NEW ASUS announces A7S, F3SV, F3SC, A8SC and W7S Santa Rosa laptops

via engadget,
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/03/asus-announces-a7s-f3sv-f3sc-a8sc-and-w7s-santa-rosa-laptops/

Just in case the recent outpouring of Santa Rosa wasn't doing enough to keep you satisfied, ASUS just announced five laptops sporting the new mobile processor. None of 'em break much ground on the design or form factor side of things, but Santa Rosa isn't the only thing these laptops have going for them. The 17-inch A7S-7S006C runs a 2GHz T7300 Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1440 x 900 screen and perhaps most excitingly, the new NVIDIA GeForce 8400G mobile graphics card with 896MB of RAM. For sheer power, the ASUS F3SV (pictured) is teh win, with T7100 to T7700 procs at its disposal, up to 2GB of RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce 8600M graphics with up to 1GB of RAM. The F3SC is similar, but steps graphics down to an 8400, with 384MB of RAM -- both laptops feature 1280 x 800 15.4-inch screens. The same graphics card ends up in the A8SC, alongside a 1.8GHz T7100 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 14.1-inch 1280 x 800 screen. Finally, the W7S brings up the rear with a 1.3-inch 1280 x 800 screen, T7100-T7500 processor, 2GB of RAM and 128MB of GeForce 8400 graphics. All of the laptops feature webcams of various resolution, along with plentiful connectivity. No word on when specifically these are due to wow us with their DirectX 10 prowess, or how much those fun and games will cost.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/03/asus-announces-a7s-f3sv-f3sc-a8sc-and-w7s-santa-rosa-laptops/
Original Source from the source: http://notebookitalia.it/i-primi-notebook-asus-basati-su-piattaforma-intel-santa-rosa.html

 

I'll keep this thread here for now, since this is the ASUS forum, as there is another thread in the News/Reviews forum.

Pretty much a refresh on the current low-mid end ENSEMBLE notebooks, it lists 2gb max, but it should be 4gb, but current OS doesn't even support that much, so its an irrelevant selling point.

A7s
17" WXGA+ Glossy screen
Core 2 Duo T7300
2gb RAM
8400 Go /w 896mb VRam(probably 512+hyper?)

F3sv
15.4" WXGA Glossy
Core 2 Duo T7100-T7700
2gb RAM
8600 Go /w 1024mb VRam(768+hyper?)

F3sc
15.4" WXGA Glossy
Core 2 Duo T7100-T7700
2gb RAM
8400 Go /w 384mb VRam(256+hyper?)

A8sc
14.1" WXGA Glossy
Core 2 Duo T7100
1gb RAM
8400 Go /w 384mb VRam(256+hyper?)

W7s
13.3" WXGA Glossy
Core 2 Duo T7100-T7500
2gb RAM
8400 Go /w 128mb VRam

 

Awesome news! Finally some more information on the santa rosa notebooks!

 

"Up to 1GB of RAM" in the F3SV?

 

I think, instead of up to, it should really say it 'has' that much as a factory default. Just speculation though.

 

Very dissapointed in the screen resolutions. I'm looking for a wsxga or higher with around these specs and simply not seeing it from Asus or any company for that matter.

 

Funny how an F3 will have a better video card than an A8. I'm surprised the A8SC isn't listed as having the Go 8600. Perhaps Engadget is missing one A8

 

Well, these are the low-mid end models, except for the W7.

The V1, G1, G2, W2, and potentially new models have yet to be announced.

 

I dont get it. They release a roadmap tell dealers not to spread it but dealers still do. Why the heck do they come out with the crappy models first and wait for the high end stuff for later? Because cheap sells i guess. That is where asus is headed perhaps

 

They must have a 14.1inch mid-high end laptop. Those specs aren't attractive.

 

Hopefully some NA resellers can now shed some more light on specific specifications for the NA market, since somebody already spilled the beans.

 

Asus is becoming more and more mainstream, unfortunately. Hopefully Asus design and performance quality won't suffer as a result, but they inevitably do as a computer company starts selling more and more volume.

 

Is the W7S the same as the Z37S mentioned in this thread, or just a refresh of the W7J?

 

The W7s is the refresh of the W7j.

The models above have no relation to the barebone models with Conroe.

 

Yep... that's the trend unfortunately. I'm having more and more doubts that in an year when I will probably want a new laptop, ASUS is going to have anything to offer me...

 

Of all the models that were of interest to me, only two of the four remain, the V6, W3, W2 and U1, only the latter two remain.

 

since a 8600 is about as good as a 7900, how good do you guys think the 8400 is going to be?

