D900C Config & Resellers

Hi,

After some time asking questions and alot more time reading the forums, I've decided what I want to buy and narrowed it down to 3 possible resellers. I want a DTR because I'm spend 3 weeks a month overseas, away from my desk top. I like to game and will want to play Bioshock and Crysis

Can you offer me additioanl insights on the resellers?
Any comments/suggestions on the config would be appreciated

Three things to get out of the way
A) I know it's going to be heavy
B) I know it's going to be fairly expensive
C) I know that Vista doesn't have SLI drivers at the moment

The three potential resellers are Powernotebooks, XoticPC and PCMicroworks. The only things that I see which differentiate them are:
1) XoticPC offers some case customization options and this interests me.
2) Powernotebooks has had a lot more people rate it on ResellersRatings
3)PCMicroworks somewhat more expensive; more included with their top warranty.


The Specs:
SAGER NP9260 ( Clevo D900C )
WUXGA "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1920x1200)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- Intel Core 2 Duo EXTREME X6800 2.93GHz w/ 4MB L2 Cache - 1066MHz FSB
- SLI ENABLED DUAL (2) 512MB PCI-Express nVidia GeForce 7950GTX w/GDDR3 Video Cards (User Upgradeable)
- ~ 4,096MB DDR2 667 PC2 5300 (2 SODIMMS) Dual Channel Memory (w/ Vista 64-Bit Only)
- Painted Display (Back Lid & Front Bezel) with Any Color, Logo or Graphic (Details of Painting made after order)
- ~Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW Drive w/Softwares
- ~-200GB Hitachi Travelstar 3GB/S SATA 300 7200RPM Hard Drive
- ~-200GB Hitachi Travelstar 3GB/S SATA 300 7200RPM Hard Drive
- HDD Raid Settings - OFF
- Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader (MS/MS Pro/MS Duo/MS Pro Duo/SD/Mini-SD/MMC/RS)
- Built in 1.3Megapixel Camera
- Built-In Multi Region TV Tuner w/ FREE Express Card MCE Remote & Receiver (w/ Vista Home Premium & Ultimate)
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Integrated System Speakers - Included
- Internal Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965 802.11 a/g/n
- Basic Black Business Case - Included
- Smart Li-ion Battery (12 Cell)
- 1 Spare 110/220V 120W Auto Switching AC Adapter (as an extra or for replacement)
- ~Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Installed (64&32-Bit CD Included) w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's
- Microsoft Office 2007 SBE - (Word/Excel/Outlook/PowerPoint/Publisher)
- Sager 3 Year Parts & Labor Warranty w/ Lifetime Toll Free Customer Service

Thanks in advance :yes:

 

either powernotebooks or xoticpc i would say. you're living in ny.

 

My personal opinion would be to get an E6700 rather than an X6800, as the extreme branding will make the chip far more expensive that it should be. WIth the money saved from that, you could practically build a budget gaming desktop.

The owner of PowerNotebooks frequents this forum, his name is paladin44.

 

Thanks for the thought. I'll give it some consideration. My thinking was to max everything I could afford to and use the machine for a long time.

 

Any particular reason?

 

Another difference is that at PowerNotebooks.com we offer Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Telephone Tech Support...

 

Good to know. By DOMESTIC, do you mean I can't call from overseas even if I purchased it in the states and live there?

 

Domestic meaning the support is not outsourced to a foreign country I believe.

I agree with the above findings - do not get the Extreme processor unless you're spending someone else's money. And I would strongly suggest getting XP - Vista is bloated and slow, and also has various incompatibility issues with games and certain pieces of software. I just switched back to XP after using Vista for 6 months and have never realized how much crap I was dealing with.

 

I was initally leaning that way for SLI support if no other reason. But after reading the various OS threads, it didn't seem like that big a deal. I also would like to get 4 GB RAM. And to be honest, I wouldn't be looking forward to upgrading the OS at a later date.

I don't have a great deal of tech knowledge or skill, but I don't mind doing some poking around and tweaking. It just winds up taking me a long time.

 

Chaz is correct...DOMESTIC means our technicians are, and always will be, in the US. You will never have to call offshore for support.

phule103, you are also correct in that you cannot call the Toll Free number from outside the US. If you need support outside the US I would recommend using email, and if you want to call from outside the US ask for the local number in your initial email.

 

After having spent hours myself on the phone with Powernotebooks support, I wholeheartedly vouch that they do speak english, they are friendly, and they do know what theyre talking about. For anything really hardcore though, they refer you to Sager's own tech support. They promptly reply to emails (within a few hours usually), and if the support line is busy, you get a call back in 10 minutes, tops.

[/endsales] lol.

 

That's very good to know, particularly in light of all the time I have spent with Dell's Indian based tech support for my desktop XPS system.:cry:

 

yeah, but still good to know.

 

im in Nyc and got my pcmicroworks blackhawk in a week... and their prices are a lil up there on the website, but if you negotiate, thats another thing. just be nice and so will they. they were very nice to me.

