BGA Venting Thread ;)

Thanks! The Tornado F5 looks good

 

yea by far best 15 inch laptop now lol. i personally can't stand anything below 17 inch though. 15 inch is fine if i use it upfront for something simple like browsing but thtas about it.

on another note, i seriously miss the old days. giant laptops with superb hardware, rooms for mod/upgrade like m18x r2, xps m2010 etc giant display to look at things simply is awesome theres no comparison ontop of that still somewhat portable, and has a battery. i still remember the days when i first visit alienware portion of the forum and saw some internal pictures from @Mr. Fox @Johnksss@iBUYPOWER went to get one myself, it was fantastic.

all i can do now is hope clevo/eurocom would really make a 17+ inch laptop with hardcore specs going from 4 cores kabylakeX up to 10 cores skylakeX.

 

Yes, I understand this point and it is partly why I was exploring the options for mobile desktop. I think the "lunchbox computer" is the only DIY solution ATM and this is not great.

My previous laptop was a 2013 HP Spectre 13t-3000 (BGA). It is on it's fourth year and still going strong. This is my wife's computer as trying to read or compose e-mail on an i-pad was driving her nuts (even browsing was not great). The HP was a nice cheap clone of a Mac Air and if I get 4-5 years out of it I will be very happy =)

I'm very used to the 15" form factor. I'm not sure if I like the idea of going back to a monster 17" again - I did that for a while but it was a pain to take anywhere...

 

I think you are underestimating a little - we have data on this one.

The BGA P650RS-G is a 15" laptop with a 1070. (There are thinner BGA laptops but they all have thermal / throttling issues I have not seen - so I would not consider thinner):

15.16"(W) x 10.67"(D) x 1.13"(H) - 385mm (W) x 271mm (D) x 28.7mm (H)
5.84 lbs - 2.65kg (with 4 cell battery)

The LGA counter parts are the Clevo P750DM2-G:

15.2"(W) x 10.32"(D) x 1.5"(H), 386 (w) x 262.13 (d) x 38.1 (h) mm
7.5 lbs (with 8 cell battery), 3.4 Kg

and the MSI 16L13:
390x266x39.8mm / 15.6x10.64x1.59-inch
2.92kg / 6.45 lbs w/ battery

Both are about 0.4" (10mm) thicker. The P750DM2 is more than 1.5 lbs heavier while the 16L13 is a little over 0.5 lbs heavier.

These are still small differences IMO which is great!

You have mentioned that the 16L13 is a better overall laptop which I certainly believe.

As you can see the size and weight differences on the high end do not have to be huge.

For mid-level (non DTR) laptops there should be socketed options and I agree that only having desktop processors available is a bad situation (I quoted @D2 Ultima who stated the problem very well a few pages back).

 

All hardcore power enthusiasts.... THIS ↓↓↓↓↓↓ IS WHAT EVERY SINGLE ODM/OEM SHOULD DO... YESTERDAY!! GIVE US FULLY UPGRADEABLE LAPTOPS IN ANY FORM OR SHAPE!! They forgot the wifi, Dang LOL.
I love this picture. Pictures can tell more than words. I really needed to say this Sorry my english, but I think you all understand what I meant

 

@Papusan - Yes, I agree. It would be nice if BGA were limited to ultra-compact niche of cell phones up to waaahfer thin 13" books.

I think you and @Mr. Fox have made the point clearly - anything where the CPU carries a significant cost should have that CPU in a socket. When CPUs are dirt cheap and have low variability in performance and very long life spans I guess it doesn't matter.

 

Props in order to acknowledge pure facts. + rep

 

Thanks! The enthusiast bug is catching =)

 

The new AW Echobooks models.... First soldered processor and soldered gpu. Now with soldered fans on the heatsink. What next? Soldered RAM, soldered wifi and the ice on the cake... The SSD's? Someone who talked about ease of maintenance of JOKEBOOK's? Perhaps the chassis finally becomes glued together into a single piece?


Edit: A glimpse into the future? NOOOO
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3155...ptops-we-cant-wait-to-use-in-2017.html#slide1 One word... Tragic!!

 

That is truely horrifying... I do have the hope that reason will kick in again.

How do the economics work out? Yes, the business class Dell users push a lot of the trend given the market share. At some point won't the sub-standard BGA processors have trouble running WinX/Browser/MSWORD all that well while desktops plow ahead? Or will MS be forced to optimize their software to run on low performance processors? How are the economics going work out?

