Acer Aspire 5672 with X1600 ETA June 1/06

Just got this from the ACER CANADA NOTEBOOK MATRIX

 

As much as I like the better gaming performance, I am just worried about the battery life. With the X1400 I read that 3 hours was the maximum with the lowest settings. With a X1600 card I just think the battery life will be way too low for me to consider it.

 

Ah yah, this has been out for awhile... http://www.acer.com.sg/products/travelmate8200/psp_travelmate8200.asp

 

uh, but the 5672 has the lower resolution screen (which some people prefer)

 

$1599 CDN for Core Duo and an X1600 - zoikes!!!! that is hot!

 

Hi,

Does anyone know if the X1400 in the 5672 can be swapped out for the X1600 that is coming in the newer models - or are the GPU's soldered in?

 

As far as I can tell the x1400 is soldered onto the motherboard (BOO!)
but the motherboard could be swapped with another with an x1600 onboard, as an upgrade

time for ACER to offer upgrade paths , and make it cost effective please guys

 

Soldered? Bah! Youre right tho; it might be easier to just get a replacement mobo off Acer, which should work, providing that everythings laid out in roughly the same place as the X1400 based mobo is.

 

Pretty nice... anything on spain and or mexico matrix? where did u get that?

 

Interesting news indeed! Would the X1600 be clocked as high as the one on the Travelmate 8204? Toshiba's Satellite A100 also has the X1600 but it scores ~1000 less points in 3DMark 2005.

 

Kinda risky move, it's gonna effect the sales of the 8204...

But interesting

 

Maybe it is clocked at lower speeds

 

To Mark J Fletcher

yes the motherboard should be laid out the same, especially since the acer chassis are similar
but also becuase the X1300 X1400 and X1600 are essentially the same chip, just different yields, i.e. the x1600 are the perfect ones, so have all their pipes enabled, the ones that come off wafers that are less than perfect have pipes disabled to make them stable and they run slower etc etc, they become the budget ones.

nvidia do the same
thats why you see many threads on graphics cards where pipes have been re-enabled with clever soldering to bring the cards up to the next spec, even if the clock speeds are slower they can still get more performance.

fingers crossed that acer will actually sell me a mobo
or do I have to find the manufacturer?
hmmmm

 

Is this good or bad?

 

Just curious, in the specs, it just says Orbicam. Does that mean it won't have the DVI-D port anymore?

 

I dont see why the dvi port would go anywhere with the cores being the same
the orbicam is the webcam, that is included with current models

 

thats true for the x1300 and x1400, but the x1600 has 3 shaders per pipeline and I'm pretty sure its a different chip.

 

Will the price stay low as in Buy.com's $999?

 

No, Buy.com charges $1177.99 for a preorder.

Compared to the $999 version, you should get:
-x1600 graphics card instead of x1400
-120GB hard drive instead of 100GB
(If Acer's product page is to be believed)

 

I have been speaking to acer about purchasing a motherboard with an x1600 onboard, they have given me the uk parts line number so I can ask them for one when I find out what the part number is. plus they may list it once its released.

On the other hand, a lot of the acer laptops are extremely similar in design (basic chassis) and as it uses the same chipset I beleive the 8204 motherboard may fit the 5672, it would make cost effective sense for the motherboards to be relatively the same apart from onboard graphics etc.

its time to take a sneak peek at the 8204 at work and then compare the board to my 5672, remember the switches and ports on the front are probably only on the edge of the mobo just like the backplane of a desktop/tower pc.

 

I have found preorder info on the 5672 w/ X1600 from NCIX.com. The 2 model numbers are:

LX.ATD05.014 - This is the 1GB RAM version w/ XPH ~$1580 CAD
LX.ATD05.089 - This is a 2GB RAM w/ XPH ~$1675 CAD

The prices seem great when compared to the X1400 versions which cost about the same! Is NCIX a reliable seller?

 

I always order stuff from NCIX, and can highly recommend them. I always have orders at my door in a couple days, they have great prices, and good customer service.

 

http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductDetail?Sku=6809249

its for sale here already.

 

ah, i really want the x1600... what should i do.. sell mine with the x1400? lol this sucks!

 

Buy.com has the x1600 version in stock now (Friday, May 26) but they're almost sold out. Hurry if you want one.

