Anyone with a Sager 8258 yet?

Na, don't plan to overclock, at least not until many years. The stock 880M should be sufficient.

I think if I remain stock, I should be fine in the 180W range. I believe the CPU comes in at about 45 watts loaded, the GPU runs at about 120 watts loaded, and the usb/drives will eat up maybe 2-3 watts loaded, leaving ~10 watts for wiggle room on the brick.

Besides, the draw from the wall (if that's what the figures were based on) is not necessarily the draw the laptop is doing.

Based on the specs, it should be fine as long as I don't plan to overclock.

If I do, I'll likely hack apart a 240W or higher brick and splice it.

 

HTWingNut posted this over in the "New details about Nvidia`s Maxwell" thread.

 

I'll be buying the NP8258 within a week and posting a full review!

 

I dont know either. Pretty silly IMHO.

While this is true, even for high end gamers and powerusers. But it is truly nice to have alot of wiggle room on a ac adapter especially after having owned a dell xps 1645. Not only for overclocking in the future but also for longevity of the adapter and general peace of mind.

 

I agree, i am the type who always want's some room, just in case, always better safe than sorry.,

I was pretty set on the NP8258, but the one thing i am iffy on is the trackpad with the logo in the middle and how it looks

the NP8268 i like the looks of it, but then i loose 1x 2.5 drive and no raid if i ever wanted it also the NP8258 seem's to have just slightly larger vents on the back, how ever only a 1cm or so...

AHH decisions!!

the 8258, is the color always purple even when the lights are off?

http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/3022#3

I did find this for disabling it which is a nice option
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...disable-touchpad-backlight-p157sm-np8250.html

The other question i have is the trackpad, i hate crappy track pads, ones that don't track well, or move randomly around the screen, when dropping over $1200 on a laptop i would expect it to be pretty good?

 

I'm in your shoes myself. I almost prefer the NP8268 but I can't afford to have just a single hard drive bay, nor can I lose the optical drive in favor of a second caddy. At the same time, I wish the NP8258-Special was configurable with the 870M for better savings. Also, I believe the colors are configurable.

 

As promised.




The bluetooth issue was resolved with updating the bluetooth driver to the BT 3.1.1311 driver (latest).

it now sees all the devices I throw at it fine.

I've ordered the power supply and connectors suggested. I figured as was mentioned, the extra wiggle room would be a good thing in the long run.

Cheers everyone.

 

good to know!

i have even now been looking at the

Sager NP8278
XOTIC PC | Sager NP8278 (Clevo P170SM-A) 17.3" Gaming Laptop

As i like the idea of a 230w power brick, vs 180 even though i only plan to get the 860m video as i want to keep this as cool as possible.I also like the metal palm rest and cover.

Right now i game with a AMD 5770 and an i5 desktop since selling my last gaming rig (7950 / i7 3770k) and it has been just fine for what i have been playing. Just a 17' is that much larger, sure the body is not a huge difference, just under 2 inches wide and a bit higher.. but 15.6 seem;s so much more..compact I don't travel that often but would move it around the house enough a 15.6 may be more comfy for me.

As for the case material, one youtube review said that the plastic matte finish really shows finger prints easily? (bit of OCD in me, i hate fingers prints on things)

 

Besides the one hard drive bay are 2 mSATA slots, you shouldn't really need more then one HDD since you have those. If you do need to have more then 1TB storage space you can always get an external HDD.

 

Yea, smudges are visible, but only in indirect light.

You're basically putting a shine (ergo, your skin oil) on a matte finish (non-shiney). Looking at it normally you don't really see much, but what makes it visible is the reflected light off the monitor. If you look, for example, directly down on it, you don't really see any finger smudges, but at an angle they show up.

Not really overly annoying unless you're a neat freak

 

Besides the point. I already have a standard SSD in my old laptop that I'll transfer to the new one. It isn't in the mSATA form factor, which makes the standard hard drive bay more valuable than the mSATA ones (atleast to me).

 

Well, do remember the 15" does allow 1 normal drive bay, one partial height bay (ergo, your SSD), then two mSATA bays as well.

