Gaming performance Q9000, NP8662 XP SP3

Sager NP8662
2.0 Ghz Q9000 Quad Core CPU
3GB of DDR3 RAM
Windows XP 32 Bit, SP3
GTX 260M
Seagate Momentus, 500GB, 7200.4 RPM HDD
Nvidia 180.84 beta drivers installed (Now 180.84 Dox Optimised)
Realtek HD Audio 2.24 Driver

Seagate Momentus idle temperatures are 47-50-55C, temps under load 60C.


Q9000 idle temperatures are 35-40C, medium usage 47-50C, under heavy load such as gaming it can go as high as 70C.

GTX 260M idle temps are 40-45C, under load such as heavy gaming, it can go up to 75C which is most of the time, sometimes 80C after a longer time of GTA IV gaming, for example.


I have been playing quite a few different games on my new laptop and thought I would post the frame rates that I have been seeing in game from my Rivatuner in game OSD so far. This might give some one a basic idea if they were worried about getting the low 2.0 Ghz clock rate in the Q9000.

All of the following games are at 1680 X 1050 resolutions and have not had any patch updates unless specified.

You can gain increased performance sacrificing quality by changing some of the Nvidia Control Panel settings, some of these settings can make a huge difference.


Age of Empires III for PC - Very High Shaders, high shadow, low particle, high texture filter quality, other settings low but still looks great. Highs of 120 fps, 167 fps, lows of 90 fps. I notice a constant of 100 fps and all cores are being used at a high amount.


Assassins Creed, all high, no vsync, highs of 60 fps, lows of 50 fps, very smooth gameplay with no problems. All cores are used quite highly in this one.


Bio Shock Steam Demo, all high settings, fps highs of 108 - 120 fps, lows of 55- 66 fps, frame rate was as low as 40 fps during the fire / water beginning scene at some points but after that it was usually higher.

Constant fps of 60, 65 - 70. No stuttering or slow downs at all and all cores are being used from 24-75 %. Enabling Vsync would probably make a more constant fps.


Brian Lara International Cricket 2007, all maxed out, highs of 60 fps, lows of 45-50 fps, constant 60 fps, all cores used.


Brothers In Arms - Hells Highway, all maxed out, 60 fps, some areas 45-55 fps. I noticed that this one doesn't run as smoothly if I disable two cores as a test.


Brothers In Arms - Road To Hill 30, All maxed out, no Vsync, highs of 111 fps, 126 fps, 129 fps, 133 fps, lows of 92 fps. I think I saw 66 fps once very briefly.


Brothers In Arms - Earned In Blood, All maxed out, no Vsync, highs of 96 fps, 82 fps, lows of 65 fps (rare). Most constant frame rate was way over 80 fps.


Crysis

AA off
Vsync Off
Texture Quality High
Objects Quality High
Shadows Quality Medium
Physics Quality High
Shaders Quality Medium
Volumetric effects quality High
Game effects quality High
Post processing quality Medium
Particles Quality High
Water Quality Medium
Sound Quality Medium
Motion Blur Custom

Highest 60 fps
Lowest 35 fps
Most constant 45 fps

Drops in frames have been identified as intellaptopgaming.dll polling every 5 seconds or so to read battery and wifi levels causing stuttering, even in the GUI frames went from about 600 fps down to less than 300 every few seconds Stuttering disappeared after removing battery and playing on mains with wifi disabled.

I recommend setting everything to medium for the smoothest overall performance though.


COD 4, 2X AA, most settings normal, shadows enabled as well as most other features on and I get about 82 fps, 45 fps some areas, 60 fps others but there is no lag and it looks great.


Company Of Heroes, all high settings, no Vsync or AA, Medium Trees detail. 150 fps. All cores are used.


Chronicles Of Riddick - (Dark Athena) Butcher bay High settings, lows 45 fps, maximum so far 55 - 60 fps. Multi core option enabled in settings, all cores are used.


Chronicles Of Riddick - Escape from Butcher Bay Lows of 63 fps, constant 68 fps, highest 100+ fps, high settings.


