G73SW-BST6 initial thoughts review

Hello all recently puchased the asus g73sw-bst6 from best buy i know it has some draw backs but i am a premier silver member so i wanted to see if the bst6 was going to be ok or if the bst8 is worth it. So i thought i would share my thoughts with those who are also considering either of these.

Specs:
Processor i7 2630qm-2.0ghz(turbo boost to 2.9)
Ram: 8gb 1333 mhz ddr3
Hard Drive: 750gb 7200rpm(677 available, 645 with removal of bloatware)
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 460m 1 gb ddr5 VRAM
screen: 17.3" 1600x900 (i know its not the high def one and def hurts it.)
Price: $1,299 before tax

Windows experience scores:
7.4, 7.6, 7.0, 7.0, 5.9 (respecitviely)
My alienware in my sig scores:
7.1, 7.4, 7.2, 7.2, 5.9

Side notes: the blue led under the screen wont turn on is this no longer an option or mine does not work i dont know yet i only recieved it yesterday at about 5:00pm EST also upgraded the 460 drivers to the latest official nvidia ones the 266.58 i believe they are.

Build: Very solid feel the lid is coated in a black matte finish, hinge feels solid, everything fits together nicely no major gaps or creaking, no keyboard flex, it is a very study laptop its heavy no question but its a gaming laptop it will be i dont mind the weight since i am 6'3 300lbs lol. But certainly not something i am going to bring to the office everyday just for home use. MY only isse with the build is that every g73 asus i have tried (had a few g73jh's and one jw) the rubber foot on the right hand side of the laptop closest to you does not touch my desk. every other one does but that one and its just slightly above but you can see a gap. I tried it on my counter and other tables all to the same end. (not a big deal just weird.)

Keyboard & Trackpad: Nice chiclet style keyboard keys have a nice short throw for gaming and the full numberpad is a plus. but it does not feel as nice to type on for word processing. It is the same keyboard on pretty much all the latest g73's with no keyboard flex. The trackpad is nice and the xW models all have the splits mouse buttons which make it much easier to press. Trackpad has a much nicer feel and is easier to use then the one on my alienware although i never use it i always have a mouse plugged in except on the go. One nice feature is when you plug in a mouse it automatically disables the trackpad so you do not accidentally hit it while playing.

Sound: good sound the subwoofer helps a lot definitely fuller sound than my alienware but when i game i use a pair of tritton ax720 so the comps speakers are only for vids on youtube or something.

Battery: I managed to get about 2 hours out of the 67% charge it started with. Have yet to test a full cycle.

Screen: the weakest point i cannot recommend enough the high def screen especially since my alienware has the 1600x900 screen but is smaller so it is definitely worse quality plus the non glossy bothers me but that is just personal preference.

Gaming: Battlefield bad company 2: i average 35-60fps with native res, all settings to high except shadows, 2xaa played very smooth.
MW2: all settings to max was around 45-80fps average
Black ops: kept dropping fps on max high was good around 30-45fps average
SC2: played on ultra with around 30-60fps (very processor intensive game)
I have downloaded the crysis 2 demo and will test that later when i get home.
Overall my alienware performed the same if not better in some games (a bit disappointed.)

Overall: it is a great laptop for those in need for a new laptop, if you have something relatively close in specs i would pass or at least go with the high def screen from best buy in the bst8 model or from somewhere else. but it is a must. and i have no real complaints with the laptop just the screen but i knew that when purchasing it since the bst8 was backordered i wanted to try it.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask it is looking as i will be returning this and waiting for the bst8 or picking up an m17xr3.

 

Nice review. I'm considering this laptop myself. I have a few questions that I was hoping you could answer. How well does the wireless card perform? Is it dual-band? What security suite was pre-installed? How are the viewing angles color, and contrast on the display? I know it's only 1600X900. I'm more interested in the image quality than the resolution.

 

Last I checked, the SW doesn't have an LED under the lid.

 

The wireless card is good not the best but good it also has the built in feature for wimax connectivity which i will never use since this thing is too big to use on the go which is the only place you would really be away from wifi lol.

it was some suite called triton or titan honestly was the first thing i removed since i use norton 360.

viewing angle are not great it really becomes washed out at anything more than about 135 degrees so your constantly adjusting the monitor based how your sitting. trust me though the display is the weakest part the 1600x900 really hurts it. colors are not crisp they are accurate and it has the color setting button by the speakers but not something you would want for high quality images. it just looks washed out even after messing with the settings is it usable o yes and when you are gaming its not as bothersome but wehn just looking at the desktop or web browsing its obvious. i would skip the bst6 and go for the bst8 or the xa1

Thank you i thought i read that but couldn't remember.

