HA! I just bought this today! It'll be here tomorrow! So happy. Best bang for the buck.
By "bang" you mean, it runs hot and makes a lot of noise, right?
The GeForce GTX 460M runs too hot for too little performance. Four memory modules mean too much heat, and don't offer any advantages over two modules. Two hard drives add to the heat and noise, without offering any benefits over one. If 500 GB isn't enough for you, then you're doing something that you shouldn't use a laptop for.
It's a full node die shrink from Clarksfield, so it you can clock it higher and still fit in the same power envelope. It's a new architecture, so it will offer higher performance per clock cycle, too. On net, it will likely be about 30% or 40% faster than what you'd buy today, for the same price tag. Rather than paying a fortune for a processor that is, for gaming purposes, borderline obsolete the day you buy it, you'd get something that performs like a mid-range desktop processor.
If you buy a gaming laptop today, it's not going to last very long before it struggles with future games. You'll get a lot more life out of it if you wait for Sandy Bridge. There might be a mobile version of Barts out by the time Sandy Bridge launches, too, and if so, you'd get a better video card by waiting, too.
When something can do more for the same amount of power the producers of said thing are going to develop it to do more wihtout you haveing to overclock.
If you buy a gaming laptop today, it's not going to last very long before it struggles with future games. You'll get a lot more life out of it if you wait for Sandy Bridge. There might be a mobile version of Barts out by the time Sandy Bridge launches, too, and if so, you'd get a better video card by waiting, too.
No sandy bridge will change the thing that gaming laptops performs worse than a desktop for 75% of the price, and often 50% too.
And you can always wait a while to get something better, the sandy bridge is supposed to come out early next year but it might be late or they might just release a few cards and wait a while with the rest including the laptop card, it is pretty common both from ATI and Nvidia.
Gamers usually buy desktops due to the fact that you get a lot more for the money. Laptops are usually used by students and people who spend a lot of time on the train, or anyone who needs mobility more than power.
My own laptop is pretty kick ass and yet do I only play games on it when I must, I have it for travels, when I play RPGs at friends and when I duo Guildwars at a buddys place. My desktop cost me about the same and there is miles between the performance.
Laptops just isn't good for gaming. And the small screen sucks even on the largest, a loose keyboard and 24" screen to dock it too is also a must.
If you buy a gaming laptop today, it's not going to last very long before it struggles with future games. You'll get a lot more life out of it if you wait for Sandy Bridge. There might be a mobile version of Barts out by the time Sandy Bridge launches, too, and if so, you'd get a better video card by waiting, too.
No sandy bridge will change the thing that gaming laptops performs worse than a desktop for 75% of the price, and often 50% too.
And you can always wait a while to get something better, the sandy bridge is supposed to come out early next year but it might be late or they might just release a few cards and wait a while with the rest including the laptop card, it is pretty common both from ATI and Nvidia.
Gamers usually buy desktops due to the fact that you get a lot more for the money. Laptops are usually used by students and people who spend a lot of time on the train, or anyone who needs mobility more than power.
My own laptop is pretty kick ass and yet do I only play games on it when I must, I have it for travels, when I play RPGs at friends and when I duo Guildwars at a buddys place. My desktop cost me about the same and there is miles between the performance.
Laptops just isn't good for gaming. And the small screen sucks even on the largest, a loose keyboard and 24" screen to dock it too is also a must.
good post... good post... I'm clapping with one hand right now. Give it a year. The Ivy bridge architecture is getting rid of dual cores all together and releases in 2011 and will go up to 16 core processors at the highest end.
well ur talking about over clocking right>? i dont think id do that with the laptop if i got it lol
No, I'm not talking about overclocking. I'm talking about stock clock speeds, as Intel and AMD set in their chips before selling them.
-----
The gap in processor performance between laptops and desktops is actually going to narrow with time. Even if you can get twice as many cores for the same thermal envelope, Amdahl's law means that doubling the number of cores will offer sharply diminishing benefits. Even today, four cores are better than two, but nowhere near twice as good. A few years from now, will eight cores be better than four in gaming? Maybe a little, but not much. In many (possibly most) games, eight won't be any better than four at all.