I think cellphones go for around $600 new so tossing a bad mobo is probably not that expensive given the number of units sold and all.

A higher performing $1000+ BGA book has a much more expensive mobo with fewer units sold. I would think they would want to be able to replace the CPU....

 

And this is why I will be holding onto my NP8170 a bit longer I guess

One can only hope...

 

Micro$haft already optimize their software to run on low performance processors The new pastel colored tile toy OS from the Redmond Morons is soon destroyed for desktops @hmscott https://www.cnet.com/news/windows-laptops-in-2017-could-act-and-feel-more-like-a-phone/

 

Many thin and light purchasers would beg to differ - I'm not sure why it would be "nice". I completely understand @Mr. Fox being annoyed at the lack of options for his purposes, but as someone pointed out before, some of us like thin and lights for our purposes. You can see I have a Razer, that I mostly use for work instead of the crappy Dell/HP that they gave me. I had a P650RS for a week before I sent it back and got another Razer. Wasnt too heavy, I just didnt like the dimensions after having had a Razer for two years already (the P650RS is a great laptop BTW). That extra half inch thickness made a huge difference for me, not to mention being an inch longer. I also have a P870DM3, coming from an M18X that I had upgraded before as well. Each serves it's purpose and is great for what I need it for (which is work, games, and the occasional benchmark). If I had a good excuse I would get a Razer Blade Pro too - but I cant justify that since I have the P870DM3 and the RBP one year warranty is ridiculous to me (and I wish the RBP had the 6820HK in there). But I'm super curious - wish I could check one out in person. For all it's faults, it is an interesting piece of technology, but if Razer wont stand by it, I wont spend $4K on it.

I dont think it takes much to run MS Office. Ive seen the crappy laptops *and* desktops at work, not to mention surface pros, etc. run Office just fine. I think unless you are a power Excel user, not a lot is required to run office. Also, I think many corporations lease computers, so they dont really care about replacing parts. When we have hardware issues (sometimes even software), we replace the entire laptop as part of the leasing deal is to have a stash available.

 

apple, where everything is soldered onto mobo, ssd/ram etc. people would start to realize how dumb it is when you are FORCED to buy additional product from apple an external back up simply because SSD is soldered to motherboard and you can't take it out. not to mention crapple purposely uses different format on their storage device so you must buy their pre formated devices and use their OS LOLOLOL.

thinking that CPU/GPU soldered isn't as bad cause its not a storage device, well i think it's worse, cause I can backup my files just fine but a cherry chip is almost impossible to find.

also what happened at juliant? he sticked to AW and went full BGA mode. how can soldering fan to heatsink be ok? last time i seen this is in an old HP/lenovo laptop thats impossible to disassemble, must take out the mobo to access anything.

that feel man, we know

dayum son you'd want a 6820hk over 6700k in p870dm? pls state your reason cause no matter which way i see it, just doesn't make sense other than weight and thickness by negligible margin.

going BGA is fine if warranty is priced well and warranty covers you by desoldering the cherry cpu/gpu chip + memory then resolder them back onto a new mobo, for up to 10 yrs. otherwise no thanks BGA.

 

No, I meant 6820hk in the Razer Blade Pro ... edited original post to be more clear. Thanks

 

I think you misunderstand. I am a proponent of socketed hardware where the sockets and chips allow for mobile applications. Ultrabooks may require soldered CPUs but I don't think the thicker razor book does. What about rPGA? The same low profile should be possible and you would have the option for maintainability and improved CPU QC.

MS software had been slowing down windows systems for years forcing us to upgrade. Linux used to be the only real solution to this. It looks like Microsoft finally had a financial motive to improve performance of their OS and Office software -- that is they they had to get it to run on low power small profile systems. While I'm happy they optimized their software I'm bummed that it ends up justifying selling us poor performing hardware at a premium price!

 

i tweak a lot of registry and settings in windows, i dont think thats rather the case MS is doing such things, though i wouldn't be surprised. its more so that MS doing to much legacy support which most software aren't using cpu's full potential at all. of course MS could compile its kernel and everything from start to take advantage of avx2 or 512 but who knows how much that would cost, and also disable legacy support, which would force a bunch of old software to either update or just not work but then risk of losing some users to linux/mac

 

@Mr. Fox @Papusan @bloodhawk

How would you guys compare the P775DM3-G and the P870DM3-G?

