ASUS has made it a goal to increase their retail presence in the mobile market, with an eye on becoming one of the top brand names. There's no doubt that Dell, HP, and Acer continue to sell more laptops overall (especially if we leave out the Eee PC netbooks), but walk into any Best Buy, Office Depot, etc. and you're likely to find quite a few ASUS laptops for sale. They have everything from entry-level netbooks and laptops through long battery life CULV designs and a bunch of midrange offerings. At the high-end, you'll probably have more luck finding ASUS laptops online, but the ASUS G73Jh definitely makes such a search worthwhile.

The G73Jh is of the "bigger is better" variety of gaming notebooks, but it's not quite up there with the giant 18.4" offerings. Instead, ASUS has dropped down to a slightly smaller 17.3" chassis, but they've still packed in a lot of compelling hardware. Do you want to play games? How about getting the fastest current mobile GPU, and unlike the latest NVIDIA mobile solutions you get DirectX 11 support! The Radeon Mobility HD 5870 is a potent little chip, and it matches up nicely with the 1080p display. Sure, it pales in comparison to the top desktop GPUs (it's really based off the 5770 "Juniper" core with 800 Stream Processors as opposed to the 1600 Stream Processor "Cypress" core), but short of multi-GPU solutions like SLI and CrossFire, you won't find a faster notebook graphics chip.

Matched up with the GPU are a supporting cast of components that are powerful in their own right. For the CPU, the G73Jh-A2 that we received for review includes a quad-core i7-720QM (1.6GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz). The notebook uses an HM55 chipset, so support for i3 and i5 processors is also available and we expect to see other SKUs down the road. Thanks to Turbo Boost, the only dual-core CPUs that should clearly offer better single-threaded performance are the i5-540M and i7-620M, but for multi-threaded loads even the "low-end" 720QM bests all of the dual-core options. Besides 1TB (2x500GB) of storage and the other typical accessories, ASUS also stuffs a full 8GB of DDR3 memory into the G73Jh. It's interesting to note that they do this via four SO-DIMM slots, so potentially you could put 4x4GB in the system but ASUS officially lists only 8GB support.

The only serious omission (for some) is a Blu-ray drive; other models are likely to include such a drive, but costs are going to go up. If you want Blu-ray support, you might find it easier to just add your own for ~$140. For those that want it, eSATA, ExpressCard, and FireWire support are also missing, and unlike the N61Jv there's no USB3 port either. Digital content purveyors will be disappointed but if you're just after a mobile gaming solution the missing items aren't likely to matter.

When you add everything together, the G73Jh—particularly the A2 version that includes a nice mouse and backpack—is an excellent value, provided of course that you're interested in a gaming laptop. This thing is a beast to lug around, and it won't fit in my standard 17" laptop bag, so you'll want the ASUS backpack if possible. Availability is perhaps the only sore spot, with stock disappearing rapidly at most of the online vendors we've monitored. As such, a few sites are bumping up the price… and still selling out. (Newegg, we're looking at you and your $1750 A2 model.) The MSRP for this particular configuration is supposed to be $1600, and if you shop around you can probably find it at that price or slightly less, but as with any popular model you may need to work a bit to find one.

ASUS G73Jh – Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

Depending on your viewpoint, either the G73Jh is an awe-inspiring stealthy (i.e. Stealth Bomber) notebook… or it's a drab looking black behemoth. I'm inclined to go with the former opinion and find that the G73Jh really fits my personality, but others will probably hate it. Obviously, this isn't going to appeal to fans of the MacBook aesthetic, and it's not meant to. The black coating is the same soft touch rubberized paint found on the N61Jv, only this time it's on the palm rest and cover.

The interior continues the all-black motif. We were very pleased to see that there's no glossiness on any of the surfaces, except for the LCD panel. As Anand mentioned in our recent MacBook Pro review, we generally recommend matte LCDs for laptops that you intend to use outside, while most people like glossy panels for primarily indoor use. Given the size, performance, and generally low battery life it's a safe bet that you're not going to use the G73Jh outside much, so the glossy LCD works fine. Glossy LCDs also tend to improve contrast ratio by about 20%, so where the ASUS Eee 1001p had an 800:1 contrast ratio the G73Jh rates 1000:1.

