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

haha, I was a little surprised by the logic of comparing receiving the machine on Monday to Friday, that's why I asked lol

I also did a little check on the Sager machine, I must say that it's pretty good value too considering it comes with a Core i7 820 CPU , Windows 7 Pro as standard.

However, the RAM and video card just aren't comparable to what G73JH has to offer.

Overall, NP8760 offers pretty good value as well and it seems people say its quality is very good.

If I wasn't buying G73JH, it would probably be my second choice, followed by AW M17X


Out of curiosity, does NP8360 have USB 3.0, eSATA or Express card?

 

Lol
10chars.

 

Looks like excaliberpc has them 'in stock'.
http://www.excaliberpc.com/595464/asus-g73jh-a2-17.3-notebook.html

has anyone ever ordered from them before? reputable reseller?

A few days ago I was all about buying an m11x, then considered the 'future-proof-ness' (that's a word now ) of such a small rig and decided that something that small and with a CPU like the su7300 wouldn't be worth all that much in the next year or so. Then I saw this monster. I've got a G50vt best buy version and it runs just fine, but damn. This thing beasts my quad core desktop rig.

Now I can't stop thinking about this thing and think that maybe something like the m11x would be better bought at a later time. Maybe after they upgrade the CPU.

Wow, sorry, got real off topic there. So, excaliberpc. Safe to buy from?

Also, if anyone can help out with some excuses to the wife once this thing gets to the house, it'd be much appreciated. I'm thinking something along the lines of... "The government sent it to me as part of my mission. I've already told you too much."

 

yeah, Excaliberpc is one of the recommended resellers mentioned

As for the excuse..... maybe a new pet mechanical dog?

 

allanh the Sager does not have any OS standard.

 

go to http://www.sagernotebook.com and customerise the NP8760, Windows 7 Pro is a standard with no added cost

 

Excellent.

Well, order placed with overnight Sat shipping, although we're expecting 1-2 ft of snow here between today and tomorrow so we'll see what happens. Go GO FeDEx!

Excited to load this thing up with Bioshock 2 next week.

How does the pet mechanical dog work? Should I buy her one? We already have 2 dogs, so maybe another 'animal' isn't such a good idea.

 

this lappy is your new 'dog'

 

Does anyone know if the ASUS G73JH-A1 is easy to upgrade (specifically its CPU and GPU)?

I assume RAM and HDD can be upgraded easily (especially with a SSD)?
Thank you.

 

I can't confirm, but trust that it is. All the ASUS lappys I've had in the past were easily modified.

Once I get mine, I'll let you know. I plan to install an SSD as well.

 

Use search. The answer is NO and is more complex than just a single word answer, but I am not going to spend time retyping all the information that is already available in this thread and the faq in the owner's lounge.

 

Adding an SSD is very easy on any Asus laptops. Ram should also be no problem for the G73 unless you plan to change all 4 ram sticks since the ram 2 slot is underneath the motherboard, you might need to do a little disassembly.

 

Just a note, since I saw earlier people discussing thermal compounds and their potential effects on performance: I've built and overclocked desktops for a number of years, and yet haven't managed to keep up with the huge number of TIMs that have come out in the last couple years. I did, however, find a very nice shootout with 80 different compounds. Their results did find IC 7 Diamond, MX-2, and AS5 in the top tiers of their results. However...the order might surprise you, given the cost of the individual compounds.

It was with this in mind, as well as having used AS5 for as long as I can remember, that I chose that for my TIM upgrade from XoticPC. I'm not trying to undermine their prices or anything, please understand. It's just that as long as we're overclocking, we're nitpicking. We're concerned with fractions of a degree. I thought I'd bring this to people's attention, especially when considering their options, and the hanging question in the air of whether the thermal paste application invalidates the warranty.

 

What is the context in which the excuse needs to be made?
- Will your wife be able to verify that you paid for it and how much you did? If not, then "I won it in a lucky draw" or "It was on special. I saved over 50%!" or "I swapped with a friend who preferred my current laptop" (depends on how the thing will be delivered though)
- Is the current state of your present laptop known to your wife? If not, then "My laptop broke down" (this could be faked, for example, by doing a full system encrypt with TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt allows you to use a custom boot message, which could be worded to appear to be a boot error).
- Does your job involve computers at all? If so, "I got this from work"/"I need this for work".

Or have I misunderstood and the excuse is actually for the reason why you are spending all your free time on it? =P

 

Dog ate my homework so now to futureproof all my homework, I need to buy this stealth fighter notebook that it can fool a dog's senses and not get eaten.

Done, perfect! I would of used this myself.

 

All very solid suggestions. However, since I'm a terrible liar, my only hope is to say something so ridiculous that it comes across as funny. I think humor will be my only saving grace on this one. If I can make her laugh then I'm in good shape.

 

I like this. Definitely going to need to work the 'stealth fighter' bit in there. Maybe I can pitch is as a home defense 'investment'!

 

Oh yeah defintely. You can totally start talking about home security and how dangerous the neighbourhood is gotten over the years. With all the new gadgets coming out the past few years, they even incorporated the F-117 Stealth Fighters into a laptop form. Providing precision, stealth, and air superiority in the comfort of your own home.

