The Official Arrandale Timeline Thread

I'm surprised about the 430M's performance too. A 5740G owner (i5 430M + HD5650) told me he's far more limited by the HD5650 (he clearly considered the HD5650 to be the bottleneck), faster CPUs won't make a difference graphics performance wise. He suggested me not to wait for 520M/540M for I wouldn't experience any performance gain in games, not even in the CPU dependant ones.

As for the Dell refresh, I'm in too, pity Dell Bill stated not to hope for anything till Q4.

I was a bit afraid when I saw the CPU and the GPU sharing the same heat pipe, it's similar to the Studio XPS 13's heat managment, and it didn't work out well.

Good, indeed. Made me curious.

 

What exactly is the hypothesis that the i5-430M is bottlenecking the HD 5650 based on?

 

A test is just a test! It is usually done under extreme circumstances and is an attempt to extrapolate from a small set of data and predict the behavior of a component or a device. The real question is "how does the 4820TG behave in a real world situation." As more owners get them and use them, we'll find out.

Bronsky

 

A benchmark score (especially 3D Mark 06 and Vantage) comparison with the Asus N82JV with i7 620 and GT335.

Google translation:

GPU performance

A note first: The total in the test mentioned benchmarks were carried out with the Radeon HD 5650, integrated Intel GMA HD was always disabled. In the synthetic benchmarks is no way past the grafiklastigen 3DMarks by Futuremark. Here we have chosen to compare the GeForce GT 335m, which will include the same large and powerful like Asus N82JV use. In 3DMark 2003 positioned the Radeon HD 5650 with 21 056 to 18 806 points before the loose GeForce GT 335m. In 3DMark 2006 the lead shrinks significantly, and the GeForce GT 335m pulls with 13 363 to 13 430 points almost matched. In 3DMark 2006, the tide turns quickly and the Nvidia card, the Radeon HD 5650, not least, pass easily due to the higher CPU influence (Core i7-620M N82JV the Asus) with 6892 to 6719 points. In 3DMark Vantage GPU score of the Radeon HD 5650 lies in 2899 to 2651 points once again to the front. Total move GeForce 5650 GT and Radeon HD 335m on a similarly good level, with slight advantages for the ATI card.

Of: notebookcheck.c om/Test-Acer-Aspire-4820TG-Timeline-X-Notebook.29489.0.html

 

320M = integrated version of 310M. The use of the term "serious" in my original opinion is purposeful. To be sure, the UL30VT, Vostro 3300 and MBP are capable of some graphics functions. I would never buy a 310M if I had a task to perform that required "serious" GPU power. Neither would you I assume. The MBP has an "anemic" GPU, is there any doubt about that?

IMO, the opinion, was as specific as it needed to be. I think computer users understand tasks that require "serious" graphics power. It's like pornography, you know it when you see it.

Bronsky

@max7 - the funny thing is that I don't know if I can sense a difference of 250 3DMark06 points in actual use. Anybody know what the treshold is for feeling the difference in gameplay or other GPU uses?

 

Proof that I can't spell worth a dam.

 

It is based on pure hypothesis. Such a conclusion in a scientific work at university or elsewhere wouldn't be appropriate.

They should stop letting trainees write these critics...

By the way, have you ever heard about a spicy 3820TG? I dont mean the one in your signature but some rocket with a 160gig SSd.

I get "0" hits with: Acer Aspire Timeline X 3820TG-624G16(M)N(S)

 

There is a 4820TG with the Intel 160GB SSD. It is slated for release the middle of may. I think its actually on preorder on the German sites. I have not heard of a 3820TG with one stock but would buy it if they offered one.

Bronsky

 

you know, even now, acer singapore hasn't updated their webpage with the 3820TG model.

will the 3820TG somehow be available to buy in the US without anyone knowing about it?

 

Just came accross of:

http://www.ace r.com/ti melinex/eng/

 

I am starting to worry about the screen. What do you guys think? Judging on what the users say it's ok, but reviews are very demoralizing. Especially the contrast scares me, about 140:1. How do you consider that value compared to other screens?

It seems like either you get a noisy 4820 with decent screen or a quiet 3820 with a bad one. It seems odd to me this difference in quality between the two. Plus, there could be a difference depending on where they are produced. Maybe the models sent to notebookjournal and notebookcheck were coming from another plant than those sent to the averagely happy german customers.. hopefully.

@Bronsky: why in the world the Vaio Z would be obsolete in a year and not the 3820tg??? Because of the Directx support?
Nonetheless, it seems that who can afford it should go for the Z...

