Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Sa 3650!

give us the benchmaark!!

 

Yes, please give us the benchmarks!! And could anyone of you people explain me how well is the laptop cooled? I mean is it silent, because I for one very much care about the noise issue. Moreover, does it heat a lot?

I plan on giving up my desktop for this baby just for the sake of absolute silence and decent performance, if you tell me it heats a lot and the fans run like turbines, maybe I'll have second thoughts.

 

High. Some experiences I've had with the laptop so far.

The cooling seems very good. Even when gaming, the laptop seems to keep quite cool. I suspect this is a result fo the graphics card beeing external. Even after some hours of gaming there's no areas where the heat feels unormally high. The fan(s) can be a bit noisy at some times. Especially under heavy gaming. Compared to my previous laptop (15,4" Compal IFL90+) it's pretty silent.I've yet to install any software to measure the heat levels (In idle and load mode), but I'll look into it. But as it is now, it seems heating is no problem with this laptop.

The build quality seems really nice. The design seems quite solid, with two exceptions. The top lid (correct word?), that is the lid behind the screen, is kind of soft. It gives after for pressure (when I press my fingers on it). And there is theese usual distortions in the image while pressing the back of the screen. They should've used thicker and harder/stiffer plastic material.

The other exception is the keyboard. It seems to be of ok build quality, but bends down when you type on it (especially in the middle). This is not a big problem unless you're a heavy typer. Anyhow. Also there seems to be a clack-noise once in a while. I suspect this is when the keybord goes back into original postition (after it's bent a bit down, it clacks up). Hard to describe. A bit annoying, but it might dissapear by itself. Might even just be my laptop.

When it comes to performance, the computer does pretty good in both multi tasking and gaming. Only tried it with two games so far (Medieval 2: Total War and Mount&Blade), but yeah. Good performance for the bucks! When I get benchmarking tools/software installed I will report more. Perhaps I will do some FPS-testing with some games.

Edit:

3DMARK06 score: 7215

This was with a downloadmanager, an IM, and AV running in the background. Might have been better with less background processes running.

 

Couple of days ago i was doing some research about the AMILO Sa 3650 but the outcome was very poor (except this forum ) so anyway i went for it and got the AMILO.
At first I was repelled by the AMD CPU becouse I'm Intel fan all of my life but since Intel was doing no noticeable work on external Graphic adapters for notebooks ... i had no choise.
So far I'm pretty impressed by the power of this 13 incher and here are some benches.

Without the Graphic Booster 3DMark06



With the Graphic Booster 3DMark06



Sorry ppl I only have Company of Heroes and here is the test (everything is on full res:1280x1024 also tested on 1920x1080 AFR was ~56)

 

Hi again, i searched the web for this laptop and found this on a german webshop:

"AMILO Notebook Sa 3650 mit Graphic Booster

* AMD Turion™ X2 Ultra Prozessor ZM-86 (2,4 GHz)"

it seems like there is 2 different kinds out there, i hope this turion model will reach scandinavian stores.

 

All the Sa 3650 models with the graphicbooster comes with AMD Turion Ultra processors (as far as I know). It is only the non graphicbooster ones that comes with Intel. Apparantly the Sa 3650 comes in different versions with different versions of the AMD Turion Ultra-processor. Mine got a AMD Turion Ultra X2 80 with 2.1 GHz. The one you found comes with a AMD Turion Ultra X2 86 2.4 GHz processor.

The AMD Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 and ZM-86 is almost identical, except the ZM86 has 300 more MHz than the ZM-80. The 80 has 2.1 GHz vs the 86's 2.4 GHz. Every other aspect of the two processors are identical. They've got the same amount of FSB, L2 cache, register memory and nm production technique. So you really have to consider if the price difference will be worth it. I have noe clue what the price difference is, but yeah.

