ok, first off, let's dial the tone back a bit. you obviously are new to having a laptop or to having a laptop with a decent video card.

the M stands for Mobile. nowhere will you ever find that M = half as good as what it says it is.

all laptops have M at the end of a Nvidia card, it's how Nvidia tells you it's a mobile card.

second off, if you basically just wanted to run BF3, you could've picked up a old G73 and done just fine. if you want to run it at pretty much the highest settings, then a G74 will do the trick.

if you read the requirements for the game you'll see that a stock G74 more than meets the recommended specs.

notebookcheck.com is a good site for learning about mobile video cards and how they compare to their desktop siblings.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-560M.48313.0.html

Thank you.

Btw im not new to having a laptop its just that i have had bad experience with my older one...

Also when i checked the Nvidia page it said that the GTX 560 had 20k something preformance while the 560M had only 10k. *to lazy to find the links :p*

Well on a sidenote hopefully Nvida and ATI manage to find a solution to the idea around external GPU's in the not so distant future.

mrfox123 wrote:

Also when i checked the Nvidia page it said that the GTX 560 had 20k something preformance while the 560M had only 10k. *to lazy to find the links :p*

Step 1 - Stop comparing desktop GPUs to mobile GPUs.
Step 2 - Update to the v280 drivers from Nvidia
Step 3 - Install the BF3 beta and enjoy the awesome performance the G74 provides. 🙂

at one point companies made docking stations that would house desktop video cards and allow a laptop to use it while it was plugged in.

kind of a good idea, kind of not.

i've been a system builder for as long as i can remember, to be honest, 10 years ago it mattered if it was a laptop or a desktop. these days, it really doesn't. my 2 year old laptop is probably twice to four times as powerful as the old desktop it replaced. i can use it anywhere, and it doesn't use a whole lot of juice. i can use it in the car with a power inverter even.

in another ten years it will matter even less. desktops are great in the fact that you can swap out parts all day long. 20 years ago, nothing was integrated into the board and everything could be swapped (ide controllers, keyboard interface connectors, etc), then along came integrated boards, for awhile they weren't as good as the old AT style boards. nowadays the only thing you can find is a integrated board.

laptops are no different then this.

being able to pack up and move out at a moment's notice is the real draw of a laptop. in the olden days when they weren't as good as a desktop it was more common to have a separate setup for your games, and use the laptop on the go. nowadays it's just extra junk and more money to waste on your electric bill every month.

now that laptops like these exist, with replaceable video cards, the chance of a good laptop being put out to pasture because the board is bad is even less. that's always a awesome thing.

oh and one last thing on upgrading the video card, there's nothing better to upgrade it to. nobody makes a better mobile video card than that really.

Yahooligan wrote:
Step 1 - Stop comparing desktop GPUs to mobile GPUs.
Step 2 - Update to the v280 drivers from Nvidia
Step 3 - Install the BF3 beta and enjoy the awesome performance the G74 provides. 🙂

+1

I have the G74SX-BK7 and have been enjoying playing BF3 BETA since the day it came out running on ultra settings, so I don't care what others SAY about the laptop, I KNOW what I SEE... 🙂

I bought a G74SX a couple of weeks ago and couldn't be happier, for a laptop it is really VERY good, and reasonably priced considering what a desktop equivalent in performance would cost. I spent years and years upgrading to keep up with the modern games, then finally when my current build broke for the 3rd time (faulty mboard, then faulty memory now it is broken with a faulty Powersuppy; I gave in, firstly I wanted something to replace my broken desktop (anyone want a GTX285 let me know it is collecting dust!) reading up on the Asus site they claimed the G74 was just that! They wern't kidding, of course I wanted performance, I am cranking BF2 BC up to Maximum in 1920X1080 and no slowdowns not to mention it looks fantastic! Same with Stalker CS, and the BF3 demo I was sitting there running on AUTO and it was selecting ULTRA for most settings!

Amazing, and it runs so Quiet and Cool, I used Realtemp, CPU temps don't get above 47 degrees Celsius, GPU temps not above 52 or so considering my GTX285 used to top 70 degrees in a case full of fans this is amazing, and that card never could do 1920X1080 without having a short circuit! Then there is the fact that I can hit one button and it selects performance mode... simple no overclocking it does it itself! And where the hell is the noise? It is quiet!! Even when gaming for hours? When I used to play big open games like Stalker on my GTX285 seriously I thaught it was about to take off! The thing sounded like a jet engine revving up! Kudo's Asus, my previous laptop was an Asus (a slow one for business) but this G74 takes the cake!

physically you can.

the biggest hang up will be the cost. a replacement for a GTX260m is around $250-300. if mine went out tomorrow, i'd better off selling the rest of the laptop for parts and buying a new one.

that's not to say i might not find one for maybe 100 bucks or something, then it'd be different.

the asus mxm video cards are different than all the other mxm cards. the interface is flipped. chances are you'll be limited to what came in that laptop. but you never know, maybe something else will come along.