Be advised that the ATI HD 5000 series sucks mightily in 2D performance. ATI has said it's a driver issue and they're working on it. The fix was promissed in the Catalyst 10.4 drivers (last ones), but as of 10.6 preview drivers the 2D is still crap. Reviewers have said even some integrated video controllers beat the HD 5000 in 2D.
Sure, they were referring to desktop graphics, but I bet the mobile counterparts suffer from the same problem. I bought a HD 5870 for my desktop PC and was appalled when I discovered this issue. I should have done proper research before. 3D graphics is very nice, but desktop/Aero is anything but smooth. If you use Photoshop, Illustrator etc you may want to go nVidia. HW On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Joel N. Fischoff <[email protected]> wrote: > Heya, > > So, in the latest, I'm considering getting one of two machines. Both are > ASUS laptops - the G51JX-A1 and the G73JH-A1. Both machines use the > i7-720QM. Both max out at 8GB, but the G51 comes with 6GB installed, while > the G73 has the full 8GB. nVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M versus ATI Mobility > Radeon HD 5870. 500GB versus 1TB storage. SuperMulti versus Blu-ray ROM > with DVD Burning. All that's fine. However, the G73 lacks the eSATA port, > the Firewire-400 port, and the ExpressCard/54 expansion slot that the G51 > has. Likewise, the G51 has several security features (BIOS booting, HDD > User Password Protection, Kensington Lock Slot) that the G73 doesn't. All > for a difference of about $300. > > The question is whether those things are really necessary. I don't think > I've ever used eSATA or Firewire on my current machine, but that may be > because my older machine didn't have them. I probably could make use of > the Firewire at least to transfer data from my old laptop (this machine). > But, I can always use USB sticks for data transfer. > > Chances are, the new machine will not be moved around a lot, even though it > is a laptop. Primary uses will not be gaming, though I do some > occasionally, but there are some processor-intensive processes that I do > fairly regularly - video editing in this case. Most of the work I do will > be online (browsing, e-mail, etc), office (Word, Excel, etc), or > programming (Java or, unsurprisingly, FoxPro) related. > > Overall, I'm looking for a machine that's going to survive a good long > time. That shouldn't be too hard. This one (my HP Pavilion ze5470) is > still puttering along (though it can barely handle the video editing) and I > bought it, refurbished, back in January 2004. So I'm looking for comments. > Comments about ASUS machines in general, about either of the two mentioned, > or opinions regarding which one y'all think I should get. > > > Thanks in advance, > > Joel > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
