The people who put in the 55 watt CPUs often report having higher temps (go figure) as well as problems with the TurboBoost (because of the extra heat). Hence, the 2860QM is often faster, because it is only slightly lower base clock, but 10 Watts lower on the TDP. I like @fostert's Total Dissipated Power, because it is, more or less, true.

fostert wrote:
1) Max ram speed: I have seen people have success with two sticks of 1866MHz RAM in the G74. Four sticks of any speed will trigger the G74 to revert to default 1333MHz speeds.
2) The timings are almost always 9-9-9-24, as there is no way to tighten them up in the BIOS. Some memory (Plug-N-PLay types, e.g.Kingston HyperX) will force the BIOS into using its own custom SPD settings (clock speed and timings), but the G74 can be prickly with more than 2 sticks of these.
3) I have read postings elsewhere of people putting in the core i7 2960XM (the fastest mobile sandy) into the G74 and it working well, but beware of the extra 10 Watts of TDP heat (I like to think of TDP to mean Total Dissipated Power, but it really means Thermal Design Power) that your G74 will have to pump out. Get a 2820 or 2860 instead (45 W).

Thank you foster, I currently have the i7 2630 so I think I'll just stick with that, I also have 16GB of 1333MHz RAM so what I'll probably end up doing is just upgrading to 32 GB of RAM with 4 sticks of 8GB each. I've seen your experiment on it and I got to say that I'm pretty impressed, the only thing is that I don't like the latency for the 8GB sticks. Also how did you figure that with four stick of any speed the G74 will revert to default 1333MHz speeds? I've seen post where people were successful with 16 GB of 1666MHz RAM with a CAS latency of 9-9-9-24 for the G74, is there a way to know if your computer is using the sticks at 1333MHz or 1666MHz? , I also have the 1600 X 900 screen, I decided to buy it that way since the difference in price was 200 dollars and the screen itself is only about 89 dollars so I can just buy the screen and replace it myself since the nvidia GTX560M can handle that resolution right? one more thing, is there a battery upgrade out there? I've read post where people were able to find a 12 cell battery and get over 2.5 hours of battery life, I really like this laptop as it allows me to have the performance I want while I travel but I don't like to be dependent of an outlet everywhere I go, I gess the other option is to buy another battery. The current specs for my laptop are:

G74SX, i7 2630QM 2.3GHz
16GB DDR3 RAM @1333MHz
GTX560M 3GB DDR5
17.3" LED 1600x900

Overall I'm very satisfied with my G74SX I like to have performance on the go and I really love to upgrade as much as possible, I also recomend the ROG Shuttle Backpack if you don't own it already. Here is the link. http://us.estore.asus.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=4366

Never heard of the extended-life battery, to be honest, so I can't say. The guys with 16 GB of 1600 MHz RAM are doing it with 2x8 config, not 4x8. Four RAM modules doubles the power-load on the IMC, and since increasing frequency also increases the load, it is possible that the IMC cannot handle that much RAM at those frequencies, and so downclocks the RAM to keep the power-consumption in check.

I am new to the forum, please be "gentle" with me .

I have a g74S with 12 GB (3 sticks of 4 GB) memory. Running Windows 7 Enterprise with VMware Workstation 9.0. I run out of memory at 3 open VMs (software development company - Quality Assurance testing, etc.). I am not afraid to dig into the computer but need to ensure that my "excursions" are as fast and painless as possible (the boss does like for me to be productive).

If anyone can provide me with guidance about which memory chips to purchase and any pitfalls that I should expect, I will be most appreciative. Please feel free to email me directly at chetellis @ aq2tech.com.

Thanks in advance for all assistance and the opportunity to have read your previous posts, etc.