 

Thanks for the info. Quick turnaround is certainly good.

 

Reading some other threads prompted me tho think of another question regarding the resellers. Do they load bloatware? from what I've read I think the answer is no, but confirmation would be nice.

 

No bloatware is loaded

 

Thank the gods there are still some sane people in the computer business.

 

Amen to that.:yes:

 

its not the gods that make them do this, its just that the dells/toshibas/gateways/etc are all paid to have that garbage loaded when you first turn on that machine...sad i know but they want to make money any way possible.

 

It's highly unlikely that Dell will be getting any more of my money. It's funny, before I found this forum I was thinking of getting Dell or Alienware.

 

Can we come back to the discussion on the X6800 vs. the E6700. Let's take the money perspective out of it for now... what is gained or lost by going with the X6800 vs. the E6700?

 

I asked that question of both Powernotebooks and XoticPCs. Specifically I ask for a link to any kind of comparison of performance. So far only Xotic has responded. They didn't have a link but Justin said that the X6800 has about a 10 % increase in performance over the E6700

I have to admit I'm proabably going to plunk down the cash though I am thinking harder about it than I was before.

 

I am on a very similar path. I want to and will max out the machine. Due to business travel reasons, I am targeting mid-Oct as my first purchase window. I suspect between now and then, that more firm news about quad-core and high-end quadros will surface as to prompt me to wait for those options. For now, it is a heck of a lot of fun just to see what develops everyday.

 

To go with the X68 vs E67 debate... you have to think of the applications. Every new game you'll ever want to play on this beast is and will be GPU limited, except MAYBE SupCom. And that I haven't tested yet. 10%:$750 upgrade really does not seem worth it to me. In multitasking, you will not notice that. In gaming, except crazily threaded games, you will not notice it. So why not save that cash and sock it away for an eventual upgrade to better twin GPU's?

 

I understand what you're saying and agree it makes sense. I could put the money into an upgrade the GPU fund And there are probably other good reasons not to do it like less heat. But I feel myself succumbing to the bigger, faster, more is better disease :rolleyes2:

 

In most cases your screen will be your bottleneck.

 

Why is that?

 

LCD screens have a refresh rate of 60hz, 1FPS = 1hz i.e. anything above 60FPS is lost because your screen can't display it.

 

Thanks. Are you happy you bought the X68? Any reason you chose it over the E67? Inquiring minds, or at leat mine, want to know.

 

Having the 67, everything I do is GPU limited. When I have the task manager open during games and log the CPU useage, it never goes above the mid 60's%. I havent tested this with Bioshock yet, but tbh, even the 67 is overkill for everything except media encodes (though if ripping cd's your limited by the rotation anyway) and software compiling (like map or mod building for games). Two new 88/87gtx/98's will have a TREMENDOUSLY bigger FPS/performance impact than a little x68.

Oh, and with the 60fps = 60hz so anything better doesnt matter argument- Most high speed games need higher than 60 in order for hitboxes to line up to the visible models. 100fps is the sweet spot for CS:S. (Though my rig sustains between 190~270 fps in CS:S). In Bioshock, I can barely keep it above 20fps. A couple of DX10 entusiast cards (and a gorram patch for Bioshock that recogizes SLi) will go a long way to making that more playable, rather than an x68.

 

I do photoshop editing and video encoding, I wanted the fastest CPU at the time. I'm still on the fence as to go with the Q6700 or the X6900. My notebook was free so price wasn't an issue.

 

I saw that whole argument and can kind of understand it having played some games where the hit didn't go where I was sure I was aiming. I was never into tweaking and ran things as they came. Given everything I've been reading on theses forums, I'm sure that's going to change.

 

:laugh: Free is good. Mine will not be , but my current work circumstances allow to spring for it. Akilae Hunter's hard info is good and making me think 3Xs about springing for it.

I'm going to buy Monday or Tuesday, proably from XoticPCs

 

If you do more gaming than productivity, then squirrel some nuts away for the bigger badder gfx cards when they come out. If .3 seconds on applying a filter in photoshop is more important than an extra 20-30fps (down the road), then go for the x68 by all means.

 

More gaming would be me. The productivity things I would be doing would be fairly run of the mill Office garbage and some printshop level graphics. Still bouncing back and forth though.

 

PcMircoWorks has a special on the X6800 atm, it's only +350 more than the base processor. Just something to think about

 

That's it, make me work harder. :laugh:

 

gained = very little in terms of gaiming now or at any time in the near future (let's face it, it's fairly easy to gracefully degrade a games video performance by turning off features... it's NOT at all easy to gracefully degrade a games performance when you're at 100% cpu utlilization (what... turn off the AI)). Games will *always* have a lot of CPU headroom or the just won't run well on cpu's that the masses use (which is where the game writers make all their money). So buying a faster CPU won't help much for games.

lost = money, given to intel for the sole reason that they have a product configured for people with more money then brians.

