Sager 8150 build specs.... almost ready to buy!

I've been debating what I want to replace my m15x with that is no longer with me After debating, I THINK that I want to go with the 8150, as I want a high end 15" laptop.... Price really isnt an issue, but at the same time dont think i can justify spending more money for the gtx485m unless anyone can change my mind? And dont want to spend money on a SSD, but dont really know much about the hybrids.... Good idea? Bad idea? And im guessing its not worth paying for a faster processor? My understanding is that the GPU is normally the bottle neck.. But I am by no means an expert! Any help/advice would be welcome! This build was about $1700 on xoticpc.com




5.6” FHD 16:9 LED Backlit Wide screen (1920x1080) Super Clear Glare Type Screen
- Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- - 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 2.0-2.8GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache)
- -Stock OEM Thermal Compound
- ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD6970 2048MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11
- No Video Adapter
- ~ 8,192MB DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS)-
- Standard Finish
- ~Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW Drive w/Software
- ~ 500GB (w/ 4GB SSD Memory) Seagate XT 7200RPM NCQ Hybrid (Serial-ATA II 300 - 32MB Cache)

 

It looks all good If you are wondering, the bottleneck in your system is going to be the hard drive. Yes, even with a momentus XT

Mr. Mysterious

 

I've googled the hybrid drives a bit.... but I dont know if they are as good as the companies make them seem.... I'm not gonna shell out an extra grand to get a 500g SSD, i can always add one later when they are cheaper. So what does a hybrid do for me? Is it even worth getting a hybrid over a norma drive?

 

Yes, it is very much worth it. In terms of boot times, it's as close as you can get to an SSD without buying it yourself.

You don't have to buy a 500GB SSD. Just do what I am doing....Put a low-capacity SSD in the main bay drive, and put a 500GB hard drive in the optical bay slot, and use the Optical drive as an external one.

A little less portable, but soooooo worth it, IMO.

Mr. Mysterious

 

If, like me, you have no need for the DVD drive, swap it out for a 500GB hard drive and get a 128GB SSD for regular usage.

I don't mind HDDs, but it's your call.

 

Okay so you are saying have two drives, with one being the SSD.... Obviously thats what windows and everything would be on so you would have the insanely fast boot times. I understand that much. But does an SSD help you out with gaming at all? Obviously I wouldn't be able to fit many games on a smaller SSD is what im getting at so would I just be buying it for boot times?

 

There is NO benefit to having an SSD for games except for faster boot/loading times. And even I am not that impatient, lol

Basic thing to take from this:

SSD = Programs and Operating System
HDD = Media, music, games, video, documents, etc.

Here you go: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/484698-seagate-momentus-xt-hybrid-hdd-w-built-4gb-ssd.html

Mr. Mysterious

 

Well I think I'm pretty much sold on the Sager 8150. Anyone want to build me the best one for under $2000 I figure to have this computer for at least 2 years, as thats when graphis will start going up again in big increases due to xbox and playstation coming out with new consoles most likely. Everyone seems to get the 485m... I just don't know if its worth the money!! And xoticpc actually has a better warranty than buying direct from the manufacturer?

 

Yes! OMG do not buy from Sager! Buy from a reseller like XOTICPC or LPC Digital or Mythlogic! Trust me, this will save you a lot of headaches.

And no, I'm not building a machine for you! Lazy man

Mr. Mysterious

 

Just get a low cost low capacity SSD for your OS and use a hybrid large capacity drive for games and mass media storage. The $/GB on large capacity SSDs is not affordable or reasonable at the moment, and loading times for games do not significantly improve that when they are on SSD a bit of the wait times are loading assets to video memory.

 

Generally speaking, the resellers offer extra benefits on warranties outside of what Sager itself offers standard.

If you're just planning to game with it, stock with the 6970 or 485 is going to be plenty powerful. Upgrading the CPU to say, the 2720, or adding extra RAM are helpful if you want to run other things, like Virtual machines, video encoding, folding@home, etc. An SSD though will make a huge difference in everyday usage, as others have pointed out.

 

If you want to play The Witcher 2, which has suddenly become THE game at the top of the "GPU-killers" list, then you're going to need the 485M.

