to something like 2.9GHz? Hardly worth doing, but I'm curious.

 

So in this case.. what would be better for gaming current games (take in mind that a lot of games just use one thread). The core i5 or i7?

 

Question is, how do we get benchmarks for the Single or dual core increased speeds? Since most games are mostly only using 1 or 2 cores that's the benchmarks I'd like to see! I too was under the impression the Turbo button or whatever it is sped the CPU up to 2.8, but I'm totally new to the I7. Guess I'll have to do some more reading...

Scratch that - game tests should show the speedup. just wonder if a higher clocked I5 might not be faster...?

 

Correct.
10char

 

It's going to depend on which model i5/i7 you are looking at as well. The i5 is definitely going to show better performance for dual or single threaded apps, if it is clocked faster. The 720qm turboboosts to 2.8 Ghz, while the i5 540 and 520 go up to 3.06 and 2.93. For dual threads, I believe the 720qm goes up to 2.4 Ghz.

With the i7 720qm, it runs at 2.4 Ghz if only 2 cores are active, while the i5 540m is running at 2.53 Ghz.

Note, however, that you would not notice very much difference between 2.4 and 2.53 in most cases.

 

Ah I think I understand. So since DX11 is coming soon, more games will be multithreaded so the core i7 720QM will be better off than the i5 rite?

 

DX11 is already out. And yes if multithreaded games come out soon then the i7 will be better off than the i5. However, you won't see much real world difference (at least in the short run picture)

 

short run picture? I just want to make sure the G73jh will last me a long time..... cuz it is still expensive for a college student xD

 

To the new owners: Does Asus include the discs for all the preinstalled bloatware? So that if you did a clean install of Windows 7, you could reinstall some of the software you might actually use?

 

Personally, I would think it would last about 4 years give or take. Since Intel is going to bring out their new CPUs next year there's always something new around the corner. However, looking at the technological curve, the i7 will still be viable within that 4 year life time. Gaming wise, you will most likey get choked by the the GPU before the CPU, so you should be more worried about that

 

well crap!! haha should I just buy like a dell xps or a sony F-series then since they are slightly cheaper? BUT will they last less? and yes for other ppl reading this, I know I am getting slightly off topic.. I just need to know really bad cuz money is a big issue for me here...

 

Seesh. And onwards to part 2.....I've missed a lot. Got a looooot of light reading to do.

 

Has it been confirmed that the GPU is the same Asus proprietary setup?

 

I'm going to assuming that by 'last' you mean how long you can use this before you change because the games won't run on the laptop anymore. Honestly, anybody giving you the amount of years is purely speculating. My 4 years estimation is my own estimation by judging on my previous computers. With nvidia coming out with Fermi next month, and the possiblity of ATI bringing out the 6000 series early next year (according to that timeframe chart they have) and looking how theres always a new video card out once per year or so, don't expect this thing or anything else lasting you for a long long long time.

I mean you can put in an additional year or two if you take care of your machine and don't mind running stuff at the lowest setting then sure. Also take into consideration that the next generation of consoles might be due out in 2 years or so. That will surely raise the bar on PC requirements for all new games.

 

Just get the 3 year warranty, and you should be more or less set. I bought an Asus Z71v when I went to school (May 2005) and it lasted me until just a few months ago when the screen finally started freaking out. Granted, I did have to send it in once to have the Motherboard replaced....but again, that's what warranties are for, so get the 3 year! Asus makes nice machines though, for sure!

 

Computers are getting to the point where they can't get much better. Sure, there'll always be new stuff. If there wasn't, we'd all be sending letters or communicating by morse code. If this laptop is DX11-proof, you've got a LOT of time before something else comes out. There's not much more to improve.

This is why the PS3 (released in 2006) and Xbox 360 (released in 2005) are still the top dogs in the console gaming industry. Four and five years later, and look at the graphics they can still produce.

 

You mean the lower texture and no AA or AF games that they produce?

 

I think Gentech said it was a few weeks ago when he first posted pictures of the fan/insides.

Could be wrong though.

Just remember, DX 11 has nothing to do with games being multi-threaded.

The G73jh is definitely THE bang for buck gaming laptop available now. Consider it a more expensive version of the Gateway FX line that started the ball rolling.

:laugh:

 

Can someone make a 1080p of video showing gaming??

 

There is always room for improvement. Always. And each generation of cards brings much more power than the last. Improvement comes not only in performance but in price cuts etc making avalable tech cheaper and more efficient.

The PS3 and Xbox360 have graphics comparable to Medium-Low settings at a very low resolution (most games don't even reach 1280x720) and usually at low fps too, with 30fps being the current standard. The G73JH totally smokes the consoles by a wide margin it is not even funny.

Just look at how RE5 runs on the G73JH--- full 1920x1080 res, max AA and AF with steady fps near 60. The xbox version runs at 1280x720, medium settings and only gets 30fps.

Now with DX11, there are more tools to use the new power of the DX11 cards. We can have graphic effects that will make the consoles cry. Hell, when the consoles released, they were basically outdated. By the PS3 launch, the nvidia 8800 GTX was released. A beast much more powerful than what the PS3 has.

 

Greedy! What, the 720p ones Ken made aren't good enough for you!?

 

What games currently out would use all the threads (8?) on the I7? And what is coming soon...?

 

Ok, I guess I will just have to play games on low when this is outdated for a bit haha thanks for your response!

 

Sorry. I guess I'm too used to watching videos on my PS3 to notice. I don't play any console games at all, so I was just taking an educated stab.

I did watch the FF XIII 720p trailer, and the in-game graphics were very good, but you're right. This was 720p. The girlfriend is wanting FF XIII when it hits the shelves, so we were watching trailers yesterday.