I am dreaming one day of upgrading to a gtx1080 and HID special delidded/CLLU CPU. I know the P870DM3-G can take two GPUs, but configured the way I would want with 1 gtx-1080 they are similar in price. Here is the comparison of form factor:

P775DM3-G
16.46" (W) x 11.63" (D) x 1.61" (H), 418 (W) x 295.4 (D) x 40.9 (H) mm
8.60 lbs. including Bare bone, VGA Card and Battery Pack (with FHD panel), 3.9 kg

P870DM3-G
16.85 "(W) x 12.13" (D) x 1.86" (H), 428 (w) x 308.1 (d) x 47.24 (h) mm
12.13 lbs. including Bare bone, VGA Card and Battery Pack, 5.5 Kg

I don't know if they are including two cards in the weight for the P870DM3-G, but it does weigh 3.5 lbs more.

The P870 is only about roughly 1/4" thicker (and less then 1/2" wider and taller).

How would you compare the durability of these two laptops? Are they about the same?

Any idea how the build compares to my P670?

Thanks!!!!

 

DM3.

Mainly because of the beefy heatsink. Unless you are looking for something slightly more portable and are content with a single GPU.
DM3 again performs amazing with a single GPU and the VC heat sink.

 

They are both DM3's, I take it you mean P870? That one does have future upgrade potential (1080's SLI =P). Given the closeness in price and form factor it would be hard to say no to the P870DM3-G...

Also for around the same price is the P870KM1-G which I think is the P870DM3-g with the new Z270 chipset. Note sure if there is a downside to the updated version or not though...

 

Downside to the updated version is the temptation to get 3 2TB 960 Pros instead of 2 TB 960 Pros and spending 4K on SSDs.

 

Ah yes, the P870.

And don't listen to this goof ^

He has a fetish for large SSDs.

 

Well, I was wondering how I could spend more than 7K on a laptop =D

EDIT: I take it back - it is easy to configure a P870KM1 that is over $10K. The 6T raid0 array of 2T NVMe drives is only $4.2K of that X^D

 

THIS ↑↑↑↑... See @bloodhawk's post

 

Not sure about the 670, but compared to the 650 I had for a week, the P870DM3 all the way. The one thing I didnt like about the 650 was that the lid was "bendy" when opening from one side and not in the middle. The P870 lid doesnt twist or flex when lifting it up, and feels like one solid piece (not quite like an Alienware M18X, but really good).

 

Woops, yes, P650, thanks! That is music to my ears. The bendy lid of the P650 drove me nuts. I am used to Dells that always have solid lids.

Have you noticed any change in light blleed?

How is the P870 for travel? What do you use for a bag?

Thanks!

-Fred

 

I haven't traveled with it at all. I used to with my M18X, and have one of those Alienware backpacks. I think @Mr. Fox travels with his and has a much nicer backpack from previous posts I've seen.

No change in light bleed since I got it in September.

 

I used to travel about 70% for business, being home about 1 out of 4 weeks, sometimes less. But, that stopped a couple of years ago due to expense concerns of my employer and now I do as much as possible virtually to save money. I travel about 10% now. But, to your point, the XPS M1730, M17xR2, M18xR1, M18xR2 and Alienware 18 took many business trips with me. I'd venture a guess of somewhere around a million air miles over a span of around 8 years for those monsterbooks. The original Alienware Orion backpack was excellent. So was my XPS M1730 backpack before that one. The Alienware Vindicator was just OK. Not a great backpack. It was not TSA-friendly and not made as well as the previous two. I have an Everki Titan now. That's a really excellent backpack as well, but I don't like how soft it is compared to the others. It is made very well, but it "feels" cheap because it is so soft and flexible in comparison to the super-thick and extremely stiff canvas the others used.

 

Not a bother at all while travelling, at least with 1 power brick. Just make sure you have a big enough back pack.

