# 7200 RPM vs. 5400 RPM Gaming Performance



## octiceps

Hi there,

I'm about to get a new gaming laptop but am torn between 2 models. They both have the exact same components except one has a 7200 RPM HDD and the other has a slower 5400 RPM HDD. Also, the laptop with the slower hard drive happens to have a processor that is 0.13GHz (130MHz) faster.

What I'm really wondering is: Is there going to be any real, discernible difference in gaming performance between these 2 models? Gaming is probably the most stressful activity I'll use my computer for on a regular basis so buying the one with the best performance in that regard is very important to me.

Thanks for your input guys.


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## Sneaky Payload

First off, what models are they? and what is the cost difference for the one with the faster HD vs the slow HD?

7200 RPM drives will run a tad hotter than 5400 RPM drives. Also something you might want to look at is how big the built in Cache is for each drive. If the 7200 RPM has a 32mb cache vs a 5400 RPM with a 16 mb cache, you are better off with the 7200RPM one

I would personally go with the 7200 RPM one.


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Sneaky Payload;15527952*
> First off, what models are they? and what is the cost difference for the one with the faster HD vs the slow HD?
> 
> 7200 RPM drives will run a tad hotter than 5400 RPM drives. Also something you might want to look at is how big the built in Cache is for each drive. If the 7200 RPM has a 32mb cache vs a 5400 RPM with a 16 mb cache, you are better off with the 7200RPM one
> 
> I would personally go with the 7200 RPM one.


They are the ASUS G73JH-RBBX05 (7200 RPM) and the ASUS G73JH-BST7 (5400 RPM). First one's also got a 1.6 GHz first-gen Core i7 while second one's got a 1.73 GHz CPU. Both have a 1 GB Mobility Radeon 5870M.

I have no idea how big the cache is for these 2 laptops and can't seem to find that info anywhere. I'm tempted to buy the one with the slower hard drive just because it's almost $100 cheaper and everything else is the same between them.


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## djriful

There are no differences in general gaming performances unless you are constantly loading map and area such as WoW, MMO and etc.

7200RPM consumer more battery power than 5400RPM.

Get the hybrid SSD + HDD 500GB Momentus XT.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591

I got it for $90 back then. Windows 7 rated it at 7.7


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## Sneaky Payload

If the second one has a second gen Core i7, go with that one. Then replace the drive later with a faster one. Both those models also have a 2nd Hard disk drive bay, so you could even install an SSD!


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Sneaky Payload;15528323*
> If the second one has a second gen Core i7, go with that one.


Both of the laptops are first-gen Core i7. One is 1.60 GHz and the other one is 1.73 GHz.


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *djriful;15528306*
> There are no differences in general gaming performances unless you are constantly loading map and area such as WoW, MMO and etc.


I only play first-person shooters, mostly Source-based games and Battlefield 2 at the moment. Once I get my new laptop I'll be looking into Battlefield 3 and Crysis/Crysis 2. Do these last 3 games constantly load map and area on the fly and would they benefit from a faster hard drive?


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## Kramy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *octiceps;15532597*
> I only play first-person shooters, mostly Source-based games and Battlefield 2 at the moment. Once I get my new laptop I'll be looking into Battlefield 3 and Crysis/Crysis 2. Do these last 3 games constantly load map and area on the fly and would they benefit from a faster hard drive?


Crysis and Crysis 2? Heck yes. They need the fastest I/O you can provide them.

I remember seeing some Crysis benchmarks way back where the minimum framerate was about 10fps on a 5400RPM laptop drive, ~15fps on 7200RPM, and ~30fps on an SSD. Average framerate only varied 1-2 fps. When you factor in Crysis's constant texture and model streaming, that means the faster HDD (and SSD) had less stutters.


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## jlells01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kramy;15540840*
> Crysis and Crysis 2? Heck yes. They need the fastest I/O you can provide them.
> 
> I remember seeing some Crysis benchmarks way back where the minimum framerate was about 10fps on a 5400RPM laptop drive, ~15fps on 7200RPM, and ~30fps on an SSD. Average framerate only varied 1-2 fps. When you factor in Crysis's constant texture and model streaming, that means the faster HDD (and SSD) had less stutters.


http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=crysis%20ssd%20performance&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEMQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.samsung.com%2Fglobal%2Fbusiness%2Fsemiconductor%2Fproducts%2FSSD%2Fdownloads%2FSSD_vs_HDD_is_there_a_difference_Rev_3.pdf&ei=EQ2xTrvTAo24twf107GAAg&usg=AFQjCNF7RvUCPFvAV6fInHOR6ExnvmkFyA&cad=rja

Page 10: *37.7%*


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kramy;15540840*
> Crysis and Crysis 2? Heck yes. They need the fastest I/O you can provide them.
> 
> I remember seeing some Crysis benchmarks way back where the minimum framerate was about 10fps on a 5400RPM laptop drive, ~15fps on 7200RPM, and ~30fps on an SSD. Average framerate only varied 1-2 fps. When you factor in Crysis's constant texture and model streaming, that means the faster HDD (and SSD) had less stutters.