 

lol you don't need a good graphics card to do graphics work. good graphics cards are for gaming and autocad

 

Is everyone here who is interested in Acer's new lineup fully acclimated to the keyboard style already?

Everything about these new TimelineX models seems great to me except for the keyboard. I'm using this style keyboard on my Gateway EC1454u right now and unless the new "rougher texture" on the TimelineX notebooks makes a huge difference in usability, the keyboard may just be a deal breaker for me. The keys are too flat and mushy for me to get comfortable with. This in combination with the fact that they are barely spaced apart makes the overall keyboard experience even less desirable IMO.

Those who are interested in the new TimelineX series who have not tried this style of keyboard should probably go and test out the keyboard style of previous Acer/Gateway models in a B&M store if possible (those of which have the same style keyboard). I consider the keyboard to be an integral part of a laptop and will likely have a hard time overlooking this factor when considering the TimelineX series.

I do notice though that the TravelMate Timeline 8x72 series has a different style keyboard that may or may not be more suitable to me. I've seen this style keyboard on other brand laptops (and also the previous generation TravelMate Timelines) but have never tried it out personally. They still look relatively flat still, but it appears to have perhaps a slight contour on the keys with the edges of the keys tapered off.

 

I don't give a crap about something trivial as the keyboard.
The 3820tg is the only laptop to date which combines everything that is good, 13 inches, 4 pounds, i5-520/540, HD 5650. Will become accustomed to the keyboard like it or not.

 

this is the onyl thing that has i7m small and aweomse gpu

 

Me too. Keyboard is absolutely unimportant to me. I believe you can adjust to any keyboard given the right time. That goes also, a bit less, for touchpads, although in that case the texture IS essential, but you can adjust to that too. I tried once some HP touchpads that many of you may know. Incredibly bad, I wonder how could any designer think of anything SO bad. Nonetheless, you could probably apply a film to it and make it ok.

 

yes...but, for now, ONLY in singapore...

 

Provantage is now listing 3 new Travelmates on its site (other than the 11.6"). All of them have integrated graphics only. The 8472 = 14"/I5-520M/4GB DDR3/620 7200rpm HD. The 8572 comes in 2 configurations: 15.6"/I5-520M/4GB DDR3 and an I7-620M version.

The 8472 comes with Windows Pro 32bit. It looks like Provantage is carying only Acer's business line and will probably not stock the TimelineX series. I've sent an email to see if they expect to get any 3820TG's in soon or at all.

Anyway, this is the first of the larger new acers we've seen. In searching their site and the neutronexpress site, I don't see any of the timelinex series. At least Acer is making some models available to the US market. Even if they're the wrong ones.

Bronsky

Try typing 8-10 hours a day and writing direct on your computer. I have gotten rid of laptops because the keyboard was unsatisfactory. To me keyboard is more important than display.

 

only thing i wish it had was eitehr usb 3 or esata combo port. How it doesnt have the later is criminal..

 

Try compiling GIS files, editing them and preparing a real time presentation without a good GPU.

 

I agree. They need at least one type of high speed transfer part. Esata is pretty much the norm on almost all laptops.

 

Hello,
I'm new to this forum, but I've been reading this thread for the last 10+ days since I'm interested in buying the 4820TG, despite the heating issues and some minor flaws I think it's the best 14" laptop out there, considering all the specs. I would have rather gone with the 3820TG though, but no models carrying the HD5650 will be available soon here in Italy and I really need a laptop by the end of May. Anyway I have two questions:
1) It seems that all the resellers here in Italy will be selling the 4820TG with the 9-cell battery by default. How is its size and weight compared with the 6-cell? I haven't seen a 9-cell model in any review so far.
2) I would like to install Ubuntu once I get my laptop to use it along with Windows. In this case, which GPU will be recognized and used by the system? Intel HD or the 5650? Probably my question can be rewritten as follows: which GPU the system uses by default, regardless of what OS and software is installed? I guess (but I may be wrong) that the manual switching only works in Windows 7, since it's a software stuff designed expressly for that OS.
All in all I really like this new TimelineX series. Well done Acer!

 

@Bronsky: Plenty of tasks I'd identify as "serious graphics work" don't even have support for GPU acceleration, and quite a lot of others that do use it aren't real time so they don't really have minimum requirements.
Your definition seems a little narrow.

Are you basing your "bottlenecking" idea off 3DMark06? 3DMark06 doesn't demonstrate bottlenecking very well at all. Even the slowest of GPUs will increase significantly in '06 score from having a faster CPU, yet the GPU still increases the score much more.

I have an i5-430M + HD 5850, and I get 11.5k in '06 and 7k in Vantage at stock clocks. As you can see, since those scores are much higher, the i5-430M is no bottleneck here, and wouldn't be for the majority of games.


