920xm purchase

[Yiddo]

Preparing to buy the 920xm to replace my 720qm for my G73JH

In the UK I can get the 920xm for £225.00 and sell the 720qm for £150.00

The only difference is that the 920xm is QS and the 720qm OEM retail.

1. Will the difference in performance be good for gaming?
2. Will it effect my twin turbo button?
3. Is it just a straight swap or do I need to update the bios/drivers?

Can anyone who has this or the 920/940 comment on overall performance.

Thanks

[ALLurGroceries]

There are a lot of posts in the g73 benchmark thread about the 920. Since forum search is not really anyone's friend, here's a google search for you: site:forum.notebookreview.com "Asus G73 Benchmark Thread" 920xm - Google Search

There's no special BIOS or drivers for it.

[svl7]

920/40xm is a beast.... forget twin turbo when you have one, no need for it at all, better take a look at Throttlestop. With this nice tool you should be able to get a nice 3.2 GHz or more OC across all cores.

An OEM 920xm is outrageously expensive, a QS (or ES, whatever they call them) from ebay will be the best solution. There are some really reliable sellers who are selling them at a pretty good price.

Make sure you have all the necessary tools and ESD protection... it's a pain to exchange the CPU in a G73 imo.

[ValkerieFire]

I have no experience with this, BUT I think it is logical to conclude that there should no perceptable increase in gaming performace for most games. My logic is based upon the Anandtech.com review of the G73SW. When comparing the G73SW to the G73JW, they found that FPS for the two laptops where almost identical. This is because they share the same GPU and that is the bottleneck. So even though the SW has 50% more CPU power than a JW, it doesn't help in games because things are still limited on the GPU end. The ONLY exception to this was Star Craft 2 which is very CPU intensive. Other CPU intensive games like Civ5, Supreme Commander, ETC will probably see an increase also, but not games like COD, BFBC2, Crysis etc.

I believe the SW v JW comparison is relavent to you because you are looking at a similar (but slightly smaller) increase if you upgrade to a 920.

So, is the 75lb cost of upgrading worth it? I don't know, if you play CPU intensive games then yes, if you encode a lot of music or movies, then yes. If you play only First Person Shooters, and you are looking for a big or even noticiable performance increase, then you will probably be disappointed.

Here is the article I am referencing...

ASUS G73SW + SNB: Third Time?s the Charm? - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

I hope this helps in your decision making.

[svl7]

That's not necessarily true, take a look at this thread: Before and After Benchmarks for 920/940xm

...and the 920xm wasn't even overclocked yet. It definitely depends on the game... the impact it has is much bigger with a CPU intense game of course, but it's not negligible imo.

Anyway, it's a fantastic CPU, especially because of Throttlestop, if you're encoding videos or doing similar tasks it's really an amazing processor. But it's not something everyone needs.

[KuroLionheart]

In terms of gaming, there should be zero difference. The 720QM is more than enough for pretty much every game, the real difference comes down to CPU extensive tasks like video editing.

[Yiddo]

Nice info if I dont see any gain in gaming then its not worth the hassle of ripping apart my JH and upgrading along with the fact that I will own a QS and not my OEM cpu.

Its a tricky choice although FPS are not really my thing im into RPG Witcher 2, Skyrim and dragon age upto when they released number 2 which was awful and I was going to prepare for these releases.

Does the difference in 45watt against 55watt make a difference apart from more power drain. Do I need to adjust the CPU voltage?

Also the temps are they gonna burn me because I Idle at 44oC at the moment and max out at 71oC.

[frosty5689]

Only games that are CPU intensive (WoW, SC II, and a few more I can't name off the top of my head) will benefit from the upgrade. IMO, if you only game, it's a waste of money and time.

[Hrogi]

I have to say, itis breath of fresh Air, when people link a source.

Thank you all for putting in your sources to back your view on the topic.

Please give your self a patt on the back...

[rot112]

Nice info if I dont see any gain in gaming then its not worth the hassle of ripping apart my JH and upgrading along with the fact that I will own a QS and not my OEM cpu.

Its a tricky choice although FPS are not really my thing im into RPG Witcher 2, Skyrim and dragon age upto when they released number 2 which was awful and I was going to prepare for these releases.

Does the difference in 45watt against 55watt make a difference apart from more power drain. Do I need to adjust the CPU voltage?

Also the temps are they gonna burn me because I Idle at 44oC at the moment and max out at 71oC.

Hmm, so are RPGs like Oblivion GPU or CPU dependent. I'd like to know, so that i can upgrade my i7 on my G53 in preparation for that game.