Thanks for the info Kramy. I already pulled the trigger on the laptop with the 5400 RPM HDD since it's just so much cheaper. I'll add an SDD in the second drive bay once the prices for those go down. That way, I'll not only be getting a faster laptop but I'll also be saving green.


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## Kramy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *octiceps;15545065*
> Thanks for the info Kramy. I already pulled the trigger on the laptop with the 5400 RPM HDD since it's just so much cheaper. I'll add an SDD in the second drive bay once the prices for those go down. That way, I'll not only be getting a faster laptop but I'll also be saving green.


Sounds like a great plan.









Hey, how much RAM does the laptop have? You might hit less stutters in Crysis if the laptop has a lot of RAM to utilize.


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kramy;15548901*
> Sounds like a great plan.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hey, how much RAM does the laptop have? You might hit less stutters in Crysis if the laptop has a lot of RAM to utilize.


The laptop comes with a total 6GB (3x2GB) of DDR3 1066. It's got a total of 4 memory slots so I could, potentially, add up to 24GB if I wanted to go absolutely crazy. Is 6GB considered a decent amount by today's standards?

I wouldn't really know since the desktop I'm using has existed since before the time of the dinosaurs.







I'm talking 2.8GHz single-core P4, no PCI-e slot, and 2GB of DDR400. Yikes.


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## iCrap

5400 is super slow. My laptop took FOREVER to boot up.


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *iCrap;15551396*
> 5400 is super slow. My laptop took FOREVER to boot up.


Blame it on the realities of being a poor college student and the sky-high prices of SSD's.


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## Kramy

6GB is reasonable. If you get more money later, you can bump it up. 4GB isn't enough IMO for heavy duty games + Windows 7, but 6GB should be okay.


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## Zcypot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kramy;15553296*
> 6GB is reasonable. If you get more money later, you can bump it up. 4GB isn't enough IMO for heavy duty games + Windows 7, but 6GB should be okay.


Why do you say that? So far BF3 and Metro 2033 is running silky smooth on 4gb


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## Kramy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Zcypot;15553317*
> Why do you say that? So far BF3 and Metro 2033 is running silky smooth on 4gb


Because they use so much RAM they kick most stuff out of the filesystem cache. The next time you do anything, it hits disk I/O, which is _slow_ compared to sitting in memory. Plus if you were playing a game and decided to alt+tab to web browse or something, it'd be a lot smoother with more RAM.


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## Mygaffer

It has been well established that 7200rpm drives have almost the same battery usage and the extra speed is definitely worth it, it is very noticeable. I recommend whole heartedly getting the 7200rpm drive.

I see you already purchased. I would have avoided the first gen Core i7, since the second gen chips are so much better, but I am sure you'll be happy.


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## octiceps

Well, I've had my ASUS G73JH for almost a month now and it has been performing very well except for one thing: THE HARD DRIVE. You guys were right because the 5400 RPM HDD in this thing really is slow. When a game is loading from the hard drive to the RAM for the first time it takes about twice as long as my desktop. Also, any time new textures or graphics get pulled from the disk, such as explosions, particles, and lighting, there is a split-second hiccup.

Still, after everything gets loaded onto RAM I can't complain about the sweet performance on this thing.


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## Kramy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *octiceps*
> 
> Also, any time new textures or graphics get pulled from the disk, such as explosions, particles, and lighting, there is a split-second hiccup.


Yeah, those stutters are unavoidable with a drive averaging close to 20ms per read. One texture or model may not stutter, but if you need two or three... or ten... expect a jolt!

7200RPM drives (12-13ms in desktop form - ~15ms in laptops) have a huge advantage. They can read a few more things before frames start dropping - and during longer jolts they get it over with quicker. I suppose Velociraptors would be even better than that, since they have ~6ms reads - and SSDs are even better than that with 0.1ms reads.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *octiceps*
> 
> Still, after everything gets loaded onto RAM I can't complain about the sweet performance on this thing.


