Buying Sager 8170- help in decision making

I am looking to buy the 8170 from Sager or another dealer. With that in mind, if you were to pick three upgrades based on price and performance increase (bang for buck) what would you take and why. Also, please list them in the order of importance so that I can take a poll of sorts. I will be using the machine for MS suite, online streaming TV and movies, and medium to high end gaming (WOW, Rift, Diablo III and GW2 when they come out). Thanks in advance again everyone .

 

1st) ATI 6990

thats really the only one thats NEEDED if your gonna do some gaming.

Processor upgrades and RAM speed upgrades show none to little real life improvements, so id keep those options as is.

i would probably consider thermal compound since the 6990 card does tend to run fairly hot under heavy loads thats fairly cheap at 50 bucks though

SSD will improve boot times and load times of all programs installed on it, however you would want a 2nd HDD for data/game storage

 

I would have to concur. If you are considering any sort of gaming, the graphics card should be your first and foremost consideration, this is where you will notice some big improvements. The nVidia GTX580M is a bit pricey and I would only recommend it if money allows and you must have it. You should find a nice sweet spot with performance in the 6990M. For the price and performance the 6990M is a pretty decent card as others in these forums will attest to (and some will defend fiercely).

Processors, for the price the gain in performance is negligible, so hardly worth it at all. You could put some of that cash towards a bit better memory but 8Gb would be about all you should need for gaming, and do keep in mind you can upgrade your memory at a later time if you choose.

SSDs are an excellent upgrade for any machine, one of the best bang for your buck items currently while using a standard HDD for your secondary drive is usually the common configuration. It will provide quicker boot-up and shutdown times and will load your programs faster and depending on how the game is setup, it should help with that too.

IC Diamond is an excellent upgrade to keep your temps lower, some testing results are posted here IC Diamond Test Results - CPUs - CPU-Components
and for the price, would be an excellent investment.

 

1. 6990m as stated above.
2. Screen upgrade, depending on reseller matte or Glossy.
3. IC diamond upgrade.

 

i just 6990m. its an amzing card.
def the thermal compound. it keeps my tempshigh 40's low 50's after gaming.plus weather in uk is garbage

 

I see nobody has mentioned the hybrid drive!!! please get one from amazon and install it yourself! its only $178!!! also 6990M is a must. IC dia is a good one. more than 3 upgrades, let us know your budget bro!

 

1. 6990m for $145 more is the first item. 2. Then Go with the i7 2760qm upgrade since in reality its only a $60 upgrade from the 2670qm with the coupon, so this is a bang for the buck upgrade here. Last probably SSD. But your better off sticking with the stock HD and buying the SSD seperately.

 

Thanks for all of your advise everyone! I have been thinking I will get the samsung 830 SSD hard drive down the line after some time at a much better price. Also I hope to use this marchine for at least 4 years for gaming, streaming video, and MS suite tasks. Not sure 3D will ever be an issue for games and movies, but I am not to enthusiastic about 3D movies so far =), more of a novelty for kiddos in my eyes.

Initially it appears the 6990m is a must with the three. Then I will have to consider my next two between the screen, thermal compound, and an upgraded CPU, as noted earlier the SSD will wait.

Ntrain96, I do not see where you can get the upgrade on the CPU for $60, on my end with the link I provided it looks like $160. If your talking about the $100 winter discount applied towads spending over $1500 for a Sager machine, I already had this factored into overall machine price and do not see it as dropping the CPU down to $60 bucks, nor any other upgrade for that matter. Added cost is added cost because almost invariably with three decent upgrades I will be over $1500, but rather it just makes the machine more palatable to buy overall.

Ntrain96 please show me where you see a coupon for $60 (unless you factored in the discount I noted above), because like others have posted in the past with Intel CPUs I don't know if $160 is a deal for the amount of performance increase. I may be wrong however, and that is why I seek guidance. Intel CPUs were also discussed here for the price on numerous threads listed below, and it can be a bit confusing for novice to average users such as myself. But I do enjoy the research side =).

