8540w gaming capabilities and gpu driver question

i could make a great deal through some sponsorship and get an elitebook 8540w for free. since i love the hp business products and actually still use a hp compaq 8510p as my main notebook, this deal sounds very very interesting to me. however, my main use for the notebook, except daily business/study use, would be gaming. i would go for the model with an i7-620M or an i7 quad cpu and the ati firepro M5800 gpu, windows 7 ultimate 64bit.

now i wanted to ask whether someone already tried the 8540w for gaming and especially whether it is possible (i know it was with windows xp since i did it on my 8510p) to modify the windows 7 catalyst drivers that way (insert the device id of the firepro to the inf file) so that i can use the gaming catalyst drivers for it, and not the professional firepro drivers. i already read through some great reviews of the 8540w, but there was far too few to no information on its gaming capabilities.

regarding gaming capabilities - i would take the 1600x900 display, so does the 8540w with an i7 cpu and M5800 gpu perform well (fps around 25-30) at that native resolutions and high details with games like assassins creed 2, crysis, cod:mw2, battlefield bc2? and if necessary, does playing @ lower resolutions than the native one look that ugly (almost unplayable) as it does on older 16:10 wsxga+ displays?

afaik the firepro M5800 is based on the mobility radeon 5730.

thanks!

 

I don't have a 8540w but can share my gaming experience on a 8740w with M7820 (based on M5870). The latest FirePro's based on Radeon 5000 series perform surprisingly well in games so far. Also, there's a way of modding the .inf file and installing the latest gaming drivers for your card, that will greatly improve 2D
In addition, if you do a good paste job, and raise the system, so that there's enough air circulation (I put a couple of books on the sides and place the laptop on them, so that most of the bottom area is exposed), and use the latest version of HWinfo32 (with the secret option to have a manual fan control) to ramp up the fan to max speed - the gaming temps will never exceed 80C on CPU&GPU. In my case 75C is the max, but 8540w is thinner and might yield a few degrees.
I'm sure your performance expectations will be met, as I can play all the current games (except Metro) on max details @1200P with M7820. Crysis runs great and smooth on high/very high, with some minor dips @very high.
M5800 is a weaker GPU but your resolution will be significantly smaller, so it should be proportional, imo.

 

thanks very much!

so the inf files modding works on windows 7! great. i used to do that for years for my mobility hd2600 with the desktop radeon gpu drivers before official mobility drivers came out, just not to use hp's drivers that performed awfully with games. right now i can play games like oblivion (maxed out, no AA/AF @ 20+ fps), cs:s (maxed out, no AA/AF @ 80-300+ fps), bioshock (maxed out, no AA/AF @ 30+ fps), cod 5 waw (maxed out, no AA/AF @ 20+ fps) etc. on that notebook, so i think this is really good. and i get some 10-20% higher 3d/pc mark scores than others with the same notebook with even better cpus or OC'd gpu, which i only did for testing.

and do you use radeon drivers on the M7820 or the firepro ones for gaming? if yes, how big is the gaming performance difference between them? any anomalies/issues using the firepro dirvers for ganming?

is this heat issue really so bad? my 8510p (t9300 cpu, hd2600 gpu, 4gb ram, 320gb 7200rpm hd) NEVER gets above some 50°C while fully stressed by gaming or for example f@h, and even then only the chipset and maybe the gpu get that "hot", rather warm.. then the fan really gets loud and runs at max, which doesnt bother me, but the temps never get higher. i also tried OC the hd2600 and neither then i have reached more than some 60-62°C after stress tests! and all these without any special cooling or placed on books with free vents.
is it maybe because of this magnesium body with gunmetal finish? thats something i really like about the new elitebooks. i already have a 8440p which im not really using a lot and i love the build quality, although this one doesnt have this gunmetal finish since it is a -p version.

another question regarding the cpu - should i rather take the i7-620m or a qm? if gaming is the only really demanding task i would need. i suppose the 620m would be better than the 720qm, but the 820qm would be best, is this right?

i also think that the M5800 should perform well, especially with radeon drivers, since the only bottleneck should be the the memory which is 1gb 128bit ddr3, but for a 1600x900 resolution i think this should be ok; the clocks are 650/800. and if i really want to play something very demanding i can connect it to an external monitor with a lower resolution and turn off the notebook monitor.

my other choice would be the new envy 17 with the mobility radeon 5850 and an i7 quad, which of course would be the best choice for gaming, but there are several things i dont like about the envy and too many i love about the elitebooks, and lastly, 17'' is simply too big, so i dont think ill go for it.

