Sager 8268-s vs 8652

Same price, specs are:

Sager 8268-s Specs

FREE!!! – U.S. UPS GROUND SHIPPING (Use Coupon Code "FREESHIP" in Checkout) [U.S. Lower 48 ONLY / Restrictions Apply]
- 15.6” FHD 16:9 LED Backlit Wide screen (1920x1080) Super Clear Matte Type Sager Screen (SKU - SSC005)
- FREE! - 30 Day No Dead Pixel Warranty
- NO Professional Monitor Color Calibration
- Sager - 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4810MQ (2.8GHz - 3.8GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache) (SKU – SPU202)
- FREE! - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 980M (8.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 (Maxwell) [User Upgradeable] (SKU – GPU03X)
- 16GB DDR3 1600MHz [2x8GB] Dual Channel Memory (SKU - RAM04S)
- Sager Branding
- Standard Laptop Finish
- 512GB Crucial MX100 Series SSD [SSD2 - SATA III] (SKU - SSD096)
- 6X Blu-Ray Burner + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive (Sager) (SKU - ODD096)
- Bluetooth Included *With select wireless cards only* (See “Wireless Network” Section Below)
- Sager - Intel® Dual Band AC 7260 802.11 A/AC/B/G/N 2.4/5.0GHz + Bluetooth™ 4.0 (SKU - WIFI94)
- Internal 9-in-1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD/Mini SD/SDHC/SDXC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo)
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
- Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- ~Windows 8.1 - 64-Bit (64-Bit CD Included) + MS Office 2013 Trial
- -Microsoft OFFICE 2013 Home & Student Edition - [Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote]



Sager 8652 Specs

FREE!!! – U.S. UPS GROUND SHIPPING (Use Coupon Code "FREESHIP" in Checkout) [U.S. Lower 48 ONLY / Restrictions Apply]
- 15.6" 4K QFHD (16:9) Glare-Type Glossy Screen (3840x2160) (Samsung Brand / 60Hz) (SKU - S4K009) - [ETA: Dec.26]
- Standard No Dead Pixel Policy
- 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4720HQ (2.6GHz - 3.6GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache)
- -IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 980M (4.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 (Maxwell) w/ Optimus™ Technology
- 16GB DDR3 1600MHz [2x8GB] Dual Channel Memory (SKU - RAM04S)
- Sager Branding
- Standard Laptop Finish
- 512GB Crucial MX100 Series SSD [SSD2 - SATA III] (SKU - SSD096)
- External USB 2.0 Slim 6x Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
- Bluetooth Included *With select wireless cards only* (See “Wireless Network” Section Below)
- Sager - Built-in 802.11 Wireless B/G/N - Stock Wireless Card + Bluetooth™ 4.0 (SKU - WIFI92)
- Internal 6-in-1 Card Reader
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Smart Li-ion Battery (4-Cell)
- Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- ~Windows 8.1 - 64-Bit (64-Bit CD Included) + MS Office 2013 Trial
- -Microsoft OFFICE 2013 Home & Student Edition - [Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote]

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Both models are about $2350. The 8268-s is upgradable due its modular design. It also has 8gb of VRAM (vs. 4g with the 8652). The 8652 looks like it has a more premium design with the alloy chassis. Also it has the 4k rez screen (Samsung). Is the fall-off of 4gb of VRAM sufficient trade-off to go with the 8268-s? Any thoughts appreciated, because I am torn, since these differences are admittedly small.

Thanks!

 

Oh and I realize that playing games on 4k is impossible on the 980m. But is the drop-off in vram of 4gb going to kill my gaming experience on 1080p? Specifically hoping to get about 2-3 years of high end use out of either selection.

 

I woudln't recommend a 4K display on a 15 inch laptop, it's pretty much super ultra (mega) useless to have this kind of pixel density , and will seriously cut your performances ( by 4 at least) !
Anyway, the 4gb version of the 980m is wayyyyy enough !!!, even for 3 year , you can go for the 4gb version without any problem

Elipsus

 

Both will be great options.. You can play on 4K res however on your screen 1080p will look good ... For 2-3 years, both are great options!

 

Both will be great options.. You can play on 4K res however on your screen 1080p will look good ... For 2-3 years, both are great options!