(No, I'm not going to count Metro 2033...it's a horribly optimized game)

Mr. Mysterious

 

Fair enough, and it seems with the new driver update, from 270 to 275- the performance gains are pretty incredible as listed via Nvidia and other forum members in the driver post:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/579209-nvidia-driver-275-27-a.html

 

Yeah thats what I've heard. Thanks for all of your help Mr. Mysterious. I think I'll get a small SSD, and the 500g hybrid for the second drive. I'm thinking 8 gigs of ram and as far as the GPU.... I've never had an ATI, always gone Nvidia but man that's a price difference in these two! And most likely get the 2630, Maybe the 2720 for CPU's....

 

Also, it makes no sense to get a hybrid drive for your second drive. It will perform the same as a normal 500GB drive. Save some money

And you're welcome.

Mr. Mysterious

 

See this is why I'm on this damn forum, I'm clueless! I know how to buy games off of steam and play. Other than that I need advice!

 

Lol, might as well get a 750GB 7200RPM drive as your secondary drive then

You can search the SSD forum for suggestions. Me, I'm going for the 128GB M4 from Crucial. I have yet to install it.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I would highly recommend you get a SSD as your main drive. You can swap out the optical drive in 8150 for a regular HDD (storage drive).

The performance you gain from a SSD is going to be MUCH more noticeable than CPU upgrade (2630qm to 2720qm 5~7% gain) or going to 485m from 6970m (4% gain on average).

Not only your boot time is going to be much faster, responsiveness of Win 7 and application is also improved by a great degree. (applications open instantly, search file faster, thumbnails appear right away and etc). Also, SSD increase you battery life and is dead silent. As far as gaming, you aren't going to see a difference unless it is installed to the SSD.

 

Lol psun. That's exactly what I said.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I've bought used Crucial C300 256GB for $285 off ebay for OS, progs, games etc. and WD 1TB for $110 for storage (replacing ODD). Hopefully SSD I bought wasn't "too" used.

 

You don't need the 485M to play Witcher 2, as I run it just fine on medium-high @1080p. Doubt the 485M could do much better. Almost sounds like fanboyism.

And TW2 isn't exactly 'optimized,' as enabling certain settings brings even tri-sli rigs to their knees.

 

It wasn't fanboyism, lol.....It's noted that the 485M is better than the 6970M, even if it's not by much, and if you were dead set on playing that game, then you would want every little drop of GPU power, wouldn't you?

I'm not saying that if I were in his shoes, I'd go for the nvidia card. Heck no, my next upgrade is going to be the 6970M or something better in 2 years.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I'm in my shoes and I don't have a clue what im gonna do!! If it was a $100 difference, it would be an easier decision.... People say traditionally nvidia has better driver support right? All i know is i want whats best for gaming for around $2000. The reason I'm having trouble picking is I messed up last time by paying more for the gtx460m than the 5850/5870. Not that it wasnt a good card, but it was pretty equal to the other two. I shouldn't have paid more. I want to make the right choice this time around! (not a knock on the gtx460m it was awesome, but not worth the $150 more than a 5850)

 

Hey it's your money. I wouldn't pay for the 485 when the 6970 is so close and so much cheaper. But everyone has different financial situation and places a different value on performance.

p..s. it was fanboyism, busted!

 

Trust me I don't know enough to be a fanboy I just got talked into spending more money by an alienware sales rep!

 

485m is definitely better than 6970m, but fps wise is only 4% on average. Say if you are getting 50 fps on a game with 6970m, upgrade to 485m will bump you to 52 fps. Of course, some game favor nvidia while other favor ati.

Most ppl went with nvidia because of PhysX, 3D vision or CUDA. Whether these features worth the extra $250 is totally up to you.

I was debating between 485m ($300 extra) and 6970m when I order my np8170. To me, the bonus features are decent but doesn't justify the additional cost.

When I checked the individual cost of each video card on eBay, 6970m is only $100 less than 485m when purchased OEM. So basically Sager make an extra $150~$200 on 485m than 6970m, you probably can't salvage this markup when you put your used laptop for sale a year later.

Also, purchase future proof doesn't always make sense when it come to technology. The same performance tomorrow will only cost a fraction of you are paying today. So, just purchase what you need now not what you "might" need later.

