* Official ASUS G73JH Crew Member's Lounge *

Makes sense to me; thanks for the input.

 

Yes, hats off to STRIKER for all the start-up work when initial info was so sparse and uncoordinated. And...good luck to YOU, ViciousXUSMC, for picking up the thread...you will have your own set of challenges as the wait drags on, and on, and on, and on....

 

But, you were only "volentold", so the members here could be " VIC-timized"!

 

Well guys, I'd hate to say it but I'm out too....



PSYCH.

On the for real, welcome Vicious. Looking back at the work you did with the w90 makes me feel like we are in very capable hands. Please help me and the others get the maximum potential out of this thing with 3rd party tools for tweaking and over-clocking. I believe we can get this mobile 5870 up to desktop 5770 speeds quite easily with what looks to be a great cooling design.

Striker, sad to see you go. Good luck with "the system that shall not be named".

It was nice having backup when things went to @$^%. Hopefully we won't have to meet on the battlefield as adversaries anytime soon.

 

Hey guys, does anyone remember what the benchmark scores were for the g73 that were on the first post? I know Vic edited it, and wouldn't you know the first time someone asks me about it, it isn't there. lol.

Also, vaya con Dios, Striker. Alas, I hardly knew ye.

 

Nevermind, I found it. Thanks all.

(Yeah, search function worked for me...I'm such a Dumb@$$ sometimes...)

 

Which scores? The slides from Ati, The notebookckeck 3dmark 06 scores, or something else?

 

Yeah nothing was removed just organized everything from the original post is still there.

You needed to click the play button on the picture slides, or alternatively the hotlink to the gallery for the full size pictures.

Just added a new video also, compliments of livetaswim06 for sending me the link.

 

So, you guys are out?? I can't believe it! Now a question.

What are you going to buy instead?

 

ROFL! This is just too much. Please let it be a Clevo.

 

Its probably an HP

 

Clevo X8100?

 

TOO funny guys!

Again, I refuse to troll! You can PM me if you are that curious, LOL!

 

I hope not, after seeing what directx 11 will do...

 

I'd love to but for some reason I cannot send PMs..

 

Now that you have 5 posts, give it a few hours and you will be able to once the server updates.

 

You can send it in a few hours since you now have 5 posts.

Edit: Darn Donald beat me to it by a few seconds

 

I have heard that Clevo will offer soon ( in March i belive ) ATI 5870HD 1GB DDR5 for laptops with Nvidia GTX280m. So M980NU will have 2 x ATI 5870HD 1GB DDR5 + i7 mobile.

 

Totally possible, but you have to be willing to fork out the $$$ for it.

As usual I feel that Asus is bound to win the "bang for your buck" category. Even more so with the G73 than usual.

I find that with how fast technology moves (just sold my W90 with dual 4870's that is only 9 months old) your a lot better off getting something like the Asus and then upgrading to a new model in a shorter time period. If you spring for a expensive model from another brand and force yourself to be stuck with it for say an extra year from digging too deep in your pockets the guy that spent half of what you did is now got a better machine than you just because he got another cheap machine sooner.

It doesn't apply to everybody, some people can afford a brand new $3000 laptop every year, but I think most of us can not.

 

Currently Sager NP9850 on XOTIC costs $2257.97 with 2 GPUs (correct me if im wrong) so assuming that ATI cards will be cheapper (and there is a big chance they will) you get a nice machine for $2000. Thats not much more then G73. But every option has +/- . I made order for G73 as i do not need such power as two GPUs, beside getting it to Poland would cost me over $4000 and that is waaay to much for laptop.

 

NP9850 has P8700 CPU, 2GB Ram, and a 250GB Single HDD.

 

Yeah "starting at"

Go into the customize link, you need to upgrade the ram, the cpu, you need to add a 2nd hdd, there is a lot to do before its up to par with the equivalent Asus system the W90 that was only $2400 fully loaded.

Once you upgrade everything accordingly its more expensive, and of course its cheaper now because the GTX280 and ATI 4870 are now not the newest/best anymore.

 

Finally watch the Gamestar video from start to end. They had Dirt 2 running on there. I did not like what I saw with the replay video, a pause every 5 or so seconds for no apparent reason. It was running smooth though besides that.

They showed partial settings and they had 4x AA enabled so thats really not optimal for a laptop, not even a gaming laptop. So I imagine with AA off they would have a good frame rate. Dirt 2 is awesome BTW I gotta hook up my wheel and play it sometime soon before I lose what little ability I may have left in that game.

Its a eyefinity dream but gotta have a wheel too

 

Yes but there will be soon model for mobile i7 i belive X8100 from Clevo.

 

Even if they get 5870 Crossfire the OS will not be included with 2gb ram and much less HDD. If you customize all that you'll probably end up spending alot of money.

 

true. thats why i ordered g73.

 

Thats why I was always surprised by the AW in here comparing the G73 to m17x. I don't have the 4k to buy a "hardcore" laptop. For me the Asus is pretty much the best thing there is at the price range right now and I will wait and wait and wait for it to be released.

 

yeah, the only advantage that AW 17 has over G73 is the Crossfire videocard. But even that is an optional choice which will cost a lot.

 

And the warranty which for me is a big deal (the only reason I'm considering AW).

Also the build quality for the AWs is pretty high (being able to easily access the fans for cleaning is a nice feature in my book as is the cooling system which are features I hope the G73JH has as well).

Personally I can't wait to see how this system rates. Honestly if the quality is there I may think about returning my AW and getting this (as my AW isn't supposed to come until 2/16 so I'll see at least a few reviews on the A2 system although the LED RGB may be enough to convince me to keep the AW system (I tend to second guess my high end purchases a lot so I'll probably go back and forth on this for a while)).

