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.

Power Consumption, Battery Life, And Efficiency

XoticPC’s G73JW is barely heavier than Asus' original, since its added memory and SSD add only a few ounces. That means it's far ahead of the X8100 behemoth in terms of portability and, as a non-SLI design, also uses a smaller and lighter power adapter. Can it outperform the heavier models in power consumption as well?

While the GeForce GTX 460M appears to give the G73JW a small power consumption lead in 2D mode, overclocking the GPU pushes it past the GeForce GTX 480M in 3D mode!

The lightweight battery still performs well, giving the G73JW a similar run time as the Mobility Radeon HD 5870-equipped X8100. Charge time is longer with its smaller power adapter.

Overall, XoticPC’s G73JW falls around halfway between the performance levels of the two X8100 builds.

An overclocked GPU helps XoticPC in games, but hurts it in average power consumption. Comparing that data, the efficiency differences of just over 1% is still barely noticeable.

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