If you're dependent on good processing performance, the 86 will probably offer you slight better power. On the other hand, it will draw slightly more power as well.

htt p://w ww.notebookcheck.ne t/AMD-Turion-X2-Ultra-Notebook-Prozessor.10129.0.html (Remove spaces)

 

Thank you Orresnei for that quick response. I will go for the ZM-80 version, but wait until the price falls a bit,

 

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-FSC-Amilo-Sa3650-Notebook-Amilo-Graphic-Booster.13446.0.html

best regards

 

Good updates everyone

Curious to see how this does playing back 1080p content. Any of you who purchased this laptop have any HD video that you can test with it? Perhaps you could output to a Plasma/LCD and give feedback on how this does as a Media Center Laptop

 

I'm working on getting hold on a 1080p video. Will test it via the laptops internal graphics card and the graphicbooster on my Samsung Syncmaster 2493HM 24" 1920 * 1200. If I find (or purchase a cable long enough, I will test it on a HD-Ready (Not full HD unfortunantly) LG 37" LCD display.

 

Hi,

I'm looking forward to buy it. In France it's the 2,2ghz version which is available. Hope the 2,4 Ghz will follow soon. Or do you thinks its gonna be easy to overclock it to 2,4 Ghz through Overdrive AMD? (FSB 200Mhz to 240Mhz like MSI boost ). Enjoy. And share your experience to optimize this laptop. Many thanks.

 

Hello to you in France.

Please post the retailer/price you are looking at.

Does it include the graphics booster or not?

 

Hi ,
You can find it here :
http://www.rueducommerce.fr/Ordinat...-ZM-82-2-2-GHz-Ecran-13-3-Graphic-Booster.htm

 

Wow just found out about this today (when I was looking at the LG forum ironically). If it indeed is around that price then I will surely get one.

 

Any word on the patch that solves the graphics booster + laptop screen issue?

 

There is no patch for using the laptop screen, it is a hardware issue. Newer version of XGP should be available in a couple months that can use the laptops LCD. If they really cared they could have had a DVI input to allow you to loop it back in. the real solution in a few months will just work though through the XGP.

I am glad to see this laptop out now.

I am amused by how long this thread is with so many clueless/uninformed people here. All of this information about Ultra cpus and XGP was available a year ago. Everything about which video card, only using the external monitors, that using the laptops screen would take a year, performance on the cpus, etc..

Do some research.....AMD offers a great value and performance.

Its an HD3870 now, but that doesnt mean someone else like ASUS or MSI isnt going to come out with a crossfire mobile HD3870, and in a year when you think thats not good enough there will be a crossfire mobile 4870 available, etc, etc....

So its not just external, it is upgradeable, in that you can just buy anyones NEW XGP box, not just from Fujitsu and not limited to the HD3870 in the future.

Im thinking other manufacturers decided to wait for the ability to use the laptops own screen, so hopefully we see some new ones with it in about 6 months, and AMD comes out with an Mobility HD4870 around then

The Turion Ultras are very good cpus, better than a T5xxx anything in a budget Intel notebook. The only reason to get an Intel CPU is if you get the newer P series, 25 watt cpus. The Turion Ultras run DDR2-800 RAM at full speed 400Mhz, compared to Intels latest P series with 1066Mt/s FSB which is actually only 266Mhz, so Intel might as well just use low latency DDR2-667 RAM with it still.

One advantage of getting the ZM-80 in your sa3650 is that it is 32 watts, compared to 35 watts of the ZM-82 thru 86. Although I think I'd still want the ZM-86

Also, even though the XGP doesnt work with the laptop screen, the HD3200 IGP, although eats up more battery, is like twice as powerful as Intel 4500MHD and on par with Nvidia 8400M/9300M GS discrete graphics. So you still have some mobile gaming ability. One of the reasons the IGP is so good is AMD's fast "FSB" or hypertransport of 3200Mt/s, which makes for better parallel processing. When Intel cpus are done mimicing AMD's with their Nehalem, then software programmers will start optimizing for that architecture and AMD performance will also probably go up. AMD's cpus tend to get better over time because of the robust archtecture with better software program optimization.

Also, dont worry about bandwidth on the XGP, you dont need x16 lanes. This is a PCI-E 2.0 x8 XGP, which is the same as original bandwidth of PCI-E x16, and no way only two cards are going to saturate that in the next few years. The XGP PCI-E2.0 x16 solution probably wont be on small notebooks, because its twice as long and not usually that much real estate.

I wanted this laptop, but since it isnt available in US I just got my t400. Couldnt wait any longer.

Intel laptops will eventually have XGP, look at one of the best gaming values out there the Alienware crossfire HD3870s, or the MSI or other variants of the Arima/Flextronics W840 notebook.