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kramy*
> 
> 7200RPM drives (12-13ms in desktop form - ~15ms in laptops) have a huge advantage. They can read a few more things before frames start dropping - and during longer jolts they get it over with quicker. I suppose Velociraptors would be even better than that, since they have ~6ms reads - and SSDs are even better than that with 0.1ms reads.


Thanks for the info Kramy. Would you say that a 10,000 RPM Velociraptor is faster or slower than a solid state hybrid such as the Seagate Momentus XT?

Also, just curious, would getting an identical 5400 RPM hard drive and running a RAID 0 configuration do anything for the in-game hiccups? I'm not talking about the loading before the game, just the jolts _during_ gameplay.


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## Kramy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *octiceps*
> 
> Thanks for the info Kramy. Would you say that a 10,000 RPM Velociraptor is faster or slower than a solid state hybrid such as the Seagate Momentus XT?


That's really hard to say. I think the Raptor probably has more reliable performance (and higher capacity) than the 500GB Momentus XT. The XT has an edge when it comes to booting, but anything not in the 4GB SLC cache has ~18ms access times - far higher than the Raptor's ~6ms access times. Also, in Seagate's own marketing videos, an older Raptor (rather than the newest kind of Velociraptor) booted slower, but then completed all the tasks in roughly the same amount of time as the XT. (finishing x seconds later, where x matches how much slower it booted)

That indicates that at best the 500GB XT matches a last-gen Velociraptor. (But not a newer 600GB model)

Now, that said... Seagate just put out a 750GB Momentus XT - it's not so cache anemic... it has 8GB of SLC now, and the SLC's speed has doubled. Once they tweak the firmware a bit, that Momentus XT will probably be quite good. Apparently it permanently caches your boot files and stuff, giving near-SSD-speed booting - but it also has more than 4GB remaining out of that 8GB, so it should perform better for large games and stuff as well. It's worth noting that your stutters will still be there on first play-through, just as they are now before the data reaches your RAM - but with 8GB of SLC cache, it's possible that if you close the game to do other stuff and then later come back, you won't have stutters. You could probably also fully shut down your computer and fire it back up later, and get mostly-stutter-free gameplay. However, if you do _too much_ other stuff, Crysis's data will be kicked from the SLC cache to make room for other stuff, and then you'll experience stutters again. (until the data gets reloaded to RAM and cache)

So I suppose I'd say that if you tend to play Crysis, then after a shutdown/reboot you play Crysis some more, and then some more... it would help. But if you tend to alternate games (like I do) then it won't help, as the cache will be emptied and other data will replace whatever was there.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *octiceps*
> 
> Also, just curious, would getting an identical 5400 RPM hard drive and running a RAID 0 configuration do anything for the in-game hiccups? I'm not talking about the loading before the game, just the jolts _during_ gameplay.


It would definitely help on the initial load time. But it may only have a very minor effect on jolts. Possibly so minor you don't even notice it.

Many people notice access times increasing slightly (~1ms) when putting drives in RAID-0. You would experience the same thing. (perhaps worse on a laptop chipset) However, because your two drives are in RAID-0, the data is actually closer to the edge of the drive and thus can be accessed slightly faster. (If the data is/was 200GB in, it will now physically be 100GB in, but striped across two drives/platters) These two factors probably cancel each other out.

Side Note: I read a while back that Momentus XT's have odd performance in RAID. Don't even bother trying it at this point. It's not working properly yet.


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## octiceps

Wow. Thanks for all that information. It's definitely going to help me make an informed decision in the future.


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## Neokolzia

"Define" performance,

7200rpm is going to load far faster, well everything will load faster.

Your not going to have a FPS increase if that is what your wondering, Games don't max out hard drives reading data from them that tranlates into actual in-game fps.

Textures are read, etc during loading sequence, or sometimes in MMO's or other vast open worlds like skyrim, textures and other high-data will be stored in Memory, or read as needed (i.e moving across skyrim).

Nothing close to the read capacity of a 5400rpm or a 7200rpm drive, you'll hit other FPS bottlenecks before you manage to touch a Read-Speed bottleneck, but I mean if you start hacking Skyrim or something and travel across the map at 300km/hr, then maybe might stress your hard-drive a bit, but games are designed to be efficient with reading.

(Edit)

Just read above, Ya the Momentus XT is a Excellent choice specially considering seems they doubled the cache.