 

Good question; it would be pretty cool if the 8400 offers performance comparable to, say, the GeForce 7600; would be nice to get that kind of performance in the smaller laptops that the GeForce 8400 might make an appearance in.

 

Well, the desktop 8600GTS beats the 7900GS in benchmarks such as 3DMark, but when it comes to actual in-game performance, the 8600GTS is beaten by the 7900GS.

I think the Go 8400 will be several hundred 3DMark06 points behind the Go 7600 (I'd estimate the Go 8400 would get around 1,500 3DMark06 points).

 

Awesome news!

Now, the big question, does the W7S still have soldered on memory, but is now upgraded from 512 to 1GB to give it a possible maximum of 2GB of memory?

 

Hmm is it just me, or this wont help gaming too much for the short run? I mean with new vid cards, means drivers that work with Vista but none with XP? Or maybe the unified drivers will work with the laptop units?

 

What happened to the F8 14.1" that was mentioned on this board before. Something like the A8J series but better built? Hope i cans ee some of that soon!

 

that wasn't meant to come out until later in the summer (july/august)

 

These are not the only units ASUS is releasing, this is just a small bit. Just be patient and wait.

 

Pretty nice. I like that the W7 has now been moved to 2 available memory slots; the 1.5GB max on the old one was pretty bad for Vista performance. The others seem like expected stuff.

I am waiting for the Santa Rosa refresh of the R1; it seems like it will be very nice.

I think it means that the graphics card has up to 1GB of memory (VRAM + TurboCache from the sysRAM) available to it, not that the notebook supports only 1GB memory.

 

Yeah, those screen resolutions are absolutely horrible. 1440x900 on a 17" is barely passable for a screen, and 1280x800 on a 15" is an absolute waste of an LCD. They make 12" notebooks with that resolution

 

Doubt it. 512 MB is probably still integrated onto the motherboard.

 

arn i just got my notebook like a couple months ago. i wonder what the pricing will be.

why is 8400 predicted to be rated slower than 7600? i dont understand, it's next gen but a slower version? so 8600 is faster than 7600 but 8400 is slower than 7600?.. i guess we're just going to have to wait for real benchmarks. also any word if it's dx10?

 

Looks like it isnt soldered. My question was answered by clicking on the italian link. Scroll to the bottom, and you can see it states 2 slots!

 

Well, there's still different classes of GPU's. A GeForce 7400 isn't better than a GeForce Go 6800 either, for example (at least I don't think so; don't hold me to that though).

The GeForce Go 8400 is meant to be a lower cost part; it is more of a replacement for the current GeForce 7400, so it should be compared to that. Frankly, if the GeForce Go 8400's performance is even close to the current GeForce Go 7600, that would be pretty impressive.

-Zadillo

 

If you look at reviews of the desktop nvidia 8600 versus the 7600 series, it is NOT faster (in some cases, it is slower). The main feature difference is that they added DX10 capability and H.264 decoding support; the raw horsepower remains roughly the same as the previous generation.

I think you can expect the 8400 to be roughly the same as the old 7400.

 

I don't think so....It isn't slower than the 7600; its just way slower than they expected it to be. The 8600GTS is actually a pretty fast card, no matter how you stack the deck. Its only slightly slower than the 7900GS, and its got DX10, so yea...

Also, you can't deduce that the 8400 and the 7400 will be equal, due to the fact that the notebook cards are different from the desktop versions, and that the 7600->8600 performance jump is not representative of the whole line (see 7900GT to 8800GTS, thats pretty major).

 

over 90% of laptop sales are 1500$ or less. Even if asus sold every laptop over 1500 in the world it would not be enough to cover the cost.

 

http://www.dailytech.com/Asus+Delivers+Five+Santa+Rosa+Notebooks/article7154.htm

DT's specs seem more likely

8600 go with 512mb of ram ... i dont think we will see 768mb, not in a notebook and not on such mid-range hardware, the desktop 8600 doesnt even come with 768mb, and its likely that it'd be a frivolous waste....the gpu and its meager 128bit memory bus simply hasnt got the grunt to make use of all that memory properly

 

its rather a contrast to desktop parts...where in GPU's at least, the heavy enthusiast hitters come out first, followed by the cheap mid range much later

i think the 8600 actually does have more raw horsepower than the 7600, this can be seen in its 3d mark scores, the 32 scalar "stream processors" have definately got some bite, but whats really really hurting the 8600 is its 128bit memory bus, they really really really needed to go at least 192bit, and should of been 256bit (given the bumps the highend got to 384 and 320)

its got the shader horsepower to beat the 7600, that is for sure, but its severely crippled on the memory. these stream processors like the be rammed chock full of data to crunch through, thats when they work at their best....but its like an engine you cant have an engine work great if you drip feed it with a pipet.

overall i'd expect these two GPU's to have a decent edge on shader intensive stuff, but if theres alot of heavy texturing going on and you want AA and AF + a decent res as well performance will tank because the bandwidth just isnt there.

also please dont forget the filtering quality going from 7 to 8 series is nothing short of remarkable...its gone from crummy, to near as makes no difference perfect. angle independant anisotropic filtering as standard FTW!