Ivy Bridge : Late (Fudzilla) - SemiAccurate Forums
Mobile Processors - Benchmarklist - Notebookcheck.net Tech
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...es/574500-can-i-install-i7-cpu-i5-laptop.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...2-xps-15-worth-upgrading-i5-i7-processor.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/612093-g74-cpu-upgrade.html

Right now I am looking at two of the below three mixes for bang to buck, becaues an upgraded GPU 6990 seems a lock at this point.

1. 17.3" FHD 16:9 "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen w/ 90% NTSC Color Gamut (1920x1080)
(Will add 4-7 business days to build time) (SKU - X1R507) ( + 185 )

2. 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2760QM, 2.4-3.5GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache) (SKU - S2R202) ( + 160 )

3. - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU ( + 40 ), and maybe pairing it with the upgraded wireless card since the cost is not in line with the above upgrades. I would also add Sager Intel® Advanced-N 6230 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module + Bluetooth (SKU - S8R111) ( + 25 ), thus for both it would be $65. I am just figuring the intel wireless may have better driver support and fewer issues rather than a generic?

Which two of the three, or yet am I not focused enough, and is the wireless card noted in #3 above a good addition???

 

Yes the $100 off $1500 was what I was using for the "discount", also dont forget the $50 off being a NBR member. so $150 total.

Id honestly pass on the thermal paste upgrade. You can buy Artic Silver for $5 bucks shipped and do it yourself in 5 minutes, easy to do. Take that money saved for the slightly faster i7.

As for the wireless card, the stock is actually very good. You can buy a 6230 for $19 shipped online. Another one of those things better off buying seperately if you actually find you need it.

Put your money into the MEAT and POTATOS if you want to get 3-4 years out of this laptop, namely the RAM(buy seperately on your own),CPU(buy now),Video card(Buy now) and hard drive(Buy seperately).

Also unless your a graphic designer or video editor, I would stick with the stock screen. Calibrated with a copy of DVE you would NEVER be able to tell the difference between the standard gamut and 90% gamut screen. Not for movies,pictures or video games. Waste of money.

 

Calibrating with DVE does nothing compared to a hardware calibration, youll never be able to eyeball what a hardware calibration can do. That being said the 90% calibration is not even remotely worth it unless you hardware calibrate it with something like the spider software. Id disagree on a hybrid drive, and the CPU upgrade. in actual use the CPU upgrade is very very small, almost negligable, and it is an expensive upgrade.

Also the bigfoot wireless card shows significant improvement in gaming transfer rates

 

woah woah woah! I see you want a 4 year notebook? Can you wait till April?? Its a short amount of time to wait for the next gen intel and 28nm graphics. Also you will be really happy atleast till 2nd half of 2013!

 

Rugbyplayer- What initial upgrades would you do other than the graphics card with the 8170, and would the GPU be the 6990M? It seems that from what two of you said the screen is not worth it. Also, what after market upgrades would you do to save on cost, and where would you buy the aftermarket items for a decent price point?one

You also mentined a different hybrid drive (by Hybrid do you mean SSD?), which one?

Thanks again everyone, I sincerely appreciate your info!!!

 

I think he means the initial hybrid drives, not the SSD those are solid state drives, something way more powerful. I wouldn't recommend a CPU upgrade either, its way to significant.

 

The screen for me would be very worth it, in fact i hate the fact that the p180 screen offerings are worse than the p170's, and only about from what i hear 60% gamut. However it would be worth it for me, because i am a hobbiest photographer, so the higher accuracy when editing would be nice.

That being said, for the best performance all around, if you can purchase and apply your own thermal paste on your CPU and GPU would be

1)6990m
2)Solid State HardDrive
3)Bigfoot killer wireless card IF your going to be gaming a lot online and arent very close to your router.

However, if you get an SSD youll also need to spend more on a seconday drive because SSD's are small, and not enough for all your storage, so youll have to factor that into your cost as well

 

Let's say that I would like to keep it around 1600-1700, that is after discounts.

