NP9280 vs NP8760

Im looking at getting one of these two machines, the deciding factor I think will be how much better the I7 than the I7 mobile.
Does anyone know how much of a performance drop there is from the desktop i7 to the mobile version?
Thanks

 

When running WinPrime we found the below between the Mobile and Desktop i7

Sager NP9280 with i7 965 (test ran at 3.193GHz) gets 8.064 Sec in the 32M Test and 317.945 Sec in the 1024M Test

Sager NP8690 (same CPU as 8760) with i7 920XM (test ran at 3.154GHz) gets 10.811 Sec in the 32M Test and 373.697 Sec in the 1024M Test

Screen shots attached. (1st 8690, 2nd 9280)

 

Im not really knowledgeable about benchmarks and stuff, I always thought that mobile versions of desktop parts didn't perform aswell as their counterparts.
But with those tests they seem to be comparable.

I guess what im asking is, is the general consensus that the i7 mobile is worth the slightly slower speeds for extended battery life, lower cost etc. or are the differences in those tests greater then I'm seeing?

 

IMO -
It really depends on the application usage on if the desktop i7 will be more benificial for you or not.
The thermal dissapation of the deskop i7 will be more and throw off additional heat and consume additional power. Of course the new 8760 looks to have similar if not superior cooling.
As far as battery life, we would all assume the mobile (since it should draw less power) should extend the battery life.
Yes slower speeds but has the new turbo modes so which is why the Prime or pi tests will be close. Where the mobile will probably lose out on is in multitasking and applications like Photoshop CS4 and CPU intensive tasks.

 

I would go with the NP8760. If you can afford the 920M, it isn't much slower than the desktop i7's. The updated turbo function from Lynnfield architecture is a vast improvement. Form factor is the most obvious difference between the two, the NP9280 is the largest laptop on the market. The tradeoff is of course the X58 chipset, as well as a 3rd HDD, and perhaps mildly better GPU cooling. But the NP8760 still has RAID and more than enough performance with mobile i7. It should fair better on battery as well, but not much better, you're still in the 1-2 hour range.

 

I agree with anothergeek. Unless you absolutely need cutting edge CPU performance across all 4 cores, the 8760 is the one to beat in this comparison. Nevermind it has an LED screen and will give you better battery life (lol).

The weight/size award is a toss up between the Alienware M17x and NP9280:

M17x.........................16.0 x 12.65 x 2.02-2.11 @ 11.68lbs

NP9280.......................15.5 x 11.75 x 2.35 @ 11.55lbs

The M17x is bigger overall, but the PSU adapter of the NP9280 negates that.

 

To the OP:
Honestly you won't really notice the difference in every day usage, and gaming won't suffer right now. The only thing you need to consider is in the future ( 1+ years, and even now ) more and more applications with be quad/octa threaded and the turbo mode with the mobile i7 does not use all 4 cores at top speed ( 4 at clock, 2 at turbo, and 1 at high end), whereas the desktop i7 will use 4 cores and 8 threads(HT) at it's original clock. The 8760 is somewhat a rocky launch IMO, check out the screen quality post in the forum, and also performance wise 8690/8760 are quite alike, but as far as I know the screen seems a bit better on the 8690. Also anandtech noted the 8760 had a few loose ends design wise, whether this is due to their sample, or a general problem with all of the laptops, id still wait and see what others say. Go check out the owner's lounge for the 8760, the 8690, and the 9280 to get the best idea of what is right for you.

 

Turbo boost does use all 4 cores, but with far less increase in mhz compared to only one core.

 

226mhz on quad, 1006 on dual, and 1200 on single for the 920 to be exact.
It's an impressive chip... but honestly it's a niche chip, Arrandale is what the hype is all about( lower power consumption).
Dual core with HT I believe, mobile core i7 has no HT correct? Although the future is going to be these hybrid GPU/CPU chips for laptop power conservation.

 

All mobile i7 and projected mobile i5 has HT. It's the Lynnfield desktop i5s that lack it.