For reasons of physics, you can only clock cores so high before power consumption gets out of hand. Intel launched a 3.8 GHz Pentium 4 in 2004. That's still the highest stock clocked desktop processor ever released. Even if you want to count turbo boost, a Core i5 680 (a desktop dual core that costs over $300) will top out at 3.86 GHz, and nothing else on the market reaches 3.8 GHz. The top Sandy Bridge turbo boost for desktops will only be 3.8 GHz, too. Desktop clock speeds may well increase in the future, but they've reached a range where it will be very slow. Laptops have quite a ways left to increase before they really smack into that barrier.
Let's restrict this to ~$300 processors to keep a clean comparison. Right now, in a desktop, you can get a Core i7 870 with a stock clock speed of 2.93 GHz. A single core will turbo boost up to 3.6 GHz. In a laptop, you can get a Core i7 740QM with a stock clock speed of 1.73 GHz. A single core will turbo boost up to 2.93 GHz. That gives the desktop about a 70% clock speed advantage in stock speed, and 23% in single core turbo boost.
Compare that to Sandy Bridge. A Core i7 2600 will have a stock speed of 3.4 GHz, and the single core turbo boost will go up to 3.8 GHz. A Core i7 2720QM will have a stock speed of 2.2 GHz, with a max turbo boost of 3.4 GHz. The desktop part is still faster, but now it's a clock speed advantage of 55% without turbo, or 12% for the top single core turbo boost. That's a much smaller advantage.
Note that in both cases, it's comparing different bins of the same dies. They're merely clocked differently for different power consumption. It's the same power consumption for both generations, too: 95 W TDP for the desktop processor, and 45 W for the laptop.
And I might be using the wrong desktop part for comparison, too. The Core i7 2720QM is set to be the slowest mobile Sandy Bridge quad core. But the Core i7 2600 is the top bin desktop part, so Intel might decide to charge a lot more for it, and fill the $300 slot with something cheaper. If that happens, the desktop clock speed advantage is smaller yet.
Give it a few years and I wouldn't be surprised if the top clock speed advantage of desktops is actually pretty small, but desktops can merely run several cores at or near the top speed at once, while laptops can only push one or two that high.
This sort of laptops catching up will happen for processors, but not for video cards. Amdahl's Law is a long way from meaningfully kicking in for video cards, as graphics are highly parallelizable. Being able to dissipate 200 W easily from a desktop video card but not wanting to go meaningfully over 50 W in a laptop video card will mean that desktop video cards will offer 2-3 times the video performance of laptops for the foreseeable future.
But that's not so crippling to gaming as slower processor performance. If your processor isn't fast enough, you're stuck. If your video card isn't fast enough, you can turn video settings down and still get excellent frame rates.
damn quiz u know ur stuff about laptops :P im still struggling to understand what ur saying :P haha but lets just say im getting a laptop to play Games like World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, aion, counter-strike 1.6, Css, l4d2, tf2, etc mostly WoW tho. Would it be worth getting a laptop now? or just waiting? cuz this would be my christmas present thats why i dont want to really wait till feb or jan haha
The big catch is this: are those the only games that you'll ever want to play? What you really don't want to happen is to buy a laptop, think it's great at first, and then a year later, pick up a new game, only to find that the laptop can't run it very well. Unless you really, really need it right now, I'd recommend waiting for Sandy Bridge to launch in January.
ya prolly i never get any new games....only games ill end up getting are Guildwars 2 and Diablo 3 which dont need a good computer to play......other wise i stick to the same games
A comment was made earlier about using an AMD graphics instead of Nvidia. I personally wouldn't touch AMD with a 10 foot pole, but thats just from previous experiences and now I'm rather bias. This is an alternate model of ASUS G73 notebook utilizing the AMD graphics that still costs substantially under 2k.
ASUS G73JH-B1 I7-740QM W7HP64 8G-DDR3,1TB(500GX2),BD COMBO,
Color/Weight/WxDxH : Black/8.0lbs/16.6" x 12.8" x 0.8" - 2.3"
Warranty : 2 Yrs Global/1st Yr Accidental Damage/
30 Days ZBD
Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit),
Carry bag & mouse : Gaming Bag/Gaming Mouse
Camera : 2.0M
You've got some good advice from other posts, there are some very well informed people posting for you.