I did the cache on my Z68 Motherboard with a 32GB drive, noticed some major speed increases, which should be near identical but with a smaller cache on the Momentus XT.

These drives are well work the $ since its a internalized Cache system.

I think I'll be keeping my eye out for the notebook version of that drive when it comes down in price the 250$ price tag is a bit out of reach atm.


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Neokolzia*
> 
> "Define" performance,
> 7200rpm is going to load far faster, well everything will load faster.
> Your not going to have a FPS increase if that is what your wondering, Games don't max out hard drives reading data from them that tranlates into actual in-game fps.
> Textures are read, etc during loading sequence, or sometimes in MMO's or other vast open worlds like skyrim, textures and other high-data will be stored in Memory, or read as needed (i.e moving across skyrim).
> Nothing close to the read capacity of a 5400rpm or a 7200rpm drive, you'll hit other FPS bottlenecks before you manage to touch a Read-Speed bottleneck, but I mean if you start hacking Skyrim or something and travel across the map at 300km/hr, then maybe might stress your hard-drive a bit, but games are designed to be efficient with reading.
> (Edit)
> Just read above, Ya the Momentus XT is a Excellent choice specially considering seems they doubled the cache.
> I did the cache on my Z68 Motherboard with a 32GB drive, noticed some major speed increases, which should be near identical but with a smaller cache on the Momentus XT.
> These drives are well work the $ since its a internalized Cache system.
> I think I'll be keeping my eye out for the notebook version of that drive when it comes down in price the 250$ price tag is a bit out of reach atm.


Yeah, I wouldn't expect an increase in my overall FPS anyway if I upgraded my hard drive. But I'm pretty sure that an upgrade would raise my _minimum_ FPS if it reduces or eliminates those instances during which my game pauses for a second to load something from the hard drive before resuming at a normal frame rate.


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## Kramy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *octiceps*
> 
> Yeah, I wouldn't expect an increase in my overall FPS anyway if I upgraded my hard drive. But I'm pretty sure that an upgrade would raise my _minimum_ FPS if it reduces or eliminates those instances during which my game pauses for a second to load something from the hard drive before resuming at a normal frame rate.


Correct.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Neokolzia*
> 
> I think I'll be keeping my eye out for the notebook version of that drive when it comes down in price the 250$ price tag is a bit out of reach atm.


Momentus XT's _are_ 2.5" notebook drives.


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## AgentN25

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Gamers-G53SX-AH71-15-6-Inch-Gaming/dp/B005UUS6BU/ref=sr_1_9?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1323078855&sr=1-9

So I just bought this laptop to replace my older HP. It has a slower 5400 RPM HDD, but it has a lot of RAM (8 GB), a nice graphics card (GTX 560M, with 2GB VRAM) and a nice new i7. Do you think the slower HDD will be that noticeable? I don't power down all too much, just sleep it, so the boot time shouldn't matter. But for in game? I play Crysis 2, Assassin's Creed Revelations, and StarCraft 2 to name some demanding ones. Any thoughts from the experts? On this model, is an upgrade needed?


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AgentN25*
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Gamers-G53SX-AH71-15-6-Inch-Gaming/dp/B005UUS6BU/ref=sr_1_9?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1323078855&sr=1-9
> So I just bought this laptop to replace my older HP. It has a slower 5400 RPM HDD, but it has a lot of RAM (8 GB), a nice graphics card (GTX 560M, with 2GB VRAM) and a nice new i7. Do you think the slower HDD will be that noticeable? I don't power down all too much, just sleep it, so the boot time shouldn't matter. But for in game? I play Crysis 2, Assassin's Creed Revelations, and StarCraft 2 to name some demanding ones. Any thoughts from the experts? On this model, is an upgrade needed?


I personally wouldn't have gotten the G53 because they come with a 2GB GTX 560M, which is the nerfed version of that card. The reference design GTX 560M comes with 1.5GB VRAM on a 192-bit memory bus but ASUS added an extra 0.5 GB of VRAM while crippling the memory bus to 128-bit. In the real world that probably means the nerfed version will perform on-par with the older GTX 460M, if not worse at high resolutions and high texture settings. That 's why I got the G73 with a Mobility 5870. Although a 60% higher memory bandwidth doesn't _always_ mean better performance, at least it won't become a bottleneck for applications that can take advantage of a bigger bus (i.e. most cutting-edge games):



*VS*



As for upgrading the hard drive, I've already stated that, in my experience, a slow hard drive doesn't make a difference on the average frame rate but it will increase the minimum frame rate because there will be fewer instances where the game has to pause for a split-second to load data from the hard drive, especially in the first few minutes of gameplay as new material are constantly being processed. I haven't tried any of the more demanding games such as Crysis 2 or StarCraft 2 on my system but I would think that the hitching would be even more apparent in those titles.