 

Where are the WSXGA+ ???? Arghhhhhhh

 

Hmm.. where's the bamboo notebook...

 

I really can't wait for laptops with the 8400 and 8600 to come out so we can actually debate about the actual performance of the mobile parts, rather than continuing to use the performance of the desktop 8600 relative to the desktop 7600 to make points about the mobile parts.

 

for those complaining about the high res screens....this release info is from italy. most of the european releases rarely, if ever, came with the higher resolution screens. na and europe get different models....and i'm sure with the w2jb snafu, asus has learned that it shouldn't release low res screens here.

 

how much do you think the F3SC and F3Sv will be? I want to get one of those but not if they break $1700. I want like 2.0Ghz, 2GB, 100GB 7200RPM, 8x000 gfx, and a 2-year global warranty

 

Great to see an update to the W7, which I've been eyeing.

One thing I'm wondering about is the RAM. Will these new laptops run 800MHz RAM?
If they're still using 667 RAM then does that mean the advantage of a faster FSB of Santa Rosa will be lost?

 

No as far I know, Crestline only supports up to DDRII-667 RAM. It really doesn't matter anyways. While the FSB is bumped up to 800MHz, it's far from saturating the bandwidth available to it through the dual channel DDRII-667. (Theoretically, it should be saturated up to a FSB of 1333MHz.)

What I want to know is battery life. Are there any improvements? These 13.3" and 14" laptops are fine and all, but if it only gets 2.5-3 hours of battery life, then their smallish size is moot.

 

Thanks for the response chuck. So if I've got this right, the 800 FSB is still the bottleneck, since DDR2 667 memory can dish out more than the FSB can handle.. and therefore that the 800 FSB will be an improvement over a 667?

I agree with the battery life - that seems to be stagnating as of late.

 

So santa rosa runs at bus to memory at 200:166?

 

Yes, the FSB:RAM ratio would be 200:166 but in actuality, the FSB can provide a theoretical 6.4GB/s bandwidth while dual channel DDRII-667 can provide up to 10.67GB/s bandwidth (again, theoretical). So it shouldn't be a big deal.

Just take a look at the desktop. Aside from the memory benchmarks and a few isolated cases (such as WinRAR performance) the Core 2 Duo architecture doesn't scale terribly well with increased RAM speeds/latencies.

X-bit
AnandTech

As you can see, even with a 1066MHz FSB, the desktop Core 2 Duo doesn't gain much performance going from DDRII-667 to DDRII-800, <5%. On the mobile side with a slower FSB, the difference should be even more muted.

 

There is a slight latency advantage of having the FSB and RAM clocks running at integer multiples of each other since they'd be in sync, but chipsets have had the clocks out of sync for so long that it's very optimized already.

With all the Santa Rosa Meroms having 4MB caches down to the cheapest T7100 (there don't appear to be official 800MHz FSB T5xxx models), the benefit of the 800MHz FSB over the 667MHz FSB is already going to be muted and differences between DDR2 800 and DDR2 667 is even more so. Intel has stated they feel that the extra power consumption of DDR2 800 SODIMMs isn't worthwhile and they will go directly to DDR3 800 next year.

 

I'm pretty sure the T7100 is a 2MB part, at least everything I've seen indicates that it is. Pretty weird I know, especially being in the T7xxx lineup.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach...cat3_no=+merom+t7100&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=ca

 

he he.. and maybe you want some extra freebies for that price too !

 

Yeah, the T7100 is the only 2MB L2 cache processor in the new Intel Santa Rosa lineup.

 

http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/itnews.php?tid=755104&starttime=0&endtime=0

I don't know. I've heard it both ways. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the T7100 is a 4MB part. The design and process is mature now so with the high yields it really doesn't cost Intel much to make it 4MB. Plus, with the desktop E6300 and E6400 being replaced with 4MB E6320 and E6420 versions, that strongly indicates that the T7100 which is the equivalent of the E6420 would be one too.