A
17-inch notebook is going to be big,
there’s just no way around it. But aft er
reviewing Malibal’s ginormous X7200
desktop replacement in our Holiday issue,
Asus’s eight-pound, 11.8-ounce G73Jw-A1
seems highly portable by comparison. And at
$1,800—one-third the price of the X7200—
the G73Jw-A1 also seems highly aff ordable.
You get a lot of notebook for that price.
At its center is a Core i7-740 quad-core mo-
bile CPU, with a base clock of 1.73GHz and
Turbo Boost potential up to 2.93GHz. Asus
kicks that up a notch with a one-button over-
clock feature called Twin Turbo Mode, which
pushes the CPU as much as 100MHz higher.
According to Asus, Twin Turbo’s impact is
most noticeable in multithreaded apps. And
we did see a 6 percent difference when run-
ning MainConcept with and without Twin
Turbo. But we also observed a similar dif-
ference in scores when we ran Photoshop, a
mostly single-threaded app, both ways. Hey,
we’ll take any extra performance we can get.
Running all of our benchmarks with the
help of Twin Turbo, the G73Jw-A1 enjoyed
generous leads over our zero-point note-
book in all the content-creation apps. It also
surpassed our zero-point in the gaming
benchmarks; although, here the more relevant
factor was the notebook’s Nvidia GeForce GTX
460M GPU—a new Fermi-based mobile part.
While this card turned out superior scores to
the GeForce GTX 260M in our zero-point rig,
the benchmark numbers in Far Cry 2 and
Call of Duty 4 were pretty close to what
we’ve seen from the last-gen GeForce GTX
285M. The big diff erence is that the G73Jw-A1’s
GPU supports DX11. Based on the frame rates
we achieved in our aged games, you’ll need
to dial down resolutions and eff ects to make
newer games playable—a common compro-mise in gaming notebooks, particularly those
with just a single graphics card.
The G73Jw-A1 comes equipped for HD
movie viewing, as well, with a 17.3-inch LED
backlit screen that supports a 1920x1080
resolution, perfect for playing Blu-ray movies
on the notebook’s combo drive. The G73Jw-A1
also has a decent sound system. It doesn’t
compare to the audio quality you’ll get from
an external set of speakers or a good set of
headphones, but the presence of a subwoofer
gives the G73Jw-A1 a much richer sound
than you typically get from laptop speakers,
and the volume gets pretty loud.
Physically, the G73Jw-A1 is solid. Its
matte fi nish mitigates unsightly fi ngerprints
and its rubberized palm rest area feels pleas-
ant. We also like the full-size chiclet-style
keyboard, which is backlit for greater vis-
ibility in dark environments. And folks who
want to get under the hood will appreciate
that a single access panel and two screws arethe only things standing between you and
three RAM slots, both drive bays, and the
wireless card.
While we gave the Malibal X7200 high
marks for its audacity, Asus’s G73Jw-A1
deserves praise for being a strong performer
in a far more practical, portable, and afford-
able package. –KATHERINE STEVENSONAsus G73Jw-A1
Featuring Nvidia’s new
GeForce GTX 460M graphics
When the G73Jw-A1 is
closed, you can see how the
matte black fi nish and a few
strategically designed edges
and angles remind us of
a stealth fi ghter.VERDICT$1,800, http://www.asus.com9
Quad-core i7; DX11
graphics; decent
sound system;
HD screen.You’ll need to dial
down detail to play
newer games.MELODIOUSASUS G73JW-A1MALODOROUS17-inch notebook is going to be big,
there’s just no way around it. But aft er
reviewing Malibal’s ginormous X7200
desktop replacement in our Holiday issue,
Asus’s eight-pound, 11.8-ounce G73Jw-A1
seems highly portable by comparison. And at
$1,800—one-third the price of the X7200—
the G73Jw-A1 also seems highly aff ordable.
You get a lot of notebook for that price.
At its center is a Core i7-740 quad-core mo-
bile CPU, with a base clock of 1.73GHz and
Turbo Boost potential up to 2.93GHz. Asus
kicks that up a notch with a one-button over-
clock feature called Twin Turbo Mode, which
pushes the CPU as much as 100MHz higher.
According to Asus, Twin Turbo’s impact is
most noticeable in multithreaded apps. And
we did see a 6 percent difference when run-
ning MainConcept with and without Twin
Turbo. But we also observed a similar dif- mise in gaming notebooks, particularly those the only things standing between you andAsus G73Jw-A1
Featuring Nvidia’s new
graphics
When the G73Jw-A1 is
closed, you can see how the
matte black fi nish and a few
strategically designed edges
and angles remind us of
a stealth fi ghter.SPECIFICATIONS
CPU 1.73GHz Intel Core i7-740QM
RAM 8GB DDR3/1066MHz
Chipset Intel HM55
Drives Two Seagate Momentus 500GB
7,200rpm drives
Optical BD ROM / DVD+/-RW combo drive
GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M
Ports HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, one USB 3.0,
three USB 2.0, mic in, S/PDIF out,
8-in-one media reader, webcam,
Bluetooth, 802.11g
Lap/Carry 8 lbs, 11.8 oz / 10 lbs, 11.4 ozhttp://www.maximumpc.com|JAN 2011 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| 75
Our zero-point notebook is an iBuypower M865TU with a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo T9900, 4GB DDR3/1066, a 500GB Seagate hard drive, a GeForce GTX 260M, and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional. Far Cry 2 tested at 1680x1050 with 4x AA; Call of Duty 4 tested at 1680x1050 with 4x AA and 4x anisotropic filtering.
ZERO POINT
1,320
153
1,524
2,695
32.7
58.2
100Premiere Pro CS3 (sec)
Photoshop CS3 (sec)
Proshow Producer (sec)
MainConcept (sec)
Far Cry (fps)
Call of Duty 4 (fps)
Battery Life (min)
0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%BENCHMARKS899899
131 131
876876
1,782
48.5
62.262.2
96 (-4.0%)(-4.0%)