G73SW-BTS6 Woes

Hey guys,
I posted a few days ago asking about my sloppy frame rates for Fallout, which are as of now fixed. However, I came to learn as of that episode that I was basically duped into buying a butchered version of the 460m, as i'm sure it has happened to many unknowingly.

What is particularly frustrating is that I bought this without making much prior research, because of urgent needs, and had no reason to suspect that the card would be anything but what it was supposed to be. Since the issue about the 128 vs. 192 bit were not addressed for the most part in reviews, I think the bait was reasonably tempting, for the price.

At first I thought the low screen definition was the reason behind the low price, but now I know this is in fact the crippled GPU performance. After reading amply on these forums, I am now frustrated seeing how much money I spend on a high end laptop for the purposes of gaming, to be sold a bottleneck GPU to render the Sandy less worthy of its potential.

Unfortunately I didn't start my gaming spree until some months after my purchase (which was made in June). The 15 day return is long gone, and now i'm basically wondering what the Hell I should do with this thing. Granted, it is performing well for most games, but of course my intent in buying this kind of machine was to also be packing sufficient heat for up and coming game. Seeing how badly games like Crysis 2 are performing, I have little to no hopes for anything like Skyrim. I am already overclocking my card to a healthy 815, from its stock 675. I am really pissed off at this; and think this is really horrible market ethics from best buy, nvidia, asus, or whoever.

At this point, I am asking my fellow gamers here, what do you guys think would be the best course of action? Buying another computer is out of the question, seeing I doubt I could resell this for the $1300 odd it costed me with tax. And apparently card-replacement is not an option for Asus machines. Any suggestions as to whether anything could be done? I mean anything: complaints, replacements, whatever. I know this sounds pretty pathetic, vague and long; but i'm sure i'm not the only gamer sucked into this ty situation as a result of dodgy naming procedures to lure customers.

Anyway, thanks in advance.

 

Another victim of false advertising, got to love Best Buy. Anyway if you're willing you can sell it and buy a JH since it's relatively cheap and will perform better, I doubt you will have to pay any difference. I friend bought the exact same model as you, we found out about the crappy gaming performance within a day though and he promptly returned it for a JH.

Not much to do since you waited so long except resell it ASAP or just put up with it.

 

I don't think you're that far behind the 192-bit 460M. When you OC, is your memory atleat 1600 Mhz, with 815 Core clock?

How bad you say it was with Crysis 2? I noticed that my 460M on stock clocks could run Crysis 2 on 1080p, DX11 only with setting at "HIGH" produce 31-41 FPS, ..31-32 during fights/shooting.

You are prolly just 3-4 FPS behind whether stock or OC.

I myself OC's at 828 / 1728 memory, ..and I have played The Witcher 2, Metro 2033 and now Crysis 2 all on 1080p with FPS from average of 30-60/70+ FPS.

If you OC at least at 815 to 825 with memory of 1600 all the way up to 1700 MHz you should be okay. Driver plays a very important role, 275 drivers are laggy compared to the 280s'.

I don't think Skyrim is as demanding as The Witcher 2, Metro 2033 or Crysis 2. I myself have played Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas on Ultra setting, 1080p on just stock clocks.

You just need some good OC'ing.. Try to hit 16K on 3DMark06, 10K on Vantage and 2300+ on 3DMark11 on a stable gaming OC and you're good to go.

 

Thanks to both of you.

@thief1958: I have updated my drivers to the 280's after cleaning up properly. Crysis 2 goes from 21-36fps maxed out, but at 900. I am currently OC'ing at 812/1625/1552. I'll try going up to 825/1728 Memory. However, Afterburner only lets me pump the memory up to 1625 memory though, for some reason. What about shader clock?

 

Use NVidia Inspector 1.9.5 from 3DGuru. Core clock and shader clock are locked up, so when you increase core clock the shader follows the same.

i.e. 815 core clock will have 1630 shader; 825 core will have 1650 shader, it's automatic.

Most importantly, when you increase your memory, your Bandwidth will increase. I know the 128-bit 460M only has 40 Gb/s. A stock 192-bit 460M has 60 Gb/s.

Here's my Gaming OC. Check the bandwidth on the GPU-Z.

 

That's crazy! I should expect then mine to go onto 60ish/high 50's? That would be very nice.

 

theif i am glad u helped him out. the 128 bit 460m can be made servicable.

 

Thank you thief, you've been most serviceable in making this as bearable as possible. Got a substantial increase in Crysis 2, but it's still running pretty dubiously on maxed settings (26-42). Still eminently more playable than before. I won't even try The Witcher 2; I have no intentions in getting disappointed any further.

 

I have the exact same model from best buy and I too have dealt with the low performance of the gimped 460m. But if you got a 460m that has good overclocking potential then all is not lost. I get a healthy 52 Gb/s out of mine over the stock 40. And that relativity close to the 60 that a real 460m would produce so when paired with a sandy you should be ok for now. But certainly you should sell it within a years time and go get a better laptop that is more future proof. Just my 2 cents

 

How much do you think I could get for it? And what's the best medium to sell it? Sorry, i'm very new to this stuff.