Far Cry 2 - All high, medium shadows, medium geometry, HDR, bloom enabled. No Vsync, No AA. Highest 66 fps, some areas 50 fps, lowest 45-47 fps, under lots of action I was getting 60 fps, 45 fps during the intro drive, sometimes 50 fps. All cores are used.


Fallout 3, 2X AA, AF 13X, HDR, Textures High, Shadows medium, 50 fps but I haven't been to very busy areas yet. All cores are used.

Note: I get 60 fps with AA disabled even if AF is at 13X and it still looks great.


Fifa 2008, All maxed out, 60 fps


GTA IV (patched to 1.0.30)

Texture Quality High
Reflection Resolution High
Water Quality Medium
Shadow Quality Medium
Texture Filter Quality High
View Distance 18
Detail Distance 19
Vehicle Density 33
Shadow Density 0
Definition On
Vsync On

I am sure I could lower some of those settings without much visual impact and get even better frame rates and performance.

In game 30 - 36 - 38 fps, 43 fps, 50 fps in some outside roads occasionally.

Game is always playable and smooth even during police chases when the frame rates slow down.

I get an average of 36 - 42 fps in the (useless benchmark), very little slow downs overall.

Note that I only get a maximum of about 30 fps and never any higher with the 185.85 official Nvidia drivers installed but with Nvidia Beta drivers 180.84, I get an added 10+ fps boost which brings it to 42 fps.

Although many have reported the same performance increase when using these beta drivers, many others have also reported absolutely no increase in performance too.

GTA IV plays better and looks better on my laptop than it does on my Xbox 360. If I disable 2 cores, the fps isn't affected much but the rate of slow downs increases a lot.

GTA IV Core usage test Update:

On further testing I found that after disabling 2 Cores in GTA IV, I could sometimes lose up to 10 fps, sometimes even more. In some cases the frames only went down a little in areas, for example 7 fps but the level of stuttering increased a lot.

I also noticed that after I disabled 2 Cores, the two remaining cores became used at about 96% each which isn't surprising. After Re enabling all Cores I saw CPU usage go back to about 46-50% or more on each core with no one core being completely maxed out.

I tested this many times to make sure I wasn't just imagining it and disabling 2 Cores really does makes a big difference.



The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, High settings, no Vsync, no AA. Highs of 91 - 250 fps+, lows of 85 fps, 45 fps, briefly 35 fps, 37 fps with lots of action. Constant 55-70 fps. Very variable frame rates but the game is perfectly playable and smooth. Note, does not use all Cores, only uses 2 and does not scale to more.

Oblivion Core Usage test Update: Now appears to be using all cores, levels inside of the sewer I am getting 118 - 218+ fps. The percentage usage of two cores was so low before I just assumed they were not being used. On rare occasions it appears that Core affinity isn't right until after a restart or reboot.

I was just exploring large outside environments after exiting the sewers and was getting maximum frame rates of 126 fps, lows of 65 fps constants of 100+ fps even during battles. Core usage 45-50%, 65-71%.


Oblivion Sound issues and crashing:


Update 1

I had to change bMusicEnabled=1 to bMusicEnabled=0 in the Oblivion.ini to fix the asaudio.ax crashing that was occurring.

Update 2

I went to to C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\MPEG Engine, did a backup of the file ASAudio.ax to a different location and then deleted this file. Afterward, I experienced no crashing and music could be enabled and worked fully without issue.


Prototype, medium settings and I get highs of 60 fps, with lots of action I get 40-50 fps and I notice that all cores are being used extensively.

I notice 60-70% being used on all cores even when I am standing still.

Lowest frame rate I noticed was 35 fps but that was for a very short time during a big explosion in the city packed with so many yellow taxis and screaming people.

I just tried Prototype on all High settings and I got about the same fps, this was to be expected since the load would be on the GPU. In some areas, during battle I was getting 72 fps. Other times I noticed the highest fps of 82. Frame rates are always highest in the sky or on rooftops.

I Noticed lows of 28 fps during some devastator moves and more constant 45 fps with lots of people around and high levels of vehicles and troops and army. The frame rate is very variable but always smooth and playable.

The important point is that the game runs perfectly fine with streets packed with hundreds of people, cars, tanks, zombies. Even with the maximum amount of events occurring all at once on an insane level, the game is still perfectly playable.


