Solved! HP vs Asus Lap.

[chitch]

So I'm buying a new laptop.. AGAIN.. had something happen with my first and now I get to replace it again. I'm having a hard time deciding between a couple mainly because some of the stuff is so new, I've been having trouble finding benchmarks.


I'm down to these

Asus G72GX-RBBX05
Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor P8700
6GB DDR2 memory
500GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M graphics
it's a 17 inch.. not too worried about screen size though

Asus G60Vx-RBBX09
Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor P8700
4GB DDR2 memory
640GB Serial ATA hard drive capacity (320GB x 2; 7200 rpm)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M graphics
16 in screen

HP dv7-3085dx
Intel® Core™ i7-720QM processorv
6GB DDR3 memory
500GB Serial ATA hard drive (7200 rpm)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M (NB10P GE) graphics
17 in again

Now the reason I'm having difficulty discerning between these three is two things, I don't know if the improved processor makes up for the loss from the graphics card, or if the graphics card will be fast enough either way. If downgrading to the 230m is a bad idea is it worth losing 2gb of ram for a 7200 rpm hard drive?

Any help is appreciated, thank you

 

[frozenlead]

What are you going to be doing with the machine?

 

[chitch]

meant to add that lol.. it replaces my desktop, I'm buying it for college, but I want to be able to play games on it as well.. My old computer didn't play age of conan without being shitty.. granted i'm not playin that game anymore but i'd like something that will be able to probably play star wars

 

[frozenlead]

Either get the first or second, then, depending on if you want more battery life (one hard disk) or more storage space (two hard disks).

 

[lostandwandering]

^I agree. If gaming is the primary concern, the much more powerful GTX 260M will over shadow the i7. The P8700s aren't bad at all and should be very capable for games and other needs.

 

[Flyrod]

I bought the HP dv7-3085dx and really like it. It manages energy (heat) very well. These new processors (i7) are very adaptive, they can cool right down to room temp pretty rapidly if nothing is really going on or ramp up to a full 45 watts if the game or video demands. It has a turbo mode that will allow the 1.6G processor ramp up to 2.4G if all cores are not being used. That's a pretty good kick in the pants for old programs that do not take advantage of multi cores.

Watching the temps of the cores and GPU is pretty interesting as you put it through the paces. The GPU always runs 5-10 degrees F hotter than the cores. Its pretty obvious which cores are utilized by watching the temps which react rapidly. I am a demanding user and work with Canon 7D H.264 video which was choking my 1.6G Duo core. This laptop plays it smoothly while running other programs as well. I just checked it out on Flight Simulator X with everything turned up to the max. It was smooth as silk and the GPU stayed below 158 F.

The HP is a very well designed unit that feels speedy. I really have no complaint except that my old 16 bit software will not run native and will need a good emulator or VM Ware. That is going to be true with any new laptop running Windows 7. I think all of us have a couple specialized 16 bit programs we really like that have a next to nil chance of being recoded at 32 or 64 bits.