I need more opinons

Ok, so my alienware on ebay is a pretty much done deal sold. So, off to Sager. I have a couple of questions though.

First, if I get the np9750, is it true that they will be releasing the nVidia Geforce 7900 GTX with 512 MB instead of 256 soon? How soon? Should I wait to buy it?

Second, I really want the most powerful laptop I can get and I'm pretty sure I don't mind carrying the 13 pounder np9750. However, the weight, how people keep saying it runs sooo hot and sooo loud... Is it worth it? Or, should I just go with that thinner 9 pound model ( forget the name, 5760 I believe) without the RAID 0 and the mere 8cell battery (I don't know what this means either... I assume it's less battery life)? It also has the intel core duo processor, and I was really counting on the spead of the amd athlon 64 x2 4200+ processor.

Is there a huge difference between x4200 and core duo 2.16 gHZ processors? The display is not as good on the 5760 either.


Thanks.

 

See this thread for info on Sager notebooks and 512MB Go7900GTX availability.

This is entirely incorrect - as a matter of fact, it runs very cool - cooler than most notebooks out there - and it is not that loud. See the review of the Alienware M7700 here - it's the same thing as the NP9750:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2841

The T2600 is faster than the Athlon 64 X2 4200+, but both are so powerful that it's hard to tell the difference between the two.
The display should be the same on both the NP5760 and the NP9750 if you get the WUXGA Super Clear Glossy . . someone correct me if I am wrong.

 

As Chaz states the displays are identical on the 5760/9750

From what i have read the X2 4200 would be very close to the T2600. I think AMD X2 4200 might have a little edge over the T2600 Here is a little bench that i read a little while back. Although this shows tests against the X2 3800, please review this bench we have done on the X2's a while back. You can review how the X2 3800 stacks against the X2 4200 & other Athlon Processors.

At this time we dont have a precise date on the arrival of the 512MB 7900GTX's

Hope this helps.

 

"if you opt for them) are used as one, single drive. The data is "striped", or distributed equally, between the drives. For example, two 80GB 7200RPM hard drives would function as a single 80GB, 14,400RPM hard drive"

Wait, so even if I get 2 harddrives at 100 GB 7200, it won't really be 200 gigs?

And that's good about the heat and noise. THis is one of the very very few reviews that don't have gripes with it.

 

That quote is not correct. When you use two 100GB drives in RAID 0 your C: will be 200GB less the normal HDD overhead. So what you will actually see will be somewhere around 185GB.

 

You are thinking of Raid 1 (Mirror). If you do the two 100GB's on a Raid 0 it will roughly around 190GB's.

 

Acutally he wasn't "thinking" he was "quoting" and the quote was talking about "if you opt for them [they] are used as one, single drive. The data is "striped", or distributed equally, between the drives." This is how RAID 0 works, so you get the storage capacity of both drives.

The only difficulty with the remainder of the quote is that it switched to what happens in RAID 1 where the data is mirrored (duplicated) on two separate drives, acting as seperate drives not a single drive, so if you were using two 100GB drives you would only see one of them in your C:, and you only get the storage capacity of one of the drives.

 

What's this about the T2600? Is that the same as the Pentium Duo 2.16ghz? Cause I'm reading nothing about a t2600 on the customize list.

 

Pardon, I didn't make my post entirely 'clear' - it is as paladin stated. 2 x 80GB 7200RPM drives in a RAID 0 is essentially a 160GB, 14400 RPM drive.

 

Yes, the Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2600 does have a clock speed of 2.16GHz.

What customize list are you talking about?

 

Dimmu,

I have a 9750 (Clevo D900K), and I am proud that I have it. It does everything that you would want a notebook does, as well as desktop tasks.

It runs warm at most, when its at load when playing major games, other than that it keeps pretty cool.

It is hands down, the most powerful, and most upgradable notebook on the market. It is the only notebook that can handle Dual Core AMD64/FX desktop socket 939 processors (including Opteron dual cores), can support dual harddrives (PATA or SATA), has dual optical drive support.

If you have the money, it is definitely a good buy, but is a bit pricey over the other models from Clevo (OEM: Sager, Alienware, Pro Star, VooDooPC, etc).

And I dont mind the weight, I dont carry it for long when it does go into transit with me.

Hope this helps,

-Gophn

 

I definately don't mind paying the money. It only came out to 3300 to max it out with 200 GB 7200 rpm harddrive in Raid 0 and 2 gigs of RAM and other things. I just don't think i need the dual optical drives because I don't burn much. I'm happy with burning cds to my computer then copying it from iTunes.