 

I wanted to do a quick comparison of weight/size/price for a barebones-ish GTX-1080 compared to the barebones P650 I have. The delta cost from the Tornado F5 to the P870KM1-G is not outrageous

Code:

Laptop    Screen    GPU         Mem     Disk     Wifi    Weight   Width   Length   Depth    Price
P650RS-G      4K    GTX-1070    8Gig    no HD    8260     5.84    1.13    15.16    10.67    1813
Tornado F5    4K    GTX-1080    8Gig    no HD    8260     6.45    1.59    15.60    10.64    2554
P775DM3-G     4k    GTX-1080    8Gig    no HD    8260     8.60    1.61    16.46    11.63    2756
P870DM3-G     4k    GTX-1080    8Gig    no HD    8260    12.13    1.86    16.85    12.13    2856
P870KM1-G     4k    GTX-1080    8Gig    no HD    8260    12.13    1.86    16.85    12.13    2892

The weight and volume of the P870 is almost exactly 2x the P650 which might take some getting used to.

 

hope u dont raid more than 2 together, theres like no gain what so ever. even raiding 2 is kinda pointless lol, good for the write cache though.

 

Nah, I have 2 in my DM3 and they're running as single drives. RAID5 would be nice though since you get some degree of safety but without a 100% overhead cost.

 

thats some nice idea. i'd only like m.2 for it's speed via pcie x2/4 lanes but for storage/work drive i prefer 2.5" cause those can go up to 10TB SSD in 1 7mm package.

 

I've never raided ssd's for speed, only to combine into one larger drive. Works great for that with two or more drives!

 

raid 0 also combines for large drive at cost of stability, but improves speed i guess. when you combine them as in jbod? i had a bunch of jbod partition but when i break them up files dont get recognized kinda pointless, or maybe just me or my hardware.

 

On top of that windows storage spaces, or drive spanning cannot be used on OS drive, only RAID.

However I do use storage or spanning for my secondary DATA drive, and yeah the way I understand one fails you lose it all anyway, that is not just you.

I'm not concerned with drive fails since I backup often, upgrade often, and never had an SSD of any type fail on me. I'm only concerned with making my system easier to use, and easier to backup. That saves me much more time than if I would ever have a failure and I have to rebuild because of it.

 

I think the only reason is to get contiguous disk space, but the cost is high. A few disk errors when you stripe across drives could wipe out a lot of data. Read and write should be faster if it is aways across drives in blocks.

Raid-5 with 2T would be better but 5th drive would only be for redundancy and data recovery.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

yea exactly my thought, m.2 ssds are amazing cause the speed. if i got 3 of those then i'd put 2 in raid and one for fast backup/restore purposes instead of waiting like 5-6 mins it'll be within 2-3 mins.

 

You make a *very* compelling case for traveling with a 17" laptop

It sounds like the Everki Titan can even fit under the seat if you don't overfill it. I could only find a few negative reviews on Amazon - people like this bag.

I'm also trying to get some sense of what I could sell my current laptop for as that will have some impact on my upgrade plan...

 

I'm interested to know what are the kind of motherboard+CPU(+GPU) replacement costs for when these BGA things go poof outside of warranty?

 

I'm guessing the replacement board for my P650RS-G is $700.

 

Is that including the 6820HK and 1060/1070? That's a lot cheaper than I thought.

 

Thanks pretty optimistic. I'd be curious to know too.

 

The 7820 upgrade is $125 for a P650HS-G. The system from sager (barebones with 7820) is less than $1800.

So I'm not sure what percentage goes to the mobo since that price covers a lot of components. I'm guessing mobo is not more than $1K.

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But buying the parts will cost much more than the entire unit. Probably about double. I could see a mobo with CPU and GPU being a lot more than 1k on that system. I've seen replacement parts for BGA being close to the price of a new system.

 

I see what you mean - especially if you can't buy the system anymore.

Warranty coverage is crucial. I would not buy ant of these high end laptops with less than 2 years warranty and rely on Visa for a third year if necessary.

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I think you're drastically underestimating how highly the CPU and GPU are priced. Intel lists the CPU alone at $378.

 

From that perspective the laptop is a good deal! I suspect buying in bulk changes things (and who but OEMs buy BGA processors?).

Still warranty is essential for these BGA books or honestly for any of these high end laptops.

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Please, don't call any laptops with soldered filth high end. Have never been and will never be!! High end systems have high end performance. And price *HIGHER* than $500 doesn't mean high end in any way

 

I see 2 levels of high end but I understand you only see 1.

If someone is absolutely committed to buying a BGA system it really does matter which one they pick as well as how much they spend.

I have a real question: do the MXM 1070 GPUs out perform the BGA 1070 GPUs with the same heatsink?

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