So you could hypothetically still use the 15" for that, you'd just install your SSD as the secondary drive (or use it in the primary, your choice).

 

I know. I was talking about the NP8258 (15") unlike the NP8268 (also 15") with only one hard drive bay. I was never considering a 17".

 

I too was initially looking at the 8268 but between the 180watt psu and only 1 2.5 in bay I opted for the 8298. Im ready to be nack into a full size workstation and im hoping this will be the one!

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

 

Well, I didn't get the extreme CPU and opted for the 4810, so so far my total wattage has remained below the 180 mark.

I did however, as mentioned above a few posts, order the dell 240 watt supply with the adapter to play it safe since future games I expect to crank the graphics.

 

Always good peace of mind I say.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

 

It's the same chassis Clevo has been building for the past 3 years. Having owned a p150hm and em, it's a decent enough laptop: good cooling, nice screen options, easy to upgrade/repair. Not as slick looking or quality as Alienware, Gigabyte or Asus, or some MSI models. Keyboard is mediocre with some very bad key placement.

If you want to get a better idea of what to expect, just look at videos and reviews of the "older" models.

That 870m should make you very happy though, especially for the price.

 

General improvements have been made to things like the cooling system though

 

The keyboard seems a bit more solid as well.

The touchpad is much better with their drivers.

The fans are quieter as well. Granted, full-blown out, you'll hit in the 40's for the decibils, but I can still hear TV fine on normal volume with the fans blowing full tilt. You hear the fans with the TV, but it isn't overly distracting.

The important thing is the fans hardly ever hit the full-tilt speed, even under heavy load. The most I've hit is medium fan usage.

The temperature usually hovers in the mid 80's under load. I've had it peak for a few seconds at 91/92c, then the fans kick up and drop it back down to the high 70's and low 80's.

I'm still getting a laptop cooler just to keep the temperatures more consistent, but so far the cooling has been sufficient where I'm pretty happy.

I type 160 wpm (with about 92% accuracy). And I've not had any issues with the keyboard ghosting or dropping characters (yet). So it's a fairly reliable keyboard.

The touchpad blows goats out of the gate. To fix it, you open up the touchpad config tool (under mouse->touchpad). Change the curser pointer speed to 10 (defaults to like 3 ugh!). Change the scroll to 3 (defaults to 6.. ugh). And you likely want to disable pinch to zoom and push to zoom gestures. They get fairly annoying and are easy to hit when you use the two finger gesture for scrolling (which I personally love).

Do that and the trackpad becomes not only useable but enjoyable;

The speakers are right on. Even under high, the sound is clear and crisp. The only weakness is the base. It is a bit weak, but whatcha expect with a laptop subwoofer. For a laptop 2.1 system though, I think it's absolutely remarkable.

The 95% gamut screen is absolutely brilliant. It's not a 3K screen, but frankly unless you're into digital publishing, I don't see a need for it, not for a 15" screen (or even 17"). You want larger screen size, get an external screen and size it how you want.

I have noticed that the fans can get loud if they get dust or stuff sucked in. My left fan sucked in some cat hair when the damn cat rubbed against the laptop, I saw a bunch fly in and the fan started to get a high whine/hum. So I turned it off, cleaned the fan out, started it back up, and it was back to the original quietness.

It does make me aware that the fan spins are calibrated, but shows that too much gunk can destabilize the calibration which tends to make the fans noisier. Those who are suffering noise in the fans after months of running, take a few minutes to clean the fans out. I think you'll be happy with the results.

 

I guess you should count yourselves lucky to have gotten the 95% gamut screen ... apparently they have been discontinued. That sucks, cuz it means I will not be ordering a Sager after all. Argh!

 

Yup, was just contacted yesterday about this by Xotic, but with the value of what im getting, i still authorized the order, still really sucks about it. I was pretty excited about the nicer screen

 

I have the 72% gamut screen on my 8278. It looks pretty darn good to my eyes. I know it's not the same screen on the 8258.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, I calibrated the screen on my 8278-S and it looks great! I have it sitting next to my 27" viewsonic IPS external monitor, and I can't say there is an enormous difference in color quality.