 

Hi!

Thanks for your post, but can you write some sources that back up your claim?

Both that:
- There will not be a patch (where did you get this from?)
- That in a few months an update version of XGP that will be able to use the laptop screen will be announced etc. (where did you get this from?)

Just asking since people in this thread has gotten the reply from FS themselves saying that there WILL be a patch just not knowing WHEN at this time.

Also there seems to be a general consensus that the tech isn't the problem, only the drivers.

I am not in anyway trying to attack your post or yourself I only want to know where you got that info from or if it's just your thoughts etc.

Keen on your take on this /TheSwede86

 

^^^^

Ditto,

I appreciate your well thought out post. Thank you for contributing.

I believe it has already been stated that the XGP port is PCI-E 2.0 x8.

In fact there are a few sources which say they may open it up to PCI-E 2.0 x16. http://ati.amd.com/technology/xgp/xgp_technology_brief.pdf

That being said, it's generally frowned upon to jump into the 12th page of a thread by calling people clueless and uninformed, when you yourself aren't citing sources.

But anyways, welcome to the discussion. Happy holidays to you. No hard feelings are meant by what I said above.

 

This is a 6 month old question. Why is this thread 12 pages? Because theres very little actual useful info and a lot of people that seem to want information. AMD technology is a little bit mysterious at times, but this forum has a thread all about this already months old.

You could have just done a search on this site for XGP, or googled it.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7703&Itemid=1

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=257057&page=6

The ATI Cross display is not supported in the first version of XGP, but what Fujitsu may be telling you about a patch is allowing it to work as hybrid CrossfireX with a low end HD3450 or HD3470. That would sort of be like using your laptop LCD through the IGP connected to the XGP.

 

Did you read the thread? There is a lot of useful information about this laptop in just the past few days, including user-backed 3dmark scores (yes I know you can find them, I know how to use google as well)

Does it somehow bother you that there's a consolidated thread about a particular laptop model? Because I have news, this isn't the only thread that fits that category.

This just makes you sound like a troll. Most google searches, without modifying preferences for language and country, will not turn up retailers/reviews in Europe. This type of open discussion is very healthy for the consumer.

Which says

"Right now XGP can only be used with external displays, with a total of up to four simultaneous displays being possible, including the notebook display. However, sometime early next year a new version of XGP should arrive which will allow the notebook display to be used with the external graphics box."

That's about as specific as anything has gotten. To simply speculate:

Doesn't do much more good either does it?

The laptops that have been most afflicted by having a discrete graphics card without H-CF-X are the DELL and HP Puma laptops, not this one.

While this thread is helpful for someone looking for information on XGP, it is not specific to this laptop. I still can't see what your problem is with this thread, are you just unhappy that people were having an open discussion without you? In this link that you provided, the first poster says something that contradicts what you said earlier:

Well,

I don't see a problem. Forgive me for saying so, but it just seems like you are trolling a little. If this thread bothers you, don't read it.

Happy Holidays

P.S. I hope those who were previously discussing this laptop and its availability aren't discouraged by this discourse. I welcome more people who have purchased this laptop or are considering purchasing this laptop to continue feeding this thread.

 

Believe what you want, the source is there, it obviously doesnt work now, get everyone hopes up. It says a new version of XGP, not an updated driver.

Oh yeah the review and benchmarks are great, very awesome information and great contribution, best part of the thread, and I tried to provide you with information to consider, since I spent a lot of time researching this subject/laptop months ago.

you asked for sources so I provided it, so use it how you want but Hoy stop analyzing posts, its not productive, dont be so sensitive, why be defensive at all?

Still a great laptop, will probably get one when the XGP works on the laptop screen.

 

Tommy, nobody is being sensitive or defensive. Notice I put disclaimers in both of my posts because that's exactly what I wanted to avoid was a pissing contest.

I am happy to have you here to contribute.

I am not trying to get anyone's hopes up. Someone else posted that they were told a driver update may fix the problem. If that's not the case, I have no problem apologizing for perpetuating false information, I'm sorry everyone.

Now let's get this back on topic!

I don't like to argue for no reason, and certainly not to clog up a thread.