The keyboard is a full size chiclet layout, with a dedicated number keypad. Again, we don't really like the half-sized "0" key on the 10-key, as we naturally hit the right arrow key with are thumb when using it for numerical data entry. Considering there's a good one inch margin on either side of the keyboard, we'd like to see ASUS move the 10-key over a bit and make room for a double-size (standard) "0" key. Otherwise, the keyboard is generally fine as far as chiclet keyboards go, with good spacing and a decent throw on the keys. We'd like a bit more travel, and even better would be something more in line with the classic ThinkPad keyboard, but we would rate the keyboard as above average overall. Another nice bonus on the keyboard side of things is the LED backlighting, perfect for LAN parties or gaming in the dark.

The palm rest is very large and spacious, and its paired with one of the largest touchpads this side of Texas. That's the good news. The bad news is that the touchpad buttons require a firm press to register, and they're on a large rocker instead of being independent buttons. The touchpad supports all the latest multi-touch gestures and works better than most touchpads we've used, but separate buttons would have made it better. Of course, if you're playing games you're going to want a real mouse, and ASUS packs a nice Razer Abyssus ($30 value) into the A2 package. The Abyssus includes two switches on the bottom to change between 125 and 1000 Hz polling and 450/1800/3500 DPI. It's not the best Razer mouse I've ever used, but it handles gaming without any complaints from me.

Perhaps most impressive out of the whole package is that the system runs stable and never gets overly hot or overly loud. At idle, the G73Jh purrs along at a very quiet 33dB; that's not "silent" but it's not intrusive either. What's better is that even under a full load (x264 encoding with 3DMark looping in the background) the notebook still maintains its calm demeanor. At maximum load, fan speed increases just a hair and the noise output is 35dB. Compared to the Clevo W870CU (which idles at 35 dB and can hit 42 dB under load), the G73Jh is very stealthy indeed!

As you might expect from the noise levels, temperatures are also excellent—perhaps the best we've ever tested, and certainly the lowest we've seen on a gaming notebook. The palm rests stay at room temperature while the touchpad is a few degrees warmer. The rear of the chassis is about 5C hotter, but we're still only talking about 31C maximum. Love it or hate it, the wedge-shaped design certainly does the job when it comes to cooling. ASUS puts a couple huge vents at the back of the G73Jh, and their size and location means you don't need a mini-vacuum fan in your notebook. The tall rear of the G73Jh also lets ASUS put in a large 75Wh battery without pushing a bunch of other pieces out of the way, so you can still get 1.5 to 2.0 hours of mobility in a pinch. Video playback doesn't fare as well, lasting only 80 minutes, but you didn't really expect more than that did you?

The ASUS G73Jh is all about putting your money where it matters most, and in this case that means delivering great gaming performance with an LCD that's a pleasure to use. The matte RGB LED backlit panel in the Dell Precision M6500 still takes the cake for the best laptop LCD we've every used, but that particular panel would eat up about 1/3 of the total G73Jh price. As long as you want high performance—size and battery life be damned!—the G73Jh delivers on all fronts. Let's see just how fast AMD's latest mobile GPU is compared to the competition.

G73Jh: Test System and Benchmark Setup

Unlike the HD 5650 in the Acer 5740G, the HD 5870 is actually powerful enough to run games at high detail with DirectX 11 enabled. There are still times where you'll need to turn off a few settings (STALKER: Call of Pripyat with SSAO and all other features enabled will run at under 20 FPS at 1080p), but at reasonable settings without antialiasing you can get over 30FPS. Of course, some of the less demanding titles (e.g. Left 4 Dead 2) can run with 4xAA and maximum detail and still push 60+ FPS. As mentioned earlier, the Mobility HD 5870 is really more like the desktop HD 5770 (800 Stream Processors), and you should set your expectations accordingly. NVIDIA certainly isn't in a better position on laptops, where their top SKU is the GTX 285M—essentially a mobile version of the old 9800 GTX desktop chip with 128 CUDA Cores—and they don't even have a mobile DX11 alternative. Really, if you're after the fastest mobile GPU right now, it would have to be the HD 5870. SLI and CrossFire solutions would still be faster, but we prefer a single GPU if possible as it alleviates driver and game compatibility headaches.

Speaking of drivers, we mentioned back in February that AMD had committed to a new mobile driver program where they would roll out desktop and mobile drivers simultaneously. Some expressed skepticism, but so far AMD has kept their promise and the latest 10.3 Catalyst drivers work with most ATI-equipped notebooks. The exceptions are Toshiba, Sony, and Panasonic notebooks (presumably because those OEMs opted out of AMD's mobile driver program), as well as ATI-equipped laptops with switchable graphics. Remember NVIDIA's Optimus story where they said releasing updated drivers for switchable graphics was extremely difficult? Well, they appear to be right, as neither NVIDIA nor ATI have provided updated drivers for switchable graphics to date. In fact, that's the primary reason the Alienware M11x didn’t get an Editors' Choice award. If you want updated drivers, it appears discrete only or Optimus are the only current solutions with support.