When looking at a gaming laptop, remember it's alot more of a luxury then the costs may initially show. You don't have room for upgrades so 3 years of use until you're wanting to upgrade to a new one is a fairly accurate assessment. You might get more or less depending on how low you're willing to let the graphics slide, but calculate your investment by that principle.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
Comments
By "bang" you mean, it runs hot and makes a lot of noise, right?
The GeForce GTX 460M runs too hot for too little performance. Four memory modules mean too much heat, and don't offer any advantages over two modules. Two hard drives add to the heat and noise, without offering any benefits over one. If 500 GB isn't enough for you, then you're doing something that you shouldn't use a laptop for.
So quiz tell me more about this sandy bridge idk anything about it.....why should i wait till thats released?
btw is this a good price for the setup?
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww300/Doom10320/AWesomenees.png
It's a full node die shrink from Clarksfield, so it you can clock it higher and still fit in the same power envelope. It's a new architecture, so it will offer higher performance per clock cycle, too. On net, it will likely be about 30% or 40% faster than what you'd buy today, for the same price tag. Rather than paying a fortune for a processor that is, for gaming purposes, borderline obsolete the day you buy it, you'd get something that performs like a mid-range desktop processor.
If you buy a gaming laptop today, it's not going to last very long before it struggles with future games. You'll get a lot more life out of it if you wait for Sandy Bridge. There might be a mobile version of Barts out by the time Sandy Bridge launches, too, and if so, you'd get a better video card by waiting, too.
well ur talking about over clocking right>? i dont think id do that with the laptop if i got it lol
When something can do more for the same amount of power the producers of said thing are going to develop it to do more wihtout you haveing to overclock.
No sandy bridge will change the thing that gaming laptops performs worse than a desktop for 75% of the price, and often 50% too.
And you can always wait a while to get something better, the sandy bridge is supposed to come out early next year but it might be late or they might just release a few cards and wait a while with the rest including the laptop card, it is pretty common both from ATI and Nvidia.
Gamers usually buy desktops due to the fact that you get a lot more for the money. Laptops are usually used by students and people who spend a lot of time on the train, or anyone who needs mobility more than power.
My own laptop is pretty kick ass and yet do I only play games on it when I must, I have it for travels, when I play RPGs at friends and when I duo Guildwars at a buddys place. My desktop cost me about the same and there is miles between the performance.
Laptops just isn't good for gaming. And the small screen sucks even on the largest, a loose keyboard and 24" screen to dock it too is also a must.
good post... good post... I'm clapping with one hand right now. Give it a year. The Ivy bridge architecture is getting rid of dual cores all together and releases in 2011 and will go up to 16 core processors at the highest end.
No, I'm not talking about overclocking. I'm talking about stock clock speeds, as Intel and AMD set in their chips before selling them.
-----
The gap in processor performance between laptops and desktops is actually going to narrow with time. Even if you can get twice as many cores for the same thermal envelope, Amdahl's law means that doubling the number of cores will offer sharply diminishing benefits. Even today, four cores are better than two, but nowhere near twice as good. A few years from now, will eight cores be better than four in gaming? Maybe a little, but not much. In many (possibly most) games, eight won't be any better than four at all.
For reasons of physics, you can only clock cores so high before power consumption gets out of hand. Intel launched a 3.8 GHz Pentium 4 in 2004. That's still the highest stock clocked desktop processor ever released. Even if you want to count turbo boost, a Core i5 680 (a desktop dual core that costs over $300) will top out at 3.86 GHz, and nothing else on the market reaches 3.8 GHz. The top Sandy Bridge turbo boost for desktops will only be 3.8 GHz, too. Desktop clock speeds may well increase in the future, but they've reached a range where it will be very slow. Laptops have quite a ways left to increase before they really smack into that barrier.
Let's restrict this to ~$300 processors to keep a clean comparison. Right now, in a desktop, you can get a Core i7 870 with a stock clock speed of 2.93 GHz. A single core will turbo boost up to 3.6 GHz. In a laptop, you can get a Core i7 740QM with a stock clock speed of 1.73 GHz. A single core will turbo boost up to 2.93 GHz. That gives the desktop about a 70% clock speed advantage in stock speed, and 23% in single core turbo boost.
