ViciousXUSMC's Ultimate G73JH Review

Would this AC adapter work with the G73?

http://www.amazon.com/Replacement-A...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1267081303&sr=8-1

This one's only $54, as opposed to the $85 charged by resellers.


Also, what's the official verdict on upgrading the wireless? Is it worth it, or, I heard someone mentioning, that the G73 might come with enough antennas to make an upgrade worthwhile?

 

This one works, LINK.

As for the wireless it depends more on your router. The Intel 6200 is a two antenna connection. The 5300 and 6300 require 3 for advertised speeds.

 

Nice performance results - thanks for benchmarking all those other games!

I'm running a benchmark thread for the 285m currently ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=462345) and am naturally curious to see how the performance matches up seeing as I was originally intending on getting the G73JH.

Seems to be either equal in some games or with a 10/20% advantage in others.

Curious as to how you're measuring the FPS on games like Dragon Age. Mind if I ask what areas you're in when you start the test? I'd like to get a like for like comparison for some games as I think it'd be interesting to compare the results.

 

Dragon age was dwarf noble start area, so inside the castle running about, talk cut scenes, and for battle I was in the proving grounds.

Im sure there are more demanding areas in the game but it shouldn't be much harder.

 

Which was 10/20% advantage? Looks like the 285 edged Dirt2 by 2 fps, but lost fps battles in the other games that you both ran.

I'm thinking the dx11 that the G73 renders may be a reason that the 285 edged out here, because it doesn't render the extra graphical effects.

 

Also his test had Dirt 2 post processing set to ultra while mine was locked at medium as you can only go higher if you have a DX11 card. Then again, mine also had 4xAA while the 5870 was set to none so it could be pretty equal and mean that Dirt 2 prefers Nvidia architecture.

As for the 20% difference - DMC4 got demolished by the 5870 while the 285m was up to 30% slower in places.

10% difference was RE5.

 

Is the 285m an overclocked 280m, or is it something different altogether?

 

285m is an over-clocked 8800GTX, lol.

 

I remember about (3?) years ago when I bought my desktop 8800GTX. That thing was SO awesome at the time and it really lasted me until I picked up a 4870. Amazing they are still competitive 3 years later. Nvidia really needs Fermi to hit a home run. It's been too long since Nvidia has had a major breakthrough.

 

It's an overclocked 280m. A boost in actual performance of about 10-15% is what I hear for most games. I should probs find a 280m benchmark thread and see what kind of performance they got on the games I'm currently testing.

I'm just happy I can max out all multiplatform titles and actually run games I've been meaning to play for years (Stalker with complete mod 2009 is still gorgeous).

 

Hello.

I’m willing to buy a detailed high quality video guide to the disassembly & reassembly of the ASUS G73JH laptop that shows how to upgrade the processor, graphic card and the wireless adapter.

Anyone that can help please post the video for sale on eBay along with some preview screenshots in the listing and state the listing # in the reply.

 

DX11 is way harder AA is only like a 2fps hit for me to turn it on. Post processing High is like a 20fps hit.

 

Wireless card is easy, cpu is a challenge, gpu cant be upgraded (nothing to upgrade it too)

Id be interested but dont really have a proper video recorder. Its a good opportunity for some others though.

 

Question about the i7 920XM and RAM. The laptop uses a HM55 chipset that doesn't support the 920XM ( http://ark.intel.com/chipset.aspx?familyID=43181). But in some cases I've heard that people are using the 920XM. People have also reported that they can use more than 8GB of RAM and even 16GB, and yet the Intel website states that the i7 mobile processors only supports up to 8GB.

Can anybody confirm that more than 8GB of can can be recognized and used and the 920XM work on G73?

 

Yeah you would have to have to compare to have someone run the games with the same settings as yourself to find out.

Also you would have to turn off PhysX to compare.

For the 920XM, zzzzzz. Read the benchmark thread... don't be lazy

 

What effects do higher levels of post processing add? 'Coes right now, playing it on all ultra at 4x aa full res and it's one of the best looking games I've ever seen.

I know what the DX11 specific features are (improved water/cloth/crowd tessellation) and is it just those that have been added?

 

Its a big change and the largest dip in fps of any setting, not saying you will notice all the changes. Its like crysis medium --> high huge drop in fps but if you do not look for the changes you may not really notice them.

