P150sm or P157sm? 8970 or 780m? 802.11AC or 1202? Decisions, decisions...

I am finalizing my specs for my next laptop that I will order in a week's time. I have everything figured out except for a few minor things - which model, which GPU and which wireless adapter. ) I am turning to you on this forum to help me figure out what I should do.

I am going back and forth between the p157 and the p150. Part of me looks at the 157 and goes "oooh, pretty lights! I like! I want!" and another part of me going "Umm, dummy, you need those things just as much as you need another hole in your head". I believe the systems are basically identical other than visual cues. Is this correct? Which is the "better" system?

I mostly will be using my system for VMs, web browsing, occasional gaming (CoD, Need For Speed, etc) and office applications. I know that I will not need anything greater than the 8970 but wonder if I would get much bang for my buck by upgrading to the 780? Your thoughts?

I have a Linksys E4200 wireless router at home with no plans of changing it in the near term. I don't know if going to an AC series adapter will do me any good or not. I have a laptop with a 1103 in it and am pretty satisfied with it so far other than having to restart my router once a week because the laptop will no longer be able to connect to the 5ghz channel.

I have 2 Plextor mSata drives from something I attempted earlier this Summer that I will want to put in this new laptop in RAID 0. I know both of these systems can handle this function but are the Plextor drives going to be a problem?

Sorry for all the questions but I want to see if anyone can see anything I am considering being a mistake, can give insight on my possible configurations or such. What would you do if you were in my shoes?

 

The 8970M offers absolutely insane bang for your buck. I've never seen another mobile card offer the performance per dollar that the 8970M (and the 7970M before it) gives you. There really is no reason to upgrade to the 780M if the 8970M will suit your needs, especially if you'll only be doing "occasional gaming".

 

It comes down to $$ if you want to spend it get the 780m as is fastest, if best value the AMD will hold that.

As for wireless, I vote on the Intel AC card.

It's future proof and not to mention the 1202 card is going to be replaced in the next 12 months with an AC variant (can't share more details beyond that).

The ping time on the 7260-AC for me is identical to the 1202 card (I own both and have swapped back and forth a few times to test). The way I see it is the 1202 card has extra bloatware (I call it) that will do QoS basically, but in honesty a good router will do this for you properly setup. Not to mention the 7260 will do 866Mbps with an AC compatible router vs. the 1202 will be limited to 300Mbps. That aside both have BT 4.0 and the later Intel drivers have stabilized the issues they had.

FWIW my AC card syncs at 780Mbps on avg. with a response time of 1ms from my laptop to the router.

As far as 157 vs. 150 they are almost identical. The 157 will have an extra drive bay and slightly better cooling due to different vent placement. Both will have backlit keyboard. The 150 to me looks better and more professional and the 157 looks a bit larger, but it is though not as bad as it makes it look considering the small difference. I decided on the 157 because of the cooling and TBH all the people with cooling issues I have seen seem to be the older case style like the 150.

 

Yeah, I was pretty sure the 8970 would be the best option for video - ~$200 more to go to the 780 didn't sound too exciting.

Going to max ram at 32GB because all the VMs I will be running and it isn't that expensive of a upgrade.

I will go with the AC wireless. I was thinking the same thing - future-proofing. If I want to go to a new Bigfoot Wireless card, I will get one when they adopt the AC standard.

Right now, I am leaning towards the 157 but keep going back and forth. Part of me wants to save the $ and go with the 150 but another is doing the "ooh, it sparkles" of the 157 and goes that way. Maybe when i am ready to order, I will just flip a coin and let it decide.

 

I went with the P157SM because it offered the extra HDD space.

Part of me wishes the P157SM had a different touchpad logo... The tribal symbol is kinda.... yeah...

If only Sager customized their touchpad like XMG

 

you can turn it off. there was a thread about it some whereee

 

Mine disables with the middle row of backlit keyboard keys. I personally don't like the Clevo logo one... Though FWIW I don't like the case design of the new clevo's neither but the better cooling made me spring for it over the older design, which I loved! :/ these new ones look more old school because how much thicker they look. They technically are not THAT much thicker but because they don't contour towards the front and base as much they look much thicker.

People have seen mine and thought it was super old lol. I guess on upside less chance to get stolen hah.

 

To those who recommended the 8970M: The card no doubt offers good value, but what about AMD driver issues? Future AMD driver support? Performance of DX 9 games? We saw tons of stories about the 7970M...

 

Actually the card that really changed the stagnating mobile game was the 5870M for me, but as for the decision of hardware.