 

I prefer to game using the FirePro drivers (but I tried both) and haven't seen any serious issues. You could try both and choose the best drivers for your games.
But the overall performance should very similar.

The heat issues stem from the i7's (they run way hotter compared to C2D/C2Q's), and the GDDR5 on M7820. If your M5800 is GDDR3 - that's better for temps, worse for performance. The gunmetal finish is not related to the issue. But HP could make thicker pipes on the heat sinks and add another fan (8740w). I have a feeling that they used the same cooling design as the one for C2D's. Anyway, you won't escape hitting 75C while gaming

I'd go for i7-QM CPU's simply because they are more future proof even for gaming. But you will be fine with 620M just as easily, at this point.

I wouldn't go for 17" envy since it's a lower quality machine with a worse cooling.

 

ill go for a 740qm or 840qm.

the firepro m5800's memory is ddr3 unfortunately, not gddr3, neither gddr5.. but since it has 1gb of dedicated memory i hope thats enough for the 1600x900 resolution. as said before, playing at non-native resolutions was really ugly on the 8510p; i suppose its not better on the 8540w.
i just dont want to reduce the detail quality (except AA, which isnt that important to me) on the newer games, ie. play @ high to maxed. i have a desktop rig with a 5870 and an intel extreme quad, but id really prefer being able to play these games on the elitebook, if really possible, as i am that used to gaming on notebooks now.

the only thing im thinking about is the chance of hp revamping the elitebooks when ati's radeon 6000 come, which will probably happen until the end of 2010. i read some very promising previews of these and if then somewhere in Q1-2 2011 the elitebooks get a firepro m5900 or something like that (or even a mobility radeon 6#00), id look dumb having got this one now, just a few months before.

 

Yeah, I'd wait a few months, the 6000 sounds promising.
BUT, in a year from now Nvidia's Kepler is gonna be 10x more powerful than their current offerings. You can never have something that stays on top for more than a few months

 

hehe yeah i always think that way, but it doesnt make sense, since theres always something better due to be released within some months. if the 6000s were already out now and their mobile parts due to come until the end of the year, id wait for them, but since its some 6+ months until their release, its not worth waiting.
im pretty sure illl take the 8540w now and then ill see how the gpu performance bar will rise within the next year. and then also the new gpu & cpu manufacturing processes (32nm & 28nm) will be introduced, which certainly will make hp release their next elitebook series 8#50, probably. since the 8540w is gonna be for free, its a pure win getting it now.

thanks again for sharing your great experience with your 8740w (id take this one immediately if theyd offer it to me for free as well , although 17'' is a bit too big for me, but an hp elitebook with a 16:10 ips display, a 5870 based gpu, possibility of an i7-xm cpu.. thats top-end and best for my personal needs - better than any envy, alienware, eurocom etc.)!

 

You're welcome!
Yep, that's how I see it too. I'm almost certain, HP will let us upgrade to AMD 6000 later on. Together with an extreme CPU, 16:10 IPS screen, this laptop will easily last for 2 solid years, before Maxwell demolishes everything in the GPU sector

 

i just got the offer from HP, and they recommended me the model WD743EA, which has the i7-740qm cpu, but a 1080p display and the quadro fx1800m.

now i looked through the models available and found one that would be great - XT907UA#ABA. the only, but rather minor problem is the 1080p display. i just hope i can get this model here in europe, since its a US model.
if i can get this one, i will eventually replace the 1080p display with a HD+ one. just a question, is it possible to have this done by HP under warranty, without the display being damaged?

