Buy G73 now, or wait?

It's as the Topic states.

My G51vx is finding a new home, and i'm wanting to replace it. With that said, should I buy the G73 now, (as in a few days from now) or should i wait until the new lineup comes up? And if so, how long until the new monsters come out?

 

Huron River and Sandy Bridge will be out in the first days of January 2011, but it may be a bit longer than that before ASUS refreshes its lineup. CES starts on the 6th, so that would be the earliest anyone would hear anything. If you can wait a few months, it might be worth it, but there are good prices on G73s for the holidays. It's too subjective a question for me to answer for you.

 

Can you tell me more about Huron River and Sandy Bridge?

 

Sure, here's some info:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/459313-forget-arrandale-sb-huron-river-platform-way.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/what-notebook-should-i-buy/534434-sandy-bridge-worth-wait.html

The Sandy Bridge Preview - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

Waiting is a losing cause imo. Always going to be new stuff on the horizon no matter when you buy.

 

If i had the Money last February for a G73, I wouldn't have hesitated, but seeing as it's almost 1 Year later, It's a bit different.

@ Groceries, Nice articles about the new Cpu's; but what about new graphics cards?

 

SB does sound nice. What do we think though for an Asus gamer? March 2011, maybe later since it seems the desktop cpus will be 1st, then business and low end laptops. High end stuff will most likely be later. How long are you willing to wait?

 

Long enough to justify a ~1700 purchase. I've had my G51vx for over 1.5 years now. And it has served me well. In reality, it could go on for another while longer, but i'd rather not upgrade to something that we know for sure will be outdated in a few months as apposed to a year or so.

 

ATI: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/490727-ati-mobility-hd-6000-series-roadmap.html

The new ATI stuff should be announced around the same time as CES.

NVIDIA: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/527313-nvidia-announces-gtx580-20-over-gtx480.html

I haven't seen anything about NVIDIA 5-series mobile cards.

 

The g51vx isn't far behind the g73 in terms of performance. Not sure I'd bother upgrading for another year or so.

 

@Dcx. I understand that the Upgrade isn't necessarily groundbreaking and that relatively similar performance can be squeezed out by upgrading.

However, i've found someone willing to pay $600 for the laptop, (when I bought it for $1100 18 months ago. Hence i'm selling now, playing my xbox for a few months, and then getting the new kid on the block. Is that not a bad idea?

 

If you're happy with that price and can deal without the computer, do it. I waited over 3 months to sell my G51 at the price I wanted, and then waited about a month to find a used G73. I nearly went insane in that month, but I think it worked out OK in the end. It's hard to be patient.

 

Same dilemma here, Would prices go down on cyber monday or black friday?

Im using my Asus G1s right now and I really want to upgrade, the problem is the release of new GPUs and proccies may pull the price down for this machine. Should I get the G73 or buy the previous generation ASUS G series?

Anyone knows the history or behavior of prices for this type of Laptops during holidays? I mean I really want to save. A few hundred buck off will definitely make me buy this in a snap.

 

The deepest discounts on ASUS machines are always right before a new model launches. The G51Jx went down about $250 in a month in a half before the G53 launched. I'm not sure you'll see that kind of a drop until late winter to early springtime, but you'll definitely see some discounts for the holidays. It's the middle of the cycle right now, and the Jw models are just starting to ship past their preorder backlogs.

 

Judging from my Experience in the past 5 years; i've snoozed through all BlackFridays/Cybermondays. Everything you don't want is on sale, it seems.

 

I would wait but not only for Sandybridge but for the mobile 6870/6970, ATI is releasing their desktops high end on dec 13, so im guessing early next year we will see mobile high end, maybe around march to get both sandy bridge n ati new gpu in the G74 , that was my personal plan, but a friend made a good offer on my G51 and wasnt willing to wait that long, so i just took the opportunity and upgraded.

 

Exactly - it's usually the bigbox retailers that have their lower spec machines priced really low, I wouldn't expect the nice models to really drop much on sale. There are a lot of reasons to buy a nicer model from a good reseller.

 

I'd buy cheap now and save up for the next gen on the 28nm architecture.

That's when the big boosts in laptop performance should happen. All the reviews are based on desktop components. IMO the leap in perfomance in mobile won't be that great until 28nm fabrication is up and running.

The next gen gaming and 3D graphics requires a lot more power than what we have now and that power needs to be main stream. Sandy Bridge won't be enough, current games are almost entirely based on GPU, so Sandy Bridge won't matter at all. Sandy Bridge would matter IMO if you were buying a Workstation laptop, but you are looking at gaming machines. The i7 740QM is more than enough for any current game and for the next 2 years IMO.

The next gen in gaming may not be entirely based on GPU, reading theoretical stuff from John Carmack and other developers, the power needed even CPU wise probably won't happen for another 2-3 years. So waiting for Sandy Bridge if you are worried about gaming is negligible.

