UPDATED (WITH VIDEOS): dm4 / dv4 / dv6 / dv7 / g4 / g6 / g7 Notebooks (2012 Mosaic)

^ get the extra GB' it will prove useful sooner or later

 

I wouldn't get it. No performance difference in 99% of games.

 

Lol 2 very different answers, i guess ill let it come down to the money.

 

FYI, there are new HP coupons, one for $400 off a $1,399 config that work on the new dv6t / dv7t, just posted the codes here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...0-coupons-new-intel-ivy-bridge-dv6t-dv7t.html

 

i vouch for not getting it. the ram doesnt matter unless you plan on going at higher res than 1080p. and even if you did the card would bottleneck b4 thememeory

 

what's the word on that mSSD? is it worth it?

 

Will do, hopefully that May 8 ship date is accurate, it'll be nice to have a laptop I can finally game on.

 

How is the GT 650M Graphic card .? Is it decent enough to run the latest games at medium/high settings .? I plan to go for Full Hd screen ..

Plz reply ...

 

^ pretty decent, should be between GTX 560m and or close to 660m when overclock


Sent from my wholly molly new iPad using Tapatalk

 

Also , since some of the more demanding games will not be playable at 1920x1080 res with 650M , how would the 1366x768 res look on the Full HD screen .?

Would 1366x768 look awkward/stretched on the Full HD screen or will it look good .? I'm confused ...

Also , is > 8GB of RAM of any use. ??

And what is the difference between 802.11b/g/n WLAN & Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R) .?

Would selecting the first option mean it won't contain Bluetooth .?

 

I used to have a DV6z with a 1080p screen and found that 1366x768 does not look bad at all. It at least looked much better than my old HP Elitebook 6930p screen at 1280x800, which was its native res. Other factors besides the resolution you are using determine the screen quality, after all. However, I felt as though running games at 1600x900 struck the perfect balance between quality and performance. At 900p, it was pretty difficult to tell that it wasn't native res and the slight stretching seemed to smooth out the edges a bit, like some sort of pseudo-AA. Overall, definitely get the 1080p over 1366x768 because the 1080p screen still looks better even when both are set to 1366x768, and you still get the functionality of a 1080p screen when you aren't playing games.

I don't think you need more than 8GB of RAM right now. Besides, if you need more, you can always get more later down the road as it's relatively easy to add RAM to HP laptops.

And I believe the only difference between the two wireless cards is the first one does not contain Bluetooth, so you are correct.

Anyway, I'm so happy that $400 coupon came out I'm most likely ordering mine today with 1GB GT650m, backlit keyboard, 32GB mSSD cache, Intel, 750gb 7200RPM, 1080p, i7-3610qm, 9-cell battery, blu-ray and 8GB RAM all for $1095 rather than $1245.

 

I'll be very curious to hear about the temps on the new dv6tqe, particularly during gaming. Feels like in the past, this series has always had large variabilities in people's experience with cooling...

 

Is it possible to get the backlit keyboard option separately after I bought the dv6 without the backlit keyboard from HP in Singapore?

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

since hp started using coolsense technology I havent seen anyone complaining about heat issues

 

need canada models nowwww

 

I guess you didn't read my post
My dv7t reaches 95F under load.

 

I'm pretty sure you meant 95 C

also check the Chinese review a few pages back, the reviewer ran Furmark for 3 hours on the new HP(ivy+GT 650m) ambient temperature 27C and 3 hours later GPU maxed at 61C while CPU was at 67C(although no CPU stress was used)

 

is it me or coolsense is another HP marketing non sense bloatware

 

In a sense, it works well for the LCD user's out there.

 

probably your fan is just covered with dust, you need to disassemble it, clean the the fan and aply new thermal paste, idle temps should be 42-50C, and 76C max on heavy load (GPU), when it comes to the cpu temps, well getting 85-90 on heavy load is normal, the msi laptops with sandy bridge get the same temps

If your laptop is new, I would send it back because theres obviously something wrong with it

 

Just buy from the US and use a mail forwarding service like Shipito, or know someone in the states

Who knows they might have a good model for cheap at a retail store. I got my DV6Z for 699.99 at future shop and it has the highest overclocked gpu in the owners lounge

 

I believe the mSSD thing is an mSATA SSD , the BIOS HP ships with enables Intel SRT, which links the SSD together and cache for the HDD. I think you can put an SSD in the ODD and do the same if you want to. Or get your own mSATA SSD (properly one faster than HP) and try what HP does.