Compare that to Sandy Bridge. A Core i7 2600 will have a stock speed of 3.4 GHz, and the single core turbo boost will go up to 3.8 GHz. A Core i7 2720QM will have a stock speed of 2.2 GHz, with a max turbo boost of 3.4 GHz. The desktop part is still faster, but now it's a clock speed advantage of 55% without turbo, or 12% for the top single core turbo boost. That's a much smaller advantage.
Note that in both cases, it's comparing different bins of the same dies. They're merely clocked differently for different power consumption. It's the same power consumption for both generations, too: 95 W TDP for the desktop processor, and 45 W for the laptop.
And I might be using the wrong desktop part for comparison, too. The Core i7 2720QM is set to be the slowest mobile Sandy Bridge quad core. But the Core i7 2600 is the top bin desktop part, so Intel might decide to charge a lot more for it, and fill the $300 slot with something cheaper. If that happens, the desktop clock speed advantage is smaller yet.
Give it a few years and I wouldn't be surprised if the top clock speed advantage of desktops is actually pretty small, but desktops can merely run several cores at or near the top speed at once, while laptops can only push one or two that high.
This sort of laptops catching up will happen for processors, but not for video cards. Amdahl's Law is a long way from meaningfully kicking in for video cards, as graphics are highly parallelizable. Being able to dissipate 200 W easily from a desktop video card but not wanting to go meaningfully over 50 W in a laptop video card will mean that desktop video cards will offer 2-3 times the video performance of laptops for the foreseeable future.
But that's not so crippling to gaming as slower processor performance. If your processor isn't fast enough, you're stuck. If your video card isn't fast enough, you can turn video settings down and still get excellent frame rates.
damn quiz u know ur stuff about laptops :P im still struggling to understand what ur saying :P haha but lets just say im getting a laptop to play Games like World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, aion, counter-strike 1.6, Css, l4d2, tf2, etc mostly WoW tho. Would it be worth getting a laptop now? or just waiting? cuz this would be my christmas present thats why i dont want to really wait till feb or jan haha
The big catch is this: are those the only games that you'll ever want to play? What you really don't want to happen is to buy a laptop, think it's great at first, and then a year later, pick up a new game, only to find that the laptop can't run it very well. Unless you really, really need it right now, I'd recommend waiting for Sandy Bridge to launch in January.
ya prolly i never get any new games....only games ill end up getting are Guildwars 2 and Diablo 3 which dont need a good computer to play......other wise i stick to the same games
A comment was made earlier about using an AMD graphics instead of Nvidia. I personally wouldn't touch AMD with a 10 foot pole, but thats just from previous experiences and now I'm rather bias. This is an alternate model of ASUS G73 notebook utilizing the AMD graphics that still costs substantially under 2k.
ASUS G73JH-B1 I7-740QM W7HP64 8G-DDR3,1TB(500GX2),BD COMBO,
17.3" gaming focus model. 4 memory slots, numeric keypad,Dolby Home Theatr
CPU : Intel Quad Core i7-740QM (1.73GHz)
LCD Size & Resolution : 17.3" FHD 1920x1080 LED
MB Chipset : Intel HM55
Optical Drive : BD Combo Drive
Memory : 8GB DDR3 1066 Mhz (2GBX4), 4skts, max 8GB
VGA Card : ATI 5870 1G GDDR5
Hard Drive : 1TB (500G 7200RPM x2)
WLAN/ TPM : 802.11B/G/N, No TPM
LAN : 10/100/1000
Battery/Run Time : Li-ion 8 cell
Interface/ Card Reader : 4xUSB, 1xVGA, 1xHDMI, 8-in-1
Bluetooth/FingerPrint : Yes/ No
Color/Weight/WxDxH : Black/8.0lbs/16.6" x 12.8" x 0.8" - 2.3"
Warranty : 2 Yrs Global/1st Yr Accidental Damage/
30 Days ZBD
Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit),
Carry bag & mouse : Gaming Bag/Gaming Mouse
Camera : 2.0M
You've got some good advice from other posts, there are some very well informed people posting for you.
When looking at a gaming laptop, remember it's alot more of a luxury then the costs may initially show. You don't have room for upgrades so 3 years of use until you're wanting to upgrade to a new one is a fairly accurate assessment. You might get more or less depending on how low you're willing to let the graphics slide, but calculate your investment by that principle.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
omfg that laptop is amazing :0 i like feel in love with that thing! lol comes with a mouse and a backpack !