If what your saying is indeed true, and no driver update is on the way (I have no reason to doubt that the article is 100% accurate) than for my purposes, this laptop might not be for me. I want something that I can use to game with a good graphics card which doesn't require that I purchase a monitor.

That being said, the on board graphics are probably enough to "get by" playing FPS games with really low settings, but I'd much rather have a laptop that can "do it all" without being hooked up to an external display.

That's too bad if it is a hardware limitation, it seems far too often a great notebook is downgraded for something trivial like this.

 

Lol souce is Fud. Fudzilla = no souce at all. Anyway if XGP is purely a PCI-E interconnect then there should be no difference in any future version besides an increase in bandwidth. Basically they need to work on enabling Crossfire or something akin to that with the onboard and the 3870. It is most likely a driver issue as the 3200 is capable of hybrid Crossfire.

 

Hoy, youre the only one personally calling anyone a troll. What the heck is a disclaimer after writing so pompously. Call me Scrooge, I'm not going to tip toe around me thinking some people need to do a little research before posting.

If you thought to look it up before posting, it is not a full PCI-E 2.0 interface, it is however PCI-E 2.0 "compatable" having the standard PCI-E 2.0 control signal protocols. But shoot holes in the source without any knowledge of the actual implementation. Thats the kind of stuff Im talking about.

The fact that it doesnt work now is pretty good evidence that the source is credible, and the fact that it came straight from an AMD press conference.

Also, its probably not a change to the cable, but the logic on each end.

Having the XGP box actually send the rendered video back on the bidirectional lanes, and its a lot of data. And then the IGP or another circuit in the laptop would have to pull the rendered video off of the PCI-E bus, which laptops dont do now, video cards do. So lets assume it involves the IGP, the HD3200 cannot come close to xfire with HD3870, so it would have to avoid the corendering, and just pass the data, like Power Xpress, except that doesnt seem to be working yet and AMD's website says it works with HD3400 cards like Hybrid Xfire. And the Northbridge would probably need that 256MB display cache, what desktop motherboards call sideport memory, that is used as VRAM, instead of having to use system RAM. I dont know why Puma laptops did not include the discrete VRAM, increases IGP performance, and in Fujitsus case I think would make the XGP cross display solution easier.

Whats a little funny is my Intel 4500MHD IGP in my T400 has an AMD driver, I think to make the PowerXpress work maybe with the HD3470. I believe the same thing works in the T500 with the HD3650, but thats still an Inel IGP to ATI card, not pure AMD PowerXpress.

 

I didn't call you a troll. The disclaimer was "no hard feelings meant". I said that it seemed like you were trolling a little bit with your negativity by saying "why is this thread here". But again, you were the one who jumped into the thread attacking everyone. But that's fine, we're over it..

But I already apologized to everyone for even possibly spreading false information (it didn't originate from me but I'm man enough to say sorry). Never meant to sound pompous, sorry if I came off that way.

What do you think is keeping the 3200 from passing the data through to the laptop monitor? If it's not just a driver problem, do they need to have dedicated lanes just for passing back to the monitor? It just seems pointless for them to require an external monitor. If you were doing business on the road and needed the extra GPU power for rendering or other graphics intensive applications, it would seem like a burden to have to lug another monitor with you. It does in fact seem like the simplest solution would have been for them to include a DVI input in the laptop or something of that sort in order to allow a loop back.

 

does the amilo graphics booster run of an external ac power? or can it also run of the laptop power?
another question sorry, when or if do you think they will allow the games to run off the actual laptop screen itsself?

anyone know where these are available in the UK? even the Fujistu website uk doesnt have it on there to buy o0

thnx in advance

 

Well no hard feelings and with all due respect Hoy, my disclaimer , I think you sound like a baby, but that doesnt mean I think youre a baby.

It doesnt really get to me, no need to apologize, and that was a joke to demonstrate your personal negativity, because I think it was pointless for you to defend the entire free world of sa3650 posters, and thats all I really wanted you to know. I just prefer people aren't that sensitive on here, because it doesn't mean anything but wastes time and space.

You interpretted it as "why is this thread here" when I never said that. I just generally dislike irrelevant and unuseful, and especially detremental posting.

I was a little harsh, I admit it. And we move on.........

 

Perfect exampe If you read the thread, I know its long, your questions will be answered.

 

im very badly dyslexic.... simple answet would of been fine..

