Is this a bad time to buy anything?

I was very close to purchasing the P150HM after much, much deliberation and research (and considering the X7200). I was going to get a 6990M, 2760QM notebook.

Then I learned more about the upcoming Ivy bridge processors and the Nvidia 6XX mobile GPUs. (The AMD 7970 GPU doesn't seem to impress right now.)

I would greatly appreciate any opinions about what I should do. And perhaps any informed timeframe, since I was wanting a notebook soon. I have been hearing Q1-Q2 for release dates.

Also, will the Ivy bridge or Nvidia 6XX be compatible with the P150HM?

 

The Ivy Bridge mobile processors are not backwards compatible. Last I heard, the new graphics cards *should* work with the current MXM 3.0 slots.

Also, I'm guessing the new bleeding-edge graphics cards will be expensive once again. Think about the prices of both the 6990M and GTX 580M when they first came out. They've dropped in prices significantly. The graphics cards in the middle will probably stay at the similar prices though. So, if you're waiting to grab the top-notch gear, then be ready to pay the premium for it.

 

I would say yes, and the next refresh will be approximately around May-June.
As for compatibility, for the CPU, no it's not. For GPU, no one knows if NVIDIA will revise MXM or not.
If you need a laptop now, get it. If you don't and can wait, then you can wait for the refresh.
Next refresh brings backlit keyboard and Optimus to P150/151.

 

Exactly the same position I was in last month and many are really focused on the new Ivy Bridge being able to take over the world and destroy King Kong.

Dont wait do it. The 6990M paired with the 2760QM as per my sig results is an absolute beast. You wont be able to upgrade later to the Ivy but the 7 Series is hopeful as long as we get a BIOS update.

Here is why.

Pro's of waiting.

- Newer architecure
- Faster processing and less heat output and power consumption by having a smaller die
- Better performance

Con's

- You have to wait
- The difference in performance will not be visible
- The difference in price will be visible
- The CPU's at release will be nothing compared to second release later in 2012 of the higher performance Ivy Bridge CPU's
- The recent information suggests that although the GPU gets a gain in performance it is only slight and is more focused on less heat less power consumption.

Why wait? Who uses a Clevo to game on the battery anyway? I was hung up on this and so glad I made the choice I am loving my new model if only it had the backlit keyboard which is more of a reason to wait IMO. Buy now. in 12-18 months upgrade to the Ivy for a great price, newer models, high end releases when they are more affordable.

Finally everything comes out with problems I enjoy gettings things when they have been out for a while remember the G73JH at release anyone? I DO!

I rest my case.

 

The die will be about the same size, its the smallest piece that will be in 22nm, the arch will have some revamp, since you cant get smaller components and have it at the same way.

Indeed the difference in performance wont be that noticeable. However there is the possibility of optimus so better battery life, and some form of AMD switching.

The recent info on gpu performance is that the gtx 660m has 14k 3dmark vantage score, so its on the same level of the 6990m which is a remarkable score, the 6990m is almost as fast as 2 gtx 560m.

And regarding the comment on the 7970 performance, its IMPOSSIBLE that a 6990m can reach that kind of performance, simply because the 6990m is a 6870 underclocked. And if you look at some decent benchmarks, the 7970 is faster than the gtx 580 and loses in performance only for the 590 and the 6990, and not by much, since both are dual gpu cards.
AnandTech - XFX?s Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation: The First Semi-Custom 7970

descent benchmarks

 

I said the die will be smaller which it will be just because its only slightly smaller what was the point in correcting what I said? lower nm 22 compared to 32 we have at the moment it will be smaller.

Also how can you compare a HD 7970 which not only has a much larger bus width consumes a vast amount more power to a mobility card that has not yet been released? You cannot say that the mobile version of the high end 7 series is going to be anything yet because no one knows what it is going to be like. The 6990M is similiar to a 6870 but if you compare the high end card the series before that the 5870M that only compared to a mid range 5 series desktop card. The mobile version of a high end 7 series IMO is going to be a mile off what the desktop equivilent can output and nowhere near as powerful as you are claiming it is going to be.