Game developers now have many things to take into consideration when adapting to new technology. There are more console gamers than PC gamers. So have to contend with the 5-6 year old console technology. Laptop sales are increasing while desktop sales are dropping. There are more and more mobile gamers than desktop gamers. Soon laptop gaming will not be a minority. These are all things game developers will have to contend with.

So until Consoles and Laptops have enough power for next gen, IMO gaming will not be revolutionizing for a long time. Current G73jh should last you another 2 years of gaming IMO. XBox 360 and PS3 won't be replaced for at least another 3 years as Sony still believes there is more power to tap into PS3.

Example: COD Black Ops is using an engine that is older and more primitive than COD MW2... The next gen engine for BioShock 3 is... a modified Unreal 3 Engine, hardly impressive. Next Batman game will also be running on Unreal 3 Engine. Next gen MMORPGs for Guild Wars 2, Star Wars and Tera Online all will be able to run on ancient DX9 machines. Dragon Age 2 is now being developed for Console and PC by the same company. BioWare only did PC while the Console was outsourced for Dragon Age: Origins. So be prepared for DA2 to actually be worse than DA:O in many respects. The fear of your machine being outdated for gaming in 2 years no longer exists.

 

^^ ATI Southern Islands @ TSMC 28nm... around that time there will be the Intel 22nm Chief River & Ivy Bridge in late 2011.

 

Still won't matter until that is being utilized by Consoles also. Exciting for work and workstation laptops, but even now. Gamers who are using GTX 260M have no issues with current games. And the visual difference between DX11 and DX9 is negligible while gaming. It's only noticeable when you take screenshots for side by side comparisons. Also probably give at least 2 years for that level of power to be the norm among PC Gamers. As is, there are still desktop gamers who see no reason to upgrade their HD4870 or GTX 280, and I would agree with them.

 

So which one is a better buy? The one with Nvidia or ATI?

I will be using this for mostly 3d stuff. maya, zbrush, Photoshop and 3d max and a little gaming. basically I need a desktop replacement.

 

Hell, my actual desktop rig is still running a Nforce4 mobo, 2gigs of ddr400, amd4800 x2, ati 4850... (and that was considered pro 5 years ago in mid 2006).

But my general Conundrum is this. Upgrading to a g73 now and spending 1500 for a somewhat mediocre upgrade, or waiting until february-ish and getting a better upgrade for about the same price?

I remember, i spent $300 on a radeon x1900xtx. That thing started getting kicked in the groin after about 1 year or so. I spent $150 on a HD4850, that if i were to find another one for like $70, would still last me fourfold over the xtx. Saying that when the 4850 came out, (2008?) it is still very viable even 3 years later almost. Unlike the earlier xtx model.

So in this same train of thought, a g73 would remain viable longer than a g51, and a g74 would remain viable longer than a 73 and moreso than a 51. See what i'm saying? I'm fighting urges of instant gratification vs down the road joy.

 

The endless waiting game is a torture though, once you are in march, we might hear nvidia 5XX mobile coming soon, maybe a refresh of cpu for midyear with higher clocks, and so on, and then you might see ivory bridge coming by the ends of the year with new 28nm gpu, etc. Buy when you need it and be happy with it.

 

It's sort of subjective. The ATi 5870 is a little more powerful, but the JH model has more problems than the JW with the Nvidia 460m. You can find the older JH for cheap, though, if you look around.

 

Same dilemma here. Although Ruckus is dead on, I can't help myself salivating over these G73's. Even the 3D model is tempting (as mediocre as it might be).

Dilemma is... buy now since there's really no other laptop announced yet (if there is, please provide links) or wait till Jan 6 to see what will be "announced". Even if announced, you won't see it until maybe Spring time. Furthermore, they haven't announced AMD 6xxx or Nvidia 5xx mobile parts.

So far what we will be looking forward to is Sandy Bridge mobile cpu/mobo in coming months with no 6xxx or 5xx.

 

Thank you for the replies, got another question though, how would the full HD version compare to the 900p version? screen my G1s is already running at 1440x900, is it just going to stretch my screen to 17" ?

 

Buy it. It's priced great atm.

Asus G73JW-XR1 17.3" FHD/NV GTX 460M 1.5GB GDDR5/i7-740QM/6GB DDR3/500GB 7200rpm/DVDRW: GenTech PC Store

Priced @ 1449$ ...excellent price for what you get.

 

Actually, the JH and JW have the same problems. The other JH problems were fixed by a vbios update.

 

Too bad its out of stock in Gentech

 

Wow, that went FAST! It was in stock last night when I checked and the website posting was quite recent.

Perhaps you could e-mail Ken and see if there's any more coming or when they're coming b/c that price is incredibly good.