What hybrid drive do you refer to? I have seen a few of you mention this or a SSD, but no on has indicated which one(s). I am guessing I should just get the basic 500gb HD it comes with and get a second one to put in the primary bay while moving the initial one it comes with to the secondary bay? Also, are the drives bays on the machine the same size?

 

A hybrid drive is a regular hard drive with a small bit of flash memory built in to improve load times of commonly used applications, it loads certain things into the solid state part of it much the same way RAM functions.

i would believe all the bays are 2.5" standard notebook bays. If you were to move the 500gb one to a second bay, you would want any solid state drive, the newer 6 gb/s will give you the best load times, but are expensive and low on storage

 

RugbyPlayer the rig in your sig is almost exactly what I am looking to buy.

Have you had any issues with the CF setup?
How do you like the laptop?
Did you do a review?

Sorry for the thread highjack

 

ill let you know as soon as i actually get it

 

2) Solid State HardDrive?
A SSD isn't a harddrive at all by any means. It's a Solid State Drive, not a hard drive no disk included

3) The bigfoot may kill some of your latency but if you lack good internet speed it wont benefit you that much again..

The only Hybrid Drive that is worth mentioning and that I personally know of are the Momentus® XT Solid State Hybrid Drives. One with 500GB (which is SATA-II and has 3GB/s and 4GB of flash memory) and the 750GB (which is SATA-III and has 6GB/s and 8GB of flash memory).

Yes they are the same size. Where you move your drives is up to you, but it would be weird not placing the fastest drive in your primary bay

 

A copy of DVE will work just fine. You don't need to use a "spyderpro" or any other cheap hardware colormeter to get your screen 95% calibrated. To set contrast,brightness, saturation,tint etc there is really no need for one. In fact most of the cheap colormeters like the Spyder are IMO rather worthless. A good hardware calibration requires tools much more capable and much more costly than the junksumer stuff available.

 

A. How would you know without even calibrating it if there was a difference you yourself would notice between the different "rated" CG's once calibrated?? With a generic copy of DVE no less, lol.

B. BIgfootkiller? Disagree here. I actually see alot of software glitches and issues with the "bigfoot" cards. Again the stock most likely is all thats needed, if an upgrade is needed its cheaper to buy it seperately and takes less than 5 minutes to install on your own. And if an upgrade was needed, Id go with a much more reliable INTEL wireless solution, like a 6230,6200, or 6300. They might not have the "Dell/Alienware" marketing hype, but they are much more reliable and the performance is just as good. That being said, the stock wireless card performs great too unless your worried about absolute range. But if your in line of sight or within 25-30 feet of your router I wouldnt waste money on it. My router is always within 25-30 feet of my laptops, and I have a number of Intel wifi cards and borrowed an 1103 Bigfoot killer card. There was no difference for me in performance between any of the cards and I have an e4200 router. The only diffeence that was noticeable was extreme range, and the best of the bunch in terms of range was the Intel 6300. The BF Killer 1103 didnt come close to having the same range as the 6300. In fact it wasnt even as good as the 6230 wifi/bluetooth combo Intel card. Bigfoot is overrated.

 

Actually the only hybrid right now worth mentioning is the 750gig Momentus XT Sata-III with the 6GB/s rating. Its considerably faster than its smaller 500gig cousin. The Seagate Momentus XT 750gig can be purchased for about $175 shipped right now seperately. If one wanted an all in one storage drive, this would be the only one I would recommend. It allows windows and apps to boot fast like a SSD, but has the obvious storage capacity of a traditional platter drive. And the price is now reasonable again.

 

This depends on the router. That's a fact.

It might be overrated, but it's definitely worth it if you have a router with insane speeds. We've got 500MB/s at my school so I will probably benefit although the 6300 has longer range, it isn't better at reducing latency, sorry.. it has been benchmarked several times

 

Of course the router plays a big part. Both need to be optimized. I know the Killer cards market being latency optimized, but Ive found latency to be on par with both honestly when the card and router are properly configured. My own bench testing has show even that the 6230 in my own setup to have the best latency when in line of sight of the router. Im sure there are many other scenarios where things are different, but this is why I suggest sticking with the stock wifi card till the OP has done research and upgraded or updated his wifi system. Until then stick with the stock card and go from there.

