G53SW / SX Questions

Alright, I'm a complete noob to PC anything. I've been on consoles for gaming, and I'm wanting to switch to PC.

So the difference between the two is the SX has an extra 2GBs of RAM and it has a 560M instead of the 460M.

For $80 more, you can get an extra 2GBs and the 560M. The only thing is that I heard about the pixel shader count is greater on the 460M. What performance difference are we talking about? I want to play on full 1080p with a decent FPS. So, which is better?

Sorry for being a complete noob, just have to start somewhere right?

 

Well its easy:

Sx comes with 2gb of RAM, which means 128bit bus, less ROPs (rendering pipelines) and a slower performance that ranges from 10 to 30% based on resolution. The "crippled" gtx560m struggles at high resolutions with high details such fullhd due to lower memory bandwidth. Overclock could help a bit, but it cant really match a full gtx460m.

The SW model comes with a full gtx460m which is basically a gtx460m with a precedent core revision.
It has 192bit memory bus which boosts performance at higher resolutions with high settings, and comes with 1,5gb of VRAM. It has the same shader count but also there are more ROPs which makes the card considerably faster than the crippled 128bit version. Overclock widens the gap alot.

In short:

When you see 1 or 2gb of VRAM (regardless if is a gtx460/560m) it means 128bit, thus "crippled" and slower;

When you see 1,5gb or 3 of VRAM it means 192bit, so it's the "full" card, a great performer.

Stay away from 128bit versions if you plan to game at 1080p while having a reasonable amount of details.
Afaik only the g74 comes with a full gtx560m in some models but I could be wrong, at least I didn't saw any g53 with a full 3gb gtx560m yet.

Hope it helps.

 

Thanks Kingpin, I'll definitely get the SW. And save $80 for possibly 2 games