 

So the 5870 definitely outperforms the 285m in Dirt 2 if setting it to ultra is that demanding and you still got 28FPS average.

I'm also surprised by your Dragon Age results - my FPS won't go anywhere near that high although performance seems solid. Then again, I did just notice that I accidentally left Vsync turned on. Although I just dropped AA to 0 and turned that off and the boost didn't seem substantial but then again I only played with it for 2 minutes or so once I realised (same with Batman - Vsync off seemed to add little in terms of performance which caught me off guard as I swear that's usually quite a taxing option to have).

 

Hi Everybody,
Thanks for all the information you've provided on NBR's various G73JH threads -- and thank you very much, Vicious, for the outstanding review. I've been on the market for a laptop, and you guys have been a godsend. I'm hoping you wouldn't mind providing a little more information:

The Oblivion mod community is working on some incredible (to me) graphics enhancements (see links below). Because I don't have computer, I can't test them, and I'm so behind the times that I don't really have a sense of the capabilities of current technology. There also isn't any (helpful) documentation for OBGE, one of the newest and most demanding mods. So I'm wondering: is the G73 be powerful enough to run Oblivion smoothly (30fps+/60fps+) with OBGE and the other standard graphics enhancements (Weather, Qarl, etc)? Sorry if this question is too specialized. And thanks again.

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df32wB14D5E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc3zEXYm6FY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-oakcdeOy8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KPavsMaI3c&feature=related
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30054
(Have a look at the comparison screenshots.)

 

I noticed something missing in the review Maybe this will help:

 

I do not have oblivion on hand to test, but this machine will just obliterate it even with the mods. When I played oblivion I used mods like qualrs (quarks?) ultra res textures and stuff like that, the result was a much larger demand on gpu memory for frame buffer, but not too much more of a demand on the actual cpu/gpu.

This was with a 256mb card, some of the mods pushed me into the realm of needing a 512mb card...The G73 has a 1GB card it should be quite more than enough to handle Oblvion totally maxed out even with the most intensive mods.

 

There's already a PDF of the disassembly guide somewhere on the main thread in case you didnt know..
It's good enough, you really dont need to spend money for a video guide..

If you want it and cant find it, pm me and i'll upload it

PS: you need >5 posts for someone to be able to pm you

 

Thanks for the review! I added it to the Info Booth and the Reviews & Owner's Lounges Index..

 

Fantastic, thanks very much, Vicious.

 

Thank you, nice review

Does it support "Dolby Home Theater" and "Dolby Digital Live"?

I'm from Spain (Europe) and I'm planning to buy one from USA resellers.
I think the spanish model is not FHD, only 1600x900

Does anyone know if the keyboard could be customized to spanish one or buy it separately? And what about the AC adapter? Could it be the european model or buy it separately?


Thanks.

 

@TXdino - I envy you

 

What? I can't see anything? Oh wait is that stealth or something. LoL. I didn't know those laptops can act as an air control surface. Proably 100x cheaper than the actual panel it's sitting on. lol.

 

Is there a way to do a "fresh" (without bloatware) install of Windows 7 Home using only the default recovery disc included with the G73JH?

Or is the only way to purchase a real Win7 Install disc?

Thanks ahead of time!

 

You can get an install disk here.

 

ASUS does not sell foreign language keyboards within the US (we have checked). You would need to see if you could contact a more local branch of ASUS within the EU to see if they could offer a Spanish keyboard for the G73. If you cannot reach ASUS, you might also want to check with ASUS resellers local to you to see if they could get a keyboard for you.

 

Thank you.

I hope ENAME, the Authorized Technician Center for Spain and Portugal can sell a Spanish keyboard:

http://www.ename.pt/index.php?module=iPost&func=display&ceid=87&meid=-1

If they can't, I think it will be impossible.
I will contact them.


Thanks.

 

Thanks for the info.

I actually got a trick/tip from XoticPC so you don't need to bother with another Win7 disc.

I'm sure most of you know this, but in case someone else is looking for how to do a "clean" or "fresh" install of Windows 7 (without bloatware) using only the Asus Recovery DVD, here is how...