That said this is looking like an great buy

 

Just as a side note notebook check updated the 5870 page with spots for all the gaming benchmarks. With that new Hungarian video and the fact that NBC(sic) is a European site, could it mean they got their hands on a review laptop and are mere days away from putting up some benchmarks?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5870.23073.0.html

Just food for thought.

 

I agree. You can blow $3000 on some technology (desktop or laptop) or just $1500 and repeat it twice for the same money and twice the experience. It's fun to have the "best" but these days I'm interested in a $1700 laptop that I can replace in 18 months with the next $1700 laptop.

 

I've been forced as some others here, to bow out of the G73 pre-order. I hope everyone will enjoy their Asus when it arrives!

 

I cant wait to get mine I had to go to Bestbuy and but a 300.00 lappy to use untill the asus comes in then Im sending this back.

 

Wow you guys got bank I'm spending $1700 and in 18 months i will still be eating cup of noodles trying to recover from this $1700

 

No news about g73 is even worst then waiting for it...

 

Then you dont have $3000+ to buy the "best" laptop out there. Read and understand what they mean first lol

 

^--^
We don't appreciate flaming on this forum.

Remember what your mother taught you ... If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all

 

I'm seeing heaps of people jumping ship to the new 17x-R2. I'm looking at the costs and, in Oz, it's actually quite comparable. Our base model is i7-720 and RGBLED screen. If I add the dual 4870s (main reason I'd even consider it), it ends up only $300 more than my order for the G73JH (with 820). If I can find a decent coupon code (15% or so), that would make it the same price

I'd lose 500GB HDD (but I was gonna swap for SSD anyway), BluRay, 2 RAM slots and 4GB, 5870 (DX11) and a "unique" cooling system. But I'd get FireWire, expresscard and e-sata, and a better build(? maybe).

Man that's a tough one. The G73 is unique and I love the retro look, but I've always kinda wanted an Alienware. I'm not that keen on the chunky tho. If this gets pushed back any further, I may be another convert to teh dark side

 

. I'm hoping for jump- shippers to bump me into the first shipment wave

 

Same here mate. I am just as confused as you are regarding what to do! The wait is just getting way too long. The AW is looking fairly good, especially with a 15% off coupon if you can find one!

I will give the Asus another week before I jump ship I think... I hope I don't!

 

no matter how you look at it, Alienware is still much more expensive to me than this G73JH.

I don't personally have use for eSATA or Expresscard...... but I admit USB 3.0 slot will be handy...

 

I don't think it has USB3.0 But because it also has native 5.1 analogue out, I also wouldn't need expresscard slot. It has tonnes going for it, but as you said, it is at a premium. But not as big a premium as I first thought.

If it wasn't so gaudy and didn't have all the bling I would be a lot more tempted. I LOVE the dark rubberized matt look of the G73. It's AWESOME

Also, realistically how much is DX11 going to be used in the next 3 years? I'm currently on console for gaming so haven't really cared about the DX10 stuff. My pc couldn't handle it so I didn't care.

 

I agree that the AW is a little more expensive, a lot more if you can't find good coupons. I did jump ship, but I think one of the reasons was just the feeling of owning Alienware, something I had dreamed of since 2005ish. For those of you considering switching, in all fairness the gaming performance of the G73JH will be comparable to the m17x-r2 albeit somewhat slower. With AW you pay extra half for name and half for build, at least that's the way I see it.

In summary, to all the pre-orderers stay strong, I am sure it's coming.

 

Well, for the sake of my argument you would spend $900 now on a laptop and then $900 again in 18 months. The point is to spread the expense over time and get more for your money in the long haul.

 

Domino Effect.. eh?

 

I dont know if you understood my post wrong.I was simply joking about how you guys have money to buy a laptop at $3000.00 and I will be broke for a very long time after I buy this Asus

 

So, now that I've ordered, I do have a couple more questions.

I've heard that the HD is easy to upgrade to a good SSD, which should be pretty cheap in half a year or so.

How easy is the processor to upgrade? In a few years once the warranty is up, I'm thinking I might upgrade the processor to get a bit more life out of the thing. Is it just opening the thing up, popping the old one out and the new one in? I'm guessing there's some other stuff you'd have to mess with too...

And will they be making any better processors (than the 920XM) that this thing could accept? I know that would might just be speculation, but it'd be nice to know.

 

I heard that on this particular ASUS laptop, that you might void the warranty if you try to swap the cpu out. There is a sticker covering that when broke might void it. I think...

 

yeah, I know, I'm saying in a few years, once the warranty is already over anyway.

And I know no one has one yet, so it's hard to say, I'm just curious.

 

In general its not very hard, a few screws to take the bottom cover off. A few more screws to remove the heatsink, and then take the cpu put. Clean up the heatsink, put the new cpu in, put new thermal compound on, and put it back together.

15 minutes or so worth of work. The only part prone to error for most people would be not doing a good job applying the new thermal compound. Thats because the defacto standard was AS5 in the day and it required a specific way of applying it for best results and it was conductive so if you messed up and did it wrong you could short something.

Now with the ICD stuff out its fool proof to apply, just uses compression and its non conductive. So the most risky part of it all is not not a problem.

I dont think you will ever find yourself needing to upgrade the cpu though as even the slowest model will clock very high and the higher models wont clock that much higher. In most cases the new generation of cpu's that are faster/better wont fit into an old socket or is not supported by the bios. The cpu is by far the stronger link in the laptop anyways, the gpu will fall behind the times way before the cpu does.