ASUS G73JW-A1 Review Discussion

The ASUS G73JW is a new 17.3" gaming notebook powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M graphics card. Earlier this year we reviewed the ATI Radeon 5870 equipped G73JH, so now we have the chance to see how NVIDIA's GPU stacks up. Read our full in-depth review to see how well the ASUS G73JW-A1 with the NVIDIA GTX 460M performs.

Read the full content of this Article: ASUS G73JW-A1 Review

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Excellent review. Both G73jh and G73jw are great gaming machines, can't go wrong with either one.

By the way, I believe in the review you meant to say 460M GTX is slower in left 4 dead benchmark not 480M GTX.

 

Thanks for the review. ;D
Also one USB 3.0 port ftw since they dont ship with esata port.

 

I like the new touchpad buttons and USB 3.0!

How the heck did the surface temps end up so much hotter than the G73JH?!?!?!

 

Not trying to be rude, but why does the review go from Fahrenheit to Celsius?

 

Because only nerds can do 9/5 C° + 32° = F° in there head, and it's usually only nerds that care about gpu and cpu temps while everyone else cares about outside temps, thus F° combined with C°.

 

Also, while the infrared thermometer they use for external temperatures typically registers temperatures in Fahrenheit, the program they use to monitor internal temperatures registers the temperature (like most programs) in Celsius.

 

Ok review, needs a lot more game benchmarks.

 

Agreed. Seeing as how similar to the JW is to the JH in terms of build and chassis, I would've expected less emphasis on those topics compared to what's new, mainly the 460GTX. We still can't get a good grasp on how well the 460GTX stacks up against the 5870 -- synthetic benchmarks don't tell the whole story.

Would we be able to get more gaming benchmarks for this machine other than L4D 2? Also, is there a reason why this machine scored lower in PCMark05 when overclocked?

 

Lack of benchmarks of course...but what surprised me was when the article stated USB 3.0 is outperformed by eSata. I had no idea, is this true?

But wow, the battery life is so high, I wonder how Asus pulled that off?

 

I think that's from when they reviewed the MyBook 3.0 half a year ago ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...rn-digital-my-book-3-0-review-discussion.html). I'm surprised you've forgotten, you even commented on it.

 

Oh no! Now I look really dumb. Sorry...
Yeah it's been a while since I followed the tech >.< +Rep for finding that ^_^

 

No, not dumb. Just been away a while. Welcome back.

 

Nice review. I am happy to see they redid the touchpad buttons, that was one of my main complaints about the G73H.

The GTX 460M definitely is not as strong as the HD 5870, which is something buyer's should keep in mind . . . still a nice graphics card though.

 

Did you update the drivers to v260?

 

I'm a little frustrated that this review doesn't go more into the panel display. The JW is supposed to come with a 120hz panel for 3D gaming. As a JH owner, the difference in panel quality is my one interest in upgrading.

If the panel on the JW gives a substantially better PQ than the JH at the cost of less than 10fps between the two cards, then that is an upgrade I'm interested in. Or the possibility of switching panels out.

Perhaps the review unit didn't have one of the new 120hz panels and instead was the same display as the JH?

Though as a gamer, I have to say that I'm psyched that I got the right G73 for GPU.

How is the panel compared to the G73JH-A1/A2?

Other than that, good review!

 

L4D 2 is a poor game to benchmark with. It's engine is really dated and does not stress the video card nearly enough IMO.

For a gaming notebook there really should be more than one game test.

 

The 120hz 3d screens will not be available till November ish so thats why they didnt mention it ...


The JW and the JH use the exact same Hannstar screen ...

 

Ahh! My bad.

 

What? I don't like to debate with a moderator, especially not a lead moderator, but from what I understand, the NVIDIA card had performance at the same level as the 5870, some games better, some games worse.

Just sayin', although I have a feeling that this post is likely to disappear, lol.

