XoticPC’s G73JW: A Good Gaming Notebook Made Better?

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

XoticPC offers gaming notebook buyers an alternative to the boring and heavy Clevo-based units sold by most of its competitors. Asus’ hefty (but not grotesquely-so) G73JW is the starting point for the custom build XoticPC sent over for our evaluation.

Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 And S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat

DiRT 2 looks great on the XoticPC G73JW, its overclocked GeForce GTX 460M beating the stock GeForce GTX 480M at the panel’s native resolution.

Enabling AA kills any hope of smooth game play in DiRT2, on any single-GPU notebook, at any widescreen resolution above 720p. The overclocked GeForce GTX 460M again falls into its customary position between the stock 480M and Mobility Radeon HD 5870.

The overclocked GeForce GTX 460M beats everything at most Call of Pripyat benchmark settings, though AA must be disabled to facilitate smooth 1080p frame rates.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • the_krasno
    Add another 460M in SLI and then you have the punch needed!
    Reply
  • fstrthnu
    With all of the flair going on over Sandy Bridge, one might as well just wait till someone comes out with the Sandy Bridge gaming notebooks
    Reply
  • adribhel
    @fstrthnu:
    The new Asus G73SW on Xoticpc has sandy bridge ;)

    I'm waiting for a possible "G73SH" with Radeon 6970m, though it might never happen. :/
    Reply
  • Crashman
    fstrthnuWith all of the flair going on over Sandy Bridge, one might as well just wait till someone comes out with the Sandy Bridge gaming notebooksXoticPC just wanted to show off its custom work and sent this in December. We're looking forward to the G73SW to be delivered in a similar configuration in the near future, so please stay tuned!
    Reply
  • joytech22
    That is a pretty amazing laptop, I could definitely use one of those for LAN's.
    Reply
  • curtis_87
    Is it me or has the print button suddenly disappeared from these batch of articles?...
    Reply
  • Is the problem a lack of strength? Or is it a heavy level of apathy? You can build the same machine in desktop form for significantly less.
    Reply
  • kkiddu
    Although it's totally not fair to compare it with a desktop PC, but I've been confused on what to go for as I'm going to college next year, one option being the bare $1500 version of the G73, and the other being a netbook + a desktop. The problem with the desktop is that I'll have to haul it back home every vacation.

    But seeing that performance for $3000 is just 'good', I'm gonna stick with a $1400 desktop. I think I can get a 50% performance increase with half the price.
    Reply
  • nevertell
    Why oh why didn't they fit a larger keyboard ? Look at the room on the sides of the keyboards, waiting to be filled with keys.
    Reply
  • Big Daddy Rhino
    $3600? I literally LOL'd. Just built a Sandy Bridge, GTX 570 desktop that will smoke that laptop and I've got $2400 left over for hookers and booze.
    Reply