Laptop from the USA

[Narcoticx2]

Originally Posted by cyberalienz

snip...

I'd wager that if you put identical systems side by side and benched one with a stock GTX 260M and the other with a stock 9800M GTS, you'll find all my comments to be correct. How on earth can a 64SP part be neck and neck with a 112SP part? FYI that's the difference between a desktop 9600GT and 9800GT.

You'll find that you and dalien have no idea if all you're going off is that website, who's benchmarks in fact put the GTX 260M at about half the performance of the 9800M GTS. You can't judge a laptop by it's GPU. Performance will be a result of almost all components in the system.

edit: this short thread, and in particular the post by Forge, should help... http://forum.notebookreview.com/show....php?p=5126394

That's all i'm leaving in this thread. OP, if you want to make misinformed decisions then go ahead and believe the 64SP 9800m GTS is as fast as the 112SP GTX 260m.

[mcfee03]

Originally Posted by dalien

Gateway P7805u is my laptop, it has a 9800m gts, not a 260m.(basically the same) Also hase a 1080 screen.(you must of seen the gimped version)
My lappy with the 9 cell battery and currently last 3.5 hrs.

The G73 has just over 1 hr battery from what I read over at the notebookreview forums.( This is what I have got on pre order).
Only thing I dont like about the G73, which im annoyed at is the lack of esata and firewire. Where the 7805u has it...

I would try and get the G73 if you can afford it, especially because you can avoid shipping and the BS governmen taxes.

Also why are you talking $US??? Convering it to AUD.
US1000 = 1,116.84 AUD
US1600 = 1,786.64 AUD

Talking in $US as the rate is always changing, its just simpler...

If the G73 only has 1.5 hrs battery I can justify paying that much for it! The Gateway may be the way to go....

Do Gateway have worldwide warranty? Or does it need to be sent back to the USA??

And no, I don't believe the 260m is faster than the 9800...

[dalien]

Gateways need to be sent back to the USA as far as I know.
Find a refurbished one like I did, and you will know that any bugs have being fixed. Also Look for the 1080p screen, your eyes will like you more for it

[SLATYE]

Originally Posted by mcfee03

And no, I don't believe the 260m is faster than the 9800...

Why not?

Here's a quick comparison of cards:

				Shaders		Shader clock	RAM bandwidth
GTX 260M			112			1375MHz			30.4GB/s
9800M GTX			112			1250MHz			25.6GB/s
9800M GTS			 64			1500MHz			25.6GB/s

If all the shaders were equally powerful, the GTX 260M would be the most powerful (in terms of shader throughput). Specific numbers are 154 billion shader cycles per second (GTX 260M), 140 (9800M GTX), and 96 (9800M GTS).

RAM bandwidth is the other big deciding factor, and the GTX 260M wins there too.

How is the GTX 260M not faster? As Narcoticx2 has said, you need to take the results on Notebookcheck with a big grain of salt because they aren't tested on identical systems. This is necessary, unfortunately - getting one laptop with several different video cards is very difficult. In the past I've seen some spectacularly wrong results from Notebookcheck as a result (if I remember correctly, they had a Radeon X1700 in the 'top performance' section where it was competing with Geforce 7800 series cards, while in reality the performance is more like a 6600GT).

[dalien]

Originally Posted by SLATYE

Why not?

Here's a quick comparison of cards:

				Shaders		Shader clock	RAM bandwidth
GTX 260M			112			1375MHz			30.4GB/s
9800M GTX			112			1250MHz			25.6GB/s
9800M GTS			 64			1500MHz			25.6GB/s

If all the shaders were equally powerful, the GTX 260M would be the most powerful (in terms of shader throughput). Specific numbers are 154 billion shader cycles per second (GTX 260M), 140 (9800M GTX), and 96 (9800M GTS).

RAM bandwidth is the other big deciding factor, and the GTX 260M wins there too.

How is the GTX 260M not faster? As Narcoticx2 has said, you need to take the results on Notebookcheck with a big grain of salt because they aren't tested on identical systems. This is necessary, unfortunately - getting one laptop with several different video cards is very difficult. In the past I've seen some spectacularly wrong results from Notebookcheck as a result (if I remember correctly, they had a Radeon X1700 in the 'top performance' section where it was competing with Geforce 7800 series cards, while in reality the performance is more like a 6600GT).

I like how you missed out the shader clock in that spill...

That site, yes its hard to get a same spec laptop, but if you look into the detail section, it tells you what score each card gets with the different CPu they tried with that card...

Anyway, enough of this thread.
Made my point, and hope some people got some education from it.