 

Looks like the main differences are:

i7-4810MQ vs. i7-4720HQ
GTX 980M 8gb vs. GTX 980M 4gb
1080p screen vs. 4K screen
Internal Blu-Ray burner/reader vs. External Blu-Ray reader
Intel 7260 vs. Stock Wireless

From a pure technical perspective, it seems as though the 8268-s does more, with the exception being the 1080p screen vs. the 4K screen. I believe the 8652 is thinner however and you stated you prefer the chassis of the 8652 compared to the 8268-s.

It's really up to personal preference. I'd personally lean more towards the 8268-s because of the technical superiority, especially since you won't really game at 4K in most instances. I'd also recommend purchasing Office from somewhere else and installing it yourself. From just a quick look, Office 2013 Pro keys go for around $60ish compared to $140 through the resellers. That's worth the extra hassle in installing it yourself.

 

To be honest, I am leaning towards the 8268-s. I will get better performance, and I think the 8gb vram will better future-proof my computer.

 

I might sound a little boring, but 8 gb cram, won't future proof it more, it's the 980m who can't take advantage of it, and it won't change in three years, she is just not enough powerfully !
Worse, having more vram mean that you have more chance to have failure and have more chance to be more limited cin memory overclocking than with 4Gb version

Elipsus

 

1 - It depends on games that come out, mainly. If they use over 4GB of vRAM then the higher 8GB will be a nice benefit. Personally, I would go for 8GB in case. Also know that the 980M in the P651SG is integrated like the CPU.
2 - The CPU is MUCH better on the P150SM-A, and can be upgraded to a 4910MQ if you wish.
3 - Or he could use LibreOffice which is free and has lots of similar features to MS office. Just a thought.

My suggestion is always change-able parts and extra vRAM/better CPU etc. But up to you what you really want. I also think that unless productivity is your main thing and gaming is secondary (or being done on a second screen) that 4K isn't really worth it. That's my opinion though. Some people find it is.

 

You have no idea what you're talking about. 980M can fully take advantage of 8GB vRAM, and it will be able to do so in three years. And the amount of OCing on one's memory is dependent on the type of memory used, not the amount.

 

unless ure talking about ocing system ram, which has to do with the number of sticks and not the amount of ram per stick as well

 

Lower capacity memory on average will clock better and 4GB should not hinder the 980M in single card configurations. However the clocking difference will not likely be large.

More ram requires more chips and the slowest single chip dictates the maximum speed, ergo with more chips you have more chance of a slow one.

 

I have read your article about vRAM, very interresting
You are right about the 4gb VRAM probably unsufficient, i didn't saw that the last AAA games were THAT badly optimised... , but still you state yourself that 4gb is sufficient^^
But i maintain that gtx 980m can't use 8gb, the gtx 980m is not "that" powerfull, and if you are at a point were 4gb are not enought, you will probably have other bottleneck , like memory bandwith or raw computing power, wich mean you will have to cut down some options, wich will reduce memory consumption.
I maintain that memory amount is a bottleneck for memory overclocking, depending on the slowest chip, thank you meaker for stating that

Elipsus

 

Well, I can assure you that even the 880Ms could utilize close to 6GB in the Shadows of Mordor game, and the 980Ms can do the same. If you're running out of memory bandwidth that's one thing, but it'd be more of a problem if you were at a memory bandwidth limit WHILE having to empty/reload vRAM constantly. In other words, hitting a bandwidth limit with less vRAM is worse than with more vRAM, as with more you could empty the buffer more slowly instead of needing to get old (not used) data out, or simply using it for caching (so that long distances do not require load spikes etc).

Also, as for the vRAM size affecting OCing, you and Meaker are right in that it's harder to OC a larger memory pool... but as Meaker also said, it's pretty negligible the speed difference you can get. Also, each card is different and some can't stand clocks above a certain amount just inherently. What I was referring to however, was indeed the quality of the vRAM used. For example: hynix vRAM is usually quite robust. Also with the 780Ms in particular, MSI used vRAM chips on theirs that were essentially GTX Titan-class memory. They were able to overclock their memory FAR higher than Clevo cards could, etc. I always wanted a pair of MSI 780Ms so I could OC my memory a ton, but now I want some elusive 980M 8GB Hynix RAM cards that probably don't exist.

Anyway... games which use even a tiny amount of vRAM like crysis 1 can rip memory controllers to shreds. If someone makes a game which wants/needs 8GB of vRAM and also tears up memory bandwidth so bad you need SLI GTX Titans to run it, I think then you might have a problem... but then so will everyone else, even those on 4GB cards. Hell, those on 4GB cards'd have it the worst; probably not even able to use the settings which cause it to demand as such.

