BIG NEWS!! New Asus Sandy Bridge laptop G73SW IS COMING SOON!!

Link of G73SW: G73SW-TZ083V Asus 17.3i FHD i7-2630QM (4 core)/GTX460M 1.5GB/DDR3 1333 8G/Hybrid koopkompas.nl

Specification
CPU: i7-2630QM 2.0GHZ
GPU: Nvidia GTX 460M GDDR5
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1333
Hard Drive: Hybrid SSD 1TB
Optical Drive: 4X Blu-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo
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i7-2630QM's performance is way better than I think it is. Check out this site: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

In 3DMark06 CPU, i7-2630QM scored 5071, thats the level of desktop i7-940
i7-2820QM scored 5790, thats close to desktop i7-975!!

 

Is there a big difference in performance between i7-2630QM and i7-740QM?
What's the counterpart of i7-740QM? If yes, does the counterpart a big advantage/difference?

 

The 2630QM appears equivalent to a 920XM (except no overclocking obviously). It's the new entry-level mobile quad-core i7, so there's no equivalent to the 740QM.

The Sandy Bridge lineup really makes the the current mobile i7s look like crap

 

Yeah. it does.
thats a big difference.
any info on when these laptops are ready to be shipped?

 

i'm guessing the hm55 chipset in our JH's and JW's don't support sandy bridge..

 

I ordered g73jw-3de and waiting for it to ship. However, this wants me to wait.
Should I be happy with my upcoming new laptop or would you recommend to wait.

 

Let's put it this way. By the time you would get a G73SW, a better model would be out. Technology constantly advances so its unlikely that you will catch up with it.

Basically, just get the G73JW. The SW will probably cost a lot anyways.

 

Thank you for your reply.
Great response.
Also, I didn't see that it the GPU will be the same
+rep

 

Good point. I think the i7 740qm is more than enough for the majority of today's needs. And without a better GPU, the SW seems unnecessary, unless you have to have the best and greatest.

 

The real question is if the 2630 will have onboard gpu support out of the box

 

Yup. Unfortunately my 720QM gets completely overwhelmed (all cores at full load @ 1.73ghz) when I run flight simulator on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the GPU barely warms up. For my use of the G73 the CPU is by far the weakest link, giving me framerates in the teens.

For every other game (modern shooters, strategy, GTA IV, etc) the 720QM is perfectly fine.

A Sandy Bridge chip (like the 2720QM, 4x2.2ghz and I assume faster with turbo boost) would be a godsend. Of course a desktop would be a much better choice for such CPU-heavy applications, but I need the portability. Too bad I can't afford to drop a grand on a 940XM

 

Processor releases are ramping up; the change in socket is a clever marketing tactic on Intel's part, but is nothing new (Core, Core 2, I3 "Core 3", I5, I7). The branding equivalent of say, a 740QM I guess would be prefixed with a "2" - so a 2740QM (probably will be released later). This revision is still within overclocking range of Nehalems, so I'd probably wait for Ivy Bridge next year, when the core count changes again... and TDP actually goes down. The milestones for Sandy Bridge are improved integrated graphics (which Asus may or may not implement), the ring bus (taken from Nehalem EX).... which really benefits the integrated graphics, and AVX extensions (vs AMD's SSE5) - so floating point performance improves slightly (really, this is the root of the perf gains). I think it's all about lower price point with integrated graphics, and AVX with Sandy Bridge - this is quite a blow to AMD's price/performance/packaging advantages.

 

This upset me a bit since I just bought man and am a late adapter. I then checked the link and it appears that its gonna start north of 2 grand so I don't feel nearly as bad. I have to admit, the specs seem very good, but I will be happy with what I have because its such a step up. It'll be interesting to see what Asus brings to CES.

 

i7-2630QM's performance is way better than I think it is. Check out this site: Mobile Processors - Benchmarklist - Notebookcheck.net Tech

In 3DMark06 CPU, i7-2630QM scored 5071, thats the level of desktop i7-940
i7-2820QM scored 5790, thats close to desktop i7-975!!

 

Wow - if there's an 2820QM for ~$1500, my just built G73JH with 16gb ram, dual momentus xt's + vertex 2 boot drive, 92% gamut auo will become my 6 year old nephews!

 

"i7-2630QM" does not exist.... its "i7-2620M"

the 2620 is not quad core, only dual... the first line of quad core sandy bridge is the "i7-2720QM"

 

The G73SW isn't the only one...here's one from HP, supposedly with the "i7-2630QM" and the HM55 chipset , which doesn't make sense:

HP Pavilion dv7-5000ea

 

I'm a little sad that new mobility GPU's didn't make it in. I know the 460M is practically brand new, but AMD has some products that are getting "stale".

Oh well, I didn't really want a good excuse to upgrade my G73. I'm perfectly happy with the performance of the 720QM.

 

Honestly there is not much of a difference between the 740QM and the 920XM not at stock speeds, and not something that would effect 99.7% of the games out there.

What makes the 920 so good is overclocking it to about 3.2-3.4ghz or even higher with additional cooling.