The other thing is that if the heat management is as poor as is suggested, then the CPU is not a 2.5GHz Core i5 but a 1.2GHZ Core i5. Now, that being a bottleneck I can believe.

 

The bottleneck discussion came from the german thermal stress test of the 4820TG with the I5-430M. The reviewers concluded that there was thermal throttling of the I5-430M, which I found surprising. Not sure I believe it yet or it doesn't demonstrate itself in real world application. I think we would have seen it by now in other systems that use the I5-430M. Either that or it shows up only under the stress test. Have you run a thermal stress test on your MSI?

The 250 point 3Dmark06 had nothing to do with a bottleneck discussion. It was associated with a comparisen between the 4830TG and the N82JV. I was wondering what perceptable level of graphic capability can we see or sense. You seem to be picking up bits and pieces of different conversations. You're a bit behind the curve.

Bronsky

 

You said

I kept asking what this comment was based on, but I didn't get an answer. It's clearly not based on the temperatures, since a higher-powered CPU would only make things worse. So, I ask again, what was your comment based on?

As for my GX640, well, I haven't gone as far as running, say, Prime95 and Furmark at once, and that might be enough to cause trouble, but in real-world situations it hasn't had any trouble, and I doubt it will.

 

Jesus dude you really need to chill. I have no idea and don't really feel like reading back ... Okay with u?

 

Can't we all just get along?

Somebody needs a hug

Now back to the wide availability of those Acer models...

 

@Bronsky
I'm perfectly "chilled", just curious... I guess you can't tell the difference. A number of people in this thread were suggesting the HD 5650 requires a more powerful CPU than the i5-430M, yourself included, and it's perfectly reasonable for me to want to see what all this is based on.

You're the one calling me "behind the curve". I was just trying to find out for myself where this idea came from, you'll note that my statement about 3dm06 was phrased as a question for precisely that reason.

In fact, someone PM'd me asking if the i5-430M would bottleneck not only the HD 5650 but the HD 5470, and I felt it necessary to check what evidence there was for it before giving a full response. If there isn't any evidence, that's fine, because I can just ignore the suggestion.

 

3dmark 06 scores show a seperate score for the gpu and the cpu.

if your goal was to have the highest 3dmark score a more powerful cpu would make it go up....
it wouldnt make the gpu score higher

the scores itself are presented in a way that confuses people and tries to convince people who dont know up they need a new computer.

Dont get uptight about the confusion its only natural

 

omg im praying this comes out before the summer i dont wanna be bored all summer come on acer make my day and bring the 3820tg to play in the country of canada today.........

 

Hi,

Could you tell me of any Brick & Motor stores other than Futureshop where someone can walk in and buy a laptop...?

I'm looking in toronto....

Thanks

 

canada computers
sig electronics (maybe)
best buy
staples
tiger direct
lol apple store (macs)

 

acer usa posted updated bios for the 3820tg (drivers have been up for a few months now, just no announcement), looks like alot of issues fixed, but the fact the Readme shows issues fixed with 3d apps, it gives me hope they will resolve low performance on the 5650 prior to usa release (pci-express running at x1 instead of x16 issue maybe)...

(copy pasted from acer usa driver download section)
1. Fixes Annie WMI ACPI Control Method for Preload Process fail issue.
2. Solves USB3G set RF off if USB 3G does not exist.
3. Fixes Ericsson 3G F3307 S3 auto resume issue.
4. Adds Foxconn Broadcomm BT 3.0 (PID: 0489, VID: E010)
5. Fixes ThermalGet + 3DMark Issue.
6. Modifies ATI PowerXpress (PX) Control Method Function 8 Get Display Connectors mapping.
7. Adds Wireless type for Broadcomm 43225 2x2 BGN (HM) T77H103.00 (VID:14E4, DID:4357) and Atheros HB97 2x2 BGN (HM) (VID:168C, DID:002E)

 

thanks pal...

i'll look into them... ;-)

 

keep the posts comin loc

learning a lot from them

*thumbs up*

 

removed ...

 

According to the notebookjournal-forum, the bios update is kind of harmfull. It doesn't solve the pci-e problem, but messes up fan control. It seems that the Keyboard control update, which is shipped with the bios update shouldn't be installed, the bios itself seems ok.

Anyway, there seems to be a workaround for the pci-e problem.

- Uninstall graphics driver
- Reinstall graphics driver from Acer homepage
- Disable "PowerPlay" in CCC

I cannot confirm this, because first thing I did after buying this thing was to install a clean Windows 7 Pro. No pci-e problem so far.