Anyway. It's not that I think 8GB vRAM is "necessary" or "will have all of it used up", but more that I think 6GB is a nice sweet spot. A couple years ago, 4GB was the nice sweet spot. Now I find it's minimum if you want to play these unoptimized console ports of AAA games, and 6GB is the sweet spot. But as you would have seen in my article, for the 980M to have 6GB it'd need a 192-bit or 384-bit memory bus; something it does not have. A 192-bit memory bus would hinder its bandwidth too much considering how high clock speeds can go, and the 384-bit memory bus isn't present on GM204 chips and likely never will be; meaning they'd need to design the chip from scratch. So it's a no-win situation in that case. Either way, there is a bit of a golden rule that's there for PC gaming: having more X than you need is good, not bad (with X being power, speed, storage, etc).

 

The much more powerful 980 desktop card is not really hindered by 4gb of vram. I think games are just more heavily caching these days.

 

It's a lot of uncompressed textures and stuff. Super high res textures help the consoles because it improves sharpness/detail in even small objects like helmets without actually eating up GPU power (only memory; of which they have ~5-6GB to use for the game data). They just port it like that to PC. Optimized stuff shouldn't use more than 2GB these days; BF4 and MGSV are prime examples. Some games just cache like crazy though, like Ghosts and Advanced Warfare. They'll eat up 8GB vRAM if you have it. No performance benefit.

 

Well the consoles wont be able to go super crazy as I believe they only have around 4GB free for the GPU.

 

I wouldn't use the phrase 'much more powerful 'with regards to desktop vs mobile with the 980 series cards.

The desktop is 20-30% better overall, which while a fair number, isn't near the 50-80% of the old days.

 

and with a lil tweaking and an unlocked vbios the 980M could potentially reach desktop 980 stock levels

 

They have flat memory to use as they please. So if a game (like Titanfall for example) only uses 1.5GB, they'll have all the rest for their purposes, and each system can "max" at 6.5GB available memory for their games. So, that'd be 5GB for a game in Titanfall's case.

Then to drive the matter home some, they're usually running sub-1080p resolutions and low FPSes without a lot of multisample-type AA. 2x MSAA is nothing on memory, but 8x MSAA can be. If a game's designed for say.. 3.5GB vRAM usage at 900p, on PC out of the box it'd be closer to 4GB at 1080p (maybe around 3.6), and above 1080p it goes up incrementally. 1440p gamers might see 3.7GB used at console settings; if you increase draw distances or shadow resolution over the consoles you'll get extra usage, far less if you drop a multisample-type AA on it. And with DSR being a new thing (AMD's omega drivers have downsample support too) these days, it could be even more of a hit to the vRAM.

Of course this is all negated by using SMAA/FXAA/MLAA/etc for AA, but MSAA/CSAA/MFAA/SSAA/TXAA would all tear through the vRAM buffer, and most people prefer the hard multisample AA types as it offers a mostly sharper image than SMAA etc would, even though SMAA is superior in efficiency. They have the extra power so why not use it, basically XD

Of course, all of this is only applying to mainly unoptimized console AAA ports. Everything's uncompressed these days because people see no need to compress it. Hoping the AAA market collapses and people start striving for quality over how many billions of dollars they can rake in a couple weeks each year.

 

The consoles use some of the ram for the os and a large chunk for on demand streaming/recording. That part the developer has no control over. Then there is the amount required to run the application which can be tweaked yes but some will always be needed. That 8gb starts to go away very quickly

 

Well that's true, but the 2GB to 2.5GB they have for the OS can be cut back if games really need it. I believe one of the consoles can top out at 7GB dedicated to a game. I mean, I don't think they all will do that, mind you. But a lot of even new games barely crack 2GB of RAM (still) and thus should have no problems with the ~5.5GB-7GB limit that those systems have. Lots of room for uncompressed/large textures.

And of course, the thing that the general end user seems to forget: quality of textures != size of textures. I'll stand by it: Titanfall with 16xQ CSAA had *THE* sharpest textures I've ever seen. Nice, crisp, beautiful to look at. Except that the texture quality is "okay" at best. It just looks all-right... sharp, but "all-right". BF4 looks ridiculously better (even without AA) and so does Crysis 3, and hell, even Black Ops 2 has it a bit nicer. And all of those games use less vRAM than Titanfall. ALL.

 

The quality of the original art makes that distinction I believe.