 

Exactly! +rep to you, psun.

Mr. Mysterious

 

A corporation buying many thousands of units directly from nvidia and AMD can negotiate a price that has nothing to do with what an individual would pay for the same item on ebay. Can't really guess what their profit margin is on these.

 

Not you, i was teasing mysterious66! lol

 

In my experience with both nvidia and ati in notebooks is that both are magnificent cards, Ati gave me less overheating problems in my sxps 1640, while my Nvidia was always overheating, but that was probably due to the design of the cooling system. What i can tell you is this, Ati drivers are troublesome.... VERY troublesome (especially on laptops) thats the only reason i would buy Nvidia again as i did

If you can shell out the extra bucks i would recommend it!

 

Bah, ganging up on me

Yes, ATI has driver issues...but I think they consistently have created better graphics as of late (last 2 years). If they could get their act together with the drivers, they'd leave NVIDIA in the dust.

Now THAT'S fanboyism Yes, I like ATI cards. Doesn't mean NVIDIA cards aren't good; they're excellent.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Thats the reality here! Therese always been ongoing debates about which is better when truthfully, its what you can afford, shell out the extra bucks and you will get more performance, doesn't matter if its ATi or Nvidia!
(keep in mind though, some cards released by both have never actually performed up to spec and thats why you should google reviews before buying )

 

Ok after shopping around.... Xoticpc or Mythlogic? Close to same price but....

Mythlogic has two Matte screens, one doesn't cost any extra. (Matte LED Backlit LCD). The other costs an extra $210 (Matte 95% NTSC Color Gamut LED Backlit LCD).

Everyone seems to prefer the Matte screens. I've never seen or used one, nor would I ever game outside. But glare from windows sure is annoying! Any thoughts?

 

Some resellers offer special screens that are much more color accurate than the stock ones offered by sager or clevo, the 95% matte is pretty rare, i didn't see it in any of the 4 resellers i tried a while ago!

As for matte to glossy, they say that in this particular case the Matte screen is beautiful. Glossy screens have 2 downsides; reflections and fingerprints-dust visible through the screen. Matte screens tend to look a lot cleaner even when they are really dusty.

As in personal preference i like glossy screens better, my eyesight gets strained by matte screens because they sort of distort light. And to me a clean glossy screen looks a lot nicer

 

I personally have used both types and I prefer the glossy screens.
I find since i work in front of a screen all day it doesn't bother my eyes as much.

Secondly for the 95% NTSC Color Gamut screen. Some people require the screen for professional editing where they need to see slight differences in color being displayed on the screen. " like in CS5 " If you are just playing games and watching DVD or Blu-Ray movies then you will not be seeing much difference. If you don't need it then put that extra 210$ into something else like more ram or an SSD.

Mark

 

Exact same build kind of i guess go for it buddy i love my machine so much.

My one bud

8170

I7 2630QM OC
AMD 6970 OC
16 GIG KINGSTON HYPER X MEMORY
500 GIG HDD + 64GB SSD DRIVE

 

Agreed on this. My personal work desktop monitors and laptop are all matte screens. While they work well, I find the glossy screen on my home laptop to be easier on the eyes for long stints. Staring at the matte screens all day makes my eyes tired. Matte is great for color replication, but in the office setting it's not a huge deal- and the money could be used elsewhere (like an SSD) for immediate gains that anyone would notice.


Granted, it's still entirely user preference. If you make a living off of perfect color reproduction then you'll still want the color gamut upgrade. Having used glossy for years, I'm just most well adjusted to them myself.

 

Thank for the input. You obviously work for Malibal? Any reason why I should go with Malibal? Xoticpc? etc.... The list goes on, this Clevo stuff is complicated to buy lol.... so many vendors!

 

Yep, I do work for MALIBAL. As for resellers, all I can say is that we all sell chassis based on the Clevo barebones. You'll have to make your own choices as to who to go with based on price/service/customization/etc. It's entirely up to you in that regard

Most resellers have a presence on the NBR boards (the user names are typically in gray) whom you can probably PM directly for any specific questions. That's why they let the resellers post here- to answer questions and help out!