Asus G73SW Review
Asus G73SW is one of the best high end gaming notebooks that offers excellent gaming performance without breaking your bank. It is the epitome of flawless workmanship and sports an amazing design that appears to be inspired from Nighthawk Stealth Bomber F117 aircraft. So, is this desktop replacement notebook successful as a gaming notebook? Read the review to find out
This notebook looks very different from the other Asus computers (especially netbooks like Asus 1215B). As said earlier, it has a very stealth like matte black exterior that has a lonely (yet lovely) ASUS logo on it. Heck, there is no glossy surface on it at all. That said, the notebook is slightly bulkier than a typical gaming notebook. Compared to the Alienware M17x, the depth of the G73SW is greater. Asus uses that extra depth for providing better cooling system.
This system uses two ‘exhausts’ at back of the notebook to ‘exhaust’ the heat out. So yes, those aircraft-like looks are not just for decoration purposes.
There are plenty of ports on the G73SW. You get 4x USB ports (including 1x USB 3.0), Ethernet, HDMI port, VGA port, SD card slot and Kensington lock. There is also a Blu-ray drive (which is not slot loading) on the unit.
Overall, it has excellent fell to it. It feels very strong in the hands. Asus has also made upgrading very easy. Any one can just remove few screws from the bottom of the chassis that reveals 3x RAM slots, 2x hard disk drive bays and a wireless card. The review unit came with 8GB DDR3 RAM but you can upgrade it to up to 16GB. It comes with an amazing 17.3 inch full HD display (1920 x 1080) and is matte type. This is a boon for gamers and professionals as they would not have to deal with glare while doing important work or gaming. Speakers are amazing for as well. We found them to be exceptionally loud. These average size speakers are located above the keyboard.
Keyboard, Touchpad
The Asus has done an amazing job in this department. The keyboard has chiclet style layout and includes a dedicated numpad as well. It offers excellent tactile feedback and spacing between the keys is proper as well. The touchpad is a bit bigger than what you find in gaming notebooks and works as expected. The mouse buttons are the best I have seen on an Asus branded computer.
I have always had complaints with their mouse buttons in other Asus computers reviewed (say, Asus 1215P) but Asus finally got it right with G73 series. It does not feels mushy and registers a mouse click event without applying a lot of pressure.
Performance
The Asus G73SW comes with second generation Intel Sandy Bridge Intel Core i7-2630QM processor that runs at 2GHz clock speed that automatically overclocks itself to 2.93GHz under Turbo mode. Couple that with the super powerful Nvidia 460M GPU (graphics processing unit) and you have a winner in your hands. Here is how it compares with Atom N455 (used in most netbooks), Core i7 2620M, Core i3 2310M, and Core i5 2410M (used in Lenovo Z570).
The GPU scored a mighty 13932 in the 3DMark 06 test. If that does not sounds impressive to you, let us talk in terms of gaming performance. We were getting a steady 35FPS in Mafia 2 game (1920 x 1080, high settings). On the other hand, its predecessor was able to get 34FPS which is not surprising as both use the same GPU. In Crysis GPU benchmark and Fifa 2011, we got 13FPS (ultra settings) and 137FPS (ultra settings).
ASUS G73SW vs G73JW - This is the benefit of both units arriving at the same time. We were able to conduct same tests on both simultaneously.
Battery Life – Gaming notebooks are usually meant to used plugged in and we were prepared for shabby results. After all, powerful GPU, CPU and huge full HD display does suck a lot of power. Under balanced load test, I was able to get 3 hours and 15 minutes in web browsing test. Of course, this test is stupid as you will spend more time playing games on it rather than browsing boring websites. In gaming mode (performance mode, full brightness), I was getting 70 minutes. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Final Verdict – ROG notebook, the Asus G73SW is a very powerful gaming computer is clearly one of the best machines for playing. It handled even the latest games like a piece of cake, thanks to the ultra powerful Sandy Bridge Core i7 2630QM processor and Nvidia 460QM GPU.
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