 

The matte 8258-S's (now standard) 72% gamut is 100% adobe color compatible (sRGB standard 100%).

This means that for, well, pretty much everything a 72% gamut screen will be more than sufficient. I do have a 95% gamut, and the color saturation is brilliant, but that saturation could also negatively affect fine detail work if you happen to be in a profession that requires sRGB color since 95% gamut is above that standard and can over-saturate.

I'd be happy with a 72% gamut if the 95% wasn't available.

 

I was only slightly dissapointed and you make a good point. I am more dissapointed that it caused a delay in my order HAHAHAHAH

 

By the way, does anyone know of a software monitor calibration that is good? i saw the previous post where the OP bought a harware one, but im looking for cheep and effective. Also, when i FINALLY get my machine, what utilities are good to get and is there anything i should do with the SSD drive? ive never owned one. the OS is supposed to be configured on there and i really dont know anything about partitions. Thank you to all the posters on here, you have helped me alot with my purchase and "warm fuzzy" about my incoming Sager 8268!

 

If you're looking for a software solution just use a munsil disk or something. Hardware is the way to go for a good calibration.

Sent from my XT1053 using HoFo app.

 

Thanks for the info/reply ill check that out when my system comes.
UPDATE: Xotic PC contacted me today and told me since they couldnt get the screen, theyre going to upgrade the HDD to 1TB 7200 rpm from the 750GB one, so that was cool

 

The high gamut displays are not required really, nice gesture on the HDD

 

I though the 1tb 5400 rpm HDD was a free upgrade so that really isn't much, but it was a nice complentary so I guess you can't complain.

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

The upgrade is to the 7200 RPM, not the 5400 RPM, so it's a $20 free upgrade from the base 750gb 7200 RPM drives.

 

That RPM difference helps a lot, so yeah a nice touch.

 

My wife's 8258 came in a few days ago.

The only issues out of the box were:

1. The bluetooth drivers. They didn't have the intel bluetooth drivers so I installed the latest (17.x).
2. The Intel AC drivers. The ones that come stock, while they work, they are buggy. The bug with the default Intel AC driver is that it looses wifi connection and won't re-establish if your router recycles the connection (which most WPA default settings do). The second is if you go into standby/sleep/hybernation mode, the wifi connection won't re-establish itself. The latest (17.0) drivers fix this.
3. The touchpad. Out of the box, it, yup, kinda sucked. Tweaked the settings. Reduced paging speed (from 8 to 3), increased pointer speed (from 3 to 10), disabled pinch to zoom +/- in the gestures, and bang, a well working touchpad.

My wife got the 870M with the 7200 1TB drive and 16G memory, bluray burner.

Same rig I got originally, but I opted for the 880M.

The cooling on her rig is slightly cooler overall than mine (understandable with the GPU difference).

The overall quiet running of the laptop is about on par with mine. Even with gaming, it's fairly quiet. The 8258 is most assuredly a quiet running laptop, and mine wasn't a one-off.

 

Do you guys recommend that I get the overclock+redline boost from xoticpc for my 8258-S (since I don't know how to do them)?
Here are the specs:

Sager NP8258-S (Clevo P157SM-A)
- Free XOTIC PC T-Shirt (Orders over $1499.00) (Specify Shirt Size in Checkout)
- No Back-2-School Special -
- Special Upgrade Package – “the Boost Package” – GPU Overclocking + Operating System Redline Boost ($130.00 Value!) -
- No Back-2-School Special -
- No Back-2-School Exterior Finish Special
- Free XOTIC PC T-Shirt + Lanyard + Mousepad (Orders over $1599.00) (Specify Shirt Size in Checkout)
- No Back-2-School Notebook Cooler Special
- FREE - WATCH DOGS for PC! (While Supplies Last / Must be requested in comments box during checkout)
- FREE!!! – U.S. UPS GROUND SHIPPING (Use Coupon Code "FREESHIP" in Checkout) [U.S. Lower 48 ONLY / Restrictions Apply]
- 15.6” FHD 16:9 LED Backlit Wide screen (1920x1080) Super Clear Matte Type Sager Screen (SKU - SSC005)
- FREE! - 30 Day No Dead Pixel Warranty
- XOTIC PC Professional Monitor Color Calibration (Operating System is required) (XPC Service - requires shipment to XOTIC PC)
- Sager - 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4810MQ (2.8GHz - 3.8GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache) (SKU – SPU401)
- FREE! - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 880M (8.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 [User Upgradeable] (SKU – GPU02X)
- COPPER COOLING UPGRADE - Extra Cooling Copper Heatsinks Applied to the Heatsink/Heatpipes (XPC Service - requires shipment to XOTIC PC: will add to build time)
- No Video Adapter
- No External Mobile Display
- 16GB DDR3 1600MHz [2x8GB] Dual Channel Memory (SKU - RAM04S)
- Sager Branding
- Standard Laptop Finish
- No Laptop Laser-Sketch™
- No Custom Laptop Painting
- RAID-0 Storage - (Stripe) Combines mSATAs for performance. (Requires identical mSATA SSDs)
- 120GB Crucial M5 mSATA SSD ( Storage Drive ) - Stock
- 120GB Crucial M5 mSATA SSD - Preconfigured as an OS Drive ( Operating System – Drive C: )
- 1TB 7200RPM [SATA II - 3GB/s] (SKU - HDD097)
- None Standard
- HDD Raid Settings - OFF
- 8X Super Multi DVDRW/CDRW Combo Drive (Sager) (Dual Layer w/ Software) (When selecting a Hard Drive in the Optical Bay, No Optical Drive is Included) (SKU - ODD085)
- No Extra Optical Bay Hard Drive Caddy
- No Back Up Hard Drive
- NO External USB Optical Drive
- Bluetooth Included *With select wireless cards only* (See “Wireless Network” Section Below)
- Sager - Intel® Dual Band AC 7260 802.11 A/AC/B/G/N 2.4/5.0GHz + Bluetooth™ 4.0 (SKU - WIFI94)
- No Network Accessory
- Internal 9-in-1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD/Mini SD/SDHC/SDXC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo)
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- No TV Tuner
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- No Carrying Case
- Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
- No Car Adapter
- No Spare AC Adapter
- No Dock/Hub/Adapter
- Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- No Headset
- No External Keyboard
- No External Mouse
- No Notebook Cooler
- No Thanks, Please do not Overclock my system (Overclocking will add 3-6 business days to build time)
- No Operating System Redline Boost
- ~Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (64&32-Bit CD Included (Supports up to 16GB of RAM)) + MS Office 2013 Trial
- None
- No Antivirus Essentials Software Bundle
- No Back Up Software
- No Unlimited GB Cloud Backup
- - No Microsoft OFFICE Software
- No Software Bundle
- No Global Anti-Theft Protection (Options below require an operating system)
- LIFETIME Ltd Labor* 1 Year Parts Warranty Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Technical Support (Labor through XPC)
Includes FREE Shipping Both Ways for Parts Warranty Repairs (SKU - WTY099)
- * 24/7 LIFETIME U.S. based technical support
* Extreme QA testing by dedicated technicians
* 24-72 Hour stress testing and benchmarking to ensure top performance and stability
- Standard Production Time
- No Outside of US Shipping Coverage
- No thanks, standard double boxed packaging is okay with my order
- No XOTIC PC Gear

 

I believe the OS boost clears out any unnecessary programs, but the overclock means you get it covered under warranty and if you are not wanting to do it yourself then it's your only option for increasing performance further.

 

But will it pose a problem on overheating? If so, what do you think I should do?

 

Our GPU Redline will overclcock the GPU and as a result will be running at higher clocks than normal getting you better performance. With that extra performance it will indeed be running warmer but that's why we cover it under our warranty and we train our techs on how to do it right. We push it as far as we can while still remaining in safe tolerances and stable. I've been here a while now and haven't heard of a single PC Redline boost coming back under warranty do to that OC.

The OS Redline will go through and do various system tweaks, various as in a lot, to make the OS more responsive for you and increase the fluidity of using it compared to stock.

 

How about power supply issues? Should I be concerned by the adapter?