 

I use Norton myself. Were there any problems uninstalling the included security suite and installing Norton? Some security suites don't uninstall cleanly and require special removal tools. Was it Trend Micro that was preinstalled?

 

haha yea that was it like i said it was my first removal no it removed cleanly just uninstalling through control panel. i was worried it was going to be a pain like some are but it gave me no issues and left no trace.

 

135 degrees is not that bad. The display on my HP dv5t washes out a bit at the top and bottom when I am looking at center! Let me ask you this. How does your G73 1600X900 display compare other 1600X900 displays? I know 1080P is better but I may have to get 1600X900 and I'm wondering if the one on the G73 is as good as the ones offered by Toshiba, Dell, Hp, etc. I know none of them are great.

 

does it have usb 3.0?

 

the only other 1600x900 display i have is on my m15x and the m15x looks way better because it has the glossy screen, colors are sharper and its about 2" smaller so the pixels are denser. yea the viewing angle is not horrible but you definitely need to keep adjusting the tilt since it washes out more vertically but if your at an angle at the desk as in side to side it is not bad,

yes it does 1 usb 3.0, 3 usb 2.0.

 

One thing to note about the SW is they finally changed the grill covering the speakers.

 

yea i like the style of the new speaker grille but i wish it matched the color of the system.

 

I also have this notebook, and didn't really care about the 1080p. I have a bluray player and ps3 for that and was more worried about on the go gaming.

Personally, I think the viewing angle isn't bad at all. And it has a backlit LED. The specs say it does at least. I had bought the G73JH a few weeks back and was unhappy with it. I returned it for the SW-BST6 and I have to say I love it. If you don't really care about the 1080p I'd definately recommend it. If you're wanting to hook it up to an external monitor or care about 1080 on a 17 inch screen definately spend the extra money... its not that much more and you get a bluray player, 1080p, and 250 more gigs of HD space.

Also... the specs on BB site says it has 4 USB 2.0 slots... but I think it has 3 USB 2.0 slots and 1 USB 3.0 slot. One of the slots is blue and I was under the impression that signified a USB 3.0 slot. If anyone could clear that up for me I would appreciate it.

 

yea the screens not horrible but im coming from a 15" 1600x900 so its more obvious to me.

bnut yes there is 1 usb 3.0 port it is on the right side on the laptop closest to you.

 

Lol, I'm coming from a 1024x768 17 inch widescreen HP LCD... so it looks amazing to me. Like you said though... it's all personal preference.

If you don't really care about 1080... the laptop is pretty darn awesome!

Also... thanks for clearing up the USB 3.0 thing.

 

yea i normally wouldnt be bothered by the screen since i owned a g73jh before my m15x and had same screen and i loved it all depends what your currently using i guess.

the blu-ray i dont care about its nice but im not going to watch blu-rays on the go since this thing is not the most portable. the only feature i like about the bst8 was the screen and the extra 250gb hdd but i think it is 2x500gb hdds and i dont wanna be bothered with that. if im going to use 2 drives one will be an ssd.

 

Yeah, the first thing I'm going to do is put a SSD in it. It seems to be running well with the 7200, but I've only been playing Warcraft on it.

Also, the site says it's 8 gigs of memory and says nothing about being expandable to 16 gigs, yet the BST8 is. Is this just an error or is the BST6 model only capable of 8 gigs. I assumed since it is the same motherboard it would be capable of 16 gigs as well.

I've seen a few people mention that 2 of the slots are only accessable if you remove the bottom and maybe thats why it says it. I don't know... any ideas?

 

Can you please check the memory bandwidth for the 1GB vidram version of gtx460m? Is it 128 bits or more?

 

I'll check as soon as I get home today.

 

yea i will check when i get home as well it will depend who makes it home first i guess lol i wont be home til like 5:30 6 est


i will pull my plate out when i get home and see but it should absolutely be expandable to 16gb not that you would need that much

 

3 slots are on the the bottom, underneath the case, one is under the keyboard. It is capable of running 16gb's of memory if you choose. You could easily get it to 14 by buying 3 4gb sticks.

 

BST6 is indeed 1 g vram with a 128 bit memory interface.

 

Matrix of 1600*900 is the holy crap
The viewing angles are very bad, low contrast, gray instead of black.
If the matrix is set G73SW AUO B173RW01 it exactly as I wrote.
Although other matrix of 1600*900 too crap -BB puts the cheapest.

