Stay away from the G73JH until Q3/4 this year

[ZigZag557]

They're changing the video card in the G73JH later this year from the ATI Radeon 5870m to the Nvidia GTX480m.

The GTX480m has been known to be a heat generating beast, but it'll allow for actual driver support, and far less headaches with glitching games and overall system flaws.

Not to mention we have no idea on if ASUS will even continue the driver support for the 5870's or not anymore. If they stop and we're stuck with catalyst drivers off the ATI site, well.. We (the G73JH 5870 owners) are in alooooot of trouble, lol.

So yeah, stick to waiting till the GTX480 is in the laptop later this year before buying it, imo.

[BtoTech.com]

yeah that will be in september though. it will also have widi

[ZigZag557]

Think there'll be any way we can trade in our 5870 G73's for GTX480 ones? lol

If they drop ATI driver support for these ones then I'd think we should be entitled to a swap out option of some sort.

[BtoTech.com]

trade in? no
return yes
you are allowed to return a product within 15 days of delivery
you are allowed to return a product aftert 15 days however the restock fee may be subject to change after 15 days

[BtoTech.com]

and no driver support will not stop mainly because asus sold a ton of these and these are the most popular laptop they EVER had

[ZigZag557]

Good to know. Still kinda tempted to find a way to conn myself into a gtx480 model tho once they come out, lol. I'd love some solid driver support on my laptop.

and speaking of which, I heard that ATI's mostly left their driver support to third party people. Is that true? and if so who are these 3rd party people? Do they mean guys like ASUS, MSI, Toshiba, and Dell? or do they mean people like the old omega driver guy from years back?

[BtoTech.com]

Originally Posted by ZigZag557

and speaking of which, I heard that ATI's mostly left their driver support to third party people. Is that true? and if so who are these 3rd party people? Do they mean guys like ASUS, MSI, Toshiba, and Dell? or do they mean people like the old omega driver guy from years back?

this was the case years ago. ati does put out a unified mobile driver for all their video cards but as you can see it has some issues. 10.6 seems to be ok for the most part but nothing is perfect. nothing will ever be perfect so long as the "extreme" computer user exists

[fastuser]

Eddie - I've been planning to place my order this week for the G73JH,
but this post seems like a great place to ask you to summarize your overall impressions of this model, please?

Having read through almost a thousand posts over @ notebookreview,
plus the posts here - will it really be smarter to wait on the nVidia vs ATI,
or will it be same problems/different day?

Also, my impression is you indicate that the main troubles are with the video drivers that people seem to insist on "upgrading" to -
driven by their expectations that "newer is better".

I'm not a gamer, but I want this (or equivalent) laptop because of its support for 16 GB RAM -
future proofs me for a long time in my studies of Virtualization + other I.T. research.

Plus you seem to be the most technically knowledgeable & no BS reseller!

Thanks for any more light you can shed here ....

[ZigZag557]

If you're not a gamer and can deal with stock drivers, then by all means, order away.

Truth be told tho, is that im an nvidia person. Have been for... 6 years now. When Nvidia releases a new driver, it offers large chunks of FPS gains in the current new games out, and the drivers are updated frequently to include new games in beta or already released, and show 10-20% fps gains in them almost every driver update.

So in the case of nvidia, "newer is better" 90% of the time.

In the case of ATI tho.. New means another way to be broken.

Soooo, if you're a gamer, then wait. If you aren't and have no plans to do any real gaming in the forsee able future, I'd go ahead and order it honestly.

The laptop does have a small handfull of headaches outside of drivers and such, like needing the 209 bios update to fix alotta weird issues you could see with the keyboard and it's backlights and such, but nothing that'd make you not wanna buy it anymore.

an FYI tho, if you're getting it from the BTO guys here, ask them to run furmark on the one they're sending out to you to stress test the GPU and make sure you don't get a faulty heat sink/GSOD'ing model by mistake. Last thing you wanna have to do is return it becuase your comp exploded on you on a hot day, lol.

[BtoTech.com]

the return rate on the g73 is low enough that we still sell them but high enough that we are considering charging a modest fee to test base (not custom) orders.
The perpetual waiter is someone who waits for the latest tech. This is termed this way because there is ALWAYS something new around the corner. In the case of the g73jh this model is actually the biggest success asus ever had (less all the issues which for the most part have been solved).
It is hard to compare ati to nvidia. The problem for ati is that they are owned by amd. A company that is always strugling to catch up to intel and now nvidia. The market share for ati in mobile applications is as small as it is for amd cpus. with that said their hd58xx series cards are the most powerful on the market for the price. if you are not a gamer then this is really not the laptop for you. You should look into something smaller and lighter. My personal favorite is this http://www.btotech.com/_e/15_MSI_Lap...X640_260US.htm which happens to have an hd5850 which scores about 5% lower then the 5870. This is one powerful gaming laptop right up there with the g73 but in a much smaller form.

