G73JH and G73SW

Soooo....I've heard that the GTX460 is not a gimmped version on the G73SW but the full 192 bit version. But I've also heard that you can't replace the video card on the G73SW.

I've noticed that Xotic PC has a G73JH with the 6990 in it. This is the only model that I have see that has something other than the GTX 460 or 560 with the exception of the cheaper models with the older and cheaper cards.

Is this a modification or do the G73JH models come with the 6990?

Does this mean that the G73JH can have its video card changed?

Since the G53SW has a full version of the 460 can it be swapped out?

My concern is that I'm wanting to buy the G53SW-XN1 from New Egg and in a year or so upgrade the video card to keep the laptop more current for gaming purposes. The G53 will also let me add another drive in the future when I get more $.

If there is no way to upgrade the GPU I have 3 options.
Save more $ and buy a G73JH
or
Buy another laptop that I can swap the card on
or
use the G53 and live with it.

The New Egg version is the best bang that I have found for the buck.

 

I would love to see a link for the JH with a 6990 in it because not only did they stop making the JH a long time ago there is no way Asus would ever put a top of the range card into one of their G Series laptops after they failed to implement the 5870M successfully and then switched to Nvidia mid range cards.

I think you will find its a typo.

This popular thread covers the attempts made to implement the 6970M into the JH so far meeting failure however it is on paper still possible but after 2 cards have burned it is a costly experiment for someone to conduct. It will work yes, but there are problems that come from it leading to death and the cause of this is still unknown.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/584295-upgrade-g73-jh-6970-a-43.html

 

ASUS G73JH-A1 - XOTIC PC - ASUS Gaming Laptop

 

Yah, that is definitely misprinted.

It even has the option for a sandy bridge processor which wont happen.

 

Yeah there is clearly a bad link to the customisation page because it clearly says on the front page it is just an A1 with the 5870M.

But feel free to buy it and see what they send you

 

Or I can email them and verify.

 

Is there no way to upgrade the g series gpu then?

 

As I mentioned above all attempts to implement the 6 series card has resulted in failure.

There is no way Asus would implement a 6990M into their laptop they do not use ATI cards in their G series anymore they use Nvidia cards. As mentioned above also that is a typo because it lists a sandy bridge CPU as well and the JH motherboard is only Gen 1 compatible.

 

Or you can use your head. They no longer sell the G73jh and they haven't for almost a year. Any JH you find now are from some warehouse that just had stock they never sold or you can buy it used/refurbished.

 

The G53SW-XN1 with new egg dropped $50 more in price. I'm tempted but not being able to upgrade is sticking in the craw. I've been looking at the Sager 8130 instead but the price it $200 higher for basically the same computer.

Are there other Asus models that can be modified to have similar stats as the G series and still have GPU's that can be upgraded? Especially one with similar heat dissipation capabilities.

 

Browse Alienware forums. Some of them seem to have unnatural knack at negotiating prices with sales people which I think is horrible horrible horrible horrible business practice from Dell. With every other company you know the price and it's simple and honest. With Dell they purposely price high assuming most won't but can be haggled down, downright immoral almost. But that is an option.

Or you can look at MSI. MSI use the standard MXM slot with normal GPUs. Yes MSI 5870M > Asus 5870M. MSI clock higher, with better stability and with voltage control. Also the Asus 5870M vBIOS is BROKEN, the MSI works.

I'd go with MSI personally. They give you a decent price with a lot of hardware standard. And their stuff works, Asus is almost always broken with something that is essential for laptop. Keyboard, touchpad, GPU, bios, or sometimes all of the above.

Also I think the base price for base hardware for Sager is quite good! You don't need 16GB of ram. 4GB is fine. Sure you get less on some things like HDD/Ram which you can upgrade yourself, but the quality, dependability is something you can't upgrade on your own. So getting a Sager would still be worth it, plus the upgrade ability later.

Either way, I think Asus sucks past few years in comparison to the competition. You are better off going with something else or just wait and see what Asus offers in 2012.