 

Eh? The mobile i7s have HT as well? If so I suggest those... the HT will do wonders. But remember a good factor, if you carry it around often, the battery life will be a lot better with the 8760 for 3 reasons

1 - Mobile processors have the deeper sleep functions than the desktops. My old C2D would use maybe 10, 15% over a 16-18 hour period while in sleep, whereas the 9280 I currently own would use that in a 4-6 hour period. And that's only after using sleep mode repeatedly, as normally it used to consume more energy sleeping than it does now. To my knowledge, I did not receive a BIOS update, and I never manually flashed the BIOS nor received a notification that a flash was to be performed, so I must chalk this up to the "learning" ability of the i7 desktops. At the start, it WILL drain plenty power to sleep.

2 - The mobile i7s drain less power than the desktop counterparts, which mean more battery time for you, even if only by a slight margin.

3 - The battery type in the 8760 is not a Li-Ion battery, it is a Li-Poly battery. These are newer than the Li-Ions and provide better battery life than their older brothers.

And then, Li-Ion batteries cannot give the desktop i7s their full charge drain of 145W because their total output power is 95W. This means that even though the battery drains quickly already, your computer's performance (noticeable when using 3D apps such as video games, hell even Runescape HD started to lag me) will suffer dramatically. For watching videos and browsing the net etc it will not matter, nor will using say... ePSXe to play your PSX games. But anything like WoW or intensive processor/gpu-based applications will cry for that wall plug. The mobile processor should not have this problem, which sounds like a very good idea to me. If I had to choose a laptop again, I may have gone with the NP9850 or M17x and taken the slower processor simply because of battery performance.

I'm not saying the 9280 is a bad machine, I love it to bits and I use it every day, it never turns off unless I want to clean it or I put it to sleep to head to class or something. It's a dream of a machine. But in the end, its weakness is that it starves for a wall plug to do anything significant, and the battery takes forever to charge. Depending on your intended lifestyle, taking a mobile-structured processor may be the best plan. The advantages in the battery life and performance, as well as the smaller size and weight, and the idea that a plug is not needed undeniably is a serious factor to consider. If you really need all the processor power you can get, go with the 9280 and forget other machines hands down. If the best processor you can get is not your main concern, then by all means enjoy your 8760 and tell us how awesome it is while we lug around our beloved 9280s =)

And this long post marks my return after forgetting to log in here due to my discovering STEAM and the fact that people can "Give the Gift of a Game", without having to send me a disc through the mail. This led to me playing Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead so much that the rest of my games (and online endeavours) got their long deserved rest lol. I hope this lengthy paragraph is useful to you

 

It's too bad the 8760's are shipping with 4 cell batteries! 46whr in that laptop is crazy, if they put the 12 cell the 9280 had in it, that battery would pull the 8760 for at least 2 hours vs. the 60ish minutes it gets now.

 

I don't mind the small battery.

 

Li-Polymer batteries have cells in them? I thought the point of Li-Poly's were to get *away* from having set numbers of cells?
And soviet it looks like you only post in topics after I've had some sort of say in them! MWahahahahahahha

 

D2 ultima your points about the mobile i7 using less power are pretty mute when comparing these two laptops. The massive battery actually gives the 9280 longer battery life. The scores are so close for these two systems that really people have to decide based on the weight, battery life and looks.

 

I tell you my machine can pump out an hour at the most. If that other machine is the same, then okay. If it's less, well.... meh. If it's more, then hurray. At the very least the performance on battery would be better for it. That part I know for sure. This machine seems to be completely crippled no matter what I do once it hits battery life. Anything resembling a 3D app will simply not perform as it could. I remember back on my old HP I could game Unreal 2004 on battery or plugged in and get the same performance. I do believe that should be how the mobile i7s work.

 

you have to disable powermizer via registry. The result will be the same with the 8760 since this affects the gpu.

 

They're still considered cells, but they can be any shape and size now because li-poly isn't constrained to cylindrical metal casings.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5371388&postcount=38