 

The NP82xx have been known to top out the PSU in higher end usage. Shouldn't be a problem for the average user unless you're trying to get into higher scores of benchmarks. You could look into the PSU mods to get a larger PSU for the system if that's a concern you have.

 

Lastly, are there any more issues I should know of or any other recommendations you might give?

 

I'd typically recommend to get IC Diamond to keep temps down, something I suggest on all builds, and then the wireless card to the AC 7260 as the must haves. Beyond that it just depends on the budget such as adding in SSD, getting more RAM, etc...

 

I will get them. A problem I am facing now is with the overclocking. Others say that I should overclock it down the line, but the problem is I don't know how to. And isn't it better if the pros from xoticpc will overclock it for me? Like I said in the other thread, If the price of better performance is buying a better power supply and a cooler, I'd take it (given that they're all I need to eliminate/decrease the threats of overclocking). Is this true though?

 

Like I said you will want the performance of the overclock down the line. It you want it warrantied and don't want to research doing it yourself then buy it now. The 880m is a tricky beast to overclock properly, keep that in mind, I assume they are not just simply increasing the frequency since that really does not work.

 

On the topic of SSDs, which is better: 256GB Crucial M550 mSATA SSD (195$) or 250GB Samsung 840 EVO Series mSATA SSD (200$).

And which is a better OS for gaming? Windows 7 HP (95$), Windows 7 Pro (145$), Windows 7 Ultimate (95$), Windows 8.1 (80$), Windows 8.1 Pro (135$).

I am opting for 7 HP (cheapest among 7s) because I'm used to the features of 7, but I'm thinking that in the future, game developers might make games exclusive to 8.

Are there any advantages if I choose 8.1? And can I play old games on 8.1 (like late 90's/early 2000's)? I heard that 8.1 has compatibility problems to some games and a problem with steam.

Or should I just switch to Windows 8.1 when it is really needed?

 

I am planning to get the 8258-S.
Was initially thinking of getting the 8268-S but was thinking that cooling would be better in 8258-S due to 2x additonal hard drive slots.
I have 5 questions :

1. Whats the difference between the RAM that comes by default and the Kingston HyperX CL9. Would upgrading to Kingston result in better performance?
2. What would be good - buying directly from sager or through xotic pc or gentech pc.
3. Xotic pc is offering copper cooling upgrade. What does this upgrade actually add ? Will there be a significant difference or can I get by with a cooling pad ?
4. Would it be good to have the OS installed through them or install it myself or can I give them my CD key in order to avoid purchasing the OS. Asking this question as xotic pc and gentech pc state that they test each system for 72 hrs (not sure what they actually do)
5. If I go with SSD & one HD, can I later add in the 500gb HD from my old laptop ?

This would be my first gaming laptop so wanted to know some basic info as my older laptop did not have an SSD or 1600Mhz RAM.

 

1. The memory timings which has a small impact on performance.
2. I suggest you do your research by looking at the ratings online and in the feedback section of the sager forum (look at the top of this forum section)
3. The copper cooling adds copper vram heatsinks on top of exposed areas of the heatsink, there was a thread on the topic in the foum.
4. The reseller should be able to install an unactivated OS for you so you can put your own key in.
5. You have a mSATA slot, 2.5" bay (9.5mm) and 2.5" bay (7mm), to install your old drive you would need to keep the 9.5mm bay free and use an mSATA SSD and a 7mm HDD (these are not the norm), the other option is to replace the optical drive with a caddy .

The cooling between the two models are identical pretty much by the way.

 

Thanks Meaker :thumbsup:.
Will look into the details.

 

Not a problem, let us know if you have any other questions.

 

@Meaker, I was checking the warranty info and power notebooks offers - "Parts and Shipping plus Lifetime Labor and 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Support (Labor & Support paid by PNB)" so does this mean if there is any issue and I need to ship it back then the shipping cost would be covered by Power Notebooks ? Also in case of any issue would Power Notebooks look into it or Sager ?

 

Parts and shipping are covered for the term of the warranty, outside that you would pay for shipping. You are never charged labor on top and you can always call us for phone support on the machine without charge even outside the warranty, so repairs would cost shipping + price of parts.