I like the CPU upgrade and all but sticking with the GTX460 makes it an uncomplete upgrade so I think not many if any would be compelled to upgrade to this unit, it would be more or less a new market standard for new purchases.

Id hold out if I was Asus and wait for the next GPU cycle so you can upgrade both the cpu & gpu and create a much more compelling laptop.

 

Hey Lee, I'm having the same dilemma. Do I wait for Feburary for a G73SW or buy the tricked out G73JW with the i7-940?

How happy are you with your new machine?, assuming you recieved it.

I may have to break down and buy it, I'm not sure if the old Dell will hold-up.

 

Even though I did not receive it yet, I would suggest to buy the g73jw.
Yeah, I am pretty much set on this laptop. Be happy with what I get. However, it will depend on your situation.

The reason I am buying now and not wait is because I wanted to buy g73jh at first. I waited it out because I heard lots of problem about it. Then, g73jw came along with the news about the 3de version. Finally, I set my mind on the 3d version. Now, another advancement comes out.

Like hendrixboogie said a few pages back: "Technology constantly advances so its unlikely that you will catch up with it. "

The point is technology advances too quickly.
In my opinion, if you can wait then do so.
Also, I believe that if you tricked out a g73jw-3de (if this is what you're getting). It won't be that far back compare to g73sw just because it will come with the same GPU.
To sum it up, it's all up to YOU!

 

I hope that they also release a G73SW - 3DE

 

+1 for a G53 w/ SB + Optimus!

 

Here you go!! G53SW
Aquila Technology : G53SW-SZ043V - Asus G53SW i7-2630QM 8GB RAM 1TB SSD 15.6 HD LED NV GTX460 1.5G VRAM Blu-Ray Writer 802.11b/g/n Webcam BT Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Bag Mouse 2 Year Global

 

That link is in New Zealand dollars. So ... uh ... USD is what, half of that? lol...

Anyways, as great as the CPU upgrade is (and it is HUGE, considering ...) a gaming laptop lives and dies by the GPU. Which ... well, as others have said, isn't getting upgraded.

For sure, if I could get a 2720 instead of my 720 I'd do it. But, tech is ALWAYS improving, and I'm quite happy with my 720qm.

 

Will it be possible to get a new motherboard which fit with the sandy bridge for our g37?

 

Disappointing that a year after the g73jh release with the ati hd5870, we still get a weaker gpu with the new SB line up...

 

The laptop is just too expensive, as expected, with the Sandy Bridge update even because the GPU isn't new.

 

The upcoming R3 of the Alienware M17x includes an ATI HD 6900M with Sandy Bridge i7-2720QM. Now THAT's an upgrade. Over 20,000 3Dmarks.

Alienware M17x R3

Hopefully Asus will jump on that bandwagon and offer a model with the 6900M. I'm just not very impressed with the Nvidia 460M.

 

That's why you go and buy a JH! G73JH FTW!

Panther214

 

OMG thank you for this post. I got the notice in my email about a reply to my post hAHAHA.. Such exciting news, too bad that $2,702.96nzd converts to $2000usd They better have next-gen gpu and also make a G53 version.

 

Asus is known for jumping to the almost any new tech, atm you should blame ATI that they havent released their 6900m, so asus is just going to release it with the GTX460m, but Asus also refreshes very fast, for example, the G51VX was released last year give or take mid year, and they released an update with the G60VX and G51J with win7, couple of months after arrandale hit, and we got the G51JX and G60JX, so im expeting to see the G73SW with Sandy bridge an GTX460m and couple of months after a refresh that will have the 6900m, just gotta wait for ATI to release it.

 

@Abula Yep, going even further back, it's the same story for the G50V and G50Vt, a couple of months apart, and a large GPU upgrade.

I'm a bit suspicious of the relationship between ATI and ASUS after the G73 vbios fiasco -- have you seen a lot of new mid-level notebooks with ATI parts in them? Maybe the next thing we'll see is a 5 series NVIDIA part like the recently rumored 560M instead of ATI northern islands.

 

Thats a good point, we might never see it, although i have a mix feeling cause they can still benefit financially from a new release, and seems asus enjoys releasing new stuff. There are rumors about the GTX580m already that we might see some more info on CES, but maybe a lower end GTX570/560 is what asus might wait for, seeing how nvidia is pricing their top end.

 

Besides just having "new tech," what's the relevance of an SB cpu in the much acclaimed Asus gaming lappies? Will they have switchable graphics?

 

I will wait. After watching the problems of the G73JH vbios mess and other problems I'm content to sit tight until a stable SB model arrives... hopefully with an ATI 69xxM since I've had a long and unpleasant history with Nvidia.

It's supposed to be a significant upgrade to the overall architecture and the onboard Intel Graphics is touted to be twice the power of the current Intel HD. I suppose Asus might have a few models with Optimus switchable graphics on the ones with Nvidia cards. I've read about many headaches with switchable graphics and I intend to avoid that. Just give me straight-up ATI that works without major tweaking... but that may be too much to ask.

 

Well SB quads will have a intel gpu built in the cpu, so in essence yes, but it really depends if Asus will allow it, we have seen dual core with arrandale that dont allow switching gpus, like MSI GX640, so it could be capable, but it might not be available or enable.