 

Asus is going to be addressing the Intel Sandy Bridge issue. More information can be located here. Proactively responding to the Intel-identified Sandy Bridge chipset design error

 

Asus has already addressed the issue, like a month ago

 

Could you post some pictures of it plz?

 

I keep seeing people knocking non-HD resolutions on 15" and 17" laptops. I am coming from an 1600x900 17" Toshiba which I thought was ideal. I realize you won't be able to watch bluray at native resolutions, but don't Windows and other applications get too small at 1920x1080 on a 15" or 17" laptop?

Before the Toshiba I had a 1680x1050 Compaq 15" that was just too difficult for me to read text on. I realize that Windows 7 allows for better adjustments of icons and such to the native resolution.

I will have to go out and look at 1080p on a 17" laptop to see if it is usable for me.

 

Everyones usage/tastes differ. I do 3d work and programming all of which just scream for screen realestate. so for me 1080p is a big one.

 

Hello, I think about buying this laptop.
I saw here something about the screen that is not so clear for me.
I know the screen is not Hi-Def, but if I hook to a 1080p screen with an HDMI link, will I not be able to adjust the resolution to 1080p?

 

1600x900 will surely improve the slower processing coming out of the 1GB 460m its just such a shame to see such a powerful processor with such a bottleneck GPU after its been dropped to 128 bit I was really considering trading in my BB JH but just dont think I could afford cutting my GPU power in half on the bandwidth 40gb/s against my 71gb/s and texture fill rate 21gt/s against my 30gt/s its the whole point of a laptop for me and just doesn't make sense.

 

Why on earth would they do that? It makes no sense...

 

It comes at a huge cost to performance along with it. Read it and weeeeep!

 

That sucks! I just bought a recertified asus g73jh from newegg. Looks like i wont have buyers remorse after all. I really wanted sandybridge but it wasnt in the budget.

Ill probably sell the i7 740qm it comes with and get that 920xm from ebay. That way i wont be bottlenecked by the cpu.

 

Hi all! Just bought the G73SW-BST6 and love the speed, hate the (fairly) low resolution screen. Since the bst8 has a 1080 res. screen, I wonder if it's possible to upgrade the resolution of the G73SW-BST6 to 1080? Or higher?

Thanks!

 

Dont bother just pay 8$ and get the settings for SETFSB and sort out the timing issues here.

I may not be getting 3.2 turbo over all 4 cores but I get much higher clocks and when all 4 cores are running claim a healthy 1.93ghz. Do the math $8 against $300 for a QS/ES sample. Not worth it wait for a sandy when they drop in price.

Its not worth doing as you have the 1GB version GTX which is a lot slower than the 1.5GB. Best to keep the screen you have otherwise 1080P will struggle to produce the same results with the lesser power card. Its doable yes but not recommended if you plan to game with a healthy FPS. I use a 1600x900 and it runs everything very clearly, if your not happy push up the AA settings.

 

Hi

New to this forum and was reading through a bit but I've made a huge leap in computing and was looking for some help....

Have had a old Toshiba Satellite laptop with Intel centrino Duo chipset running Xp that I've had for I think 6+ years now and I'd started to get really fustrated at ISO creation times and the fact that I couldn't run most of the games off the Steam Store as well

Fast forward to last week, when I was looking around for laptops, used, on craigslist, and ran across and ad for the G73SW-bst6 for $700. It seemed like more than I really wanted to spend, but after looking at processor benchmarks and general buzz about Asus G73 series, I thought what the hell....

So now I have a BST6 sitting at home (it's a huge compared to my old 14 inch) and I'd like to do a fresh windows 7 install and start from a "clean computer" or as close to is as possible preserving the functionality of the specialty keys on the keyboard and such.

I see mentioned the threads about clean installs on G73s, and I will follow those, but before I embarked on this journey, I wanted to see if anyone here had anything to say specifically about the bst6 and doing a clean install of win 7. The guy I bought it off of said that the computer didn't come with any CDs/DVDs, so I have nothing but the computer and the power supply. Thankfully it looks relatively cared for, except for the cigarette smoke smell.

Is there anything else anyone would recommend I do to make sure it's functioning ok and there's nothing that is out of whack?

Thanks in advance!

 

The computer wont come with discs normally and will have a factory partition on the Primary HDD you can access this by Alt F9 during boot or F9 during boot cant remember which to access the built in factory partition but this will come with bloatware unless the blokey has deleted it.

Otherwise go to Chastity's G73 Series Driver and Application Reference and select the Universal Installation DVD and burn this onto a disc and then you can use the Windows 7 key that is on the underneith of your laptop.