Okay, enough stalling. Here's a recap of the system specs for the ASUS G73Jh-A2. Then we'll get right to the interesting stuff: gaming performance.

G73Jh: 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.

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.

G73Jh: 3DMark Results

For those of you that like to compare 3DMark scores, we offer the following charts. We've left out most of the other recently reviewed notebooks and laptops, as they simply can't compete—and aren't designed to compete—with the G73Jh. However, we do have results from the Acer 5740G and the Alienware M11x to keep things in perspective.

Unlike the gaming results we saw on the last couple of pages, the 3DMark scores make the G73Jh look more like it has slightly lower performance relative to NVIDIA's GTX 280M. Vanage using the Performance defaults is the exception, and it correlates better with what we saw in the gaming results. And now you know why we place a lot more weight on the games instead of a synthetic benchmark. As we've said on numerous occasions, 3DMark at best is a good indication of how well 3DMark runs on any given system; some games may show similar results, but it is by no means a substitute for real gaming tests.

G73Jh: Also Fast for Applications

As you might expect, the combination of components that make for a fast gaming notebook means the G73Jh can easily handle most application tasks as well. The i7-720QM ends up delivering roughly the same level of performance as the older Core 2 Extreme QX9300, but the i7-920XM is still faster and desktop parts like the i7-975 (or the new i7-980X) aren't even in the same ballpark. If you still need a notebook but you want desktop performance, some vendors are now shipping Clevo D900F with i7-980X; just don't leave it on your lap!

The tested D900F and W870CU notebooks both have SSDs, so PCMark gives them a huge boost in overall score. If you want to add an SSD to the G73Jh, you should get a result comparable to the W870CU (minus a bit for the slower CPU). Alternately, look at the Dell M6500 result compared to the W870CU to see just how much the SSD inflates the score. SSDs are fast, particularly if you launch numerous applications at the same time, but while games may load a bit faster you won't generally see improved frame rates.

Rounding out our application performance, Peacekeeper, Cinebench, and x264 coding tell us what we already know: the i7-720QM handles these types of applications quite well, and the G73Jh performs about as expected. It does look like the G51J is a bit better optimized, but in practice you wouldn't notice the difference. Both the ASUS G51J and the G73Jh allow you to overclock the CPU by raising the system bus slightly (from the 133MHz default up to 142MHz), but the higher bus speed often results in lower gaming performance as Intel's Turbo Boost isn't as aggressive. At the default setting, we regularly see the CPU run at 2.80GHz (21x multiplier); overclock the bus and the maximum CPU speed hovers closer to 2.52GHz (18x multiplier). For heavily threaded loads, the overclock can still make a slight difference (about 6% faster), but most of the gaming results we collected were slightly higher at the stock setting.

G73Jh: Keep It Plugged In

Pack a bunch of high performance parts into a notebook and the drop in battery life is a foregone conclusion. Until we start seeing something like NVIDIA's Optimus Technology on high-end mobile GPUs and quad-core CPUs that can drop to CULV power draws when idle—not to mention the dual hard drives, large LCD panel, and four SO-DIMMs—battery life is never going to be a strong suit for gaming notebooks. Plan accordingly. As always, we calibrated the laptop to run at ~100nits on battery power; with the G73Jh a brightness setting of 53% gave us the desired result.

The G73Jh does turn in respectable scores relative to the competition, if only because it has a 75Wh battery compared to a paltry 42Wh battery on the W870CU. Idle battery life just squeaks past the two hour mark, Internet surfing lasted 1.75 hours, and x264 playback drained the battery in 80 minutes—not even enough to make it through most short movies. So if you had thoughts of playing games in the great outdoors, you might consider a small handheld gaming device instead.

G73Jh: Good Laptop LCDs Exist

Thankfully, the ASUS G73Jh doesn't succumb to the old flaw of stuffing a poor quality LCD into an otherwise great notebook. The 1080p panel in the G73Jh looks awesome, and the objective testing confirms our impression. It's not the brightest LCD we've ever used, and color gamut is only above average, but it's one of the highest contrast LCDs we've seen in a laptop.

