8470w owners?

No one out there yet? I'd like to take the jump, but I was hoping somebody else did it first.

 

I'd love to buy but I'm working with an 8470p right now. Maybe when a few second hand models hit the web I'll make the jump.

 

I am mostly curious about the FirePro M2000. Seems like a promising little chipset, but I cannot find much about it, and I am pondering whether it would not be worth paying an additional 150 Euro for a 8570w with a better video card (the FirePro M4000). In principle, I prefer the 14" format, hence my pondering...

 

Same here... I love the 14" format and would also like to know 'exactly' how much, if it is, better the M2000 is compared to the HD4000 or M4000.

AMD FirePro M2000 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

AMD FirePro M4000 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

^notebookcheck is the place to go to compare GPU performance. They are pretty good at ranking them by spec, so even these FirePros with few or no registered benchmarks can be estimated by more common GPUs above and below them in ranking.

I just bought my wife an 8460w on eBay. It is a very nice size, and very solid. The one complaint everyone has with the 14" laptops is the screen. The viewing angles are very touchy to head position. And even then the colors are still a bit muted. It is sub-par even for a TN panel.

 

Unfortunately there's nothing yet on NBCheck, on either M2000 or M4000. I could myself hazard a probably pretty good guess as to where they fall in the hierarchy, but I prefer to know for sure - hence this thread.

As for the 8460w/p screens, in my experience they are neither better, nor worse than the Dell E6420 or the Lenovo T420 screens. (Well, maybe a bit better than the Dell, which adds a bit of graininess...)

 

The M2000 is ranked just above Quadro 1000M, which was the entry level 15.6" gpu in 8560w, W520 and M4600.

The M4000 ius ranked just under Quadro 5000M, which was the highest end 17" card for 8470w and M6500.

So with the M2000, you are getting a 14" card this roughly equal to last generation's entry level 15" card. With the M4000, you are getting a 15" card that is roughly equal to the top 17" cards from 2 generation ago.

If you are looking for the most power/dollar right now (restricting this to workstations), you would choose the Dell M6600 (from their outlet) with FirePro M8900. The M8900 is a bit stronger than FirePro M6000 despite being a last-generation card. How the M6000 is a "successor" to M8900 is beyond my understanding. And why HP abandoned the 17" Friepro cards in the 8x70w baffles me well.

 

Unfortunately this ranking by Notebookcheck is based purely on speculation, and no direct experience with the product. By the looks (well, specs) of it, the M2000 may even be a 28nm version of the 7590M (not unlike the way in which the NVS 5400 is a 28nm version of the GT630M/GT540M).

As for the entry-level GPU in the last gen 15" workstations, depends on how you look at it. In terms of price, it was the Firepro M5950; just as the M7820 was the entry-level GPU for the 8740w. In terms of gaming prowess, the Quadro 1000M and, respectively, Quadro 3000M were indeed weaker.

Anyway, benchmarks will tell, and that's why I am waiting anxiously for M2000 and M4000 benchies.

 

It was my understanding that the lower tier Quadro cards were weaker than the FirePro unless using CUDA enabled applications. That is based on hearsay though, so it may be incorrect. So in my mind, the FirePro has always been the smart choice for anyone not needing CUDA as you get a respectable card at a relatively low price. In terms of the M7820 and M8900, those cards were absolute steals. I didn't pay for my 5000M and I likely won't pay for a Quadro card when I am ready to upgrade.

 

The lower-tier Quadros were weaker in gaming, that's for sure. I had direct and extensive experience with an M7820 and a Quadro 3000M and the former was substantially faster (but the 3000M was an amazing overclocker, as much as 60% core and even more). And the 1000M was also much weaker than the M5950, though I don't know about the Q 2000M.

 

I think the M2000 should be around M5950 performance. M2000 is based of the HD 7770m chip just like M4000 but with less shaders and lower clock speeds.
However, if you are concerned about gaming, I think you shouldn't even be looking at FirePro/Quadro cards, they are optimized for OpenGL (CAD work and similar) rather than gaming.

 

Let's say I am "mildly concerned"... Not a major thing, but of some interest.

Anyway, here's a list of issues that I would very much appreciate an answer to:

- is there easy access to heatsink / fan (i.e., simply through removal of bottom panel - it seems so according to the service manual, but the latter is shared with the 8470p, hence the lingering doubt)

- 3dmark11 and 3dmark06 scores for the Firepro M2000

- does the 8470w have the keyboard nightlight option by default (or are there versions without it)?

- what is the quality of the 8470w screen? still poor / dark, as in the previous iteration (and the Lenovo T430)?

- how silent / noisy in idle and under load?

