Sager 8690 purchase advice needed!

Hi there, I am interested in buying a Sager 8690 however I have some questions about the configurations before i hit the "Buy" button =)

I am planning on getting an I7-820 and a 320gb SATA. However, I would like to get a solid state drive (Out of my budget currently). Is it possible to upgrade this in the future myself? Perhaps when they are cheaper?

How about the rams? Are they accessible for me to switch myself too?

The reason why I am going with the I7-820 is because I believe it would be the hardest to upgrade in the future, or am I wrong?

Thanks!

 

Welcome to the forums cwldanny! The HDD and RAM are very easily upgradeable in the Sager notebooks. You simply take off the bottom panel and you have direct access to both components.

I'm with you on the CPU. This would be the most difficult item out of the three to upgrade in the future.

 

are you in hurry now? i mean the 840 is just around the corner

 

Thank you guys, I am certainly in no rush and I have about 1-2 months before I actually need the notebook in my hands.

When was the last time the 8690 got an update? And should we be expecting another soon?

 

I too would like to know this .

Also, is this 840 model also a 15'' or a 14'' model?

 

The Sager np8690 was released the later part of 2009 and has undergone a couple revisions and newer hardware was added. The most recent addition was the ATI HD5870 video card. Sager will more than likely release a refresh on some of their notebooks the end of Q3 or start or Q4. The 17" version (Sager np8760) is already being replaced by the new model (Sager np8850). We're hoping for the next line up to be released before the back to school season starts, but we'll just wait and see what Sager has planned

 

I doubt there will be any new revamp until sandy bridge, since there is nothing that needs to be done for the motherboard for x40 chips, and no new GPUs to be added for the 15.6" model. Clevo usually only revamps their notebook upon change in motherboard architecture. Even 8850 IMO is not really much of a revamp, just a thermal upgrade.

 

When exactly was this addition added? Because I think I looked at the W860CU last week and noticed it only offered a 5850. Or was that just my eyesight faltering and turning the 7 into a 5?

 

Are you looking at the M15X instead? W860CU had 5870MR ever since march.

 

That might have been it. Or it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. Thanks for the info by the way.

 

i7 840QM isn't a model but a new processor schedule to release soon, along with the 740QM , 940XM

 

Sorry for the confusion. I meant that the latest addition/change to this notebook was when the ATI HD5870 was offered. The ATI HD5850 was never offered on a Sager notebook. Only model that we offer that has the ATI HD5850 is the MSI GX640 and the new FORCE 1656-ID4 that we added yesterday.

 

Hey guys, do you think I should go with the 1600 or 1900 screen?

I currently run 1600 on a 19 inch screen and I;m pretty pleased with it, but would a 1900 look better on a 15inch? Or would it be too small?

 

It's honestly a personal thing. I like the highest resolution possible all the time, but some people do find it a bit hard on the eyes to have full HD on a 15" screen.

 

Are there any desktop shots of the difference between 1600 and 1900 screens?

And if I do get a 1900, can I still game / set the screen at 1600? (For intensive games would it be better to use 1600?)

 

Spybenj has a great picture of his W860CU @1920x1080 here: Imageshack - p1030244.jpg

And yes, you can definitely change the resolution for your game and at a lower resolution your would get better framerates. However, your game will always look best at the computer's native resolution, and you shouldn't have much trouble playing games at native res with the power that's packed into this notebook

 

Thanks a ton for the help, you have settled some of my first-time-buyer fears.

I will probably wait another 2 weeks before ordering and see if any updatesmcome to the 8690.

One last question though, should I get thr 5870 or 285 gpu? I have read that the 5870 performs better but why is the nvidia 285 more expensive in the options?

 

In-game, due to optimizations for NVIDIA drivers the GTX 285 still pulls ahead of the 5870 - but only barely. The 5870 destroys in benchmarks, though. Personally? I'm an ATI fanboy.

The reason that the price is more expensive is that NVIDIA hasn't caught on that their cards are too expensive. They're getting positively destroyed by ATI on the market again and again, but for some reason they don't drop their prices. Honestly, I would love to have them both be the same price for customers to choose, but since I have to pay extra for NVIDIA cards, YOU also have to pay extra for NVIDIA cards

 

I think you should just get the i7 720. There really is not much difference at all between the two CPUs. Use the money on a SSD upgrade or something.

Sager notebooks were built to be upgraded, you should have no problem upgrading the RAM yourself in the future. Just use the service manual that is provided with the laptop.

About the screen, I have a 1920x1200 on my 17", it is hard to read stuff from further away. So I believe 1920x1080 on a 15" laptop would be even smaller and difficult to read. If you don't mind it, then go for the higher resolution.

If you game at 1600x900 on a 1920x1080 screen, I believe it will not be as sharp? Not too sure here. Both graphic cards will handle high resolution gaming just fine.

 

again, hybrid SSD Drive, im not sure why they haven't caught on here. 150.00 500gb drive that yields SSD like performance.

 

I was under the impression that it would be quite difficult to upgrade the cpu myself, so I wanted to "future proof" this laptop for about 3 years while I am in college. But is the upgrade really un noticable? Im looking to play FFXIV when it comes out of alpha/beta.

 

It's not that difficult to upgrade a CPU, it's basically unscrew and take off the heatsink, pop out the old CPU, clean off old thermal paste from both the old CPU and heatsink, apply new thermal paste, put in the new CPU, and screw the heatsink back on.

 

Shane, can you dummy that down for me?

=p

I'm kidding lol. He's right though, just do the research to make sure the mobo supports the new chip and that's it. That's really the hardest part in upgrading your chip in any computer.