[BtoTech.com]

Originally Posted by fastuser

Eddie - I've been planning to place my order this week for the G73JH,
but this post seems like a great place to ask you to summarize your overall impressions of this model, please?

Having read through almost a thousand posts over @ notebookreview,
plus the posts here - will it really be smarter to wait on the nVidia vs ATI,
or will it be same problems/different day?

Also, my impression is you indicate that the main troubles are with the video drivers that people seem to insist on "upgrading" to -
driven by their expectations that "newer is better".

I'm not a gamer, but I want this (or equivalent) laptop because of its support for 16 GB RAM -
future proofs me for a long time in my studies of Virtualization + other I.T. research.

Plus you seem to be the most technically knowledgeable & no BS reseller!

Thanks for any more light you can shed here ....

we only carry 2 laptops with capability for 16gb ram. the g73 and g51.

[ZigZag557]

Originally Posted by BtoTech.com

the return rate on the g73 is low enough that we still sell them but high enough that we are considering charging a modest fee to test base (not custom) orders.
The perpetual waiter is someone who waits for the latest tech. This is termed this way because there is ALWAYS something new around the corner. In the case of the g73jh this model is actually the biggest success asus ever had (less all the issues which for the most part have been solved).
It is hard to compare ati to nvidia. The problem for ati is that they are owned by amd. A company that is always strugling to catch up to intel and now nvidia. The market share for ati in mobile applications is as small as it is for amd cpus. with that said their hd58xx series cards are the most powerful on the market for the price. if you are not a gamer then this is really not the laptop for you. You should look into something smaller and lighter. My personal favorite is this http://www.btotech.com/_e/15_MSI_Lap...X640_260US.htm which happens to have an hd5850 which scores about 5% lower then the 5870. This is one powerful gaming laptop right up there with the g73 but in a much smaller form.

I didn't know the g51 was already out. How's that one handling atm? Heard it was supposed to be really nice.

[fastuser]

Thanks for these responses - appreciated.

Testing w/ Furmark beforehand sounds like a good call.

I come from ProStar 17" land -
hot, smelly, sweaty beasts w/ perpetual fans running -
the ASUS would be a breath of fresh, quiet air for me !! :lol:

I've built more than a dozen towers,
& had all my 15+ laptops' guts out replacing nearly everything,
so these ain't my first rodeo - i just don't happen to be a gamer, that's all.

But I do want 16 GB RAM, &
"dude .... i'm not gettin' a Dell & goin' thru *ell !!!" just to get it

I was all set to get ASUS N71JQ until I discovered the 16 GB capacity of G73JH.
I'll be running 4 - 7 VMs simultaneously + multibooting everything under the sun,
including those feline OS's from the vicinity of Cupertino, Ca

also plan to eventually go w/ either a hybrid (Seagate?) or SSD for the boot drive, & swap the optical for a 3rd hdd -
i obtain my HD vids by .iso formats anyway - don't need the drive.

ASUS' bios isn't all cobbled up like Dell or HP or Sony -
still allows freedom of hacking for .... whatever, yes?

so tha's why it's a gamers lappie 4 me!
(well, i do golf, so if the urge "strikes" to maybe give Mr. Woods_2010 one more whipping w/ an Elin 7i or W .... )

[BtoTech.com]

i would go for a real ssd not a hybrid. still have to run tests on hybrid transfer rates in the g73. we just added those drives as an option recently. more ram definitely helps with vm's.

[fastuser]

appreciate all the advices/suggestions

[G73owner]

Are there any games that would seriously benefit from that much faster of a gfx chip? So far, with stock drivers, COD5 and all FPS games I play run great. Got the g73 2 weeks ago, so far so good. It gives me a sour stomach knowing I should have waited for the 480m, but that's life.

[hooli]

hi guys, i've been researching this notebook ever since i came across it at best buy and i have a few questions.

1) what is the heat, and battery usage on the gtx 480m vs the hd 5870m?
2) i've heard here about the g73jh having tons of problems, what is the estimated failure rate?
3) how good is asus's tech support when problems come up?
4) is the hd 5870m a single core gpu?
5) i've heard that the current config runs very cool, could it run at full load for 24 hours or more without overheating?

i really appreciate it. i'm a freelance 3D animator so it would be running 3D software most of the time with some StarCraft 2 mixed in.

[BtoTech.com]

Originally Posted by hooli

hi guys, i've been researching this notebook ever since i came across it at best buy and i have a few questions.