Some of you are going to wonder why the W870CU does so poorly, and it's simply a result of our test unit using an inferior HD+ (1600x900) LCD panel. Our understanding is that most (all?) of the W870CU 1080p panels are the exact same HannStar HSD173PUW1 that's in the G73Jh. That doesn't change the fact that the 17.3" panel looks great and performs better than most other laptop panels. The high water mark is still the RGB LED panel in the Dell M6500 (with a matte coating to sweeten the deal!), but RGB LED backlighting currently costs far more than WLEDs so you won't find that WUXGA panel in notebooks costing under $2000. The M6500 needed a target setting of 1.8 gamma before we could unlock its potential for color accuracy; we've tried a variety of settings on the other laptops and the best result on the G73Jh is still the default settings in ColorEyes Display Pro.

The viewing angles are still about the same as most other TN panels. From the side the display is easily viewable, but there's a narrow vertical range before you get severe color shifting. We'd love to see a 1080p equivalent of the IPS panel used in the iPad, but barring that we'll take a good high contrast TN panel over the junk shipping in most midrange laptops.

ASUS G73Jh: Hail the Conquering Hero

The short story is that while the G73Jh isn't without competition, it's easily the best bang for the buck among current gaming laptops. There are a few flaws like missing features—if you want FireWire, eSATA, USB3, or ExpressCard you'll need to go elsewhere. We also would have liked a Blu-ray combo drive, although it sounds like that will be available with other models (it should add ~$100 to the price). I'm sure opinions on the aesthetic are going to be highly polarized as well. Like most gaming laptops, the G73Jh is quite large, but it makes no appolgies for its size and it manages to do a lot with the added girth.

High on the list of great design decisions is the inclusion of four SO-DIMM slots. You can get 2x4GB of DDR3 in competing notebooks, but the price premium over the 4x2GB in the G73Jh adds another ~$300. Another great element is the Radeon Mobility HD 5870. NVIDIA is going to have a difficult task pushing DX10 hardware when all the latest hype revolves around DX11, and just as Fermi/GF100 was six months late we expect mobile DX11 parts from NVIDIA to be quite a few months away. NVIDIA's ace in the hole has been Optimus, but on high-end laptops no one is doing Optimus anyway, and the top GTX 260M/280M/285M don't support the feature. Alienware's M17x still supports SLI with switchable graphics, but then you have to worry about driver updates so it's not a great solution.

When we look at the whole package, the simple fact of the matter is that there's nothing else that competes with the G73Jh that doesn't cost at least $500 more. Say what you want about the G73's "Stealth bomber inspired" design—and it's definitely a bomber and not a fighter!—but it feels a lot more solid than the Clevo W870CU and it looks a lot better (i.e. less tacky) than the 18.3" M980NU/X8100. We're certainly not going to downgrade our rating of the G73 just because some people will think it's ugly—and they will. The G73 is big, and big can be beautiful for the right user. Besides, the large chassis happens to do an excellent job at cooling and noise control, with the result that this is one of the coolest running and quietest laptops we've ever tested, in spite of the high-end components.

At this point, you should know whether the G73Jh is for you or not. It's not without flaws or omissions (see above), but it gets all the important stuff right. If you've been looking for a great gaming laptop that won't cost over $2000, the G73Jh has what you need. It can handle virtually every current game at high quality settings and 1080p while staying above 30FPS. (Crysis continues to struggle unless you drop to Medium/Mainstream quality, but what's new?) What's more, the LCD is a pleasure to use and the keyboard works well and has backlighting to make gaming in the dark easier. If you're a frequent LAN party attendee, the G73Jh would be an excellent weapon of choice, and it even comes with the necessary gaming mouse and backpack if you get the A2 package (which is what we'd recommend unless you can find the G73Jh for closer to $1450). In short, for mobile gamers it tops our current list of recommendations, and we're pleased to award the ASUS G73Jh-A2 our Gold Editors' Choice award.

If you have no interest in gaming notebooks, of course, there's little reason to consider such a beastly notebook. Similarly, if $1500-$1600 is too much for your pocketbook, ASUS has another slightly $1200 downgraded model at Best Buy. That $1200 gets you the same performance, but it comes with a single 500GB HDD, 6GB RAM (2x2GB + 2x1GB), a 1600x900 HD+ LCD, and no mouse or backpack. All of those extras add up to the ~$400 price difference, and the LCD is very likely not of the same calibre as the 1080p model, but $1200 is also a great deal for a gaming laptop that doesn't pull any punches. If $1200 is still too much, then we'd suggest taking a closer look at the $750 Acer 5740G. It may not have the build quality or high contrast LCD of the G73Jh, but performance with the native 1366x768 panel is only surpassed when you get into $1000+ laptops. For those interested in battery life and gaming, the Alienware M11x is still a good option, though the driver situation still concerns us. And for everyone else, we have plenty more laptops lined up for review over the coming weeks.