Should I Trade my HP 17 Envy for an ASUS G74SX-A1??

Hey Guys,

A friend of mine wants to swap laptops. He wants to swap his:

ASUS G74SX-A1, eight-cell battery, and AC adapter
2.0GHz Intel Core i7-2630QM quad-core processor
Intel HM65 Express chipset
17.3" diagonal LED-backlit display with Full HD 1920x1080 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio
12GB DDR3 SDRAM
1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive
Blu-ray/DVD combo drive
802.11b/g/n wireless LAN
Bluetooth 3.0 wireless technology
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM
EAX Advanced HD 5.0 audio
THX TruStudio
Built-in speakers
Built-in HD webcam, microphone
10/100/1000 Base-T ethernet
3-in-1 memory card reader: SD, MMC, MS
Three USB 2.0 ports
HDMI, USB 3.0, RJ-45, VGA ports
Microphone/headphone jacks

For my Envy (See Signature block for Specs's). Once he saw my Envy, he fell in love with it. He bought his ASUS about a week before I bought my Envy and he has not had any problems with his laptop. I'm leaning heavy towards keeping my Envy as the build quality and internals are just top notch and my Envy is running at 100%, with no hiccups at all since arrival. The reason why I'm asking you guys is to ensure I'm not doing something stupid, since I don't know anything about the ASUS. But on paper it looks pretty good, but when I put them side by side, the Envy clearly stands apart and is a crowd pleaser. A lot of people think I have an Apple MacBook Pro, when I visiting my local StarBucks.

So, what do you guys think. Keep the Envy or get the ASUS?

 

In a word, no. Keep the Envy. RAM and HDD are easily upgradeable.

 

i would say no as well. Dont get me wrong as I love my g73sw, but you have the HP version of the G73/G74 series. You might see and extra FPS or 2 in a game but thats about it.

 

Thanks guys for the prompt replies. Yeah, I've decided to do what you are recommending and keeping my Envy. She is just cosmetically beautiful and 100% flawless. Plus she has been running flawlessly since arrival without a single hiccup. It is just a true joy to have and use. BUT, I just wanted to double check with you guys to ensure my logic was sound.. Again, Thanks, from one happy Envy owner!

 

I will not say no, but also not going to say yes!
will all depend on your financial condition.

If you have money left to buy a G74, go ahead, no doubt will be a good investment.

However, both the G73, and G74 has almost the same performance.
Advantages of overclocking. gain the most is always good, things you would not get with the ENVY 17.

I've had for example a laptop ENVY 17, is undoubtedly the finish is impeccable HP, makes my laptop seem G73 child.

But I do not like the limitation of not being able to overclock the video or CPU in "ENVY", it left me frustrated.

For games, the difference in FPS without overclocking is about a 5 or 6 FPS. Overclocked the difference is almost 10 ... 15 FPS.

So my definition is ae.

If you have the money and not bother to spend, go ahead.
if you do not already have this extra money is more advantage to wait a few more years for the second ENVY 17 will serve you well.

 

Because you have the GDDR5 version of the 6850M I will say no if you had the GDDR3 version it would have been a definate yes.

Also you have an awesome sound system in that Envy I heard my mates the other day destroys my G73 so it will certainly beat the G74.

 

out of curiousity, what kind of temps do you see on the envy when playing games?

 

Thanks for the reply. After reading your post and others, I've decided to stick with my Envy. However, I will make 2 modifications during the next 6 months. The first one is to increase the RAM to 8GB. The second thing will be a 256GB Crucial m4 2.5-inch SATA 6GB/s (SSD) and use it as the first drive and retain one of the ones I have currently installed as my DATA drive.

Also, since I do NOT overclock, it makes sense to retain the Envy even more...

Again, Thanks for the help!

 

Yesterday I was playing Dragon Age Origins for about 6-7 hours non stop and the highest my temp got to was 82 degrees, but the majority of the time it was in the mid 70's. However, when I am not playing games, my temps stay in the high 50' to mid 60's. This is achieved by using my fan in performance mode, so it does not throttle back the CPU. I could however, run the fan in cool mode, which will throttle back my CPU, but will keep my temp's about 10 degrees cooler than stated. I am also playing the gaming graphics with everything max'd out. It runs the game without a hiccup. I monitor the temp and CPU performance with a small program called, Core Temp. I also use HWInfo64, which confirms the Core Temp readings..

I did run a program called Prime95, last week, for about 30-45 minutes and the temp maxed out at 91c.

I'm also using external devices, such as; Razer Lycosa and the Razer Mamba, So I don't feel the temp at all, which is another reason why I monitor my temps so closely. The fan is so quite, you can barely tell it is running.

Hope that helps.

 

Wow, those are impressive temps on such a compact shape like the envy.

Thanks for your answer!

 

I would like to one day be possible, someone posted photos of the internal ENVY 17.

when I had my, I never desmontalo, For soon sold to buy the G73.

I've always been curious to see the ventilation system of the ENVY 17.

ENVY 15 already looked inside, I found it very good! with a total of 3 fans.

 

I think it would be worth it just for the quieter fans. Even a 14" Envy is louder than my G73 with 20% overclock.

That and if you don't want a notebook that is blatantly ripping off of Apple notebooks. I'd switch for that also, just because I don't like Apple Though I think HP EliteBooks were awesome looking, back when they were black and weren't trying to look like a MacBook.

I prefer black over silver.