Boot off the recovery DVD (hold down escape during restart, choose DVD option). Follow prompts to install Windows 7. At the point where it asks for the driver utility disc (I don't think it actually called it that; I seem to remember it said something like "additional" or "supplemental"), do not insert the driver disc. Instead, hold down the power button until the laptop does a hard boot. It will start up again and continue installing the remainder of the Win7 stuff. Once that's done, you've got a fresh Win7 without bloatware (which was 33 processes running for me, compared to the 89-91 with bloatware). Then you can insert the driver disc and install anything you want manually.

I put only these on there (though I'm still unclear if I really need any of them):
Keyboard Filter (Driver)
ASUS Wireless Console3 (app)
Power4Gear Hybrid (app)
ControlDeck (app)
FastBoot (app)
ASUS NBProbe (app)

Then I put 10.3 CCC on. My final processes running is now 58-61.

My benchmarks after this clean install were:

720QM / 8GB 1333 RAM / stock HD (no SSD) / stock speeds (no overclock on cpu or gpu)

3DMark06 (basic/free)
1280x1024
score = 12646
SM 2.0 score = 5219
SM 3.0 score = 6090
CPU score = 3167
processes running = 59

Vantage = P8281
CPU score = 10698
GPU score = 7700

Thanks Vicious.... I'm so glad I read your guide and bought this machine. It rocks hard!

 

you can do it with the default recovery disc...the driver disc has all the bloatware.

Run a fresh install with the win7 disc and restart...then insert the driver disc and only install what you need

 

First post here.

Thank you very much for an amazing review. Have had my eye on the G73 for about a month now, but now I am *really* sold on it.

Can't seem to get details on when this will officially be available in the UK, or whether I will have to go the eBay route and hope for the best. Grrrrrrr

Once again, thank you for the amazing review, as well as the interesting and useful posts from some of the posters in the thread. ++

 

You can order from any of the resellers listed on the main G73 thread because they all ship to the UK.

 

Thanks for referring me here Vicious, I think I've found my future laptop. £1035 converted from US for the base model, it's just shipping to Northern Ireland will be a real hure!

OH BABY!

 

In Australia at P4Laptops they have the G73 A1 and the G73 TZAX at 2349 at 2495 respectivly. The only difference between them is one has home premium and the other windows 7 professional 64bit . I was thinking of buying an Alienware m17x with duel 4870 at over 3 grand but now that this has come out I think I will go for it.

 

I only got the drivers and utilities disc with my G73. Would this work with the recovery disk I make using the Asus Backup prompt that I get when I boot up?

 

great review

 

I don't think it will work from the home-made recovery disks. It never asks for anything other than the next so I'm not sure at what point you would know to do anything different. I did use the recovery disks I made when I upgraded to 640gb drives and it worked great. I did not feel the need to do a full "clean" install as I don't have any issues with the stock config and I haven't seen anything that convinces me of any speed improvement.

 

I've bought a g73 2 weeks ago and still ave 2 doubts.

1. how can I use multi touch with 2 and 3 fingers?

2. how to activate the Express Gate mode? since on my desktop pc I've a asus Mboard and It opens the express gate menu automatically.

Btw, nice review vicious, keep the good work


thanks in advance.

 

If you don't have the options in mouse settings, install the newest Synaptics driver on their web site. It adds a lot of pretty cool options including two finger scroll, pinch zoom and the like.

 

and what about the asus express gate?

 

hi, need some help finding a blu-ray drive writer for asus g73jh. does someone knows what models i can use? I'm from Portugal. Thanks you all for the help. This is a very usefull and amazing forum.

 

Any 12.7mm tray loading bluray writer will work. Check eBay there are many in the $125-$200 range.

 

tnks for the help. gonna try to find one.

 

I don't use it since I have an SSD and it's nearly as quick, but you'd press the "odometer" looking icon while off to fire up Expressgate.

Once you do, you'll probably want to swap out the bezel. Check out the youtube vid in my signature (not created by me) for a good visual guide on how to do that.

 

great review, and was the last and probably convincing evidence I need in ordering mine today! Thanks!

 

Great review, thanks! Slideshows are very helpful.

 

Just a quick note to alert you that voting for the NBR Amazing Content Contest comes to a close on February 17th! Also, we added an additional prize for the thread that comes in 2nd place in the member voting, so get out and vote for this thread! Rally your supporters and storm the voting both while there's still time!