 

I mean no offense, but if you are going to do benchmarking at all, you need to put more effort into it for it to be meaningful. For example, suppose I wanted to find out how this model compares to the similar ASUS (with the 5870) in terms of graphics. You bring it up, but the only benchmarks you use are 3DMark06 and Left 4 Dead 2 (a game for which both cards appear to be overkill). The 460 is slightly better at one of them and somewhat worse at the other which tells me very little because a single game can always have some issue with a particular graphics card and the synthetic benchmark is nearly half a decade old. To have a meaningful set of benchmarks, you need to use multiple games.

This would require either a longer review (see this one for an example) or you could have the same length review, but instead of just L4D2, you'd need to have a composite score based on a variety of games. The rest of the review is quite good, but the benchmarking section is half-baked and doesn't impart much information to the reader (or worse, confuses the less technically adept ones...).

 

Yup, updated to the newest drivers provided by NVIDIA.

Installing a Mass Effect 2 and Crysis Warhead onto the system now. Previously we didn't have "office games" so it was pretty much left to whatever we had on hand. Going forward we have Left 4 Dead 2, ME2, Crysis Warhead, and Black Ops once it comes out.

 

Was just going to suggest Crysis or Crysis Warhead, way to stay on top of it though

Was a good read and looks like a solid performer Words cant describe how glad I am though, that Asus has eschewed the tacky, glossy plastic surfacing in favor of something much more subdued.....wish other makers would follow suit!

 

Great looking gaming notebook. If only I could afford a gaming notebook right now...

 

Main question which is not answered is at what temp do the CPU and GPU fans start running. The review mentions that the machine can get back to 40 something C. But if the fans are set to start at 40 or 43 C, then the fans would ALWAYS be on. I'm looking for a machines with fans on as little as possible. Do you know at waht temp the fans starts to run?

 

Why is it that they put low temp on review but on actual temp its more than 60 degree Celsius?

Most of the G73 users have 55c+ (131F) when starting the unit. People do repasting to reduce temp from 60+ to 50's deg C.

 

Thanks. But that does not tell me at what temp the fans start.

 

How are people measuring the GPU temp at the BIOS stage? We were grabbing the direct values in Windows and writing them down. Its not like we just gave what ASUS told us to put or something. What we saw and put in the review *was* actual for our unit.

 

The separated touchpad buttons alone, would influence me to buy this model of the G73.

I'll be waiting for the G73 w/ Mobility 6870.

 

The review is definitely lacking something, I mean come on where talking about the laptop that is defining mobile gaming. It is standard though like all the other reviews and hits on all the main points.

 

Has anyone tried to compare the G73JW-A1 LCD next to an Alienware? Would like to see the difference.

Mike

 

I want that laptop! Kevin..give it up now I have liked it since i saw it at CES lol

 

So any weird problems popping up with the jw so far? Like the jh had the gray screen of death (which was possibly fixed with a BIOS update?)

From what I've heard, the G73's screen is much higher quality than average for a notebook, but I'd guess Dell's M17x (LED backlit one) is better still, as I've also heard great things about Dell's high end screens, and that uses 3-color LEDs instead of white. Though the price on the system is also either somewhat or much higher depending how you configure it.

I'm sort of thinking of getting one or the other, but not sure if anything weird's been found with the jw yet (I THINK the M17x is okay...?)

 

Yeah like Wolfpup was asking, any issues come up with this laptop yet? I'm considering getting it over the JH because I like NVIDIA over ATI.

 

Sorry no one responded to this post sooner. There are quite a lot of active discussion threads about the G73JW here in the ASUS gaming notebooks forum if you want to discuss specific details about this system.

Every notebook has it's own quirks and issues (that's one of the reasons our forums are so helpful in identifying possible problems before and after your purchase). I also know that we have quite a few ASUS resellers (customized notebook stores) hang out in our forums to answer questions about notebooks like this one. As we mentioned in the review, GenTech Computers (GenTechPC.com) was kind enough to supply our review sample and we didn't have any technical issues during the review period.