Quake 4 - Ultra high graphics settings, never drops below 60 fps so far but I am only on the first level. I set multi core support to auto in Nvidia Control Panel and all cores are being used. If I set multi core support to enabled within the actual game system settings however, for unknown reasons it eventually crashes back to desktop with no error messages or on screen warnings. In some cases it will crash back to desktop within a few seconds of enabling that setting.


Red Alert 3, high settings, no AA or Vsync, medium shadows, 30.5 fps but I can tell it is hard coded or locked to a maximum of 30 fps in its game engine. All cores are used.


Saints Row 2 (Latest steam patch)- 30 - 37 fps, but that game is more poorly optimised than GTA IV. It is perfectly playable though, most high settings. You will get less stuttering with a faster hard drive it seems.


Sims 3, high settings, no AA or Vsync - uses all cores at high percentages and runs at 150 fps, 145 fps, 70 fps is the lowest frames I have seen so far. This was when I was scrolling around outside, inside of houses, zoomed in, zoomed out etc.


Street Fighter IV, all high settings, no Vsync, no AA, no special touch. With Dox Optimised (performance)185.68 drivers I get 91.94FPS. With Dox Optimised 180.84 Performance drivers, I get an average of 71.92 fps.

Frame rates I saw range from a max of 131, 101, 94, 84, 75 fps. Only about 139MB out of the 1GB of GPU VRAM was ever used.


Supreme Commander, (all patches installed) high settings, low shadows, no Vsync or AA, 70+ fps with lots of units. I experienced better frame rates and less slow downs after I had installed all of the official game patches. If you notice Supreme Commander is not making use of the cores as well as it should be, I recommend using core maximiser for it http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=13032

Update: I now have over 200 units which are a mixture of land, assault, transport and air etc as well as structures and factories.

Even during battle I don't notice slow downs although the frame rate on the Rivatuner OSD does show that it reduces sometimes, it is not visibly noticeable.

I am still getting up to 55fps, 60fps and lows of 45 fps. Frame rate is affected by zoom levels too and areas of map.

The fact is, with 200 units on high settings, the ''slow'' Q9000 with the GTX 260M (stock clocks) is getting maximum frame rates of over 60 fps (sometimes 72fps), lows of 45 fps, lowest 35 fps (but very rarely or for very long).


Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf 2008, All High settings maxed out, highs of 83 fps, lows of 49, 54 fps, most constant 60 fps, doesn't use all cores.


Virtual Tennis 3, Everything maxed out, 60 fps



Virtual Tennis 2009, Everything maxed out including AA, 60 fps



World In Conflict, mixture of mostly high, shadows medium, 60 fps+. All cores are used. Lows of 45 fps.



Xmen Origins Wolverine, all maxed out, lows of 45-50 fps, highs of 60 fps+ All cores are used.


What I notice is that although not many games are specifically quad optimised, most of them do use all cores i.e scale to multiple cores, anywhere from 70%, 90%, usually a mixture of 60%, 75%, 15% etc in all cores can be used. Also bare in mind that you can set affinity of all programs so that they automatically use specific cores if you want them to.

In some games this scaling to multiple Cores doesn't seem to make much difference but in some, it does. You can test this theory by disabling 2 Cores.

I have Rivatuner set to display the percentage usage of all cores during games as well as GPU temperature and HDD temps.

I was advised against getting a Q9000 by resellers telling me that I would not get good gaming performance as well as many others saying the clocks would be too slow. I never worried much about this due to GPU dependency of the majority of games. Of course, you might get performance loss if a game is really CPU dependent but some of those will use more cores anyway.


I will update this list with more games.

Update regarding new OS install:

I am now on Windows 7 X64 RC 7100 and have been getting even better performance in gaming.

I can now update my graphics drivers without having stuttering issues in GTA IV, the stuttering issues with Crysis have now disappeared and a few other gaming glitches that I used to experience have now completely gone.

I can also play my old games at full resolution from within a VMware virtual OS. In Windows XP, I was forced to play at a slightly lower resolution than native otherwise it would give an error and fail.

I am considering doing a new Windows 7 performance thread when I receive the full version of Windows 7 X64 Professional perhaps.