- are mechanical hdds still as noisy as they got in the previous Elitebook models?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

 

I searched for benchmarks on the 8470w and M2000, but there isn't anything out there I can find. As you know, the M2000 is based on HD 7670M. Previous FirePro cards perform just under their Radeon twins in gaming, so you can at least set a ceiling on performance.

3dMark11: less than 1258 (average of the quad-core scores)
3dMark06: less than 8094 (average of the quad-core scores)

 

That's exactly where the mystery lies. The M2000 is supposedly not based on the 7 6xx architecture (which is in fact the good old 66xx chip), but on the new 7 7xx - Southern Islands - architecture. Which seems to be considerably better than the previous gen, judging by desktop benchmarks. (Specifically, the HD7750 is on a par with the HD5770, ASUS Radeon HD 7750 1 GB Review | techPowerUp, despite having only a third of the shaders, 512 as opposed to 800).

Now, the desktop HD5770 is the mobile HD58x0M (with clocks a bit lower on the mobile parts). So a full-blown 77xxM mobile chipset should equal the 58xxM/6850M chips. The M2000, being based on the former, should - discounting lower clocks - have roughly the gaming prowess of the 58xxM with DDR3 (which is roughly the same as 64bit DDR5, as in the case of the M2000).

This suggests that Notebookcheck is probably right in evaluating the M2000 as somewhere in the 7670M 128bit DDR 5 ballpark. Given the desktop comparisons above, I suggest a closer match for the M2000 would be the HD5830M, which is exactly a 58xxM part with 800 shader units, 500MHz core (the same as M2000), and 800MHz 128bit DDR3 memory (roughly the same as M2000's 64bit DDR5 memory). ( ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5830 - Notebookcheck.net Tech)

So 8000 3DM06, 1400 3DM11 (?, http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...s/589855-laptop-desktop-3d-mark11-thread.html) and 4200 for Vantage GPU. But I would like to be sure.

On a sidenote, nVidia's new gen seems to have brought a considerable improvement over the previous gen third-tier chips. The GT650M 128bit with DDR3 gives the GT540M/630M - and even the GT555M/635M DDR3 - a solid thrashing. My hope was / is that the 77xxM with 64bit DDR5 would not be left too far behind by the GT650M DDR3, other things (clocks) being equal.

 

I received my 8470w on Wednesday.

Specs were:
-3610qm
-8GB PC3-12800 (1600) in 2 dimms
-128GB SSD + 500GB 7200rpm HD in upgrade bay
-1600x900 matte screen
-M2000 with 1GB DDR5
-Bluetooth and Intel 6300 AGN wireless
- 9-cell 100Wh battery

I moved my HD configuration from a 17inch Acer to avoid reinstall of my database and dev environment so I now have
- 16GB PC3-12800 (1600) in 2 dimms
- OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB + OCZ Vertex 4 (in upgrade bay)

With Ivy Bridge, only two of the SATA controllers are SATA III (the rest being SATA II). I have verified that both the main and upgrade bay are the SATA III controllers. I can also say that I saw a 10-15% improvement in sequential reads (measured using CrystalDiskMark) going to this machine from my old one (an Acer 7750G - also both SATA III). I would like to see if I can configure the drives as RAID 0 (just for kicks). I know that there is a RAID option in the BIOS, but I don't know if RAID 0 is an option -- I may not get to that for a while though.

One cautionary tale. I had the 1.3 firmware on my Vertex 4 (updating to 1.5 is a data destructive process so I had not got around to it yet). When I put it into the new machine, it worked sporadically for a few minutes and then completely disappeared. I had to put it back in the old machine, reboot a couple of times to get it to show up and then use that machine to update the firmware. With that done and my data restored to the drive, the performance of the machine is awesome.

Graphics are not my priority. I can tell you that the windows experience index shows 6.6 for both Desktop performance for Windows Aero and 3d business and gaming graphics performance. I have downloaded 3D Mark 11 and will run it when I have a few minutes of down time -- hopefully later today.

I am running two external monitors (had to buy a dongle to convert displayport to HDMI). I was unable to get the laptop monitor working at the same time. I plan on getting a docking station soon and assume that this will be no problem after that.

I haven't tested battery life much but will be on a business trip this weekend so will be testing it quite a bit. I have not seen any mention of Enduro in the AMD Catalyst software. In the Device manager, I only see AMD FirePro M2000 listed under Display adapters, so I assume that I can't easily switch to Intel graphics for improved battery life.