 

I finally settled on a Toshiba Satellite A100-JH2 with x1600 and 9-cell battery.
For some reason, the specs indicated on Bestbuy's site are innaccurate. It came up to 1479$ CAD, plus tax. I was lucky enough to gettit as prices have increased to 1699$.

If you want some detailed specs and a simple review, check this link out:
Toshiba A100-JH2

 

I would love to see the benchies on this baby.

 

it only has 128 video memory.....this is half of what you can get with the z96j....however it does have DVI

 

how much performance difference is there between the 128 x1600 and the 256?

 

has anyone purchased the x1600 version?

 

I have... should arrive later today, woot!

Anything you wanna know about it in particular?

 

what kind of 3dmark will it get?

 

Please run 3dmark 05 on it.

 

i just saw the new 5672 X1600 already at ncix.com (CAN+USA)

 

Downloading the drivers now (reformatted with XP Pro). Will let you guys know once I get it 3DMark'ed.

 

I just ran 3DMark 06 (NOT 05) on my 5672 x1600. The score was a pathetic 1182 3DMarks, compared to ~2000 on other systems with 256 MB video ram and faster CPUs. I reformatted and reinstalled Windows first; there was nothing running except drivers and Acer's ePowerManagement. I'm extremely disappointed -- the score is barely any better than the Sony SZ 110B's ~750 3DMarks, and that uses a GeForce Go 7400.

Anyone else have benchmarks?

I'll download 3DMark 05 tonight and run that when I wake up.

 

I got 3dmark 05 score of 2828 with omega. stock.

 

Those scores are acutaly bad =\, they seem to be roughly 35% lower than expected.

The X700 should get 2400-2700 3dMarks05
The X1600 should get ~4000 3dMark05 + or - 300 marks

This is a 35% Difference.

Now one thing you guys should do is download ATI Tools, not ATI tray Tools, and check the clock speeds and report back to us.

People in the ASUS forums with their X1600 laptops have clock speeds of 510/510...it sounds like Acer heavily underclocked it to somethingl ike 350/400.

In any case, check that out, do some gaming, report heat levels.

Stuff like that.

Good Luck.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

ya if anyone can run some more tests I would really appreciate it, i've been looking at this model and i'm in negotiations with the local Acer dealer in my town, but don't know if i want to purchase it if it is as underclocked as it sounds...anyone play any games on it? like BF2 or Fear?

 

My 3DMark05 score was 2750.

According to ATITool, it's clocked at 475/375.

 

ok LIar, bumb up and start overclocking ur GPU to something like 510/510 if you can!!??? test it, and see if you can get better performance.

watch for atifacts.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

thats a really crappy score

someone posted this in another forum

"The Aspire 5670 is full-featured portable multimedia center encased in a 15.4" form factor, featuring ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256 MB GDDR2 VRAM dedication for supporting Microsoft ® DirectX ® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 and High Dynamic-Range (HDR) lighting, it can rip through all of today's most cutting-edge games and applications, high-quality scaling and pixel calculation at up to 1920 x1080 pixels through DVI, to produce clear enlargements with crisp details."

WTF? when is the 256 coming out?

 

Can you guys give me a link the the $999 with the x1400?? thanks

 

The $999 price was from Buy.com, but it's not available from them anymore. Not sure if they'll come back in stock later on... if you want, you can do a search there for "LX.AA705.104" every once in a while or keep checking the product page.

 

Never done this before... what's supposed to happen? I used ATITool and set both clock speeds to 510. The screen got all messed up for a few seconds and then it just reset back to the default.

 

you should do the o/c in steps of 5, not all the way to 510. this way u shld be able to judge ur system stablity. even twins are different not to mention the computers.

 

Very curious to see if 'over'clocking will bring the x1600 up to expected levels with a stable system. But perhaps a deliberate underclocking of this better card (compared to x1400) was to bring Acer's notorious heat levels down overall. The hot palm rest and scalding touchpad are the main reasons I've held off getting this brand. Please let us know how hot this thing is getting.

 

^ would you even use the touchpad 100% of the time..?

 

I left it on overnight with the cover down. By the morning, the entire keyboard was very hot and the touchpad was actually (slightly) painful to the touch.

But leave it open for a few minutes and it becomes... only very warm instead of very hot. It doesn't really bother me, but it's definitely the hottest notebook I've ever used.

 

i'm really disappointed with the results so far from what you guys are sayikng...have you loaded on any games and tried them?