 

Pop out old, put in new.

(vague simplification of replacing any computer hardware ever)

 

Thank you once again guys, I STILL haven't finalized my Sager build yet and Im starting to get frustrated. Just a few last questions =)

1. Between the 5870 and 285 GPU, which is more powerful / newer / the better choice?

2. Which of these 3 options seem the best in the long run?
- I7-820 / 4GB DDR3 / 320GB Hard disk
- I7-720 / 8GB DDR3 / 320GB Hard disk
- I7-720 / 4GB DDR / 80GB SS Drive

3. Should I include a blue ray player?

I think I have decided on one thing though, to go with the 1600 screen, time to purchase this lappy and play some games! Thanks guys!

 

Clearly the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 is the better choice here. The GTX 285M is both older and less powerful.

In my opinion 4GB memory is absolutely enough at the moment if you use the laptop for gaming and some web surfing, etc. I recommend a 500 GB hard drive, you can never have enough space nowadays. For the CPU I'd recommend the i7-740QM. SSD is nice, but too expensive and 80GB is just not enough.

Not if you don't go for the 1080p screen. But, I would recommend the FullHD screen anyway, it's nice if you watch FullHD movies and in games you can see a difference + you have more space to work which is always good.

 

Daniel got everything right; if you were to go with an SSD the only one that I would recommend to still be practical would be the Corsair P256

 

Once again, thank you very much guys!

 

Hi guys, i have finally configured my Sager 8690 after months of browsing around and shopping for notebooks.

NP8690 - Customise It!
Display:15.6" Full HD LED Display with Super Glossy Surface #1920 x 1080# (add)
Processor:Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-840QM Processor ( 45nm 8MB L3 Cache 1.83GHz ) (add)
Thermal Compound:IC Diamond 7 Thermal Compound - CPU GPU (add)
Video & Graphics Card:ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 5870 Graphics with 1GB GDDR5 Memory
Operating System:No OS added in
Memory:4GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 2 X 2GB (For i7-720QM and above only)
Primary Hard Disk Drive:320GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive
Optical Drive:8X DVD±R/RW/4X DL Super-Multi Drive & Software
Wireless Network Card:Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module (add)
Bluetooth:Internal Bluetooth V2.1 Module
Primary Battery:Smart Li-Polymer Battery Pack
TV-Tuner:None - Select from the options below
MCE Remote Control:None - Select from the options below

Does it look okay to you guys? I upgraded the Wifi just to be safe and I went with the 320GB because I want to change to a SSD in a few months.

 

Does anyone know what kind of wattage the 8690 can handle for a video card? I run MAX 72C on my Gtx280 on burn-in tests, and in games like COD5 I'm lucky to hit 64C. As I understand it, the 280m is a 75 watt card? So could this platform run a 100 watt card given bios updates?

 

In practice MR 5870 is about the most the laptop could handle.

8690 is similar to the bigger Sager 8760 - even that can't run 480M. What they done, is instead launched a refreshed laptop, NP8850 to support the 100W beast - 8850 has slightly different hardware.

They could in theory refresh 8690 to support 480M, but it the GPU almost certainly would not work on existing platform just via bios update.

 

Ohhh, I did not realize the 8850 had been changed around. I figured the 8690 and the 8760 had the same cooling other than the extra vent on the 8760. That changes the game for the 8690 then.... Well honestly, the 480m is kind of an exception anyway, laptop video cards aren't even supposed to hit 100watts yet when we have MR5870 running at 50watts and put out the numbers they do. Really the industry needs to stay around that 50-75watt mark and just try to squeeze performance out. Although I still can't believe they got that whole chip in there at 100watts. So kudos for that green team.

Isn't the 280m actually harder/hotter on the laptop than the 5870 because it's 25 more watts? Or does wattage not translate the same as I would think? Wouldn't 75 watts be hotter than 50watts? What I mean is, since it can run a 75watt card now, it would still be able to run a 75watt card in the future that would surpass even the 5870 and the 480m? ( Hypothetically speaking if they could actually do this )

I really shouldn't worry, I'm just somewhat in a panic state right now as to future video upgrades. (I'm talking a year from now, 280m is still fine, but I don't want to be in that situation where all I have to upgrade to is a 5870, when there are 6870, and Gtx580m running around*. Although, I can't expect everything out of a 15 inch laptop a 17 inch can do... I just don't want to miss the bus is all.

 

They have had 100 watt mobile GPU's around long before the 480M but I agree, they should be focusing on a much smaller TDP envelope.

I have used the GTX 285M and the ATI 5870 and at idle and under full load, the GTX 285M ran cooler with less fan noise. Note that the 50 watt given by ATI does not include the whole component where as the figure given by Nvidia does. What determines temperature in my opinion is more down to chassis design, cooling system effectiveness, how well the heatsink is constructed and whether it fits perfectly etc.

 

the 480m seems quite ridiculous with its price and underwhelming performance.
i look to ati and its refresh of the 8570 and future builds as possible options for the 8690 in the future.
the thing with nvidia is that it seems to have the upper hand in commercial/industrial applications with cuda. for example, adobe cs5 supports nvidia gpu acceleration and not ati. hopefully this is not some kind of partnership, and ati will catch up some time soon.

 

We all should be looking forward to the GF104 based mobile solutions... I really have no idea why they ported the GTX 465 to notebooks... worst decision ever... the GTX 460 with 256 bit memory bandwith owns the GTX 465 in almost all cases and consumes considerably less energy. It would be the perfect basis for a mobile solution that would clearly beat the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 and could be clocked much higher than the GTX 480M.