780M if you can afford it (and wont affect the rest of your build), otherwise the 8970M is an excellent choice.

 

Due to the factors of using my laptop in an academic / professional environment, not wanting it to attract attention to itself with lights / flashy contours, and the fact that AMD drivers tend to be hit or miss for me - whereas nVidia drivers have never given me problems - I went with the GTX 780m. Yes, it was a $250 upgrade for my NP8265-S, however I find that the games I play (Dirt 3, NFS Shift 2: Unleashed, Project CARS) have a consistently easier time with nVidia drivers than with AMD drivers, and that's in spite of the fact Dirt 3 is considered an "AMD: Gaming Evolved" game.

Once I have my 780m'd NP8250 in my hands, I'll be able to give a better impression of how it behaves / handles cooling the CPU / GPU.

Jason

 

The 157 vs 150 doesn't have any extra flashy lights. The ONLY extra lighting is the touchpad, which can be disabled.

 

Is the logo visible when the light is off?

 

I have a Sager np 8265-s (P150SM) with an 8970m since Wednesday. So far it's been pretty stellar, maxing out on most games and no driver issues so far. IMO I prefer the sleek minimalist look of the P150SM than the P157SM. Also the fancy backlight keyboard is customizable with a variety of colors and tempo.

 

I have made my decision - P157sm, 780m, 32GB RAM, 802.11AC, 2x 120GB Plextor mSATA, IC Diamond, 750GB HD, Blu-Ray Burner and such. Now I just need to get a reseller to respond to my emails.....

 

I'd advise against 32 GB ram... you do need Professional or Ultimate editions to make use of it. I'd also question if you REALLY need to spend 200-300$ on the RAID configuration. I've never used it myself, but I've never seen a point in it besides faster boot speeds.

 

Those are useful for some people.

 

You would need a very specific usage pattern to though, so it's worth bringing up for the vast majority of users it's not required.

 

I mostly will be using my system for VMs, web browsing, occasional gaming (CoD, Need For Speed, etc) and office applications. I know that I will not need anything greater than the 8970 but wonder if I would get much bang for my buck by upgrading to the 780? Your thoughts?

Based on that, I think you should decide between a 770M and 780M. For my own reasons, I will never recommend mobile AMD hardware.
- The games you listed seriously will have little impact on say a 770M.
- It seems to me if you are using it for VMs etc, you may be more computer savvy and have other projects other than benchmarking and gaming like the majority of NBR. I'd splurge on the CPU, ram and SSD instead. I know from using VM's I could never have too much ram, too much CPU or too much I/O. I/O will always be the bottleneck for doing anything serious.
- Upgrading the SSD to the fastest 500GB Samsung SSD + 770M or just 780M? I'd take the SSD+770M myself. I am very sure you will get over 100 FPS in COD with 770M and 60+ in Need For Speed, possibly even on the upcoming version running on FrostBite engine. Current NFS games are chump change for the my 675MX, which is similar to the 770M. For reference the NFS I own are Shift, Shift 2 and Most Wanted.

Good luck with your purchase.

 

The other consideration is that adding in an SSD later is much cheaper than upgrading the GPU and a lot easier.

 

Storage is not an issue for me. This laptop will have 750gb Seagate 7200rpm hybrid HD for data, the 2x 240GB Plextor mSata drives in RAID 0 for OS and Apps. If I run out of space on the laptop, I will move things over to my home server. That system has a Nexsan SATABeast and has MORE than enough storage for my lifetime. (42x 1.5TB drives in a 4u enclosure....my wife says I BETTER NOT run out of space anytime in my lifetime. I have used about 20% of the total in the 4 years I have had this system.)

As I said, I am going to be getting a 4700 (MIGHT do the 4800), the 780M, 32GB ram and am set with the HDs for the moment. Meaker nailed it when it is going to be cheaper to add a SSD (if I want one) in the future than it is to upgrade the CPU/GPU in the future.

 

Yeah and your current setup is hardly much of a poor man's choice.

 

I think Meaker knows what a SATABeast is then.

Going to place my order for my laptop today. Can't wait to get it.

 

Rather than the two mSATA you could maybe get a single Samsung evo and the 750 XT in the 157SM (the evo is thin enough for the 2nd bay in it).

 

Going with the mSATA because I have 2 of them on the shelf here gathering dust. A customer ordered them and never came to get them.

Ordered the P157SM Special Edition earlier today. I hope I get it before I go on travel on the 28th but if not, I will just have to try to rip it out of my son's grubby fingers once I return.

 

Cool, well you have that 7mm bay free anyway, so you can always add another drive later without removing anything in there.