8710p vs 8710w

Hi all,

there are very few reviews and benchmark results and I can't decide which one to order. The application performance of the fx 1600m is better but what about games?
There is a test on notebookcheck and the 8710p had better 3dmark results.
Did they just use old drivers on the w or isn't it the right notebook for 3d games?

 

They're the same (roughly). Both the FX1600M and the Quadro NVS 320M is based upon the 8700M GT. If you want to game, though, it's better to install Geforce drivers.

 

We've got a review of the 8710w here already, and an 8710p review will be posted in a few weeks at most. Just FYI.

But yes, they're basically the same notebook.

 

Thanks for you answers. The review here helped me a lot but I'm still not sure if I need the fx 1600m. Since both are based on the 8700gt the only advantage I can see is the larger video ram. I'm really afraid that 256mb is just not enough for upcoming games

 

Hi, what decision did you finally make? I've bought an 8710p and had to return it twice because of the LCD quality. Dark corners at bottom and light leakage.

I still have it.. the HP tech ended up replacing the LCD with a Samsung LTN170WP panel which is supposed to be better than the original.

I'm going to check out the 8710w though, to see if the screen is different.. Something feels uncomfortable viewing this one but not sure what it is yet. It is also unevenly lit. Slightly dark borders on the left and right,and still some light leaking at the top and bottom.

My 4-yr-old ASUS M4N seems to have a better screen. And keyboard! The 8710p kbd feels cheap.

What is your verdict so far?

[ed] oh and when playing games, it performs well, but gets VERY hot underneath at the front. Too hot to touch for more that a second or two. The palmrest also gets quite warm at front left, which is uncomfortable as that's where your hand is all the time for games.

It's a capable laptop, but these design quirks are disappointing.

 

Comparing the keyboard to a Lenovo I would say the Lenovo keys are tighter while the HP is softer. The screen on my 8710W is great especially when watching Blu-Ray movies, though PowerDVD tends to make them skip. I have 0 heat issues and I leave it running a lot. If your playing games expect it to get hot unless your using a cooler pad since these machines are workstations.

 

Points taken. A cooling pad is probably the way to go.

My real beef with this machine is the screen. On my old ASUS M4N, black is actually black yet colours are bright. The 8710p leaks light all over the place. I cannot achieve real black no matter what I do with brightness, contrast & gamma controls. It's as if the LCD back-light is leaking through.

Does the 8710W also have this lack-of-black problem? Or do I perhaps have a dodgy unit?

 

I got the 8710w about 3 weeks ago...it replaced an IBM Thinkpad T43p mobile workstation.
I use it as a desktop replacement...not using CAD programs...instead i play some really demanding game titles.
My local store provides both 8710p and 8710w but the price of the 8710p is like 15-20% less than the W version....so i went with the best since i wanted a true mobile workstation (just for peace of mind)
I also purchased a black version of the cooling pad Zalman NC 2000 designed for the 17" laptops.

Config: WUXGA screen (1900x1200), 2.4 Ghz Processor and 3GB of ram, Windows Vista Business (32&64 bit versions).

UPs:
- I find the screen and brightness flawless, even the view angles (it's better than the screens on the thinkpads!!!...mine it's an LG).
- The videocard & processor (used with the original drivers...yesterday updated on windows update) is great for gaming...i finished so far Cod4 and Crysis on 1600x1200 resolution).
- Very resonable temperatures...with the cooling pad u'll probablly never start the fan on the laptop...and if u do...it will be on the lowest speed.
- Great set of ports (i even like that it's fitted with the old version "cardbus" since i got alot of stuff on this platform).
- GREAT LOOOOKS. I really love the way this baby looks...especially on the black cooling pad.

Downs:
- Keyboard! Since i used to work alot with thinkpads...i find it difficult even after 3 weeks to get used to this keyboard...it's just different...and for my taste thinkpad is a winner in this matter.
- Windows Vista (optional). I could not find this computer with Windows Xp so i had to go with Vista. With 3 gb of ram and having SP1 installed on it...i can't say it works slowlly...but still...in my opinion Vista is still bad and i hadn't got a chance yet to see this baby in action on XP Pro.

So far...never had a problem except the known video problem at startup...but with the yesterdays video driver update from windows update...it has been fixed. I recomend this machine with the eyes closed....extremly well construction....extremly good looks...go for the W version.

 

Could I trouble someone to test something that caused me to return my 8710p. I found that in lower resolutions, there is way too much colour bleed - which I think is a fault of the nVidia GPUs.

For example, change resolution to 1280x768 and go to the Firefox home page ( www.firefox.com). The Firefox logo is red, which causes the most bleed. You'll see false-colour edges all around the red Firefox letters.

This caused me to return my 8710p (pity - loved it otherwise), as I need different resolutions sometimes for design work. We never found out what caused it, but I assume it's the GPU, as I now have a Clevo M57RU and it's going the same thing.

It's not normal... because if you go below 1280x720 (for example 1024x768 or 800x600) then it looks perfectly fine, no colour bleed at all. So the GPU is capable of scaling properly, it's just some kind of bug or flaw within those resolutions. Quite a shame.. at least for me.

 

I have a 8710p w. 1680x1050 screen and I haven't seen any problem with any scaling. With my current drivers I cannot choose 1280x768 but there is a range of other resolutions and I haven't found any problems with them. I think the scale is very good and no "ringing noise" anywhere. Lower resolutions will of course become more blurry but you should never see false edges.

I think this is a problem with the driver rather than hardware. Scaling is done with a convolution kernel and if those parameters are wrong you will get strange results. Also 1280x768 is a strange resolution for a 16:10 screen and perhaps the driver supports it but couldn't find any kernel that fits that resolution. The natural one would be 1280x800. Some LCD controllers also have their own scaling engine. Check in Nvidia control panel which controller is doing the scaling.

 

Hi FoxWhere, thanks for the reply. I took some photos of the screen to show the problem. Note these are _photos_ not screenshots. If I take a screenshot, the effect is not evident - which seems to imply the issue is in the signal being sent to the LCD panel, not in pixel memory. Would you agree? ie. The GPU is scaling properly in memory (hence screenshot looks perfect), but sending a bad representation to the LCD?



On the left is a comparison with my old ASUS M6N which is perfect in all resolutions, but is a WSXGA+ screen as opposed to the Clevo's WUXGA. Interestingly, the 8710p I had also sported a WUXGA screen, whereas yours is WSXGA+. Yours scales ok, but mine didn't. Maybe the nVidia cards don't scale WUXGA well? The 8710p had the Quadro 320 (8700GT equiv) and this example is an 8800GTX.

Hard to work out exactly where the problem lies.. Sorry if this is going OT, but it's kinda related to the 8710 in terms of the GPU. Anyone who works in different resolutions might need to watch out for this.

 

The scaling is not written back to the frambuffer but sent directly out to the LCD interface. That's why you cannot see the artifacts in a screen dump which only copies the data in the framebuffer. To write the scaling back to the framebuffer would only comsume time and memory unnecessarily.

Nvidia is supposed to scale WUXGA well. 1920x1200 is not an uncommon resolution and even low end cards can do that properly.

Did you try to update the driver? And I don't mean update the driver through HP driver support but the latest Nvidia driver? I downloaded the latest WHQL driver through Vista update and I discovered that the driver had added some resolutions that weren't available in the previous driver. For example the very common 1440x900 wasn't available in the old driver despite it is a very common resolution. So there are work being done supporting more resolutions in later drivers. Also make sure you use Nvidia scaling and not the LCD controller scaling.