 

Nice overview. I guess it does work pretty well in the actual gaming environment. Quick question: Do you plan on testing the Q9000 overclocked? Or is heat too much of an issue already (I read somewhere it has some heat issues)

 

Heat is not an issue at all, under stress in heavy gaming it doesn't go above 72C, with some cores being 69C, 70C and idles at 34 usually, sometimes 40C. Regarding overclocking, I don't know the PLL codes and I hear that you can't over clock on this motherboard / bios.

Although it does ok in gaming, where you will probably notice its gains most is with applications and multitasking. This is where I noticed the benefit most.

 

Any chance you could do a wPrime run?

 

Agreed, q9000 is great.

Mine got 19 seconds flat on wprime 32

and i think 509 seconds on prime 1024 (i think CPU is messed up if my score is this low)

I believe the sager can be OCd with setfsb. Just need mobo type.

News:Visc overclocked q9000 to 2.9Ghz for a wprime run.

his results were like 13 seconds

 

I downloaded Wprime V 2.0 and the following were my results.

1st run for both tests:

32M - 20.375 sec (1994.9 MHz Yorkfield R0)

1024M - 732.484 sec (1994.9 Mhz Yorkfield R0)

I will do those tests again some time because I noticed Windows update was running in the background and at one point, the screen saver came on.

Regarding overclocking the Q9000, I would definately try this but I have no idea how to find out the NP8662 PLL codes. I will have to find out this some how. If anyone can help, please let me know. It would be very interesting to see those results.

What laptop was this on? I have heard of W90 users overclocking but never any NP8662 users.

 

could you give a a more clear explanation of what you mean by "rate of lag"?

 

That was ASUS w90, but my CPU has been pushing quite crazy (i was originally getting 700 or so for wprime1024) but then one core delayed behind and the next minute it was 509 :S, will runagain when back from repair (unless setfsb perm set the clocks on high?) then cmos would have to be reset.

 

Although the average frame rate was about the same, the difference was that I experienced bigger and more frequent drops in fps during game play with two cores where it would go as low as 22 fps sometimes. The fps was less consistent and it would stutter a lot more too, that's what I meant when I said more lag.

With 4 cores, I didn't get drops in fps as low as 22 and they happened much less often.

If you looked only at frame rates, you wouldn't notice a major difference between the two but if you actually played GTA IV side by side you could easily see which one had 2 Cores disabled.

However, this is a strange one considering that I only get good performance with 180.84 but going back to other drivers, I lose performance.

 

Hmm, yeah i guess computers like to work somedays, and do not so well others.

If you get CPU-z then check your mainboard version, i will attempt to retrieve your pll codes .

Just post which motherboard you have, (alot of cases pm45)

 

Pll for the W90 was right under the Master video card, pretty easy to see/find. It can be much more difficult in other laptops

 

Yeah hehe, although you could trial and error with set fsb (it actually does tell you if values are in the wrong place or not there)

These days you can find pll by looking at the mobo type and looking at set fsb website (and knowing your mobo type) like to overclock msi machines you can just use intel pm45 (black diamond i think) presets

 

See, people wanted to argue when I would tell someone to take the Q9000 over the P9600. Kids get too stuck on Ghz, without thinking about how the quad will anally probe the dual in games which support all four cores. Guess which way the industry is trending?

Btw, the PLL for the M860TU is RTM876-660, and I can predict what will happen. If it actually works, it's only good for a ~.18Ghz boost. Otherwise, your system will hardlock.

 

Curious jack, why would it hardlock with such a tiny incremenet?

I agree with you there, i'd take quad over a high clocked duo, i find even todays single thread games, 2ghz can plough through them

High clock speed is nice, but isn't everything.

 

I had a feeling it was that PLL code, I found about 3-4 other ones that ''get fsb'' would return PLL data on but only that one you mentioned seemed to have the right data returned. I thought it was strange that the slider was already so far to the right for the CPU maximum though. Maybe that's why you mentioned the hard locking up?