Also, the customize list I was talking about is at

5760

http://www.discountlaptops.com/index.php?section=configurator&regular_model_id=1362&model_id=1363

and 9750 is

http://www.discountlaptops.com/index.php?section=configurator&regular_model_id=1362&model_id=1363


So, the t2600 is a bit faster? I thought it wasn't. Either way, the difference isn't that noticable, 9750 provides RAID 0, and stuff, so the best choice still sounds like 9750..

Should I wait for the 512MB nvideo 7900 to come out or no? If it comes out like a couple weeks after I recieve my notebook i'll be annoyed. <_<

 

the 512mb 7900 Go GTX is not confirmed just yet, the only model of notebook that has that is Dell's XPS.

However, the Sager 5950 has total 512mb from SLI of (2) 256mb 7900 Go GTX. It has 19" LCD, nForce4 SLI chipset, and sporting Turion 64, and soon Turion 64 X2 (dual core).

The only single 512 card currently available is a nVidia Quadro FX 2500M. Hopefully that there will be a confirmed 512mb model of the 7900 Go GTX in the near future.

Game On People,
-Gophn

 

Oh that's cool. Well, I won't get the 5950 until they actually get a turion 64 x2, because now that I learned about it, I am dead set on dual cores.

So, do you think I should just go ahead adn get the 9750 with the 256 card then? Or wait.

 

Actually, I'm assuming that when the 512 card comes out, it'll be standard adn same price. It'll probably be an addition several hundred bucks to upgrade it, and I'm not prepared to pay the extra money for that card. I hear nothing but raving reviews for the 256 7900 gtx so I'll be completely content with it.

 

the 256mb version of the 7900 Go GTX is still worth it, considering that benchmarks show less than a 10% of performance difference from the 512mb version, although the extra headroom would be nice

 

I've decided to wait a couple of weeks until I order, just to see if the 512MB 7900 GTX comes out, or if some of the resellers start taking pre-orders for it. If it doesn't come out by then I'll just go ahead and order a 9750 with the 256MB 7900 GTX video card.

As an added bonus the GST (Canadian Goods & Services Tax) will drop from 7% to 6% starting July 1, so I will save a bit of money too (a whole $42, or thereabouts!). And I supposed there is also the possibility that Sager could offer another discount like they had this past week (I missed the June 15 deadline).

 

good idea to wait, but hopefully you wont have to wait long.

Go 9750 owners, lol.

-Gophn

 

DO you need to have media edition xp for a tv tuner?

 

No, it will work fine with either XP Pro or XP Home. If you do get MCE you will also need to get the Microsoft Remote for MCE, otherwise the Remote that comes with it works great.

 

I read in some faq on here that for notebooks, especially ones like I'm getting that'll already potentially run a bit hot, getting hardrive speeds of 7200 is not a good idea.

I was going to get 200 gigs at 7200, but is it a bad idea to do this? Should I opt for 240 at 5400 instead?

Thanks all. SO far you've been very helpful

 

Take a look at this thread for the pros/cons of a 7200RPM HDD.

 

Dimmu, I am currently running my notebook with (2) 120gb Seagate Momentus 5400rpm harddrives. Idle temp is 40 C, at load temp get up to 48-50 C.

Thats not really that hot at all for this notebook, 7200rpm harddrives would add 5-8 degree Celsius, cuz i started with a 100gb 7200rpm at first, then decided that i needed more space so i went to 120gb.

So heat is not that big of an issue, especially if your power management settings are optimized.

I do recommend getting a notebook cooler stand tho, just in case. Im using a Cooler Master Notepal W1, it brought my temps (mainly CPU) down 5-7 degrees Celsius. There are others out there, so you might wanna look around.

-Gophn

 

Bah. Can't anything ever be an easy choice? I want the extra 40 gigs, but I also want the speed. I probably don't NEED either of them so I guess it's just figuring out which is moere important.

 

speed...

You can always put **** elsewhere... but the spin speed you can never change.

 

Speed is correct. Don't forget you will also have at least a CD burner if not a DVD burner if you need more storage space.

 

speed is the way to go

 

If your going to do Striping (RAID 0), then speed is going to be the main factor.

Rock on, go 9750 users,

-Gophn

 

Alright then! It's decided. Speed it is. I have a desktop now with only 160 gigs and I still have 130 left so the space isn't a problem. I'm giving my desktop to my mom once my new laptop comes in. SHe has an old crappy compaq desktop with 256 ram and 40 gigs. She bought it like over 6 years ago for nearly 2 grand. =/

SO here's what I'm getting...