Once the units arrive, someone should open up and check that out for us

 

How do you check the temperature the CPU and gpu are running at? Is there a system status screen somewhere in the menus?

Also, what is your opinion on the memory options? Given the choice between the 8 gig of ram with the 32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache (which HP doesn't seem to give a lot of info about, i'm assuming it's a separate mSata drive) or upping the ram to 12 gig (which is incompatible with the SSD acceleration cache) which will will give better performance?

 

the mssd is the better option vs a bump up to 12 gigs of ram

 

I really don't know why it's incompatible to go >8GBs together with mSSD for caching

 

probably just aglitch in the hp website vs actual non compatability of hardware

 

Will it will be possible to switch out the primary hard drive with a third party mSATA SSD? In that case, it may be better to up the ram and switch out the HDDto get the best of both worlds?

 

^ you can only swap the primary hard drive with another 2.5" drive, if you meant changing the mSSD HP offers, then I think yes you may or not if HP whitelists it

 

Sorry, I meant switching the hard drive with a standard 2.5" SSD. That way you could add the SSD performance to an upgraded 12 or 16 gig ram.

 

yeah if someone was going to upgrade to a 128 GB or 256GB latest gen SSD anyways (samsung 830, crucial m4+ etc) , I'll just save the $50 mSSD upgrade option. seems to be moot.

but if you need the hard drive space.. the 7200 rpm upgrade + a mSSD seems like a good compromise.

 

yeah easily swapped. most SSDs now come with handy SATA > USB cable in the "laptop upgrade kit" option (or you can just buy one for like $5 from amazon). then just get norton ghost or similar clone software and you're good to go.

with prices of 128/256GB high performance SSDs, this seems like a good option if you can easily use less than 200 GB (good to save some space for over provisioning)

 

the reghdd+mssd is like the hybrid drives they offered b4 but with a bigger ssd cache. if you plan on putting in a ssd for a primary drive anyway, there is no point to the mssd

 

Hmm there's now a $400 coupon from HP that works with the new dv6/7 with Ivy Bridge if configured up to $1399+

HP Pavilion dv7t Coupon Code, Quad Edition Ivy Bridge 17.3-inch Laptops

HP dv6t Coupon Code, dv6tqe Quad Edition Ivy Bridge Best Deals

I'm not sure about that mSSD upgrade option in the dv6, but you can easily do faster hard drive, more RAM, plus 1920 x 1080 panel to reach that $1399 mark then take off $400.

Just googled and redemption limit on that coupon is 1,000.

edit: xpsbargains shows 1000 redemption - https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=NBY3752+redemption+limit

 

It will be interesting to find out if it is possible to add a non-HP mSATA SSD. If it is, would it also be possible to set it up as the boot drive instead of a cache drive through Intel SRT??

 

^ fresh install windows on the mssd, and that's it.

Some reference while waiting
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3300303;jsessionid=13fvsr7vjbpzuxhc020gf6gvp

 

I was just configuring a DV7 but I have a couple of doubts..

a. They seem to be more expensive than the previous gen. Should I wait a couple of months till the price lowers or it just won't happen?

b. I need a 17'' bag.. Do you guys recommend buying one from the HP website or they're not a good deal there?

c. Is buying the intel wifi card with bluetooth a good deal or should I order something better off ebay for a lower price?

Thanks in advance

 

cleaning out the heatsink will bring it back to like-new.
No sense risking it by putting new paste.

laptops always come down in price eventually.

cheaper to buy aftermarket bag.

 

Will the 2GB 650M be of any advantage at all against 1GB 650M .??

Should i go for 1gb or 2gb .? ( with i7 / 8GB / 1080p screen ) .?

 

No advantage to 2GB on a 1080p resolution, so go for 1GB. Kinda nice how the upgrade is only $25.

 

So isn't 2GB useful in any situation on dv6 .?

 

unless u somehow connected it to three displays and used both at the sametime for gaming

 

Oh ! Apart from that if we use the 1080p built in display , won't it affect the gaming performance in any way .?

 

no more memory is needed at higher resolutions than 1080p. there will be no performance boost. i guess if u wanna tell people yours is 2 gb, that would be the only advantage in getting it

 

Hey what do you guys think id better, a 7200rpm hard drive, or the 5400rpm hard drive plus the 32 mSSD accelerator.