 

Ignore the trolls lol. I dont think the XGP needs an external power source. Iv been looking at the notebook on the Fujitsu site and elsewhere and Iv never seen a power adapter. PCE-E itself provides power and this is a notebook GPU so I think it should be enough.

Also if you read the XGP product brief you would see that ATI designed 2 ports of 8x and 16x. No where on the pdf did they mention that it will require a future version to support Cross Display. However you never know. I would think that it is more probable that Cross Display will be supported than not however.

 

youtube video i found, shows a wire going down the back of table,looks like the same ac plug as psp.. ill link it hert for you.
thnx alot for replying mate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyfCy0OzZrk


debating getting this and hp tx2 for uni and this for home =)

 

More poor posts.

YES it needs AC power plug, I can spoon feed you, but you could also spend 5 minutes looking it up.

And yeah, it mentions cross display and that was posted after it was announced that it wouldnt work initially, and if you read the disclaimer on the bottom of the white paper it says nothing in the paper has to be technically correct, dumb I know.

In that same white paper you could have read that it runs off an AC plug, that always draws a small amount of power to sense whether or not you connected a laptop to it or not.

Maybe, and a big maybe, a mobility HD3450 could run off the PCI-E bus of the laptop. The only reason to get that though is to crossfire, which will work and improve performance, but nothing compared to the HD3870, like a 1/3 of the performance. The crossfire will work on the laptop screen. I have that xfire setup on this desktop, with HD3200 IGP and a desktop HD3470 (little better than 3450, 3470 has GDDR3 RAM, also make it mobile too tho), and it does well enough for me, I play AOEIII:TAD on high settings, dont have other games on it to benchmark though. I get 4.5 Windows Vista Experience points on graphics

 

Ah I see thanks for the link, no where on the actual Fujitsu site do they actually show the notebook with the brick attached. If this ever becomes available in the US I might get it to replace my MBP or to complement it. The battery life on it seems lacking however but as long as it can get 2 hours one way or another it should be enough to last through a lecture.

 

The graphicbooster does indeed require it's own power adapter to function. I've tried to use the graphicbooster without the power adapter plugged in, and as far as I know, that didn't work. Though, the usb ports might work without the power adapter. Have not tested that.

I've also tested two different 1080P videoes (with the graphicsbooster enabled). The videos ran smooth, with no signs of chopping, desyncs or other problems of similar nature. The image quality was nice, and yeah. Not much more to say about that. Will test without the graphicsbooster as well in some time.

Oooh, and happy christmas to you all! (24th for us Europeans and 25th for you Americans).

 

Merry Christmas Orrensei, and Happy Holidays to everyone.

I'll bet that the USB ports won't work without the power plugged in. If you really wanted to engineer the crap out of this notebook (perhaps a future model), you'd have:

a 12.1 or 13.3 inch like this one, with XGP x16 powered off the laptop (only when the laptop is plugged in), no power brick needed. Perhaps you could have an optional AC/DC power source which could be satisfied by either a rechargeable battery or the current from the wall. While you're at it, you'll include the next generation of AMD platform, Tigris, along with some kind of onboard 4850 or 4870 or similar as the IGP (of coursed tweaked for lower power consumption when running off of the battery, down clocking the GPU like the PUMA processor already does). In addition to this, you'd also have the ability to triple crossfire the laptop with the XGP + a Graphics booster with dual 4850 or 4870 chips or similar.

Too bad it's a fantasy and it'll likely never go beyond that.

Oh and Tommy, I've tried, but you are just a troll and a lost cause.

 

Glad everyone knows your fantasy Hoy, so very useful for all of the readers, youre still a clueless fool. Throw in your last word though after your insults. Hope you get 20 more people in here providing inaccurate information and letting you know how they hope it does something it was never advertised for.

And a good reason the XGP may not be able to power the video card off the laptop is that the cable is not 100% PCI-E compliant, only compatable with the standard control functions.

 

Disposant d'une Radeon HD 3870 (nous reviendrons sur les performances dans un prochain dossier), ce boîtier permettra ainsi, une fois branché, de bénéficier de performances dans les jeux jusque-là réservées à des machines bien plus encombrantes, que ce soit sur un écran externe ou sur l'écran de la machine (possibilité qui sera intégrée aux Catalyst 9.1, si tout va bien).
More information here http://www.pcinpact.com/actu/news_multi/48065.htm

 

do u think the next amilo sa will allow it to be powered by the pci-e slot?