I have to say, I am very glad that I didn't listen to all of those saying I should get the 2.66 Ghz P9600 over the 2.0 Ghz Q9000 saying I would get less performance in gaming with the Q9000 and that not many games were quad optimised. Even after seeing the results towards the bottom of the page in this Crysis Benchmark, resellers were still saying ''yea but the higher clock will always give you better gaming performance

http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6182806/p-6.html



Not only have I had great performance in games but when I run multiple applications, installations and tasks at the same time, they are done so quickly and I get much more done. It is great being able to set tasks to use certain CPU's.

 

If you ever change the fsb using setfsb, where does it write this changed information to? How do you reset your clocks back to default?

 

To reset the clocks all you need to do is reboot.

In the event of something going catastrophically wrong you would probably need to remove your cmos battery.

 

Quad Core vs Core2Duo in Crysis relies more on actual GPU. The higher res you run at the less CPU bound you are.

Of course games like GTA IV is the only game so far that really utilizes all four cores, but even a slow Quad Core doesn´t have much to get there either.

 

I also noticed a considerable difference in Left 4 Dead. It only uses 3 cores heavily, but previously the 2 cores would be at 100% useage. Instead of dipping to 40's with multiple zombies on the screen, it's just rock stable at 60 FPS

 

My left4dead is rock stable at 60 fps, never drops and that is on a core2duo on my XPS M1730 at 1920x1200. Of course the game utilizes SLI.

 

Exactly, this is what I was always trying to explain to those who said that I would get better performance with a higher clocked Core2Duo at those resolutions in the vast majority of games.

Even resellers were recommending a 2.66 Ghz Core2Duo over a 2.0 Ghz Q9000 for gaming at 1680 X 1050 saying that I would lose performance due to the 2.0 Ghz. It was like they were experiencing a case of the 5 monkeys syndrome or something.

 

You can get the same specs with the alienware m17x.. However I bet your computer was slightly cheaper lol.. I hate how that works!! Blahhh

 

Yea, it usually works out to be cheaper but I got mine in the UK so it depends really. The M17x is a 17'' inch screen though, the NP8662 is a 15'' remember.

Some prefer a bigger screen but I like the 15'' more because you get a bit more portability.

 

would u expect any noticeable battery life gain in using the p9700 over the q9000 though? that's my biggest concern for the q9000

 

I would expect a small battery gain from using a P9700, I am sure I saw some one say they thought it would be about 10 mins gain but I am not sure.

I really doubt that it would be very significant. If you have big concerns about battery life then you might be want to find out for sure because I use my laptop plugged in 99% of the time so not sure.

You could always undervolt though.

 

i guess gaming on battery is a bad idea afterall. XD

 

Don't forget to check back to the first page every now and then because I have edited in more games performance, I added Both Riddick games, AOE 3, Quake 4, Company Of Heroes and I will add more as I play them.

If anyone has any requests of games they want to know how well perform with the Q9000 along with the GTX 260M, I will see if I have those in my collection.

 

I think it is a bad idea because you get less performance due to down clocking as well as low battery time. Having said that, I saw a post where some one said they got over an hour gaming on Crysis on their NP8662 but that was with the P9700 CPU I think.

 

Could you bench Oblivion by any chance? And Bioshock?

 

So 12 games in the OP use all four cores, and yet people still want to dispute the facts on whether Core 2 Quads are being put to good use by current games. Please stop.

 

It doesnt even matter if games use just 2 cores, fact of the matter is even at 2.0ghz its fast enough with 2 cores for almost any game.

A 5 year old game that only uses just 1 core is just fine too, back when those games were prime they were running off single core pentium 4's so its not like a new age core quad cant do it even if only one core is used.

 

I installed the Bio Shock Demo and noticed how creepy that game is, added results to the main page. I don't have Oblivion but if I ever buy it, I will test it. As far as I know, there isn't a game demo either.

 

Was just informed about this thread and I am so glad I have seen it.
I always wondered about the Q9000 over the higher clocked Core Duo's in gaming and this just about answers all my questions.
Just a couple other things I had on my mind:
Would you get the same performance using Vista 64 bit?
Would a QX9300 work if you wan't to upgrade down the road?
What about a 280 GTX?
Is the HD temp issue mostly fixed?
If so the NP 8662 has just shot at the top of my list as my next laptop.
Great work Laptopnut

 

Ask anyone (including resellers) and most of them will advise getting a higher clocked Core2Duo over a slower clocked Quad. If the majority of games were CPU dependent then this would be great sound advice but the fact is, they aren't. With the Q9000 you get great performance in todays games and potentially better performance in games that may come out in the near future that have been truly Quad optimised.