Answers to questions above:
- is there easy access to heatsink / fan (i.e., simply through removal of bottom panel - it seems so according to the service manual, but the latter is shared with the 8470p, hence the lingering doubt)
Yes. No screws access is awesome. Looks pretty much same as in 8460p review ( Review HP EliteBook 8460p Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews)

- 3dmark11 and 3dmark06 scores for the Firepro M2000
I will do my best

- does the 8470w have the keyboard nightlight option by default (or are there versions without it)?
My version does (B8V70UT#ABA) -- a little popout next to the webcam.

- what is the quality of the 8470w screen? still poor / dark, as in the previous iteration (and the Lenovo T430)?
Seems relatively good to me. Not an afficionado. Off angle viewing doesn't seem very good.

- how silent / noisy in idle and under load?
I haven't had it up to serious load, it is not perfectly quiet but considerably better than my last machine (which had much cheaper build quality).

- are mechanical hdds still as noisy as they got in the previous Elitebook models?
I only have SSDs in there, sorry.

 

So I ran 3DMark 11. This is the first time that I have so I am not sure if should have done anything differently. The report came back with:

Score: P998 3DMarks with AMD Radeon HD 7650M(1x) and Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor.

Graphics Score: 869

Physics Score: 7778

Combined Score: 838

 

I cannot believe that I have missed this precious info for a couple of days already! Thanks for taking the time to respond to my many queries, not to mention run tests...

I am puzzled by one thing only. The 3DMark program sees your videocard as an AMD Radeon HD 7650M(1x), which is a previous generation chipset. I assume you have used the drivers provided by HP, whether preinstalled or from their website. Hmmm...

Pehaps, if you ever have the time and patience, you could run this utility ( techPowerUp! :: Downloads) and post a printscreen here. It would be much appreciated - though not more than your already substantial efforts.

 

TechPowerUp screenshot:

 

TechPowerUp gave me the exact same results as you, orcigx. I have no explanation as to why 3DMark shows it as a HD 7650M.

Regarding Battery Life, I worked on a paper and listened to music on a flight over the weekend for about 4.5 hours. The battery was registering just over an hour remaining when I shut it down. With wireless off and the screen at medium brightness, this is what I expected -- no more, no less.

 

HD7650M is the Radeon counterpart of the FirePro (if program doesn't have the FirePro string it will show up as a normal Radeon).
Looks like the M2000 (HD 7650M) is just a rebranded Radeon HD 6650M (It's still a 40nm chip, HD7xxx is 28nm) or similar.

But comparing my M5950 (which is a HD6770m) I can see that the only difference is the clock, bus width and number of ROPs.

 

Thanks. It seems the M2000 is indeed a 75xx series, not a 77xx series card, so an older generation chip.

 

Hi,

My elitebook is:
3610QM
8GB RAM
700 GB Hitachy + 24 GB mSATA
Firepro M2000

disk is completely quiet

 

Hi,

I'm in the process of byuing one just like the one in the previous post, i just can't understand what the heck i'm going to use 24GB of SSD space for. It's not even gonna contain my windows folder.... Yeah i can replace it with a bigger one, but what use has HP made of this, when on a new PC?

Martin

 

So far as I know is the purpose of the mSATA making the normal spinning drive faster. That's why the drive is called: Flash cache



I bought my 8470w with a "cheap" i5-3360m processor so that I can upgrade it with a i7-3840QM. This is the highest CPU the system board can handle after browsing the manual. Do you guys see any problems for replacing my default with the new one?

 

With the past generation (8x60w) I know there were 2 completely different system boards (check the manuals & part #'s) for the dual cores and quad cores, as the quads had 2 more dimm slots for more RAM. At least that was the case with the 8560w. But after reading the service manual on the 8470w it looks like they unified the board for both dual and quad processors. So I would presume you could as long as you like disassembling and reassembling a military grade laptop, but then again I'm not a "Professional" nor do I work for HP, so what do I know.

 

Surprisingly quiet thread as I thought the EliteBook 8470w would be more popular than it is. I am receiving one for work soon and am looking forward to it. At first I hoped for a Thinkpad 430s, but when I saw the 8470w and the 8470p (with graphics card and i7 options) I thought they will be a refreshing change from 13 years of thinkpads....

The best point is that it is a rather compact business-class "workstation", comparing favourably with the 8570w unless you need the high-end graphic cards that the latter offer as options.

 

will the i5 model allow for a i7 quad core upgrade?

 

This model I am typing this message with comes with the i7 3630QM processor, running four cores at 2.4Ghz. Sorry I cannot confirm whether you can upgrade an existing unit, but new ones certainly can come with this option.

 

Is it possible to flash the bios of the m2000 counterpart (ie 7670m)? Just to bump its gaming performance?