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-FSC-Amilo-SA3650-Notebook-Amilo-Graphic-Booster.13484.0.html

review of the amilo sa 3650 + graphic booster by notebookcheck!

 

the laptops xgp will never be able to power an hd3870 or better.

the laptop wouldn't get enough battery life to make it useful in any case.

a pcie bus alone can power an hd3470 which could do xfire to hd3200, but requires a breakout of the cable to see if the power voltages are all coming across which I doubt, but possible.
amds documentation says the xgp box has to be powered first to be able to sense the connection.

if anyone has an xgp 3450/70 you can ask, and have them try disconnecting the AC after its already completed the xfire. if the cable has the voltage then a 3450/70 should run without the AC, even if you need a power source just to get it going.

 

That is GREAT news.

I used Google to translate this site and the author claims that there will be a possibility in Catalyst 9.1 (if all goes well) to be able to BOOST THE LAPTOP DISPLAY

So no need to alter hardware etc.

You were also able to find that out if you speak french but I don't so I wanted to bring this to everyone (except the french peoples) attention.

P.S
Of course he writes something like "if all goes well" and "a possibility" etc. BUT I have emailed him and asked him where he got that information from and I will write his reply here if he approves.
P.S

 

I wouldn't get my hopes up. just like all the people still hoping that hp makes xfire work in the DV5z, and HP tech support said their working on a new bios, NOT. well yeah their working on a new bios but xfire aint part of it.

if amd figured out how to make power xpress work without additional hardware that would be a better hint to me, but there are no details.

cross your fingers.

 

ye i know it would eat the battery, i just mean if they fix the screen thing so you can play games on the move on it.. one power plug would only be needed rather than 2 - 1 for laptop n 1 for the graphics card.

 

I'm thinking of buying the Amilo Sa 3650 + Graphics Booster and scrap my desktop. I will read the thread from the beginning but i will also be very grateful if someone who own one it can give me some info on everyday use:

- is it loud or quiet? (i don't mind fan noise when gaming but when working i'd like it quiet)

- how does the turion ultra compare to the c2d e6600 (2.4GHz)?

- any other problems or annoyances?

 

there is a little *beeeeep* noise coming from the buttom left corner of the laptop at all times (almost).
are there anyone else experiencing the same?

 

how's the soundlevel? annoying? Do i have to worry that it sound as much as my current desktop?

Oh, and no one still havent had the chance to try 1080p video on the internal screen?

 

http://www.hwbot.org/hardware.compare.do?type=cpu&id=873_1&id=1805_1&id=1723_1&id=1590_1&id=1747_1

I use hwbot to compare cpus. The Turion Ultra is a good cpu, you wont notice any difference in gaming or surfing or using Office or things like that. The only time it might come into play is doing things like encoding music or video. although the Turions might get better with time if programmers start utilizing the archicture more, since now Intel, who makes 80% of cpus, is changing to onboard RAM controller like AMD. software optimization for fast RAM compared to big on die full speed caches will help.

 

The ATI XGP systems should be able to boost the laptop-display.
According to this: page 14, "cross display technology". (it has been posted before)
http://ati.amd.com/technology/xgp/xgp_technology_brief.pdf

 

Read the disclaimer on that paper. That was posted to the AMD site after it was announced that it would not work until a later version of XGP. Maybe, its possible, that a later version was one analyst's interpretation of what the AMD representitive stated in the press conference, when they really meant a later driver version. But you'll notice that it doesnt work now, and every site that has covered XGP is silent on cross display or that kind of feature while readily states that it works only on external displays.

 

I checked the specifications on fujitsus site and the Sa 3650 should be about 27.5 dB idle which is inaudible but on the notebookcheck review it was 36 dB idle - very noisy. I could always buy one and return it if it is to noisy.

I also looked at the Xi 3650 with hybrid graphics Intel 4500/Nvidia 9600GT where the Nvidia 9600GT can be switched off when not used. The downside is that the Nvidia 9600GT is only half as powerful as the Sa 3650 with the graphicsbooster.