[bennyg]

OP, I would not buy an Asus without a warranty. The G51 series, and mine continues the trend, runs far too hot. They've crammed to much into too little space. The g60vx is IMO best value for money of the Asus's as a ~2Ghz C2D will hurt you more and more into the future. You could try and see if you can buy a warranty here (eg Mackam ? or something - that's what a few resellers use). Otherwise the n61, but make sure it's out there as radeon 5-series only recently released.


This dalien guys got no idea apart from owner bias, obviously hasnt yet got to the bit in Year 8 maths about multiplying fractions... 10-ish% lower clocks vs 40-ish% more shaders... know which I'd rather have. That's why I bought what I did and didn't even consider 64sp cards.

The GTX 260M is absolutely clearly unarguably faster in everything compared with a 9800GTS except some bizarre program that is somehow limited to using only 64 shaders. Of which I nor anybody else has heard of.

I overclock my GPU to 590 core 1500 shader 1050 mem (similar clocks to those listed for the 9800mGTS) and I get 11700-11800 3dmark06. Compare that to the ~9000 from the 9800mGTS. Even on stock underclocked GTX260M, I get a bit over 10000 3dm06 which is better.

Just because you own it doesn't mean you have to defend it. What you buy becomes more and more outdated every minute you own it. Fuck, theres a G73JH shipping "soon" that I much would have preferred to get had I waited 2 months but how was I to know. I'm not going to deny the figures though and try and argue my G51J is faster and better when IT JUST IS NOT.

[Jonchilds]

Would an Asus G73JH bought from the US come with an Australian warranty?
I'm seeing them available locally for around $2600+pp.

Definitely considering getting one if they're around the $2000AUD mark once landed. Excaliberpc have one for $2100AUD landed (87c/$).

Do laptops attract GST and customs duty?

[dalien]

Originally Posted by Jonchilds

Would an Asus G73JH bought from the US come with an Australian warranty?
I'm seeing them available locally for around $2600+pp.

Definitely considering getting one if they're around the $2000AUD mark once landed. Excaliberpc have one for $2100AUD landed (87c/$).

Do laptops attract GST and customs duty?

yes, allow around 200 for gst, and 150-200 for customs fees.

It comes with a global warranty, so should be fine.

Also the australia version you see on staticice is a gimped version

[Jonchilds]

Gimped? In what way?

Only difference I've noticed have been 4GB RAM with the option to upgrade, and others are 8GB with the option to upgrade to 12GB...

[Michael]

Originally Posted by dalien

yes, allow around 200 for gst, and 150-200 for customs fees.

It comes with a global warranty, so should be fine.

Also the australia version you see on staticice is a gimped version

don't know where ur getting the 150-200 customs fee? when I ordered my laptop, an R1F, for 2200 it was $50 customs fee and the rest gst.

[bennyg]

Originally Posted by dalien

yes, allow around 200 for gst, and 150-200 for customs fees.

It comes with a global warranty, so should be fine.

Also the australia version you see on staticice is a gimped version

As someone who last month imported a laptop worth ~aud$2k, refer to sig, I can say "150-200 for customs fees" is BS. $150-200 for postage may be accurate, but compare local prices with those OS and you can see why I chose to pay that and customs fee and still end up ahead. Customs fee was about $45, cant remember if that was inc or ecx GST. GST on the item of course was 10% of ex-shipping converted value (circa $180 cbf digging out the invoice to confirm)

Please also explain this "gimped version" claim re G73JH-A1. Specs look identical comparing a number of staticice links with a number of US resellers, if you have evidence otherwise please provide it. Especially since a lot of those prices are just grey imports i.e. the exact same model. Unless you are misreading 2*4Gb as somehow not being 8Gb RAM.

Please be very careful, the internet is full of people who have NFI and just talk crap.

[kent]

Originally Posted by bennyg

As someone who last month imported a laptop worth ~aud$2k, refer to sig, I can say "150-200 for customs fees" is BS. $150-200 for postage may be accurate, but compare local prices with those OS and you can see why I chose to pay that and customs fee and still end up ahead. Customs fee was about $45, cant remember if that was inc or ecx GST. GST on the item of course was 10% of ex-shipping converted value (circa $180 cbf digging out the invoice to confirm)

Please also explain this "gimped version" claim re G73JH-A1. Specs look identical comparing a number of staticice links with a number of US resellers, if you have evidence otherwise please provide it. Especially since a lot of those prices are just grey imports i.e. the exact same model. Unless you are misreading 2*4Gb as somehow not being 8Gb RAM.

Please be very careful, the internet is full of people who have NFI and just talk crap.

If you dont mind sharing, which store did you order from? Does yours have international warranty?

[$3@N]

I just got the Samsung R780 from Goodguys for $1.4k and its beautiful.

Cool on your lap, good battery and very powerful.

310m is a bit slow for games but its all good for cod4