1) what is the heat, and battery usage on the gtx 480m vs the hd 5870m?
2) i've heard here about the g73jh having tons of problems, what is the estimated failure rate?
3) how good is asus's tech support when problems come up?
4) is the hd 5870m a single core gpu?
5) i've heard that the current config runs very cool, could it run at full load for 24 hours or more without overheating?

i really appreciate it. i'm a freelance 3D animator so it would be running 3D software most of the time with some StarCraft 2 mixed in.

1. the 480 reaches about the same temps. just around 100C at full load. the battery would not be any better if the g73 ever comes with the 480
2. it varies by time and dealer. our customers get a very low rate. we check every unit that ships for known issue. visit the rma threads on this forum to get a full list
3. not good at all. this is why our policy says "contact us first" and why most people who dont read our policy contact us 2nd after they speak with asus
4. i think so. never asked or check to be honest. i dont think it matters either way.
5. it will run non stop without overheating. a new laptop can not and will not overheat unless it is physically damaged (rare) or there is a design flaw in the entire line (even more rare). this laptop does not overheat and never had overheating issues. finding an entire line of laptops that overheats out of the box or within the first year of use is like finding a needle in a haystack,

[BtoTech.com]

Originally Posted by G73owner

Are there any games that would seriously benefit from that much faster of a gfx chip? So far, with stock drivers, COD5 and all FPS games I play run great. Got the g73 2 weeks ago, so far so good. It gives me a sour stomach knowing I should have waited for the 480m, but that's life.

i am a believer that 30fps for any game is all we need. anything over 30fps will only be noticed by someone with exceptional vision. anything lower then 30fps is not great. games you mentioned run great on the 5870 however if you start enabling all the features that make the game look richer then the frames may fall below 30fps. there is always room for improvement in video cards and games. this industry is in its infancy.

[ZigZag557]

Originally Posted by BtoTech.com

i am a believer that 30fps for any game is all we need. anything over 30fps will only be noticed by someone with exceptional vision. anything lower then 30fps is not great. games you mentioned run great on the 5870 however if you start enabling all the features that make the game look richer then the frames may fall below 30fps. there is always room for improvement in video cards and games. this industry is in its infancy.

You do mean 30 minimum, right? Because the fps will dip and spike alot, and depending on what happens ina game, even with 45-50 fps, the game could still cause dips into the mid 20's. Starcraft 2 does it, crysis does it, AvP 3 does it.. etc etc.

Also, the Dell E-1705. That was a laptop that by design was flawed and prone to over heating/melting parts. They intentionally designed the video card (7900gs) with one less heat pipe, well giving the XPS version of the E-1705 all the needed cooling on the video card. This caused constant over heating, which not only broke the video card, but the ram too.

Can't even begin to tell you how many of those things I had replaced/repaired, lol.

Eventually tho, 2 years into owning it, they stoped making it. So I couldn't get it replaced anymore, and they sent me a peice of shit with an 8600gs in it, which couldn't even run WoW at 30 fps ina raid. :/

Needless to say, I demanded my money back till they gave it back, then went and built my own desktop instead. XD

*edit*
5870 is a single GPU card btw. The 5970 (or was it called the 5980?) is ATI's only current dual GPU dx11 card. It's also still the most powerful video card on the market in terms of raw FPS. Sorta like the GTX295 of dx11, lol.

I'd still never want it over the 480 tho, just because of the driver issues ATI has. What good is raw fps when the shit won't even run? lol

[BtoTech.com]

yes if it spikes to below 30 you will start to notice. 30 and above is perfect. 30fps is a good number. Spiking above 30 is good but below is bad. I just tested g73 with intel i7-840 and it scored over 14500 in 3dmark. Not sure why such a huge increase. that is even more then i7-920xm.

[ZigZag557]

That's... Weird, lol.

[naruhodo]

Whoa how did you catch wind of this news? Thanks for the heads up, September isn't too far away.

I hope to see the 480m version of the G73 for sale here on bto soon!

Also, I wonder how likely it is that refurbished ones will be for sale eventually..

edit: Now that I think of it, I also wonder if this change might affect the price of the G73. The reason I've been looking at the G73Jh and I assume the reason that it's so popular is the affordable price tag. Hopefully the GTX480m won't change that.

[BtoTech.com]

refurbs are typically available at the end of a laptops life cycle. this is why we just started getting g73 refurbs. I can not confirm which video will be in but i do know the thermal dynamics in the g73 do allow for it

[morpheus]

I was just about to pull the trigger on a G51JX-A1 from your store when I saw the G53. Any chances the problems plaguing the G73 carrying over?

Thanks for the time in advance.

[BtoTech.com]

well the only problem plaguing g73 was the Psod issue which has subsided. Everything else you read about was blown our of proportion by forums (this one exluded). Other then the Psod issue the g73 has been a highly susesfull and dependable model.