 

I've mentioned this before, but pretty much the exact same issue with PCIe @ x1 occurs with stock drivers on the MSI GX640. We found that the solution was to update the drivers and disable PowerPlay, so it's no surprise that you've come to a similar conclusion. The PCIe made a huge difference for the 5850, with the 3DMark Vantage GPU score jumping from ~5k to ~7k.

 

Maybe I never had to type that long on a bad keyboard. Surely I did type for long times. It always seemed like the quality of the keyboard was of no importance (I mean, in terms of speed/comfort. Obviously there is a difference in the pleasure and feeling of typing on a good keyboard or a cheap netbook)

Since I spend most of the time on a computer looking at the screen (either reading/watching/fruition of content et), I consider the screen essential. I guess this is true for most people. Who doesn't look at the screen? Since, in particular, I spend a lot of time actually reading, I am worried the low contrast would be harmful for my eyes. Is that just a fantasy?

Personally I don't care about color quality, etc (I wouldn't get a 13" for that).. Just don't want my eyes to be harmed... What do you guys think?

 

everyday I check this thread multiple times, but I don't check anything else, really. I trust you guys will be the first to let me know if it's out and available in the US or Canada!

 

First user experiences with (thermal caused) instant shutdowns of 4820TG:
forum.lowyat.net
Starting with post 343.

*edit*
I hope this reviews havent been posted yet:
4820TG Review 1
4820TG Review 2

 

Your eyes can't get harmed by a bad screen. You only get tired faster.

 

Aren't tired eyes a sign of harmed eyes? Are you positive it doesn't affect your sight?

 

Actually, I'm hoping I get a PM from whoever sees a 3820TG I7-620M/HD5650 on sale at a US retailers.

Looks like Acer is more concerned with making new products than figuring a way to get them to the US market. New 15.6" Acer 5553G-N934G64Mn with an AMD Phenom II N930 (2ghz) and HD5650. Looks like a kick a** 15.6" device. The rest of the specs are typical Acer. It would be ashame for such a nice processor to get a standard TFT display. Acer claims to have this on the market within 4 weeks - guess where? Yep. Germany. Amazon.de has it listed as out of stock. No price that I can see. So, where is my 3820TG.

It looks like the Phenom II will also appear in a new 15.6" Dell Inspiron. The Inspiron will have an option for an HD550 which is some fusion GPU that controls your TV as well. Anyway, back to patiently waiting.

Bronsky

Oh ... and this from the 3820T thread "Heat: Really, seriously, enough about the heat issue. really. It isnt hot like everyone is complaining. The heat is manageable. Period." Thanks Pals - it's reassuring.

Has anyone looked up the model number for the 3820TG I7-620M/HD5650? I have been speaking to a sales representative of an American retailer and she will run the 3820Tg through her system to see if any are on order and anticipated delivery date. We have already identified the 14" and 15.6" Travelmates on their system that way. She needs the Acer Model # to run it through her system.

 

Does anybody have some feedback on the ati hd550 gpu? Any reviews out there? I have searched but have not found anything interesting.

 

It looks like garbage to me. There are at least 3 levels of the same type of GPU made by ATI that do much more. I.e., the 600 series. This one won't even handle digital TV signals, only analog (??). It's an interesting idea, its just that the 550 is a lower class of GPU/controler. Looks like you can run your entire entertainment system with one of these on a lappy, including video recording if I'm reading correctly. Now, not only will I need a laptop for work, but i'll need on on the coffee table too?

Bronsky

 

Another German review. Notable is the positive review of the screen and the keyboard.

Some more testing on battery life as well:
Battery Life Office 7:23 hours
Battery runtime at full load 2:13 hours

Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820TG-334G50N (Notebook) - Test - CHIP Online

 

well i remember my optometrist saying reading in a dark room won't technically damage your eyes, it will cause fatigue making your eyes hurt, but a couple mintues/hours of rest and it would turn back to normal

 

that was a very confusing review

power is listed on one of its pros yet it only had a score 56/100
and mobility was only at 59/100 knowing that it can go 7 hours/2.5 hours on office/full load

 

Yes, I am positive. I asked this question to several ophthalmologists I had to visit in my "career". It's an urban legend which is told to children so they don't watch tv the whole day. In the worst case, you get sore eyes. Disappears after some hours of rest. Or perhaps you're just not able to work more than a few hours with it. But you definitely don't get harmed or reduced eyesight by using bad screens.

By the way, the screen of the 3820TG is not as bad as the reviews suggest. It's certainly not a Macbook Pro screen, but it's ok, I can work with it quite comfortable.