Price vs performance vs time the OP buying the 2760QM + 6990M puts him in very good stead to upgrade when prices drop and better models are released.

 

Depends on what you want. I don't desire Optimus, a back-lit keyboard, or the CPU's performance increase that comes with Ivy Bridge enough to wait a few months.

I won't rule out upgrading down the line though, if it's enticing enough.

 

I personally don't want Optimus as it has proven numerous times that it's buggy as hell and am actually glad that they don't put Optimus on high end gaming laptops.

I will buy a new laptop in 2 years of time anyway. (It will be obsolete by then.)

 

pretty bad time to buy electronic devices.. new devices are releasing now on CES and MWC (which is soon) and then current devices will start dropping a while later..

buying now would mean u are getting "older" tech at the current price which has not dropped yet..

 

is that 14k on the 660m confirmed? afaik the 660 is a midranged card.

 

It's unconfirmed. But we will see everything unveils in April for sure

 

Heres why Im buying my np8150 this week:

The sandy bridge processors and the AMD 6990 are JUST getting touched. These hardware are less than a year old people, and as far as Im concerned they are amazingly fast, and quite futureproof for the next few years.

You wont notice a big performance boost with this years refresh. The performance will stay relatively the same. Its the power consumption and efficiency hardware makers are focusing on. 2011 was all about performance IMO.

2012 will be about design, and efficiency. We have already reached a decent spot performance wise on mobile units.

ALSO: the LAST thing I care about on a powerful laptop, is some childish backlit keyboards.
Backlit keys are terrible. I can barely stand chiclet keys, why make them even less reliable by putting features like backlit keys? Resources and energy consumption that can used elsewhere on a laptop... HERP DERP. enjoy your back lit keys no one cared about 5 years ago. Dont cry if you spill a drop of soda on those precious keys.

And isnt the nvidia gtx 660m just a rebranding of the gtx 560m slightly overlocked?

 

No it isn't a rebadged. It will be based on new architect and the die is shrunk to 28mm. The buying now and waiting is up to personal pref really, you can wait you wait, you need it you buy it

 

In my opinion, now is the perfect time to get a new gaming notebook, especially if you are concerned about price. Under $1500 for the best gaming performance in a single-GPU notebook is a steal and you will likely not encounter a better price-to-performance ratio in current tech for some time in the future; Namely, not until AMD is back on-par with Nvidia/Intel, which they won't be later this year.

 

as fi3ryicy pointed out it is the worst time to buy... if you can wait till April at least.

 

April is the month for specs to unveil. May is the month to see new expensive models..

 

Don't wait. Buy it when you need to.

And I don't recommend buying new tech. There are bound to be bugs, some can be quite serious.

You missed end of year big sales though.

So, if you choose to wait, it works like this.

Wait for May - June for new laptop with new tech with a little premium. Around that time, forum people will warn you to wait a little longer since it's new tech and price is higher.

So, you wait until maybe September - October. Then you should wait until Christmas for big sales.

Ok, so you wait until end of 2012. Then news of newer tech will emerge. Some people will urge you to wait.

Fine, so you wait. You find newer tech around 2013 May - June (again, see the pattern?) Price is again higher than it should be and can be buggy. Some people urge you to wait for price to go down and bugs to be sorted out.

Uh..., so you wait until maybe 2013 October? Then there is a big sale around end of 2013.

.... Ugh, so you wait until end of 2013. Again, people urge you to wait for even more sparkling tech of 2014 !

You wait forever.

 

This, 1000x.

I'm waiting 'till the end of the summer a) because I want maximum future-proof-ness and b) because my current sigged system will probably hold me over until then. I'd buy as early as May if it was out then, but I can wait until the end of the summer if necessary so the new stuff is out and has been put through its paces a fair bit.