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## AgentN25

Thanks octiceps. Yeah I looked at the G73 but it had a slightly worse processor (I think??) and not as much RAM (at least the one on Amazon) so I went with the G53. Hmmmm. sounds like a I fudged up on the graphics card? The G74 had a GTX 560M with _3_ GB on the card. so what's the story on that? How would it compare to the one I have coming in the G53 or your 5870? I guess I'll have to see if the stuttering bothers me or not. we'll see I suppose. I'm hoping the high RAM will make that not too bad. so I guess my card won't got quite as fast as the 5870? Or what?

I have some degree of technical experience with these sorts of things but would love a slightly more experienced expert to explain. What is the advantage/disadvantage of more VRAM? Or more bandwith like your 5870 has? How do you estimate my card'll perform on the more demanding games?


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## Kramy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AgentN25*
> 
> Thanks octiceps. Yeah I looked at the G73 but it had a slightly worse processor (I think??) and not as much RAM (at least the one on Amazon) so I went with the G53. Hmmmm. sounds like a I fudged up on the graphics card? The G74 had a GTX 560M with _3_ GB on the card. so what's the story on that? How would it compare to the one I have coming in the G53 or your 5870? I guess I'll have to see if the stuttering bothers me or not. we'll see I suppose. I'm hoping the high RAM will make that not too bad. so I guess my card won't got quite as fast as the 5870? Or what?
> 
> I have some degree of technical experience with these sorts of things but would love a slightly more experienced expert to explain. What is the advantage/disadvantage of more VRAM? Or more bandwith like your 5870 has? How do you estimate my card'll perform on the more demanding games?


More VRAM mostly helps when dealing with huge textures and complex shaders.

But you also need memory bandwidth (speed) to match that capacity. In most cases less bandwidth isn't _too_ crippling, but you probably shouldn't be enabling AA with a 128bit memory bus. If games start to drop frames, you'll need to experiment with turning off motion blur or other shaders to see which ones consume the most memory bandwidth and impact your framerate the most.

Re: Games

You probably won't see many stutters in SC2. (well, I can't say for certain, but Blizzard engines are usually pretty good) But Crysis and Crysis 2 do _tons_ of streaming on the fly. You _would_ notice less stutters with a faster drive, before everything gets loaded into RAM.


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AgentN25*
> 
> Thanks octiceps. Yeah I looked at the G73 but it had a slightly worse processor (I think?


No, the Sandy Bridge i7 is not just _slightly_ better, but _a lot_ better, at least in the instances where its extra power is taken advantage of. I personally don't run anything that requires such a fast processor so I am quite happy with my first generation i7. _However_, Shogun: Total War 2 and StarCraft 2 are two of the most CPU-intensive games out there right now and they _do_ run faster on Sandy Bridge.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AgentN25*
> 
> Hmmmm. sounds like a I fudged up on the graphics card?


I wouldn't say you fudged up on the graphics card. The performance difference I'm talking about isn't night-and-day, and is really dependent on the game and which settings you run it at. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, these are the frame rates that these different cards get in the most GPU-intensive game on the planet, Crysis. Benchmark was run at 1920x1080 on "high" settings.

Mobility 5870: ~30 FPS
GTX 460M 1.5GB (192-bit): ~27 FPS
GTX 560M 2GB (128-bit): ~24 FPS

The 5870 score was my own. The other two are pulled from NotebookReview.com's reviews of the Asus G53SW and G53SX. As you can see, the performance difference between the nerfed 560M and my 5870, in this case was about 25%, and it only seems like a huge deal because of the low frame rates we're talking about. So all other things being equal, I would say that the difference is very minor, and is only really apparent at the extreme where all of these cards are really being pushed to their max and can barely maintain playable frame rates.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AgentN25*
> 
> The G74 had a GTX 560M with _3_ GB on the card. so what's the story on that? How would it compare to the one I have coming in the G53 or your 5870? I guess I'll have to see if the stuttering bothers me or not. we'll see I suppose. I'm hoping the high RAM will make that not too bad. so I guess my card won't got quite as fast as the 5870? Or what?