Either way, you will notice great performance in applications, for example I notice decompressing data using Power Archiver to be much quicker than before and general multitasking is a breeze. If you can be bothered, you could even organise CPU affinity.

I have never used Vista 64 Bit so maybe some one else will answer that one.

However, I think with any 64 Bit OS such as Vista, you might see slightly better performance in general because of the extra available and utilised RAM over the 4GB mark and the more up to date OS that should deal with multiple threads better when compared to my XP for example. I say forget about Vista 64 though and just go straight to Windows 7 instead

I briefly tested out Windows 7 and performance was great apart from Saints Row 2 running too quickly .

Only the Q9000 is officially supported in the NP8662 but a few on this forum have installed the QX9300 with success and reasonable temps. You should be able to get your reseller to install the Q9100 though.

The GTX 280M is not officially supported in the NP8662 or a 15'' chassis but again, I have heard at least one person installed it but I don't know if that was a success or not.

Bare in mind that the CPU and the GPU share the same heatsink though.

I would just overclock the GTX 260M instead. I have noticed increased performance in games after doing so and that is just a slight over clock.

I still hear a few getting HDD temp issues, I had some problems myself with a WD 5400 RPM 500GB drive.

After I got my 5400 RPM replaced with a Seagate 7200 RPM, my temps were lower. In a reasonably cool room on a flat surface, my HDD idles at 50C but still goes up to 55-60C during gaming. Although this is within the manufacturer safe limits, it should still be cooler. At the moment, my HDD is 54C and I have been playing GTA IV for a while but I always use an NC1000 cooler and my room is quite cool.

I am not worried about the temps so much simply because I only use my laptop purely for gaming / movies and I have everything cloned as a backup onto an external disk. For those who use this laptop for important business they may be much more concerned.

It is a shame about the HDD temp issues some have experienced but I am sure many have had no problems at all but just never say anything. This is the best laptop I have ever owned and its gaming performance is amasing.

I recommend it 100% but you should definitely keep in mind that your hard drive may run very close to the manufacturer recommended safe temps as opposed to a lot lower.

 

Thanks for all the great answers, just a couple more if you don't mind
1. Did you OC the GPU using the Nvidia tool or some other tool?
2. Can you OC the CPU? and with what program?SFB if possible?
3. Do you think SSD will help with the temps? Truthfully I don't know too much about them, but I do know they have a higher tolerance for temps than your standard HD's.
4.Would you go for faster or slower HD to help with the temps?
Thanks again you have made my laptop ordering so much easier
Will be ordering one sometime this week.
All your work and input is greatly appreciated + rep

 

Ask all the questions you wish, its not a problem.

To overclock the GPU I used Rivatuner 2.24. This tool is simply amasing. I have it set up to show in game (OSD) display of fps, each cores CPU usage and HDD temps. You can set it to display almost any statistic.

I tested out overclocking the CPU using Setfsb but it was unreliable and you won't get any more than a few Mhz if you are lucky.

Logically, since there are no mechanical / moving parts in SSD's, I would expect a lower temperature but people who own these haven't been able to get software temperature readouts so it is difficult to tell.

I would never go for an SSD because the price to capacity ratio is not worth it. When prices become reasonable then I will get one but as it stands, I see people spending almost as much on these as they did on their laptop.

I have tested one 5400 RPM WD HDD and one 5400 RPM Samsung, both 500GB and both of them ran hotter than my 500GB 7200 RPM Seagate Momentus HDD. Others have also reported cooler running 7200 RPMS as well.

In theory you would expect the slower HDD to generate less heat but in practice and in my personal experience, the faster ones run cooler. I would recommend a 500GB 7200.4 RPM Seagate Momentus drive. I also notice no performance loss from using built in NTFS compression.

Thanks for the appreciation. You won't regret ordering this laptop but I notice in your Sig that you own the NP9262 which is a great performer, runs GTA IV really well.