 

dude! $1800 I highly recommend waiting!!!!!! you buy freaking buy some awesome next gen gear for $1800, I can guarantee you can get a GTX660M with ivy for that price!!!!

 

can freaking*

 

Highly doubt a 660m will have the same performance as the current 6990m. Waiting a few months for theoretical benchmark improvements(which many times are not even noticeable in real world apps and user interaction)IMO is not worth the wait.

 

I have read that in April there will be some changes, and I appreciate your letting me know of whats around the corner acroedd.

However, having worked in the computer industry myself a number of years ago I would have to agree with ntrain96. There will "always" be some new technology around the corner and you likely won't see immediately vast performance gains for a time afterwards. The more likely will be small gains witih a serious upcharge due to the new technology.

FYI- I really don't care for aesthetic bells and whistles, only performance in considering bang for buck upgrades.

 

First, I must say that I am genuinely grateful for all of your posts in helping me navigate the latest technology in laptops.

I have narrowed down my search to a Sager laptop, and the 8170 to be more specific, but outside of the 6690m GPU there seems to be quite a bit of contention. Maybe I should have said if you had between 1500 and 1700 to spend, how would the machine look with listing the order of importance with your upgrades, and what would you buy aftermarket at a cheaper price (given ease of installation, etc.).

Example- "not my actual build or order," well maybe outside the first one 6990m.

1. ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 6990M 2048MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 $100 OFF (SKU - S3R151) ( + 145 )
2. 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2760QM, 2.4-3.5GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache) (SKU - S2R202) ( + 160 )
3. 6X Blu-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive - Special! (SKU - S7P557) ( + 80 )

Aftermarket-
1. SSD- which one?
2. Thermal paste- which one and is it really that easy to install, or will it take an hour+. Any possible problems with doing it afterwards?
3. Anything else?

It's too bad I could not see some of your 8170 builds if you were to get one and spend the amount I listed.

 

Because any LCD, tv's included when coming from the factory are only showing about 40% of their potential an color accuracy, AT THE MOST. it is a SIGNIFICANT improvement when a monitor if any type is calibrated, and the difference between showing 60% of available colors as opposed to 90% thats a no brainer

 

And how would you know all of this? Makes me wonder.. why would anyone sell us bad televisions? I'm confused..

 

Because TV's are sent from the factory set up for a show room, which means they bump certain settings to make them look better than their competition in the store, or they will no push any units. Every manufacturer has their tricks, take samsung for instance, they add a blue hue to every color, look in the shadows, and things that are supposed to be pure white, and they arent. In fact adding this, is what causes ALOT of clipping in the image, where a shadow appears darker than it should be, thus causing a severe loss of detail.

not a single tv out there, even 25,000 sets are set correctly when it comes to color temp, hue/saturation, gray scale etc from the factory

 

On the last few posts Ill comment later tonight on once Im done fixing the car, lol

 

heres a link, its a proven, known fact. Which is why certifications to calibrate monitors such as ISF exist, (thx for sound) along with $35,000 color probes that places like BB use to calibrate tvs as a paid service

ISF Alignment

 

Yes, I am well aware of ISF calibration, my company does high end HT and ISF/audio calibrations. But you are wrong on a few things.

A. There are a few flat panels and most notably pj's that have a preset thats axctually quite accurate out of the box.

B. The difference between a calibrated 60-70% CG laptop lcd screen and one in the 90% range is smaller than you think once set up properly. A typical use would never know the difference.

 

key word, typical user, i did say the 90% screen would be a major advantage to me as i am a photographer i noted that on my first post when stating my opinion on the screen upgrade option

 

THIS is what I am curious about here, I see you mentioned a new NVIDIA card coming soon. What about ATI?