 

Why do you want to do that? You always win with the FHD display. Not only that, the XT907UA has the AMAZING DreamColor 2 display. It does not make sense to replace it with a regular (average) panel. The DreamColor 2 display plays on another league, it's *unique* in the market at this moment.

If your concern is tiny fonts, Win 7 will allow you to resize the DPI. I guess the FX1800M is a good card for moving most games at 1920x1080 @ medium/high settings, but perhaps you would be better with the ATi FirePro M5800 (a card more focused on gaming). However, I think it's a bad decision to downgrade to a HD+ display, especially when the original display is the "legendary" DC2

 

oh is this the DC2 display? i thought it was a normal FHD..

well, the XT907UA#ABA has the firepro M5800 which is what i absolutely want, but i really doubt that 1gb of DDR3 vram is enough to run any of the newer demanding games at 1080p. and since running any lower resolution than the native one results in a visual disaster (i tried it on my 8510p), i have to have a display with a native resolution the gpu can handle. or does that not apply to the DC2?

but my biggest problem is that i fear the XT907UA#ABA wont be available here in europe. then ill probably take the envy 17 for some 2 years and hope to get an elitebook 8550/8560w afterwards, since i want a 8540w with 1. an i7-qm and 2. with the firepro M5800, and there are either models with the right cpu, but a quadro fx880M/1800M or a firepro M5800, but with a i5-560M available in europe.


PS: to clarify the question about the DC2 display - does that scale the same way as CRT displays do, ie. no matter what resolution you choose, it looks good? and 1080p is just the maximum possible resolution, not the native? that would be amazing..

 

How do I do this for M5800? I haven't seen any docs posted about this. I want to try the latest cat drivers since ie9 seems to be causing the latest drivers from hp to hang up the machine.

 

get the ccc for mobility from win 7 32bit or win 7 64 bit.

then follow the instructions here under the "If your AGP card is not supported by the latest ATI drivers..." chapter, except that the target folder is C:\ATI\Support\10-8_mobility_vista_win7_32/64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\W7_INF
and the .inf files to mod are CL######.inf and CW######.inf and the line you have to add is:

"ATI FirePRO M5800" = ati2mtag_Manhattan, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68C1

however, i am not sure that the device id of the firepro is 68C1 as i dont have the 8540w yet. you should check inside your device manager > display adapters > firepro m5800 > details > hardware ids

or you can use this tool. however, it may detect your firepro m5800 as a mobility radeon 5730, but youll get the right device id.

then save the .inf and run setup.exe from C:\ATI\Support\10-8_mobility_vista_win7_32/64_dd_ccc

 

It seems it may have been flash video that was causing crashing with the latest HP drivers from their website. I have reverted to the release drivers and I am not having problems with flash video now. However ie9 still crashes a tab from time to time.

the device ID is actually 0x68C0 for M5800

I'm going to try the latest cat drivers with the driver mod and see if they are stable.

EDIT: The mobility catalyst 10.8 actually supports the device ID by default which is good. So far no crashes with flash websites and videos.

 

great!

well, there really shouldnt be any issues with modifying the driver this way. i used to mod the desktop catalyst drivers in order to support my mobility hd2600 on the 8510p for years... and it yielded 10-30% more 3dmark points and generally far better performance in games and other apps, and absolutely no driver issues at all.


i just really hope i can get this 8540w XT907UA in europe... otherwise i dont know what i shall do. after reading so many bad reviews and customer comments about the envy, i really doubt i should get it instead. and i am really an elitebook fanboy since the 8510p.. so either elitebook or no HP notebook. but even then theres no competition to the elitebooks

 

can somebody please give me a good advice regarding whether to take the elitebook 8540w with an i5-560m (and firepro m5800) or the envy 17?

my main concern is that the i5-560m is far too weak..
and is there a chance that i can have the cpu replaced by a stronger one, like the 17-740qm by HP? or even better, get the 8540w WD743EA with the i7-740qm and have the fx1800m replaced with the firepro? since this one is already built for a quad and has 4 ram slots. of course, without the parts conerned actually being damaged.. how about the costs involved?

i just hope i wont have any problems with the envy if i really have to take it. and then in about a year the new elitebooks will come, ill try to sell the envy and get a new elitebook, hopefully with a GOOD hardware configuration.