 

If the military can justify investing billions on a stealth fighter, how can you not invest a couple thousand?

 

You are so right.

 

I'm a little surprised that a laptop like the G73JH-A1 would not have an e-SATA port, USB 3.0, or even IEEE Firewire.

I know it's a gamer laptop, but seriously....

 

as I didnt know anything about USB 3.0 untill I read it in this thread, not too much of a let down for me. although I did kinda hope for an expresscard slot so I can hook up a 360 and use my laptop as a 1080p screen....

 

Then don't get it. If the USB 3.0 and e-SATA is needed, then feel free to spend an extra $2,000 to get it. Considering this comes with either option of SSHD + 500 GB HDD or 1 TB of HDD space, what do I care if the external harddrive I use now is a USB one? That's right, to get the same performance specs, and your e-SATA port from a laptop, it's another $2000. Good luck.

 

I'm thinking I saw your other thread that you started. I think the new N71 might suite you better for a more well rounded laptop. This G73 really is a 1 trick pony. It will make your games pretty and fast. Period...

As for upgrades, sorry about previous post. Just been asked so many times.

No Gpu upgrade. Asus uses a reverse mxm slot that is not standard and do not resell just gpus.
No Cpu upgrade WITHOUT possibly breaking your warranty. There is a breakable warranty sticker that MAY void your warranty if you remove it.

Mem: easy upgrade.
Hdd easy upgrade.

 

Right, Asus has made it clear who they have made this laptop for, Gamers. It has the ROG tag on it to begin with.

If you need a powerful laptop and need extensive HDD space and USB 3/Firewire for connecting with external tools, like if you were a music producer (thinking electronica), then this wouldn't be for you.

Just use common sense, look at the laptop for what it is and what it was designed to do, one thing, create the best performance/cost gaming machine.

 

Thanks Evensen007!

No apologies needed, my friend. I can understand how frustrating seeing the same question asked repeatedly can be.

 

Quick question to those of you getting this gaming laptop: do you already have a high performance gaming desktop?

If yes, why get this gaming laptop (as opposed to using your high performance desktop)? I'm just trying to come up with enough good reasons personally, other than it's there and I can afford it.

Thanks.

 

Decided to ask in the other thread

 

....because I don't live with my girlfriend and I spend a lot of time at her apartment and my house. She'll be working on homework but would like my company meanwhile my friends are texting me to play some games. I either blow them off or I blow her off.

With a gaming laptop I don't have to do either AND I get the convenience of a laptop so I have a system when I visit my parents.

 

Well, I find it surprising that this laptop has a v.92 fax modem, considering I don't know many gamers who need to receive or send faxes in the middle of a scrim....

Maybe you can explain that one to me....

 

There's not much difference. I'm surprised you don't know that already either....

 

I'm getting it for the following reasons:

1. I need a laptop.
2. I want to go LAN at my friend's house without lugging around a tower.
3. I want to be able to go with my fiancee to my future sister-in-law's house and not be bored stupid for a weekend.

 

I do have a really decent gaming desktop which has a GTX 280 in it. I also have a Macbook Pro, which is pretty decent for mobile gaming with Win7, but I decided that I wanted to consolidate to one machine. One requirement I had when I started to make the decision is that I didn't want to lug my desktop around anymore for LAN's or whatever.

This laptop answers that requirement. Yes, the video card will be a tad slower than my current desktop, but I can deal with that with a little OC'ing.

I'll basically be paying for this machine with the money I get from selling my desktop and my macbook Maybe need to dig into a little bit of the tax rebate too, but oh well!

 

Thanks to those who have replied to my question so far. I'm interested in hearing a couple more.

Here's a link to a review on this laptop. Even has 3DMark06 scores (both with and without the twin turbo mode enabled).

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Hands-On-Asus-G73Jh-with-ATI-s-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5870.25103.0.html

 

You're right, however, I'd like to point out that if your external hardware doesn't require it, you can get by just fine with limited music production on a rig like this.

I run Reaper DAW software with several software instruments including the relatively hardware taxing BFD2 using only an external hardrive for the sound libraries. USB2 is plenty fast for laying down single or double stereo tracks of 24b 96kHz raw audio given the proper hardware. For example I use a Line6 KB37 and a Alesis DM10 Drum Set for MIDI and audio in on my ASUS G50VT and never had any latency or processing issues. For the most part, and this applies even more to electronica genres, if you're not running any raw audio into the machine, and are instead using software synths and MIDI, this machine will do you just fine. More than just fine, really.

That being said, if you plan on hooking up recording hardware capable of recording more than 3 separate tracks in parallel, it's likely the hardware would require eSata or firewire.

 

thats for the hardcore old-school text based rpg gamers

or if anyone else remembers the pre-steam CS days

 

Where exactly do you see the jack for the modem? Because I dont see it on any pictures of the g73

 

Or Quake 1 and the ORIGINAL Team Fortress. I better shut up before we get into the "my first computer was older than yours" discussion.