There's a lot of 75xx something or other integrated graphics in laptops now. Any clue as to when they'll start pushing 7850s/70s/7980s etc? I want one of these sagers like no tomorrow but I am trying to avoid the instant rage of playing on it for a month and having the next gen graphics drop.

(I realize this is impossible but I am trying to game the constant updates as much as possible)

 

Honestly, not necessarily so. Ive seen a number of "lower" CG screens calibrate just as well if not better than some of the higher CG rated LCD screens. Im an avid photographer myself as well and still enjoy doing my own film developing. I am all about video(audio) quality. Some of the screen "upgrade" options just IMO don't offer anything more in terms of actual video quality and accuracy. Again, a basic copy of DVE would show that. And just to clarify, Im not against upgrading to a higher quality screen, but thats under the assumption that what your getting is in fact a higher quality more accurate display and more times than not IMO this isnt exactly true.

 

ive never really dealt with it on the monitor level, so ill defer to you since you seem to have more experience with it. Ive dealt with it a lot on TV's and would think the same attributes would apply as its similar tech. But i would raise into question marketing if that were the case?

 

Where is the $50 off for being an NBR member Ntrain96, is it a code? I have had trouble finding it.

Also, what SSD drive would you buy, or will the Samsung 830 256gig SSD or Seagate Momentus XT 750gig that is see in your sig be nice upgrades? I have read others noting both drives being quite good, but again I doubt that I need the kind of space since my secondary drive would be 500gb. I would likely move the basic 7200rpm 500 gb drive to the secondary drive and put a faster one in the primary one, but which one to get? And will the drive slide in w/out any mods? Thanks!

 

Here is the link for NBR members extra 50 off: Custom Laptops, Gaming Notebooks, Custom Gaming Laptops | XOTIC PC

As for the HD arrangement, yeah if you want one of the top performing SSD's thats probably also the most relaible out there the Samsung 830 is the way to go. If your doing a secondary HD(Like the stock 500 or 750 gig HD offered), then I would just grab a 128gig Samsung 830. It will be plenty for your OP system and main programs, while you use the secondary storage drive for photos,music,videos etc.

I use the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive as a secondary drive for all the stuff mentioned since I got my P180hm as a barebones system without OP system,RAM and HD. I just wanted the hybrid due to extra fast load times like an SSD since I store about a dozen games that take up a good amount of space on this drive. If you end up with a 256gig SSD as your main drive, then you will have more than enough space to load both games,OP system and any other program you might want(like photoshop or Office). Depends on your absolute budget and programs your going to use before I would tweak my recommendations to you. Regardless, go with the Samsung 830. Its not just a top performing SSD, its also probably the most reliable too and its priced RIGHT. Its all made in house by Samsung(no 3rd party parts sourcing), and its honestly the only SSD I will recommend currently.

I am all about performance, but only with ROCK SOLID STABILITY and RELIABILITY. I dont believe in having to search for "firmware" updates al lthe time, or updated "drivers" to get every last frame per second on a video game, nor do I believe in OCing a laptop due to the cooling being limited compared to their desktop counterparts either(IMO if you have to "overclock" a laptop to try and get a videogame or other program to work up to your standards, then you got the WRONG hardware to begin with. Catch my drift? ). The laptop should be fast and perform flawlessly out of the box without the need for excessive and constant updates and tweaks. I base all of my recommendations off these values.

 

Thanks for the replies!

One more question, at least for now . I have read that the Clevo/Sager shells are sold elsewhere with other mfgrs. Would it benefit me price wise to look at them or go right through a reseller buying a Sager with a good price point, such as the one I listed initially? If so, which machines do I look at, and where specifically?

 

Xoticpc seems to be the cheapest with the $150 off. And ppl who bought from them seem happy with the CS, so its probably your best bet to stick with them.

 

Usually resellers are the way to go when looking at Sager/Clevo. You get the exact same thing as buying directly from Sager but extra perks like extended warranty or better phone tech support for the same price.