Sager NP 9750

Display: 17" WUXGA+ (1920 x 1200) Active Matrix , Glare-Type Display
Processor: AMD Athlon 64x2 4200+
Thermal Paste: Artic Silver 5 (AS5) Thermal CPU Paste Compound
(What the crap is thermal paste?)
Graphics Card: nVidia Geforce 7900 GTX 256 MB
RAM: 2048 MB DDR SDRAM at 400 MHZ
Harddrive: Dual drives at 200 GB 7200 RPM in RAID 0
Optical Drive: 8X DVD±R/RW / 4X+Dual Layer / 5X DVD-RAM / CD-RW Multi Drive (Pioneer DVR-k16)
THat burns DVDS which is good enough. o need for dual optical drives
Bluetooth: Internal bluetooth card
Battery: 12 cell smart battery
No TV tuner
Card Reader: Integrated 7-in-1 Card Reader
Special Feature: Integrated Video Camera / Internal Subwoofer Module
OS: XP Pro

Warranties: Sager's crappy year warranty + discountlaptop's 1 year on site/help desk warranty + 1 year LCD or accidental damage warranty. ($175 extra)

 

Oh yeah, Gophn,

"So heat is not that big of an issue, especially if your power management settings are optimized."

Once my laptop comes in, you're going to need to explain this more. <_<

 

Dimmu,

I would gladly welcome any questions from another 9750 owner.

As for power management,
- only place noebook on hard surfaces (preferably on a notebook stand cooler), don't block the vents (for the 9750: on the left side (Video card) and the back (the CPU))
- use a utility like SpeedFan or Notebook Hardware Control to monitor temps for your initial use... to make sure that all temps are normalized and not fluxing.
- I found out from Clevo that the D900k (Sager 9750) CPU Clock is "by default" in Windows XP (power setting: Portable/Laptop) to be running at half speed or lower on idle & basic use and is dynamically switched to full speed when its needed (for games, conversion, etc). So dont get bent out of shape (like me) if you see your clock at half, its fine and keeps things cool when nothing's really happening.
- Also in Power settings: make sure set a time to "turn off" hard drives after a few minutes of idle use... usually 5-10 minutes. Since you're RAID striping, this would help you when you leave your notebook for a few moments.

Lastly, and I feel to be important.
Make sure that the pre-installed OS (Windows XP) was correctly modified to fully support your dual core CPU. I say this because I have done scouting around retail stores (BestBuy, Fry's, CircuitCity, etc) with notebooks and desktops.... turns out that 100% of all of the dual core systems that I looked at was NOT properly modified to fully support the dual cores within. Tsk Tsk.

The cooling, as well as your games, would be a lil F'ed Up if only one core is taking a full load if the setting for your Windows isnt set correctly.

Therefore (here's how to check OR do it yourself):
1) The mandatory Windows XP Patch: KB896256 and the AMD Athlon 64 X2 drivers should be installed, if not download XP patch, AMD Athlon X2 Driver and install them.
2) The registry location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager should have a key named Throttle there, if not make it by right clicking, point at New > Key... name it Throttle.
3) (Still in registry) Inside Throttle key: should be a DWORD called PerfEnablePackageIdle with the value of 0. If not there, right click, point to New > DWORD... name it PerfEnablePackageIdle.
*** Note: You can type 1 in the Value data box to enable the new performance state policy behavior
4) Quit Registry.
5) Now look at your boot.ini to make sure that the command /usepmtimer is there, by right clicking on My Computer go to Properties, click on the ADVANCE tab, then under Startup and Recovery click on Settings, then click on EDIT....make sure your boot.ini looks like this.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer

That's it!

Hope this helps, game on people,

-Gophn

 

Dude you're awesome..I'll have more questions and will need you to ellaborate once I actually get the 9750 to me.

Thanks

 

If I order a 9750 from a reseller like Xotic, Discountlaptops, etc. will they configure those registry settings and install that WinXP KB896256 patch for me; or do I have to do that myself?

 

Doubtful of what i've seen from HP/Compaq, Dell, Sony, etc.

Although if Sager and Alienware are premiere notebook OEMs they might actually do the correct settings for their Dual Core systems and Notebooks.

Some1 that has recently purchased a notebook from Sager, please confirm if they have correctly Windows XP to support Dual Cores.

Since I built mine myself, I wouldnt know.

Thanks,
-Gophn

 

He was thinking of both Raid 0 and Raid 1.... Good so see we have this cleared up.