Asus G73JH 920XM Upgrade

Should I do it? Will there be that much performance increase for gaming (I hear CPUs involvement in games procesing is limited), and if I should, how do I update the BIOS?

And one more, should I try an Engineering Sample chip?

 

Do you understand that this sticker exists?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5877272&postcount=117

Regarding ES/QS
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6128115&postcount=3

 

Yeah, it voids the warranty, right? Not worried about that, I can fix most things on my own. Thanks, M

 

I can't give you all kinds of numbers to crunch, but I have read time and time again that for everyday purposes and hard core gaming purposes, you will not need anything more powerful than the standard i7 720 CPU for quite some time to come...some say even the Core 2 Quads are overkill. The "bottleneck" is the GPU (and to some degree the hard drive capabilities). Considering the G73JH has the best single mobile GPU on the market, you won't get any better until a crossfire version comes out, or if you get 2 Nvidia 285 GPU's in SLI. I can't imagine plunking down $500 to $1000 more, especially voiding ASUS' excellent warranties, to upgrade the CPU. If you want anything more than standard, I would put the money into 1 or 2 SSD hard drives to maximize performance. Really the only reason you would need the heavier CPU's are for heavy encoding or video editing.

 

that cpu creates a lot more heat which in turn reduces the life span of other parts. you aren't gonna be able to fix a broken motherboard on your own, should that ever be a problem.

Yes, the processor is a lot faster, but it's better for video encoding and such. Won't be worth it in gaming. Save yourself $1000. AND DON'T GET THE ES CHIP

 

That's an oxymoron. Warranty stickers inside and weeks to replace a keyboard. Compared to Dell/lenovo/Sony they get an F- in my book.

 

so CPU upgrades are out of the question.. just a little irrelevant question? How is easy is to replace RAM and hard drives? How many screws do u have to remove and does it void ur warranty?

 

There is one ram stick that is difficult to get to and the other three can be replaced easily along with the hdd. The only thing with a warranty sticker is the CPU. Any cpu upgrade would have to be done by an authorized reseller.

This does leave you free to replace the thermal pads/paste on the GPU.

 

I already added 4GB RAM and two SSDs but I still can't max out settings on games, I can't even max out everything on Neverwinter Nights and that game is 8 yrs old. Sometimes, it runs terribly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with the PC, I'm just trying to get the most out of it possible.

Some good info, thanks guys.

 

That's discouraging. I am (finally) getting my G73JH this week. From what I have heard from numerous others they can max out or near max out every game on the market including Battlefield Bad Company 2, Crysis Warfare, Just Cause 2, Dirt 2, etc. I wonder why that game would be having problems...maybe being so old it doesn't get along well with Windows 7, the i7 CPU, etc?

 

Wow, that's weird. I have the RBBX05 Best Buy version and I am able to run XPlane in full screen with everything just about maxed, online with VATSIM and FSEconomy clients, without any problems at all. Also don't have any issues with Eve Online with everything jacked up. I wouldn't have thought NWN would push the CPU/GPU harder than a flight sim, or a MMORPG with tons of eye candy.

 

Well you have to consider "maxing" a game means different things to different people. To some it means maxing every single setting (even AA) and maintaining 60+ FPS at all times to be a success. To others it means max settings in a game, which max or may not set AA or even all sliders to the max for that matter, and 30 FPS.

I don't even consider AA as part of "max" settings becuase at 1920 it is not needed (yes I can see the diff in a screenshot but not during gameplay). I am also happy with 30 FPS unless it's a first person shooter I would like closer to 60. So I may "max" some games out that to others would not be acceptable.

 

Yeah, that's a good point, I should clarify. I mean max out EVERYTHING, water reflections, refraction, shadows, condensation, sweat drops, body odor, stains, everything possible.

Like I said, I am VERY happy with the PC, I LOVE it. I can play Crysis on my 50" plasma via HDMI with everything on "High" at 1280x720...BUT not on "Very High" 1920x1080.

I'm expecting too much and you have to realize this is my first gaming PC so I really don't know what I'm talking about. I thought changing the time on my computer ahead on hour would overclock it. (I'm kidding)

And as far as NWN goes, it's a compatibility issue mostly, sometimes I can play it with everything maxed, and I mean everything. Othertimes, I can't, it's buggy. I get best results running it in compatibility mode for XP, so it is a 7 thing