SW-BST6 for $700, bargain.

 

On that page you will also see the Driver and App CD iso for the G73SW series, plus a list of updated applications and drivers.

 

I have a question about the specifications themselves. All of the websites, including this one that talk about a BST6, talk of the following specs:

1600x900 Resolution
1 USB 3.0, 3 USB 2.0 ports

1GB VRAM
128bit video card

The first two items are listed on newegg.com differently, and the second two aren't listed at all. Can anyone confirm if newegg.com's information is incorrect? or do they have the model number wrong? or am I reading it wrong?

Newegg.com - Recertified: ASUS G73 Series G73SW-BST6 Notebook Intel Core i7 2630QM(2.00GHz) 17.3" 8GB Memory 750GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M

 

1600x900 Resolution
1 USB 3.0, 3 USB 2.0 ports

1GB VRAM
128bit video card

Those specs are correct. Newegg had wrong specs. Newegg has updated the rez to say 1600x900 now, but still fails to properly list the GFX card ram. I just ordered one of these from Newegg myself. The 1600x900 rez is fine for me as gaming will be the primary use and that rez is better suited to the 1 MB 460m.

Btw, I differ with many here in how they compare performance between systems. Most everyone wants to benchmark at a specific rez like 1280x1024 and compare, but I much prefer benchmarking at native rez on each machine and comparing those numbers. Because for gaming, I will want to play in native rez whenever possible. So to me, comparing a G73 1920x1080 to G73 1600x900 means benchmarking each at native rez as that is most significant. So, in benchmarks I've seen, HD G73's w/460M are faster by 3-5 fps at typical benchmark resolutions...but run each machine at native rez (like you would in real life) and it's quite different. G73SW-BST6 then looks pretty good and equals or may even outperform the higher rez machines.

Second point is, in real life, the performance differences are not really noticeable at all when gaming and so not a big deal to me. I'm OK saving 2-300 bucks and giving up what I don't really need to get what I do.

I'm more concerned about contrast ratio and color accuracy and general panel quality. Won't know 'til I get mine, but often ASUS has used terrible panels. Hoping this one is better. Some say no, others yes, so we'll see.

(Quality of panels these days on most all sucks. I'm getting good at tweaking, but I really miss the "golden age" of panels, 8-10 years back or so, when you got rich contrast, saturated color, wide gamuts, etc. on high end notebooks. Somewhere along the line, manufacturers decided the expense was too great and most consumers would not notice the difference. Sad.)

 

The native resolution is used so that the comparison between GPU's is that of as close to actual as possible and to not pinpoint the requirement of solely the resolution. Your score comparison would actually be better at 720p because of the 1/3 lost bandwidth that you get with the 128bit 460M causing you to lose frames at a higher resolution, however for personal evaluation and not comparison native is fine but benchmark will not give a true light on gaming anyway as they are there to bench the GPU above its means.

Agreed about the screens they seem to go cheaper and cheaper and it is very annoying but I have just accepted my screen because 900P as it will prolong the life span of gaming for me at reasonable frames with a native resolution.

If you are looking to do some light gaming etc and need a cheap deal on a laptop the BS6 seems in the right area but for gaming requirements in quarter 3 and 4 of 2011 you are really going to suffer when the big boys release Skyrim and BF3 so if you expect to be able to play these games fluently with good graphical settings you really need to look above this.

 

Yes, thanks, that was my point, maybe not clearly stated. The 1 GB 460M paired with the 1600x900 rez display seems like a viable compromise to me for the $200 or so dollars saved. I don't play the latest games too often, I'm usually a couple of years behind. Weird maybe, but it works for me.

My goal is to never spend over $1000 and preferably less...so my last buy was an ATI 5730 rig I got new for $649 in a pretty lucky deal (combo coupon and rebate). I'm actually going a bit high (for me) this time because I happen to very much like the stealth look of the G73 case and the nice cooling system.

So I agree, it's already "fading" tech and not leading edge, but I'm OK with that because neither am I. <ha-ha>

I actually very much wanted the 1600x900 rez versus 1080p because my old eyes struggle with the small fonts 1920x1080 17.3" would give me. And for gaming, it seems perfectly adequate to me. If I need 1080p (for video work or something) then I have plenty of external monitors handy.

Cheers!

 

this makes me think that the g73jh-bst7 way better than the g73sw-bst6 graphic card like maybe 40%perfomance of diference :S

 

Pretty much, the benchmark scores dont compare to a stock G73JH-BST7 because the SW score is mostly that of the CPU.