I prefer buying new tech when it's new since gamebreaking hardware bugs are pretty rare, except for stuff like heat production in the 4XX series, which was apparently a little on the high end. Software bugs, ie things fixable by new drivers, are more common but naturally get fixed by new drivers. Either way I don't plan on buying anything until some reviews are out, of course, all of which will push new technology to the max with challenging tests that reveal things like weak performance or overheating.

Ideally I get solid gaming performance for 3 years with a given system, and that's what I can expect if I buy new stuff when it comes out. Buying year-old GTX 580M or 6990M systems isn't for me since that third year will likely be the point where performance starts to dip a fair bit. Besides, 3-year warranties nicely coincide with this sort of buying policy on my part.

Hell, even new tech, such as my GTX 260M system which people were calling totally futureproof when I bought it in the summer of 2009 (just a few months after it came out), starts to show its age in the third year. My system nearly melted thanks to The Witcher 2, even on low settings, and I consider myself blessed that Skyrim runs somewhat stably on Med-High settings. But since I don't plan on any more system-crushing gaming until the summer, I can live with what I have since it plays stuff like L4D2, Skyrim, SC2, and others just fine.

 

Games like the Witcher 2 are more the exception than the rule.
Even your present system will hold out for most games till the new consoles arrive if you don't mind playing in medium settings

Sent from my samsung galaxy s2 using tapatalk

 

This is unrelated to the topic of graphics cards, but one of the reasons I bought in December rather than waiting was because of Intel's modus operandi. I wanted to make sure I buffered myself as far away from the next Intel architectural "tock" as possible. I just feel more comfortable skipping a die-shrink generation rather than a fancy-new-architecture generation.

Yes, I did go Clevo for the purpose of graphics-heavy gaming. BUT, I still feel more comfortable future-proofing from the processor on out to balance work and play.

 

It can either be good or bad depending on your definition. I personally think it's always a good time to buy considering the market regulates itself.

 

As far as i know, i were in the same position as you a week ago. I choose not to wait and order a P150HM. Most especially because i expected 6xx/7xxx series to come out in april/may but these will be only the entry graphic cards, not the most powerful one. You will have to wait a good year before getting a good one. This count the new graphic card being released, once its released you need to check review/benchmark for the card and them you need settle your choice comparing this new generation with its predecessor.

 

There is no 'best' time....order it when you need it. At any moment, there will either be deals available on older models with the last generation of technology, or new models will be on the way in (and more expensive, and possibly have performance issues).

 

Kawich, as a matter of fact, all GTX 660m,670m and 675m will be released in April/May. We just haven't heard anything on the GTX 680m

 

I agree with Yiddo, go ahead and buy now if you wait 3-4 months, by the time you buy you'll want to wait for the next best thing. There's always SOMETHING on the Horizon, so you just gotta pull the trigger and be happy with it.

I am THRILLED that I purchased, and so far my laptop has met all my expectations and exceeded them. I don't think you need to wait.

 

nVidia tends to enroll their most powerful machinery later on... damn

 

Given the snapshots of the ivy birdge desktops cpus and how they are the same size, I dont see how this is going to turn out for laptops, the guess is that they will have the same die size. The fabrication process is another story, if that were true, my P series processors should have to be larger than my current second gen i core series. Another further proof of the same die size is that they are still going to use the same socket, although as it stands right now, there wont be an upgrade path for mobile ivy cpus for sb owners.

It wasnt meant for you. The op stated in this thread and in another thread how a 6990m was more powerful than the 7970. Which cant be at all true. And sincerely from what you wrote you didnt read what I posted.

The good comparisons will be exactly when reviews starts to roll for the gts 650 and gtx 660 and the 7870/50/90

The cpu upgrade wont be that good. However given that there is going to be optimus in the next gen, I dont see no reason to wait.