I would have gotten one of those if not for the size so I am assuming the increased portability of the NP8662 is the reason for purchase?

 

The 250GB and 500GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4 are the coolest running drives. My 250GB idles at 48 and maxes at 55.

 

Yes sir you are correct
I'm on the road a lot and it's really starting to be a hassle dragging this huge thing with me and dont get me started on the powerbrick
Don't get me wrong I love my other laptop it's hands down the very best laptop I have ever owned by far, but it's going to find a permanent new home in my man cave.

 

Did you install the HD yourself?
I can't really get much info. from retailers as to what brand they use

 

Yes, I bought mine barebones, and installed it myself.

The only 500GB 7200 RPM drive available is the Seagate, but if you want a 250GB, your best move is to specifically request that they install is a SM 7200.4 drive.

 

Gotcha!
RJtech it is then.
Probably going with the 4GB and it seems pretty cheap but the question I have is they have 2 different brands of RAM (2 DIMMS because I'm a cheap bas**rd !)
Going for the faster RAM is always a good idea, right?
Should I just install my own?
Which brand is better for gaming, Kingston?OCZ? Patriot?
DDR3/1333MHz? DDR3/1066MHz?
I gotta admit when it comes to RAM I don't have a clue.
Any ideas of which way to go?

 

I have heard that having DDR3 System RAM doesn't make much difference when compared to DDR2 in terms of performance. However, I just default to the fastest RAM that my laptop can take since it is not that expensive.

In terms of how many sticks of RAM you buy, you might want to consider Dual Channel Mode, take a look here:

http://www.pctechguide.com/14Memory_Dual-channel_DDR.htm

By the way, I have added more games to the performance list, a few older titles since I play a lot of those. I will add Oblivion The Elder Scrolls IV later too.

(Brian Lara International Cricket 2007, Brothers In Arms - Road To Hill 30, Brothers In Arms - Earned In Blood, Virtual Tennis 3, Virtual Tennis 2009 and Street Fighter IV)

 

LaptopNut.After reading your overview on the first post the Q9000 2.0GHz doesnt seem so bad a processor.

70+ FPS High settings on supreme Commander and lots of units.Thats insane.

 

The Q9000 with the GTX 260M is a potent partnership. I have updated the Supreme Commander performance test. I ran a test skirmish on high with over 200 units, I couldn't even notice any difference in frame rates to be honest. I had about 100 units before on the original test but didn't know how to see the exact number until now because I only did a quick test and was new to the game.

While I was writing this, the enemy launched an attack and now I only have 65 units left lmao

 

Have you tried playing an 81 x 81 Km map, 8 players, and 1,000 unit cap?

Thats the ultimate for supreme Commander.

 

That seems like pretty solid gaming performance. Just to note it, your hard drive hitting 60C...that does seem a bit high. I think that's right on the threshhold of data loss (someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I read that somewhere if I remember rightly).

Hmm, my Q9000 idles at 50C, however hits just low 70s under load. Probably because my fan runs silent under low load, however under high load it's pretty loud. Does your fan speed change at all or is it constant?

 

The Hard Drive hitting 60C is near the limit of the safe temperatures recommended by the manufacturer and it seems that many HDD's in this model are exhibiting the same behavior. Other laptops don't seem to have this issue but since I only use my laptop for leisure I am not too concerned with it.

However, I do wonder if their is a design fault with the previous and updated models because I always hear about this HDD being 60C under load.

Regarding the Q9000 idle temps, it could be different in your case due to the other components such as Dual 3870s generating more heat as well as the type of thermal grease that had been used, my reseller used arctic ice, some resellers use standard unless asked not to.

My fan does spin up a lot more under load and it is noticeably faster but still not too loud. I also use a Zalman 1000 cooler on low rpm most of the time too.

 

I never play any multiplayer modes in any games but I would expect to get big slow downs on such a large scale as that.

 

Oblivion (and Bioshock) has now been benchmarked and I got excellent performance too.

 

hey laptopnut mind if i add to your benchmarks when i get my M17x? it has the q9000 and 280m GTX SLi and 1200p resolution screen