Help me decide! Sager or Samsung

Now I realise that if I ask whether I should buy a Sager or a Samsung in a forum of people who love Sager laptops that the chances of getting a truly objective answer are slim, but here goes!

I currently have an aging Asus G50VT-X5 with a 9800 GS and a Core2Duo P8800. It's lasted me about 4 years and I love it, but it's time for an upgrade. I have been following very keenly the slow release of the new Samsung Chronos series (there is a c. 370 page thread about it in the Samsung section), since it has a lot of nice features - lightweight, 10 hour battery life, AMD 8870m video and an i7 CPU. The 17" version is $1300 - Series 7 17.3

The few people that have one say the 8870m in that lappy performs around the same as a GT670 in some games and at the GT650 in others, mostly due to throttling designed in by Samsung due to only having a 90W PSU and a very thin chassis.

I have narrowed down my next laptop to be either the 17" Chronos linked above, or a P170EM with very similar specs, except I would choose a 675MX GPU in the P170EM. They cost around the same, but the Sager would presumably be able to game at the Full HD resolution much better with the 675MX compared to the throttled 8870m. My current Asus does just fine in games I play (Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV are the most intensive ones I play at present), but I have to turn down a few details, however it only has a 1366x768 screen, so I would need twice as much GPU grunt just to stay level.

I can't decide if I would be happy with the nicer looking but lower performing Samsung, or the more utilitarian looking but more powerful (and upgradable) Sager - please help!

TL;DR - Please convince me that Sager is a better choice than Samsung to play Skyrim & Fallout for a few years at FullHD.

Thanks for any tips/suggestions.

 

Yeah, it's obviously a better choice for gaming. The 675mx is more powerful than the 8870m at stock clocks, but it also overclocks like crazy. Add in better cooling and a larger psu and it's the obvious choice if gaming is your main concern.

If you're more concerned with battery life and portability, the Samsung may be a better choice. I don't know how much it weighs compared to a P170EM though.

In the end, you'll have to decide which one will better suit your needs.

 

Sounds like you've pretty much summed it up yourself. Get the Samsung because aesthetically it looks better to you, or the Sager because its performance is better. If you're looking for gaming which by what you've said you are, then the video cards in the Sager are much better. Its always nice to have a good looking computer but when you're actually using it wether for gaming or otherwise you're not looking at the computer you're looking at the screen and performance. I'd go Sager for sure.

 

Not only is the sager faster in graphics you will in the very least have an upgrade option to the 680M down the line.

 

Their laptops are so nice. If Samsung carried high-end Nvidia cards, I'd probably jump ship.

 

Thanks for the comments, I am pretty sure it will be a Sager, since at the end of the day, who needs 10 hours of battery? I don't think you can use the dedicated GPU in the Samsung on battery anyway, so gaming on a transatlantic flight (I make that trip 4 or 5 times a year) is not going to happen!

I would love to get the 680m in there, however the cost is just too much at the moment, it might also be faster than my desktop GPU (a GTX460) and that's silly, since I would game on the desktop when at home, so having an uber GPU in the laptop sitting there idle makes little sense to me.

So, Sager then. Almost certain now. 15 or 17 inch though...

 

I mean later, in the clevo its an mxm card so you can upgrade it. As it is the 675mx pretty much matches your 460 desktop especially when tweaked.

 

Typically Clevo units offer the best bang for the buck. And as Meaker mentioned, you have upgrade options available to you with the Sager, where as Samsung warranty enforces that - much like many manufacturers - if you open the case, you void your warranty with them.

 

If you're expecting to game on battery with the dedicated GPU, forget it. Unless you have a nVidia 640m or 650m or AMD 7670m you will more or less need to use your integrated GPU. 675mx would run at a greatly reduced performance, probably faster than integrated GPU (HD 4000) but it would also drain the battery very quickly. You'll get about 4 hours on power saver mode just browsing or doing basic tasks. Gaming with IGP maybe 2.5-3. Gaming with dedicated, even reduced performance like 1.5 hours at best.

As for 15 or 17 inch, depends on what you plan to do with it. If you're going to travel a lot with it, the 15 inch makes sense. I wish I bought the 17 inch though for several reasons:
1. Larger screen - after using a 17 inch going back to my 15 inch seems a bit small, lol
2. Storage - room for dual 2.5" drives + optical
3. XTU - Intel XTU support so you can get an extra 400MHz out of your 37x0 or 38x0 chip if desired
4. PSU - You can find larger power supplies using the 4-pin connector that if/when you go to overclock you won't be bottle-necked by the PSU. 15 inch uses a typical cylinder connector.

The only real downside I see is the 17 inch is a bit bigger and heavier as is the PSU, so weight and bulk may be a problem if you intend on traveling a lot with it.