 

I just talked to Joseph from xotic pc, I'm getting the A2 very very soon! I preordered on day number 3 that it was listed

 

I just found out I'll be getting the A2 tomorrow and I ordered on February 5, 2010 @ 10:30 A.M

 

I'm going by the tech specs listed on the Xoticpc.com website.

 

Yes, I have a Hi Perf desktop. My reason for the laptop is twofold... I'm tired of packing a full tower case and monitor with all accessories to LAN parties with friends, and I work a 24hr shift. After 4pm all our duty chores are done, training is over and it's 'personal' time. I can game my arse off if I want, and again, packing a desktop every other day would be a royal pain. Plus it would leave my wife without a computer to use.

The only hassle will be transferring game saves between them if I choose to progress the same characters.

EDIT to add: as a bonus I can hook the laptop into the work projection TV to collectively watch Blu Rays (of which I have a large collection) as well as while I am down running my fishing boat I can also hook into the cabin TV to watch movies when it's too rough to go out.

 

Played D&D in middle school with paper, pencil, and dice!

Never thought I'd grow up to be a banker (or golfer, for that mattter). Funny how things change as we get older....

 

For me it was more simple.

I started in College. I wanted to have a computer that I could use for gaming and school work. But also wanted a laptop I could take to school, as I like doing work at the library and take notes (typing much faster and more legible than quick handwriting). Plus with typing I can look at the slides, demonstrations and type, whereas I have to look down to write. I chose laptop also because of budget. Laptops then were still expensive regardless of which one I got, not like today with deals on $300 laptops. I couldn't get both a laptop and a gaming desktop.

I ended up with an Acer. The first notebook ever released with the desktop AMD 64 with the ATi 9600. With two batteries last me 3 classes in a day, really bad battery life, but it worked out fantastic in the end. That had two fan holes on top, so it was not quiet. The fan could be above the keyboard. Good part, it never overheated and I was able to play UT2003 fine at it's max 1400*1050 resolution.

After that, I just couldn't go back to desktop. I got the Asus G1 that lasted me 4 years. Granted I've been playing older games like WoW for a while, now Killing Floor.

Tomorrow, hopefully the A2. I'm not a hardcore gamer, don't have the time anymore. So just playing casually, I don't need a dedicated gaming desktop anymore.

Also I've been waiting 2 years for Asus to finally come with an awesome ATi notebook with the high resolution screen.

Honestly, I have been very dissapointed with my experience with Nvidia. I hate their driver support, I hate their rebranding methods and their misleading marketing. The Go7700 was expecting more, but seriously, it was barely an upgrade over the 9600, especially with it's heating issues. Fried it twice. Yeah, _|_ Nvidia.

 

I do have a high perf gaming desktop, but I also use that desktop for a lot of my audio interfaces in my home recording setup. For me, separating the two reduces the amount of crap on my recording rig.

I don't need this, as I already have a decent gaming laptop (Asus G50VT) but I can afford it and have an obsession with running games at max settings. It looks pretty wild, and when my friends buy their iPads I can destroy them with the optional stealth fighter Apple defense system built into the G73's hard drive bay.

 

Yeah the iPad makes no sense. Wait a few months.

Lenovo is introducing their own pad. But this one will have a dock, which has it's own larger HDD, ram, more powerful CPU. Pad when you need to take it somewhere when you don't the power, dock it when you need more juice.

Sorry for the sidetrack.

 

I will tomorrow! Reason being I'm getting both is my old high perfmance gaming desktop died on me recently. I also used that desktop for work purposes. At home I rather much use a solid high performance desktop over a laptop. However, since I do travel quite a bit, I also got this laptop as well (to suit my gaming needs on the road and also anything else for that matter )

 

I'll eventually re-purpose it as either a Hackintosh (OS X) or a VMware ESXi server.

Also, another reason I'm going for a laptop with a giant screen is so that I can take my Virtual DJ rig somewhere outside my office at home.

UHN-TISS-UHN-TISS-UHN-TISS-UHN-TISS-UHN-TISS-UHN-TISS!

 

One more question: if you could get all these wonderful gaming attributes into a 14" laptop's form factor, would you buy it (assume it costs the same as the G73JH)?

Or would you prefer your gaming laptop to be a certain size or greater?

Thank you all again for your answers to why you ordered the G73JH.

 

So can anyone confirm that the A2 has arrived but people who only had the option of ordering the A1 are going to be waiting for another several weeks?

I pre-ordered from Xotic direct payment almost a month ago now, and my order was updated two days ago asking for payment. When I call I am told end of Feb early March and no mention of anything shipping now. They don't even ask for my order number.

I can't see myself sending a direct payment in a month before I *might* receive what I paid for and honestly I am suprised they would even require that.

My current 5-year old lappy that I use for work has been going BSOD crazy, and I have to do something soon.

Anyway, just wondering if any other A1 early adopters have a different story because at this point I may get stuck going to Best Buy and getting a Gateway or something. I would really like to avoid that if possible.

Does anyone know if there any other vendors that have stock or a different story than what I am hearing?