 

5400rpm with mSSD if $ is an issue, you will also notice 2-3 Celsius degree less than the 7200rpm and less vibration.mi d personally go with 7200rpm and mssd

 

May I ask if there is any improvement if I change the 7200rpm 750GB HDD to 7200rpm 750 hybrid HDD? (which is $50, is it worth it?).

What if I have both 7200rpm hybrid HDD AND mSATA cache(might use it as a boot drive)? Will it change anything? What is the balance point between those HDD update? Since all of them are fairly cheap. (Not crazy expensive like the pure SSD)

 

It would be pointless to get hybrid and mSSD. MSSD as cache will perform better than the hybrid


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Does anyone know how much SSD space the hybrid drive has? Once more descriptions HP offers really make it unclear what exactly you're getting for the extra $. And again I notice that the 7200 rpm hybrid HDD is incompatible with the mSATA cache option. Why? Is the hybrid drive some sort of HDD/ mSATA deal? Or is it a SSD/HDD hybrid contaned in one 2.5"drive. That seems more likely but then it doesn't make sense that you wouldn't be able to use it with the mSATA cache.

 

It's the 750GB Seagate Hybrid Hard Drive. So it comes with 8gb SSD along with the 750gb platters. The 500gb hybrid version only comes with 4gb just for FYI.

In the end I have been waiting for MSATA tech for sometime in a reasonable priced sytem. Though it being a cache drive is good and bad. Good in that the PC will be faster and also if you do regular backups, it shouldn't affect having to backup 32gb and 750gb drives. It should only be using the 32gb as caching from 750gb, therefore not moving the data only copying it. Correct me if I am wrong anyone. The bad is that as others are saying it would be faster if it was setup as a boot drive instead of the cache setup. But 32gb of space might be cutting it close. Ideally upgrading to a 64gb Msata which sell on ebay and making it the os boot drive would be the best but who knows with HP White list annoyances.

The new alienware ivy bridges just came out and that is one of their configuration options. But in this case other than straight up SSD, this is the fastest option out there in my opinion. And getting an Hybrid Drive is incompatible with MSATA hp configuration because clearly it would be counterproductive to use 8gb cache rather than the 32gb cache. But most likely having two cache setups will only cause more issues such as the hybrid ssd neglecting to use the 32gb at all. But I am not familiar with how exactly they setup the 32gb msata drive as cache only. Maybe someone else can shed light on that.

Also I want to make note, I remember reading in HP Envy 14 forums that if you did not select the MSATA option initially for the build it did not come with the extra wires and or module connector to connect an MSATA drive later. As I remember reading people wanting to upgrade and HP didn't include the required setup if it was not in the initial build. So that is something to keep in mind as I rather not deal with that hassle so I will get the 32gb msata and attempt to upgrade to 64gb msata, myself.

Also I agree as well for 1GB memory for the 650M. My reason being desktop cards such as with GTX 570 only comes with 1280MB. GTX 560 TI oem have only 1GB and they perform way better than the 650M. So bottleneck will always be hardware infrastructure inside along with core, shader, and memory speeds. More ram only helps on games that have huge textures to load anyway, and most likely your 650M will already be the bottleneck as a whole. Also keep in my mind this 3rd gen processor can take 1600mhz ram and maybe even a 1866mhz overclocked ram. So if you get 8GB of system ram or more and then somehow your 1gb ram is filled on the 650M 1GB it will just use system ram which will be pretty fast too. Surely not as fast as on board video ram. But nothing really noticeable at the end of the day.

Also note that being an avid overclocker sometimes having more memory can limit your memory overclock speed based on the other chips not keeping up. So that is something to keep in my mind as you may get a better overclock with 1gb ram and possible slightly less heat. Though I am speaking mostly from system memory experience, but it would be similar in video ram as well. But maybe if someone had some numbers on 6770M or 7690m 1gb or 2gb version of overclocks, might help bring more insight.

Well that's my two cents for ya.

 

Haha, I had no idea that was my first post after all these years of scouring the forums. I guess I felt it's time for me to give back and finally pay my dues as well, lol. So, sorry for the delay, heh. But thank you notebookreview for this wonderful website and everyone here for your help over the years.