 

Last time I checked, there were 2 different mobo's, one for quad and one for dual core CPU's. If HP fixed the compatibility issues and have a single mobo revision supporting both (with 4 memory slots) - there shouldn't be any problem upgrading from dual to quad.
BTW, 560M is a bit stronger than 740QM

 

ok, now im really confused



1. L2 & L3 cache - the advantage of the i7 is clear, the question is only how obvious for real-time appliacations this advantage is

2. frequency - i5 is faster in both, standard and turbo mode. the question is whether the 4 cores of the i7 are better even though running on lower frequencies, just because of the more threads they can process

3. process - i thought the i7-#40 ones were introduced together with the i5-560 and have the same manufacturing process?! ok, but basically its just a matter of power consumption and heat i would say

4. cores/threads - nothing to discuss, i7 clearly wins

5. cinebench - i5 clearly wins on single thread test, the i7 on multi tread test. i5's advantage on single thread test 9,15%, i7's advantage on multi thread test 20,8%. i would say i7 wins here, since its advantage is more than double the advantage of i5's.

6. i would really like to see a wprime result for the i5... unfortunately i havent found any..

so, to sum it up, regarding pure performance and the specs, the i7 wins, except for the frequency and related to this also the the single thread cinebench test. i think wprime would look similar.

but finally you told me that a quad is more future-proof, even for gaming! ..which i also think.


grrrrrr im going crazy at the moment!

there is one 8540w model in europe available with the i5-560m and the firepro m5800. shall i take it and forget about i7 and quad? or the one with the i7-740m and the quadro.... BUT i think there is NO chance to have HP replace the fx1800m with the m5800 for me.. i would have to do that by myself, which actually wouldnt be a problem, but getting a brand new elitebook and first thing to do being replacing the gpu and voiding the 3-yr-warranty.... better not...

or just get this envy 17 stove now, since its for free, and wait till fall (probably; i contacted HP and they told me that there probably wont be any hardware refresh for the 8540w anymore, but a completely new elitebook series) next year and hope HP grants europe some more and better choices of elitebook 8550w hardware configurations?


BTW... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/game-performance-bottleneck,2738-16.html also says rather yes to quad, for gaming!

 

Yeah, I understand the confusion
Not long ago there was a thread regarding 620M vs 720QM (gaming&synthetics)
The consensus was - 620M for current gaming, 720QM for video encoding, VT, etc.
So, regardless of what you choose, - there will be no serious consequences.
One thought however, you can grab a 740+FX1800M and upgrade the GPU yourself. M5800M is far less expensive than Quadro's.

 

I don't think so but, according to our mate Aikimox, the 8740w with the DC panel downscales well to 1680x1050, if I remember correctly. I remember I've asked him this question. But don't expect scaling to be as good as a high-end desktop monitor like mine (NEC 2490WUXi H-IPS).

Keep in mind that HP sets up a different mobo for quad core CPUs. I also think an i7 processor is more future proof, and not only that, you get 4 memory slots with the quad core mobo, whereas with the dual core mobo you only get 2. Also with the QC mobo memory runs at 1333MHz; with the dual core one memory runs at 1066MHz. And in a non-distant future, it's expected more programs (including games) will take advantage of 4 cores. Market's trend is towards multi-core CPU's.

Where are you from? If you're from an english-speaking country, you could order a CTO 8540w from the US website. For americans, CTO models are not very expensive, on the contrary of european users (we). You could get a model with DC2 panel, FirePro M5800, i7-840QM (or i7-740QM), etc.

What? That sucks (not for you, but for HP). They released the 8740w on april this year and they are already thinking of refreshing the entire line next year? The 8730w was 2 years in the market before the 8740w superseded it. But I guess the Sandy Bridge platform launch is the reason for this (unfortunate) statement...