Its going to be interesting if they going to allow in desktops also, but its another variable, that if drivers suck, we might have issues. Specially things like PB kickign players with optimus based systems.

I would really like to have future version with switchable or optimus, but i would prefer to have it if its completly stable and no issues with games and anticheat, else just another variable to deal with....

 

Although yes, they went from the g51vx to g51j rather quickly, I think the very fast move to the g51jx was in response to the power draw issues created by coupling a turboboost processor with a power hungry 260m. Going to the g51jx was a bit of a step down in performance (but a step up in stability). I guess what I'm saying is that the g51j community felt that the -jx release was actually a crisis management moment, where asus released an updated model in order to fix a problem in an older model.

 

@DCx I see your point, but a lot of other 360M systems were released at the same time, and the Jx had the same throttling as the J. If you disable the BIOS throttling, you can get the G51J to draw too much on battery, but it was just at the borderline for the PSU. We don't need to rehash all of this, I just wanted to share my experience since I spent a lot of time on that problem (along with others here).

 

if it's not switchable graphics or optimus, it's really not worth upgrading imo. The m11x has been using optimus for quite a while now and they've been able to use the latest nvidia drivers with little issues.
also, if you don't want switchable graphics, you can always change it to 'discrete' in the bios settings.

 

@hteng There's no way to switch optimus systems to use just the discrete card. Maybe there is on ATI systems, but I don't know, I've never owned either.

 

All of this will hopefully push the prices of the 820 and the 940xm down. I Can dream right? If in a year or so it comes down to a reasonable 200ish price, i'd jump on it and bump my ram to 12 or more.

 

hmm i guess you are right, i do own a m11xR1, which is manual switchable graphics but have been frustrated by Dell's abandonment in graphic driver updates. I end up changing to discrete to use the 260.99 drivers.

anyway, from what i read of the m11xR2, they were able to use the nvidia drivers directly (verde ones?). And there's a community that helps mod drivers.

I think it'll become a norm in the future when Sandybridges and switchable/optimus options are more widespread.

 

The way I understand it, there are rumored systems that have multiplexers like second-generation software switchable graphics, but are optimus equipped. This would hypothetically let you switch to just discrete, or use optimus if you wanted it. I haven't seen any of these systems anywhere, and as far as I can understand it would kill the cost-savings of optimus in the first place. On normal optimus systems the BIOS option is to use only the IGP, since the IGP is used either way to output to the display, there's no multiplexer for the discrete GPU to enable it alone. If you (or anyone else) has seen one of these rumored optimus systems that has a switch for only discrete, please post about it and PM me.

 

As if M15 or M17x has optimus, they have optimus for m11x because of the battery efficiency needed for portability.

G73 is a 17" desktop replacement type of laptop that is very powerful and saying the upgrade isn't worth it because it doesn't have Optimus is dumb

 

why is it dumb to want to have more options or use something that's available? Is it impossible to do? no, it's just a matter of time. Sandybridge already has IGP, it's obviously more powerful processing wise, but to some people it's not worth upgrading if the features are no taken full advantage of.

I want my G73 to have 5+ hours of battery when im not gaming, what's dumb with that? it's people like you that are always blindly take in anything from laptop manufacturers that's being dumb.

edit: on a sidenote, m17x R3 already has optimus, see the benchmark screenshots
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...r3-sandybridge-benchmark-you-may-wanna-c.html

 

i agree. for the first time we can have the best of both worlds - a high end gaming laptop with the endurance of a netbook on batteries.

 

While there is nothing wrong with wishing and your right about expecting more every day, the biggest consumption is the monitor, i really doubt you will see 5 hours anytime soon.

Most of the huge battery life notebooks are small size, like netbooks, part of it its their cpu consume very little, but also their screens are very small, even moving into culvs, like ul30 also similar principle, a low voltage cpu paired with small screen. If you think about it, there is nothing in the 17'' market with huge batery life, part of it, its very little people wishing for it, but also the screen cripples a lot the what the battery might get.

Nvidia atm is going extremly low on idle clocks, 50/135, given that a intel gpu will still be a lot lower, im guessing woudlnt even be more than 1 hours worth of battery. With a more efficent cpu like sb and if switchable works on them i expect maybe 1 hour more of battery life, but 5 hours i honestly doubt it.

 

Those damn laws of physics. When will they just go away and let me have my LCARS Padd.

 

I understand the FHD screen is consumes alot of energy. But if the packard Bell LX86 can get 7 hours out of Integrated Graphics with a 17.3 inch 16:9, 1600x900 pixel, LED-Backlight, Chi Mei N173O6-L02 display.

Review Packard Bell EasyNote LX86 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

then 5 hours or less with the G73 isn't that far fetch, of course, the above laptop has an inferior processor and graphics card. But I believe it's doable. yes, it's very wishful thinking, anything that's more than 3-4 hours would make me happy.

edit: ok the Packard Bell has a pretty huge battery, a 9cell 99wh compare to the G73's 8cell 75wh