Thanks for the recommendation Ntrain96

 

Ntrain96- I am not seeing the $50 off NBR on the link you provided, just the usual stuff you see already listed on the Sager model configurator page.

Where is the thermal past you refer to, and you say 5 minutes, really? Also, is there a chance that I can do more damage installing it? Is there a url showing application of a thermal paste, the visual sure would help?

Same as before, do you have a link showing the installation of this product and a place to buy for $19, and the upgrade is only $25, thus $6 may not be worth my time?

Nail on the head here for what I have been asking Ntrain96, just wondering if I will see real gains with the 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2760QM, 2.4-3.5GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache) (SKU - S2R202) ( + 160 ) vs. the basic confi. 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM, 2.2-3.1GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache) (SKU - S2N224)?

So with my type of play, medium to high end games, online video streaming, storage of music and pics, and MS office suite primarily, the 90% NTSC color gamut screen upgrade for me will not be noticable? I understand from numerous threads it's more for editing, graphic design, CAD, etc.? I have however heard the highest graphics card for $200 has a 120mhz refresh rate and 3D compatable on the Sager 8170, is that something I should really consider moving forward with some TV programs and games moving this direction, or considered excess? If I go this route, I would need to spend 17.3" FHD 16:9 120Hz 3D "MatteType" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Screen (1920x1080) - w/ 1 Pair NVIDIA 3D Glasses
(Can only be used NVIDIA 485M/560M & 580M) (SKU - S1R559) ( + 200 ) for the screen and nVidia GeForce GTX 580M 2,048MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 (User Upgradeable) (SKU - S3R505) ( + 475 ), did I say OUCH! I would expect an exceptional picture and significant upgrade with the graphics card for this amount $200 screen and $475 for GPU upgrades= $675 total.

Just finalizing and getting ready to pull the trigger here, so I want to be really certain and cover all areas to the fullest extent =D.

 

he link I gave you under Sager: Sager Models: 8150 / 8170 / 8180

$100 OFF if you spend $1500+ currently advertised. NBR Members receive an extra $50 OFF for a total of $150 OFF! (Sager parts only, does not include shipping,

 

Applying paste really isnt hard at all, and on the Sager's its as easy as it gets. The manual will show you how to tear down and rebuild your notebook literally. If you froogle Artic Silver you will find places that have it for around $5-7 bucks. My local PC store(Showtime Computers)sells Artic Silver 5 for $4 bucks.

Same with installing a wifi card. It really is a simple job. Later on Ill search through youtube see if I can find a video, but if you cant wait a search yourself will net plenty of videos on "how to" for repasting, upgrading your RAM, installing a wifi card etc. None of this is hard to do. If you can build a Lego model, then you will be just fine.

As for upgrading to a 90% screen, hey if you have the extra cash to blow and want to do it by all means go for it. But calibrated your not going to see a $200 difference if you catch my point. You would need the stock screen side by side to do a direct comparison, and then you would find out its really hard to tell a difference. As for 3D, its a novelty. One of my HT pj's has 3d, and its fun every once in awhile with the kids, but on a computer screen? Nah.............thats my own take. Not enough worthwhile content to consider it yet, and probably not for another 3-4 years either.

 

Wonderful, thank you for addressing my points Ntrain. The $40 for the paste seems a bit high, and is it really better then say the artic silver you alluded to?

Also, last point, the 2.4 CPU, is $140 spent going to net nice gains for the 200 Ghz upgrade from 2.2? I have heard the contrary and mixed reviews on this thread and in scanning others. Please advise once more?

 

If you plan on upgrading the thermal paste your self might as well go with IC Diamond. While Arctic Silver does a good job IC Diamond is a tad better. It will only cost you a couple bucks more for a tube of it.

Having a 200mhz faster CPU wont help much with daily tasks but in CPU demanding programs and some gaming it will help with performance. Not a huge jump up but help for sure.

 

Yes as Hutsady said, a question about money, the need for speed and desire

And of course, if you need that extra speed.