*For GTX 560M, 1.5GB & 3GB VRAM versions are 192-bit (60 GB/S memory bandwidth). 2GB & 4GB versions are 128-bit (40 GB/S bandwidth)*. Only the more expensive G74SX's have the 192-bit 560M, except the Best Buy G74SX-BBK7 which is 128-bit. All G53SX's have the nerfed 560M, but the older G53SW's have a 192-bit GTX 460M. The reference (not nerfed) GTX 560M differs from the 460M only in that it has higher clock frequencies. The nerfed GTX 560M is, as you can see above, actually slower than the 460. It can get pretty confusing at times, which is why research is a good idea before pulling the trigger on one of these babies.

The 2GB of VRAM will do nothing to make your 560M faster. As I have already shown above a 460M will less VRAM is faster. Pretty much anything above 1GB of VRAM for a laptop chipset is pure marketing because laptops can't run games at the extreme settings and resolutions necessary to take advantage of such a large amount of VRAM.

So, to answer your question, no, your 560M won't be quite as fast as the 5870.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AgentN25*
> 
> How do you estimate my card'll perform on the more demanding games?


I would say as of right now (2011), most games should be playable at highest settings and resolution with AA except for the newest releases such as Skyrim, Rage, BF3, and, of course, Crysis. So all in all, nothing to sneeze at, especially for a laptop. And also, I heard that the GTX 560M overclocks like mad, so have fun with your new rig when you get it.


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## AgentN25

wow octiceps thanks a million. so here's an alternative I looked at (but turned down). It's cheaper on amazon. It's got the i7 2630, and GTX 460M 1.5 GB. So do you think it would be faster than the one I purchased? (i7 2670, GTX 560M 2GB). Cuz I could easily send it back and get this one instead.

http://www.amazon.com/G53SW-XA1-Republic-Gamers-15-6-Inch-Gaming/dp/B004X5XL3Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1323157203&sr=8-2

Or I could just get away from the nVidia entirely and go for this HP that has a similar processor with the 6770M. Thoughts? Thanks so much!!!

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-dv7-6199us-Entertainment-PC/dp/B005LLYCOI/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1323157864&sr=1-2

I suppose I may've gotten lost in the jungle of GPUs haha...... First rig comes tomorrow. I think I'll benchmark Crysis and see how that does. thanks again for your help. Invaluable!


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## octiceps

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AgentN25*
> 
> wow octiceps thanks a million. so here's an alternative I looked at (but turned down). It's cheaper on amazon. It's got the i7 2630, and GTX 460M 1.5 GB. So do you think it would be faster than the one I purchased? (i7 2670, GTX 560M 2GB). Cuz I could easily send it back and get this one instead.
> http://www.amazon.com/G53SW-XA1-Republic-Gamers-15-6-Inch-Gaming/dp/B004X5XL3Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1323157203&sr=8-2
> Or I could just get away from the nVidia entirely and go for this HP that has a similar processor with the 6770M. Thoughts? Thanks so much!!!
> http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-dv7-6199us-Entertainment-PC/dp/B005LLYCOI/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1323157864&sr=1-2
> I suppose I may've gotten lost in the jungle of GPUs haha...... First rig comes tomorrow. I think I'll benchmark Crysis and see how that does. thanks again for your help. Invaluable!


You're welcome. That G53SW would be faster in games due to the GTX 460M.

Don't get the HP. It's not really designed as a gaming laptop and the AMD 6770M is a quite a few steps below the other graphics cards I've been mentioning here.

If I were you, seeing how you can afford to spend $1250 for the G53SX you bought on Amazon, I'd take a look at these customizable laptops from XoticPC and Malibal:

http://www.xoticpc.com/force-1761-msi-1761-p-3152.html?wconfigure=yes

http://www.xoticpc.com/force-16f2012-msi-16f2-preorder-p-3376.html?wconfigure=yes

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8130-built-clevo-p151hm1-custom-sager-laptop-p-2973.html?wconfigure=yes

http://www.malibal.com/boutique/pc/configurePrd.asp?idProduct=285

The first two come with the much faster GTX 570M while the last two come with the 192-bit GTX 560M. Customize the first two with an i7 2630QM, 8GB RAM, and 750GB 7200 RPM hard drive and your total is only $1200 (less if you pay with cash, check or money order), which makes it not only cheaper than the G53SX but also much faster. Not to mention you get a free copy of Battlefield 3 with it. The GTX 570M is one of the fastest mobile graphics cards out there right now and is around 50% faster than the nerfed GTX 560M.


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