 

well, now i asked whether a 8740w with a m7820 and i7-640m would also be ok, although they didnt offer me a 8740w, but since this particular model (only one with a firepro and an i7 currently available in europe; i7 quads only with fx2800m & fx3800m) would be by far cheaper than the 8540w with the i7-740qm and fx1800m they already offered me, i gave it a try.

replacing the fx1800m with the m5800 was what i was talking about, but what shall i do with a fx1800m then? i dont know where/who to sell that here.. theres no market for such products. and i would have to buy the m5800 somewhere (same problem as with selling the fx1800m), and i would void my warranty. thats not that good i think... if only i could have HP replace it so i keep the warranty, and they keep the fx1800m.

but i think all of these wont work and im finally gonna end up with the envy, im afraid... since the envy is much easier to sell (> already a win since im gonna get it for free now) and i also could give it simply to somebody i know would be more than happy with it, and then get the new elitebooks (with an acceptable configuration here in europe hopefully!) when get come, everythings not that bad as i thought. lets see...

thanks for your help!

austria/croatia. id so love to have the same situation about this as in the states.. but unfortunately no pre-purchase configuration and neither access to pre-configured US-models (there is one that would be perfet for me with an i7-740qm & the m5800!) here in europe.

im not sure about that. US pre-sale support didnt give me any information on that, but when i called the local HP support and asked about the possibility of a hardware refresh due to AMD/ATI radeon 6000 launching on october 22nd, hence their mobile and professional versions probably in Q1/2011, and intel's new hardware as well, they said that this almost certainly will be included with the new elitebook series. im not sure whether they really said fall next year or i just thought that myself since its the typical launch date. so dont take this too seriously.

 

@necrophyte: We have posted almost at the same time See my last post

HTH

 

i already answered but in my previous post i edited for that reason

PS: VERY NICE signature!!!
but where do you get it from?

 

Click User CP, then on the left - Edit Signature
You can add linked pictures as well

 

thanks, but i meant the subject of his signature - the 8740w with the firepro, DC2 and the 840qm! since he also lives in europe where i didnt find any such model for the 8740w. not the signature itself

 

Lol, I'm a noob, hehe.

 

there are a lot of new 8740w models for Europe scheduled, look for WD757EA, WD758EA, WD759EA, WD760EA, WD761EA and WD762EA which should be available in November or so. The WD758EA has a i7-640M and the M7820, the WD762 the i7-740QM and the FX 2800, look here:

HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation Small & Medium Business

 

yeah, these are the models available here as well, but i want a firepro combined with an i7, no quadro. and this combination is only available in one model, namely the one with the i7-640m, which i already asked for and mentioned above.

 

Well, I had to go with a reseller from my country in order to request a CTO 8740w. As you know, HP Europe won't let you order a CTO EliteBook or whatever. You need to find a reseller (aka "preferred partner") in your country. I didn't tell you this because it's VERY EXPENSIVE to go this way. In my case, I've done a TREMENDOUS sacrifice investing a whopping 4041€ for this rig

 

wow, but its possible!

no, "unfortunately" thats no option for me now anyway, since i can get the 8540w, envy 17 and some others for free through a sponsorship cooperation directly from HP. i just thought that id ask them whether i could get that specific 8740w model, although they didnt offer me a 8740w, since it is by far cheaper than the 8540w they already offered me. ill see next week, i suggested the 8740w, and the envy 17 as the second option, since theres really not one 8540w model i really would like.. unfortunately. but as soon as theres a hardware refresh (if..) or the new elitebooks come, i hope that they will offer some really good hardware onfigurations in europe, and then im the first to get one of these, since elitebook 85#0p/w are my all-time favorite notebooks.

 

lol sell your pc then. thats pretty much losing value right there.

 

its not sitting in the corner unused, i just would very like to be able to game on that notebook im gonna get within the next 2 weeks (still not sure which one), but that desktop still has its daily usage.