ASUS G73Jh: Today's Top Gaming Laptop
by Jarred Walton on April 17, 2010 2:25 AM ESTG73Jh: High-End DirectX 11 Gaming
We don't have a lot of high-end notebooks in our updated gaming benchmarks, but we do have the Clevo W870CU we can still use for comparison. Note that it has a faster 920XM CPU to help out, but we appear to be GPU limited in the majority of titles. We were going to include results from the Dell Precision M6500, but gaming performance with the Quadro FX 3800M is a bit erratic and we're not sure all of the games rendered correctly. So we've got two sets of benchmarks today: first a comparison at high quality settings and 1600x900 (with 1080p results and DX11 as well where appropriate); second will be a look at how a high-end laptop like the G73Jh compares to midrange laptops at 1366x768 using our "midrange" settings.
The ASUS G73Jh outperforms the Clevo W870CU in virtually every game we tested; Empire: Total War and Left 4 Dead 2 are the two exceptions, but here the performance gap is generally small—Empire: Total War is the larger difference with a performance advantage of 9%. (Note that the CPU may be part of the reason the W870CU wins, but we can't confirm at present—stay tuned for an article that will show exactly how the mobile GPUs stack up against each other with the same CPU.) Some of the titles where the G73Jh wins are also essentially tied, but Crysis: Warhead and Mass Effect 2 both show an 8-9% advantage. The two games where the HD5870 wins big are DiRT 2 (20%) and Far Cry 2 (23%).
Of course, we also need to discuss feature sets; while the GTX 280M (and the slightly faster 285M) aren't significantly slower, the HD5870 supports DX11. You can see the DX11 performance in DiRT 2 and STALKER, so there's obviously a compromise between performance and image quality, but given the pricing there's no reason to give up DX11 support for a slightly slower DX10 laptop—especially now that AMD has monthly mobile drivers coming out. You can now get the Clevo W870CU with HD5870 or GTX 285M; putting components equal to the G73Jh into such a notebook we ended up at a final price of over $2200, and that doesn't even account for the puny W870CU battery and other design elements.
There are still faster gaming notebooks, of course. We don't have updated results for the ASUS W90Vp (HD 4870X2) or any of the SLI GTX 280M/285M notebooks, but there are going to be plenty of games where the extra GPU shows its muscle. The problem is that you're now stuck deciding between DX11 support or a second GPU, unless AMD releases a mobile 5870X2 or 5970 or whatever they choose to call it (and they probably will at some point). Also, let's not forget that the second GPU means even heavier and more power hungry laptops, with a higher price as well. The Clevo X8100 is now the current champ when it comes to notebook gaming performance, but if we configure such a laptop with a 720QM, 2x2GB DDR3, and 2x500GB hard drives the price comes out to over $2600 (i.e. at AVADirect.com), and you still get the gigantic glossy Clevo chassis. If you like the design and you're willing to pay the extra $1000, GTX 285M SLI should provide roughly 50% more graphics performance than the G73Jh's HD 5870, but right now there are very few games where we truly feel the need for something faster.
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anishannayya - Monday, April 19, 2010 - link
Just though you might want to know.JarredWalton - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
Added a new link to a laptop drive. They're hard to find in stock! :-)layman_user - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
Can you guys also test the laptops for thermals? My friend bought a laptop recently and it "burns" when running games. Can you include some tests in your analysis to measure temperatures of chassis and cpu? It would be nice to know the "cool" laptops out thereJarredWalton - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
Page 2 has the temperature information. If the exhaust is cool and the noise levels are low, it's pretty safe to say that the CPU and GPU aren't running hot.layman_user - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
Thanks Jered. Can you guys do a comparision of 5 popular laptops for thermals? It would be interesting to see which laptop out there is the "coolest" .. Thermals is a huge factor these days and we hardly see any comparisions across notebooks for thermalsjfmeister - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
Sorry to come in late, I haven't gone all the way through the comments, but I would really like to see a MSI GX640 Review or at least some comparison. It seems to be a great compromise in size, battery life & performance.Thanks!
FesterSilently - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
Um...what about the Toshiba Qosmio Q870?http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=qosmio+q8...
Same price (~$1,400), slightly different specs:
Intel Core i7 720qm
2 x 2GB PC 10666
nVidia 360m (1GB GDDR5)
1680 x 945 native resolution*
1 x Hitachi 500GB HDD (7200rpm)
Mitsumi Blu-Ray burner
I mention this as an alternative/comparison gaming laptop...well, mainly because it IS! ;-D
I'm curious as to how the 360m compares (in general) to the mobile 5870, though...DX11 aside.
*I understand the (aesthetic and practical) difference between 1920 x 1080 and 1680 x 945, but I think of it as a benefit: a) that's some TINY goddamned font, etc. on that hi-res/tiny 17" screen, vs. b) better GPU performance because of the slightly lower resolution on the Toshiba, neh?
JarredWalton - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
It's not just the resolution that changed, though. That LCD may be a good contrast ratio or it may not. By and large, 95% of LCD panels for laptops right now are crap, so the odds are against it. For $1400, it's not a bad laptop, and the Blu-ray drive makes it a viable alternative. As a gaming laptop, though, the G73Jh is clearly the superior choice based on specs alone. Even if the LCD is the same quality, I'd still go for the ASUS.As far as performance, the GT360M is a 96 SP part with 128-bit RAM, so the GTX 280M in the Clevo W870CU is going to perform about 30% faster at a guess. Whether the particular unit has GDDR5 or GDDR3 is going to be pretty important... The Toshiba has 1GB GDDR5, so all told it's about the same bandwidth as the GTX 280M but still nowhere near as much shader processing power. It will be slower than the GTX 260M as well, and we have results for that on 3DMark at least (page 6).
FesterSilently - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
Interesting (and, if you hadn't guessed, I *own* said Qosmio, and, I lovelovelove it...except for the dark, murky screen...you are correct) - thanks for the reply, sir.jjcpa - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link
I am not a gamer and use laptop for photo editing (photoshop). Is G73 a good buy for my purpose? The spec and price is very attractive. Only concern is display. Other laptops meet my need are Dell M6500/M17, Lenovo W701, HP Elitebook 8740p, but cost for them over $3000 if the displays are RGBLED or IPS. The only option left in my price range is Dell XPS 16 (1645). But XPS 16 with RGBLED and similar spec as G73 are over $2000. And I can get G73 at $1550 Canadian dollar. I saw your comparison for display. Except gamut, compared to XPS 16, G73's display is ok. I would like to hear your opinion in this area.My current laptop is Lenono T61 with WUXGA. Any opinion how this compared to G73's screen
thank you very much