Asus G73jh vs JW vs Kobalt in the UK

Hi all,

Hope you may be able to shed some light on my query! I am keen to buy a decent gaming laptop and having relied on my Dell Inspiron 9300 for far too long, have decided to upgrade. I have been looking around recently on these forums and being based in the UK I have come to the following conclusions in terms of my possibilities.

Asus G73 (JH or JW)
I like the sound of these both in the JH and JW formats but cannot really find anywhere to get them here in the UK without a huge wait except for this one:

ASUS G73JH-TZ008V buy online | Currys

This looks ok but I have a few reservations such as buying off Currys (!) and that you cannot change the specs. What is the consensus on JH versus JW? Anyone know where to get one in the UK?

The other option I thought of is as follows:

Kobalt Systems - G970X 17.3" Notebook Overview

Any info as to where I can get a Asus G73jw in the UK and opinions on the above Kobalt machine would be greatly appreciated.

PS. dont really want a Alienware comp!

Thanks

 

If you have the money go for the g970x featuring two 480m in SLI, my only concern is you gonna receive a heavy brick as laptop... this notebook is huge

 

it looks like that kobalt has a desktop processor, which will beast out the i740qm in the g73s

 

If you dont need so much mobility (just move it from desk to desk) and are just looking for the more powerful gaming machine, the Clevo X7200 (G970X) should be your first choice. The desktop i7 is in an entirely different world than these mobile CPUs (i know since i owned the predecessor of this laptop with an i7-950) and the dual 480m will smoke the single 5870.

The power issues on this laptop have also been worked out as i hear (they were giving them with too weak adapters in the beginning ) and i can tell you its built like a tank (superb cooling, proper component access - you dont have to take the whole thing apart to repaste it or change/upgrade components, quality components, has all you can think of including raid and all the ports from USB 3.0, fireware, TV card to eSATA, much better keyboard and touchpad, more sturdy materials without flex used for the chassis...), BUT it is much heavyer, a bit thicker (at the front decently thicker) and a bit louder.
The G73JH is a decent machine IF you have the luck of getting one without all the problems that can and cant be fixed (overheating, GSOD, PSOD, keyboard lag, missing keystrokes, erratic touchpad...) - as i said some time ago its cheaper for a reason . And if you do decide to get an Asus try to get the JW instead, since the 460m has less issues, runs cooler and the JW has USB 3.0 which you might miss later on and it has a two button touchpad design unlike the JH's single button.

The choice is up to you... totally depends on what you want/need - a more portable machine or just the best gaming laptop you can get your hands on...

 

Hey Hellcry, did you receive the new touchpad yet? I have not seen your feedback on install.

 

No, the order status is still on "waiting for parts" ...

 

Thanks for the help all. Is there any chance with two 480's in SLI will cause problems with games - by that i mean are games designed yet to handle SLI? Excuse my ignorance if they are and SLI is quite old news! Also, is 4gb RAM enough to run graphically intensive games on high settings?

 

I'd opt for 6-8 Gb RAM 4Gb is cutting it pretty close

 

4GB is fine, no game I am aware of needs 4GB, most are around 2GB at most since I only know of Crysis that is 64 Bit. Any 32 Bit game will be around 2GB usually.

As for SLI, yes, SLI is supported in a lot of games, but just because it is supported doesn't mean it will always work for you. The #1 issue for both AMD and Nvidia is SLI. That's because almost no game is ever made designed for multi-GPU use, AMD and Nvidia have to enable that themselves.

Do you need SLI? Nope, every game should run on a single 480M, you just may not have 4X AA.

X7200 AvaDirect Review by AnandTech. The X7200 unit reviewed was from AvaDirect fully loaded with everything, fastest SSD, Hybrid HDD combo, with everything max. You can bet that AvaDirect used proper thermal grease for the 480M SLI and i7 and ensured cooling was done properly. No excuses from Clevo X7200 on that one, AvaDirect is a great Clevo reseller, they wouldn't send a unit to be reviewed unless they tested it themselves to be running at what they want.

Clevo X7200 is hard to recommend for what you get, for the money you pay. Here is a review. The Clevo X7200 doesn't actually run that cool considering it has 4 fans. GPU tops out at 102C with Furmark and around 92C for games. The noise level topping out at 53db. Gaming around 45db. That's louder than any desktop rig and it's louder than a refrigerator and it's same volume if you have someone talking to you. So imagine someone talking to you the entire time when you are trying to game, but the noise is annoying 4 loud fans? Extremely annoying. The power draw of that machine tops out at around 350 Watts. And the performance is less than a average gaming desktop. A i7 920 with HD5850 will still destroy this X7200. Putting a i7 9xx extreme in this machine is beyond stupid since the GPU will bottleneck it anyways. It's just plain stupid, all it does is raise the price, the heat and the noise level, no real benefit at all. No game will need even 30% of that and a normal i7 740QM should handle any video editing needs you may have. And no battery life. You can't use it on your lap or it will overheat and probably sterilize you. The power brick itself weighs more than a netbook and overall size bigger than a netbook also. The LCD is also mediocre for that price. The Hannstar would be amazing for $1,500 notebook, but not for X7200, it's shameful. For that price from HP you get a Dreamcolor, 1 billion color IPS display just for reference. They keyboard is downright terrible. The layout is idiotic, and overall flex and quality is bad also. It's not backlit either. G73 keyboard isn't awesome, it does fine for what it is. But the reviewer when using the Clevo keyboard was wishing he was using a G73 keyboard, that's how awful it is. You can't even use it on your bed, since the fans will be blocked and then your bed may light on fire (exaggeration). I can understand not lugging around 12 pound laptop and a 6 pound power brick, but at least be able to use it in bed... It not, then there is no point to it. I like using my G73 and gaming in bed just to relax before sleeping after homework and work. That's just me personally.