 

RTS games are the worst for having quite a bit of CPU usage. Supreme Commander being the one that pop's to mind atm, but like I posted with PCMicroWorks offering the X6800 for only 350 more than the 2.4Ghz E6600, I don't think it's a bad buy at all. I normally only max out my CPU usage when I'm doing video encoding.

All a bottleneck means is that some major subcomponent (the CPU, video subsystem, memory, etc.) is either unable to keep up with the other components due to lack of computing power or is being stressed to the point where it is operating at maximum and is more or less restricting how many instructions can be processed at any given time. For example, when a visually intensive game is run at a low resolution, the application is bottlenecked by the CPU because there is not as much graphical information that is needed to be processed by the GPU(s) and the game's textures are not large enough to utilize all of the available video/system RAM. However, the CPU still has to process so many calculations that it effectively limits how quickly the computer can handle all of the data. Therefore it wouldn't really matter how fast the GPU can render the scene because the CPU still has to take so much time to process its share of data.

Please read this, it's a very good explanation on bottlenecking. In most cases your LCD is your bottleneck, believe it or not!

 

ok dont flame me but I thought the whole point of getting an extreme cpu is the fact that their multiplier is unlocked, not so much the bump in speed. The premium you pay for an Extreme cpu is for that privilege. Now as far as I know you can't adjust multipliers and voltages on laptops, at least not any that I'm aware of barring some unoffical bios hack. And even if they have that option in bios, without a custom cooling solution the overclock headroom will be severely limited as well. Having said all that $350 is still a good deal for those who have the cash.

As for the 60hz bottleneck yeah that's a problem. But it's always nice to know you won't dip below that when you need it most - ie in a huge firefight in close quarters with 30 other ppl in the same room and all the eye candy on. Ideally you want to have a min fps of 60 playing at your monitors native res with the eye candy on and a beast of a cpu to go with a beast of a gpu sure doesn't hurt

 

Yes, you're basically right. The extreme CPUs have both unlocked multipliers and the latest top-of-the-line speeds. The unlocked multiplier is more important, as it allows a more flexible overclock. It isn't all reliant of the FSB.

The latest Asus notebooks, such as the C90s include the ability to overclock as a fundamental selling point. In fact, they let you overclock non-extreme processors - a feature reserved for relatively high end motherboards. Clevo hasn't yet gone this route.

With the new extreme mobile processor line, it is likely that overclocking will become more mainstream in notebooks. It probably won't happen for another few months at least, however.

 

Which is sad because my D901C has great stock cooling, I rarely get above 60C even with fans on auto and 100% cpu usage.

 

I've decided not to go for the X6800 and get the E6700. I did consider PCMicroworks and the sale, but something about their web site rubs me wrong. It may come down to a coin flip between Powernotebooks and XoticPC. From what I can see they are just about the same. :confused2:

I have been emailing each of them with various questions so I sent them one more: Why should I pick you over the other since you're both so similar? It will be interesting to see what responses I get.:yes:

 

for me, i chose xoticpc because of their 3 year standard warrenty (1 year through sager, 2nd and 3rd year through xoticpc) on the 9260.

 

Both are great resellers with long term reputations for excellent customer support. Since Sager builds and warrants the laptop for both, the only real differences are:

1. PowerNotebooks.com offers Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Customer Service...Xoticpc does not.

2. Xoticpc.com does not have 24/7 support, but they will waive labor charges if you have to send it in to them for repairs during the 2 years after your Sager warranty expires. You have to send it back to Xoticpc in Nebraska and pay the shipping both ways (which you would have to do anyway if you sent it to Sager after their warranty expires), and wait for them to get any necessary parts from Sager in California. So you have to decide whether you want to pay the $80 labor charge from Sager (I have never seen it go higher than that) and get it back faster while also enjoying Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Customer Service from PowerNotebooks.com, or save the labor charge with Xoticpc but take longer to get it back.

 

Reps from both companies got back to me.

The main differences are that Xotic offers custom paint. I was seriously leaning towards this, but after waiting so long before taking the plunge, didn't want to wait that much longer

Powernotebooks has 24 hour support. This is fairly important as none of my desktop's problems happened during regular busineess hours.

I received prompt, courteous replies from both organizations and would like to thank them both. :yes:

 

Just finished ordering from Powernotebooks:

Sager NP9260 -
17" WUXGA
DUAL NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7950 GTX
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6700 2.66GHz Processor
4GB (2 SODIMMS) DDR2/667 Dual Channel Memory
2 200GB SATA/150 Hard Drive at 7,200 RPM 200GB RAID Disabled
Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW Drive Windows Vista Ultimate - (64-Bit installed - 64 and 32-bit CD included) Microsoft Office 2007 SBE (plus PwrPoint & Publisher)
extre Full Range Auto Switching AC Adapter
TV Tuner for Sager NP9260 MCE -
Sager 3 Year Warranty - NP9890/9750/9260/5960

Can't wait

 

My card was charged and it's in build. Never thought I'd be so happy to put so much on my card at one time. :laugh:

 

looks like you picked out a fine machine...dont be like me and decide you hate vista after a week of gaming on it...