ASUS G73Jh: Today's Top Gaming Laptop

G73Jh: Midrange Gaming Comparison

As stated, we're also providing a comparison with some of the faster midrange laptops that we've tested just to give you an idea of the difference. While the G73Jh costs twice as much as the Acer 5740G, it's only a few hundred dollars more than the Alienware M11x configuration we tested and 50% more than the ASUS N61J. All three of those will easily beat the G73Jh senseless when it comes to battery life comparisons, but for gaming there's another massive performance gap.

The Acer 5740G is the fastest midrange laptop we've tested (except for Batman where the M11x just edges it out); meanwhile the G73Jh manages to double (and often more than double) the performance of the 5740G in most titles. Running at midrange settings, there are a few titles where the gap is quite a bit smaller; Crysis: Warhead only shows a 31% advantage for the G73Jh at Mainstream settings, Empire: Total War shows a 52% advantage at Medium, and Left 4 Dead 2 is 60% faster with all settings other than antialiasing maxed out. At every other test setting the difference ranges from just over 90% (Empire: TW Very High) to 140% (Mass Effect 2). The Acer 5740G is no gaming slouch, and with a 1366x768 native resolution it really doesn't need anything more potent than the HD 5650. However, if you want to run games at higher quality settings and you want to have a 1080p LCD, you'll definitely want something as powerful as the HD 5870.