For the review though, it was stated the X7200 is the fastest mobile laptop machine ever made. So you do get that. But at the price and all the negatives above, IMO not worth it. I'd recommend looking at the Alienware m17X or buying a single GPU Clevo with 460M/HD5870M and using rest of money for desktop. Why? X7200 isn't mobile at all. You might as well just build a desktop since it will be just a desktop anyways. Using that at work or at school with those fan noises, people will probably destroy your laptop or kick you out.

Alienware m17x R2 is what I would get. Still can get a i7 920 which can handle anything you'll need. HD5870M is around performance of a HD5850, and can handle any game you want. Dell has been providing monthly driver updates to make sure it runs well on latest games. The RGB LED display is the best in the industry for gaming machine, nothing beats it. The all alumuinum casing is well made and stylish. The backlit keyboard allows you for customization and it's supposed to be an absolute dream to type on. The weight and size is around the same as X7200, slightly smaller. The fan noise while much louder than G73, is within reason. In stealth mode, on battery, it can get close to 2 hour battery. 1.5 hour-2 hours. Overall it's just a better machine than the X7200.

Alienware with RGB, HD5870M CF and i7 740M, 4GB of ram is about 2,000 pounds. That is more than enough for any gaming situation.

 

If you believe someone who claims that the Mobility 5870 is better than two GTX 480M in SLI then surely take his advice.

Ruckus at least look around at the benchmarks, even a single gtx 480m beats the mobility 5870, and the mobility 5870 is nowhere near the desktop HD 5850!
Some other faults in your advice: The cooling problems on the Clevo have been solved as reported by users (repaste it), the AW is still LOUDER even though it has only 2 fans (it also has its share of problems and runs pretty hot, which you would know if you went and looked at the forums and the comment about stylishness is just stupid - to me those AW laptops are the ugliest things i have ever seen, they look like christmas decorations when they light up, so thats just personal preference), some games are CPU dependant and will see a huge improvement from a desktop CPU (like GTA IV) and even those that arent will see at least a minor FPS boost (you can already see a difference between running a i7-720qm and i7-820qm) and encoding and such CPU demanding tasks will see a HUGE difference from a dektop CPU - the mobile CPUs dont even come close, the AW will NEVER last 2 hours gaming, neither of these machines will, you have to play plugged in - think of the battery as an emergency power system...
Both are big and heavy and not suitable for real mobility. These machines are meant to be used on a desk. If you want something to use on your lap, neither is appropriate, if you just want the most power you can pack in a laptop chassis (albeit a big one) this is it.
And if you are getting the Clevo, get 6GB ram. Why? Becouse it has a desktop motherboard, which supports TRIPPLE CHANNEL, so get 3x 2GB sodimms so you can actually use this benefit.

As said, this is the most extreme laptop you can find - a desktop mobo and cpu with two of the worlds most powerful, power hungry and hot gpus, so obviously youre pushing the limit and paying the premium for it. Consider what you really want first - a good gaming laptop that offers decent mobility, or a heavy beast that just packs the most power you can get.

 

Wow, learn to read. You wrote a wall of text and that had nothing to do with what I wrote. Alienware m17X CF has TWO HD5870s, about same as HD5850. And lastly wrote, if X7200 has best performance at massive disadvantages.

Thanks for the wall text with a few seconds of reading could have prevented.

 

No, the only thing i might have missunderstood is you comparing a 5870 to a HD5850 becouse you wrote it in such a way.
Youre comparing a heavy, loud and hot Clevo to a heavy, louder and also hot Alienware, but saying the latter, with a much weaker laptop CPU and slightly weaker gpus is a better choice than the first with a desktop CPU and slightly better gpus (and other things like a 3rd HD, 3 memory slots with tripple channel support...). So if you just care about performance and dont mind its not really mobile (intended for moving from desk to desk) the Alienware is a lesser choice. Thats all im pointing out. None of those machines is light, portable or silent, so if you need the most performance why settle for the lesser machine?
If the OP was looking for mobility, that neither of these machines will fit his needs anyway.