G73Jw proc upgrade in future?

Hello

We have the following configurations for G73 series

G73Jh:
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 720QM : GHz - 1.6 GHz, with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz;
Mobile Intel® HM55 Express Chipset
ATI Mobility™ Radeon® HD 5870, 1G GDDR5 VRAM

G73Jw:
Intel® Core™ i7 820QM/740QM/720QM/620M 2.66 GHz ~ 1.6 GHz
Intel® Core™ i5 430M/450M/460M/520M/540M 2.53 GHz ~ 2.26 GHz
Intel® Core™ i3 330M/350M/370M 2.4 GHz ~ 2.13 GHz
Intel® HM55 Express Chipset
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM

G73SW:
Intel® Core™ i7 2630QM
Intel® HM55 Express Chipset
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM


What do you think, which of these laptops, if any, is upgradable, for a better processor at relatively low cost in future?
I mean, I want to buy cheaper version of G73 now and then upgrade it couple of years for a better processor at lower cost.

For example if I will buy G73Jw with i7 720QM, can I upgrade it to i7 2630QM later?

Or its better to buy G73SW with i7 2630, which I can then upgrade with more memory and faster processor?


Thank you,
Spinan

 

None of the Asus laptops are really meant to be upgradable - theyre not the custom build kind / barebones (like Clevo/Sager, AW...). They are bought as they are and warranty applies to those components - meaning if you swap a CPU later you warranty is void.
You can only do minor upgrades like memory and hard drive.
The CPU cant be upgraded from the old i7 to sandy bridge - meaning you cant fit the new CPUs in G73JW/JH.
The GPU in the Asus laptops also cant be upgraded, period. Reasons have been listed many times.
So if youre looking to upgrade just the CPU, the G73JH/JW can only have the older i7 - up to i7-940xm, and the G73SW supports the sandy bridge architecture - meaning currently up to i7-2920xm.
Also all of the listed laptops can have the same ammount of memory, even though its stated on some sites the G73JH/JW doesnt support so much. There are people with 16GB (4x4gb) in the JH, though i cant really see a point in having that much memory with the limited potential of the other mobile components (CPU/GPU). By the time youll need 16GB or more the rest of the hardware will be pretty much useless and youll be looking for a new laptop/PC.
Also id suggest just buying it with a better CPU now if you want, as certail retailers (like GentechPC, XoticPC...) offer the upgrade for a lower price then buying a whole new CPU yourself and they will give you the warranty on the laptop as a whole, which you otherwise loose if you swap it yourself (if you actually need the upgrade - if you do some work on your laptop like decoding, photoshop, maya... then its reasonable, but if you only want it for gaming, then with most games you wont notice any difference between an i7-720qm and an i7-2920xm, only a few poorly coded titles are really CPU heavy like Crysis or GTA IV... the rest is just mostly GPU limited).

 

The best price-to-performance upgrade is going to be for the newest CPU generation. As older CPU generations get discontinued, the high end parts become more expensive than their original MSRP because of limited supply and demand that is much higher (everyone wants to upgrade their machine as it gets older).

 

You can put a 920/40xm in it, that's the best you can get for these machines. It works fine, I exchanged the CPU of a G73JW a couple of weeks ago.

A 920xm or 940xm is pretty powerful when you combine it with Throttlestop, since you can highly overclock these CPUs (they have unlocked multipliers and unlocked TDP/TDC values) You can bring them to 2720QM level and above when I remember the numbers correctly.
Prices for 920xm ES are about $350 on ebay.

In most games you won't get a higher fps with a 920/40xm, but you'll experience smoother movements of the A.I. in some game as well as better physics performance (as long as the physics uses the CPU). At least that's what I noticed... it really does make a difference, though not a lot in fps.

A newer SB CPU will be less power hungry while having a better performance on stock clocks...