The 5870M will destroy the gimped 460M GTX quite easily as it even beats the full 460M GTX as well.

 

@robertoleont

Not sure about 40%, but definitely better, but the BST6 has that nice Intel Core i7 - 2630QM processor, that's what sealed the deal for me. I do a lot of video conversions and it will really help cut the times down.

And...for 95%+ of the games I play, I'll never notice any difference. Might be different for you if you play the very latest games.

 

Hey guys, first time poster. Long time reader.
Ive seen a deal on a site for Asus G73SW-TZ192V for $1,999 aud
This ships with 16gb memory. Spec as follows:

CPU: Intel Core Processor i7-2630QM (2Ghz/Turbo 2.9G, 6Mb cache)
Operating System: MS Windows 7 Home Premium
Chipset: Mobile Intel HM65 Express Chipset
Screen Size: 17.3" LED FHD
Resolution: 1920x1080 Screen Aspect Ratio 16:9
RAM: 8GB DDR3 + BONUS 8GB MEMORY (TOTAL 16GB)
Storage: 1.5 TB (750 GB x 2)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M, with 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM
Optical Disc Drive: Blu-ray +-R/RW with SuperMulti DVD+-R/RW with Double Layer

This seems to be of a similar spec to the bst models aobve.
Was after a mobile gaming machine for when i work away from home.

Decent machine for the price? any word for this new model (if new)

Thanks alot

 

Very decent machine, but I think you can get a better price. Have you checked Amazon, NewEgg, custom vendors here, and so on? I've seen similarly spec'd machines for less at Tiger Direct, for example. The bonus RAM is no big deal, in my opinion, but having Blu-Ray is nice, and it's a primo machine with full HD, good GFX card, and so on. But I think you can find one for around 1500-1600 if you look. Definitely nice specs.

Whoops, just noticed your location...so that price may be fine. US$ prices are very different, so I guess you can ignore the above, except for the bit that you are right specs are good. You might check G74's as well, but I like the G73's myself.

Good luck!

P.S. Much nicer than the BST6 model, btw.

 

I thought it sounded nice.
Just wanted to confirm with the pros.

the fact its 1999 does sound very generic and surely i could get a better price elsewhere i would imagine.
our aussie dollar is doing well so it might be better to price one from the states too.
Thanks for your help Bron.

 

The difference from your setup and the BST models is that you have many major upgrades and the BST are cheap because of the loss of hardware to list them:

You have the full 1.5gb 460M GTX with the higher bus 192bit giving more GPU performance

You have 2 750GB HDD instead of 1 500GB

You have 16GB DDR3 instead of 8GB DDR3

You have a 1080P screen instead of a 900P screen

All of those add up to a lot more than what the BST offers and hence why the price will be a lot more.

At conversion the AUD $ is pretty much the same as the US $ but it currently comes out at $2050 US and that is a huge amount compared to offers you can get from the US sellers and that is $550 more than the entry G74SX full version (not bst).

Amazon are currently offering:

G73SW-A1 for $1430 after the rebate
G73SW-XT1 for $1378

But you really might want to consider:

G74-XA1 which is currently listed for $1499.99 on Amazon

^^ That is a very good deal and it comes with the latest 560M GTX 192 bit, the difference in hardware is minimal but as the prices are so similiar you might benefit paying that little bit extra to get a later GPU and newer model but that is your choice. Good luck

 

That G74-XA1 looks incredibly nice, and for the price too.
Im always hesitant with international shipping, but i guess thats my problem.

Im now set on the XA1
Thanks alot Dallers.

 

I have an ASUS G73SW-BST6

I live in Brasil... so I have a MUCH BIGGER problem.... the warranty is valid only there in USA...

I opened my laptop, REPASTED, with Arctic Silver 5, did ALL things correctly, JUST TO FIND OUT THAT ----->>> THE GPU FAN WAS BLOCKED!!!!!!

acctually, I have the notebook for 3 months... and it was working FINE before... I used to play for hours, and a couple of times I checked the temperature, and it was FINE... like, 10 HOURS PLAYING it wouldn't go over 67, 70º C.....

NOW, all of a sudden, IT's GETTING 90 with 10 minutes playing... THE FAN SIMPLY STOPPED WORKING!!! WHY???? its NOT DUST, IM SURE! VERY SURE!...


NOW, here in BRASIL there ISN'T, simply, ISN'T anything that FITS this motherboard... NO COOLER FAN is compatible...

I think i'm gonna have to BUY a fan FROM USA... wait for like MONTHS...

very, VERY disappointing..