New soon to be ASUS shopper

First of all, greetings to everyone and I praise the vast amount of input you all give. Thanks to it I (being PC illiterate) have narrowed my choices on an ASUS gaming laptop.

Anyways, I wanted to ask for a some input. I know you're all tired of redundant questions but sadly I've researched as much as I could tolerate with out human input . I'm in the mist of buying either a G73JW-XA1 or a G53JW-A1 but can't decide due to a few questions.

Whats the difference b/w 1033MHz and 1333MHz of RAM. Reason I ask is due to this. That seems to be an Amazon only G73 but in the reviews section someone mentioned the difference in RAM. Is it a negative impact when gaming? I really like the above because it's ~$200 less from the original price and comparable to a G53JW price wise, but obviously has a bigger screen. Any thoughts if that's a good price? Or will I regret not buying the mouse, backpack, separate HDD?

Another question is how compatibility is on the G73s when running PCSX2. I'd like to be able to FINALLY play some old ps2 games with a higher resolution. This will probably be my main purchasing factor I guess. I understand building a desktop will net me much better results for a similar price. However, the mobility factor of a laptop really has me leaning towards it.

Thanks for your input and I apologize in advance if I'm in the wrong section =/.

 

The speed of the ram determines how fast the information inside can be accessed. The difference between 1066 and 1333 ram is very negligible though. The biggest difference comes not from RAM speed, but RAM type - DDR/DDR2/DDR3. Both of those laptops use the latest type - DDR3. DDR3 is significantly better overall than DDR2 which is significantly better than DDR. Unfortunately, I do not quite understand how that all works but it shouldn't be too hard to find out if you're curious. So do not let the RAM speed influence your decision. If you are on a budget, getting the complete package is probably the better option. I would also say if portability is a factor to go with the 15" for obvious reasons. Although check the batteries of the two - it is entirely possible that if the 17" has a 9 cell battery and the 15" only has a 6 that the 17" could get better battery life.

As fas as PCSX2 goes - I struggle to run some games on my 9800GTS but others run great even at a medium res. I think this is more based on the fallacies of PCSX2 than our computers. If I recall, PCSX2 runs entirely off of CPU and not GPU. Or maybe it's been a while since I tried using the program. Out of my library - my copy of metal gear solid 3 was far inferior on my computer than on my ps2 and so was gran turismo 4. But Armored core silent line had only some slight sound issues and frame hiccups and when run parallel to a non-HD tv and a ps2 my emulated version was probably better.

And for the record....might not want to talk about emulators too much. Quasi legal issues are always hard to judge and it's typically better to err on the side of caution (mods will clean this up if necessary, clean version is below).

To better sum up your second question - that program is more cpu than gpu based so the video card selection has less of an impact. But for most games or cad programs that video card will dominate them. I would suggest contacting the developers about their progress with quad core support because that will give you the boost in speed you need to run it at a high resolution without problems. Last I checked, it was barely adjusting to dual core support.

 

Thanks a lot for your helpful input ^^. Just got to wait a couple of weeks now before I place an order.