As you can see from the gtx 460m/560m and the jump in performance to the gtx 485m/580m yes, I still think that the gpu will be much more powerful than we currently have. The 560m already reaches 8k-10k in 3dmark vantage. To increase to what people where talking about in the 660m thread in the gaming forums, is a meaningless improvement to say the least.

I disagree and...?

 

The 2760QM falls just below a 2920XM in terms of performance. No point in waiting.

and seriously? Optimus is about as useful as a chocolate teapot in a laptop the size of the moon.

 

Read everything here, thought for a while and: Purchased! Please do not stop the discussion on my behalf. It's definitely interesting and enlightening thread. Personally, I am good financially, so upgrades in a year to year-and-a-half aren't out of the question. And I needed the notebook much more soon than I realized. I am cutting it a bit close, in fact. Upgraded to 2860QM also.

Also, @yiddo, that is one hell of an overclock.

 

When you get it fully updated and working as it should do and your comfortable with it post back please and say if it was the right choice to make.

I coughed up a lot of money in the UK for mine umm'd and err'd for months after I was burgled and lost my Asus and this setup is by far one of the best choices I have made with my money, and I am crap with money!

 

Wise choice. I generally never wait for new tech to come along. I buy when I need to. I only wait when there is a big sale coming within 2 weeks.

 

I absolutely will! I have a feeling I will be thoroughly satisfied though. I am already excited! I plan to overclock as soon as I can. Actually, I found this post of yours, yiddo, and it seemed like good advice. Especially considering your overclock is that high.

Check out that sexy signature

 

Enjoy it remember to check the load temps before overclocking you dont want the scare I had when they applied my thermal compound poorly and I ran a stress test and it hit 115oC I am sure you wont have a problem as your Malibal chaps seem to know what they are doing over there sadly the UK equivelent did not. Want something done properly do it youself, with ICD

The 6990M overclocks very well from what I have seen I seem to have been lucky with this card my old 5870M was awful for overclocking its the luck of the draw as every card is different.

 

Congrats! I think it was a good decision, and DAMMNN nice configuration.

 

Nice settings iknowkungfu2

 

Thanks!

 

I would love to wait til April, but I can't take the wait!
That and it doesn't seem like the Ivy Bridge platform will be the great of a leap, and I think current laptops are plenty strong enough as is.

 

Agree, There is always something new on the horizon and if you just wait, you can get it. Eventually you have to pull the trigger and do something and my Latitude isn't cutting it anymore.

 

Just to add a bit in, GTX 660m is not a rebadged of 560m

 

IMHO, if you're waiting for the Next Generation because it's bigger, better, and faster. You'll be waiting forever. New hardware comes out every 8-12 months. That's a trap I fell into once, but I finally bit the bullet.

The new generation's upgrades and features usually have minor performance boosts.

Buy what you can afford now, and upgrade when you can.

 

IMO, the "perfect" time balancing value and technology was in the latter half of October into early November. Basically, whenever the 6990M dropped in price is what I mean. After that, prices have not moved much. So, you could buy the latest tech for lower prices while still staying a good arms length away from Ivy Bridge, Kepler, etc.. Of course, no one could know this without the benefit of hindsight.

 

Any time's a good time, but around April will be a great time to buy. New CPUs and GPUs all around. The Ivy Bridge quadcores are getting a 400MHz increase from their Sandy Bridge counterparts. That's nearly 20%.

 

I would strongly argue against being a first adopter of new technology as you will pay a premium, are at a higher risk for defective parts, may have to wait for buggy software to get fixed (i.e. drivers for hardware).

Of course there are those people who just have to have the latest hardware mainly so they can brag about it and I consider them to be the pioneers who let me get cheaper working tech later.

 

Oh yes, ditto this, you are probably better off buying SB which will get a lot cheaper when IB gets released going to be awesome and SSD prices are going to fall a lot especially thanks to the sale and making of Ultrabooks.

 

Just made a wire transfer for new P150, 2760QM and 6990m.
Frag the progress. I need a new toy, NAUW!