Gaming Notebook: 15-Inch Vs 17-Inch

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quantumrand

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I went back and forth between these two laptops more times than I can count. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means, but I do like to play the latest games from time to time. In my case, battery life wasn't really a concern since I rarely use my laptop away from a plug, so it was really no holds barred between the two.

On the one hand, the GX740's quad core CPU with hyperthreading was a huge selling point for me. I do a lot of video converting as well as 3D modeling, so 8 cores is pretty sweet. The size of the thing is pretty extreme though and takes up almost all of my available desk space, leaving little room for my mouse, lol.

On the other hand, the GX640 is very similar to my current laptop, the GX620. It's the same size, same design, same layout, so switching to it would be very simple. It still has plenty of power to be more than useful, but compared to the GX740 it feels like a big hit to take.

When it all comes down to it though, the GX640 just offers the best performance per price of anything I've seen. I'm by no means a big spender, so at the end of the day, I have to go with the best deal.
 

Trueno07

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I have an older MSI gaming notebook (it's not really that old, only a year, but they don't make them anymore) and i love it. It hasn't given me any trouble, and aside from some wear and tear on the keyboard (all my fault :D) it's a fantastic performer.
 

stewartwb

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This is an interesting review, but it seems dangerously close to being an advertisement for MSI, with just a token mention of another vendor in the closing paragraph.
 

rohitbaran

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Both the MSI laptops are great performers and coupled with 3 year warranty, they should be giving Alienware a run for their money.
 

cknobman

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Awesome review and comparison.

Stewart: Although I understand your point I think it would be very hard to find another 15 inch laptop with equipment that high spec for such a low price (and likewise for the 17 incher outside of the asus consideration) which makes it easy to explain why we are only seeing MSI. Not to mention Toms can only review the equipment they are given so if no other vendors offered a laptop for a review then MSI deserves any adverts they are getting.
 

Tomsguiderachel

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This was not a paid advertisement--the writer selected these laptops to illustrate the 15 vs 17 issue for performance-oriented laptops. Truthfully, there aren't many comparable products in this price range, but if you know of some please feel free to let us know in this comments section. Also, keep in mind that we usually limit our reviews to new products--we were unable to find any recent product launches in the same price range/category.

Thanks for reading,

Rachel Rosmarin
Editor, Tom's Guide
 

ghostofanonion

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Xan I just say the only thing beastly about tuhe i7-720 is the price. It's no where near the makrketing hype. In saying that I'm quite pleased the performance of my system (i7-720, 8gb, 5870) I just didn't see the raw power these reviews are promising.
 

quantumrand

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[citation][nom]ghostofanonion[/nom]Xan I just say the only thing beastly about tuhe i7-720 is the price. It's no where near the makrketing hype. In saying that I'm quite pleased the performance of my system (i7-720, 8gb, 5870) I just didn't see the raw power these reviews are promising.[/citation]

You're definitely right. In terms of raw power, these laptops certainly don't compare to the possibilities of a similarly priced desktop. No laptop would. Just looking at ATI's Mobility 5800 series makes it plainly clear (the Mobility 5800 is dreadfully similar to the 5700 desktop core).

But when it comes to laptops, these two systems really stand out, both in terms of performance and price. In my opinion, they're a perfect fit for any serious gamer who likes to LAN it up with his friends.
 

daniel123244

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[citation][nom]quantumrand[/nom]You're definitely right. In terms of raw power, these laptops certainly don't compare to the possibilities of a similarly priced desktop. No laptop would. Just looking at ATI's Mobility 5800 series makes it plainly clear (the Mobility 5800 is dreadfully similar to the 5700 desktop core).But when it comes to laptops, these two systems really stand out, both in terms of performance and price. In my opinion, they're a perfect fit for any serious gamer who likes to LAN it up with his friends.[/citation]

I think he is talking about a laptop (i7 720)
 

quantumrand

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[citation][nom]icepick314[/nom]Asus gives 8GB RAM and 1080 display at same price...[/citation]

You might want to take a look at the last page. The G73 is supposed to get an update this month, so it wouldn't make much since to review a system that isn't even available anymore.
 

prince_david

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These computers are great performers, but I can't get over the terrible keyboards on the MSI laptops. We have an older GX laptop with the same keyboard, and the small keys make for constant typos, and once you get used to it's keyboard it makes using a normal keyboard difficult. We don't need a full number pad, won't MSI see how much people dislike the keyboards and fix it already. I won't buy another MSI until they do.
 

rosser

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I would love to see you guys take an comparably priced apple laptop, boot camp it to windows 7 and run some benchmarks just for fun. I would love to see the raw scores.
 

quantumrand

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[citation][nom]rosser[/nom]I would love to see you guys take an comparably priced apple laptop, boot camp it to windows 7 and run some benchmarks just for fun. I would love to see the raw scores.[/citation]

The 15" MacBook Pro at $1799 would score about a 25 on the Gaming benchmark chart. It would probably get about 85 on the CPU chart. Of course with a significantly lower powered GPU, the MacBook does manage much better battery life.

For the most part, you're comparing apples and oranges. The GX640 and GX740 have very powerful gaming hardware (the Mobility Radeon 5800). The MacBooks use Nvidia's GT330M which really doesn't even come close to the Radeon 5800 series but uses far less power.
 

ray-ng

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Woah, did I read the last lines correctly? It says the Asus g73jh will have a price drop from $1600 to $1200? At the end of the month?!
 
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