Sager 9262 questions

Hi all,

I've been studying the boards here closely and I'm now planning on purchasing a Sager 9262 after reading what everyone has to say here. I'll probably be making the purchase in the next month after I get home from deployment. I must say that my Alienware has taken quite a beating in the desert, nothing can stand up to the sand! There are a couple of questions that I have and after endlessly searching can't seem to find the answers, hopefully I'm not wasting anyone's time.

First off, the reason I've chosen the 9262 is I'm a hardcore gamer and performance is all I care about. I don't mind lugging a heavy laptop. Here are the concerns that I do have.

1. Longevity of the 9262 - From what I gather, a 9262 that I buy today with a 9800 GTX should allow me to purchase a second one later to go the SLI route. Further, the CPU, do we expect that the 9262 will support future LGA 775 proc's or is the top quad core the end of the line there?

2. Driver support - I haven't been able to find any information about Sager's graphics driver update frequency. Big problem I had with alienware was lack of driver updates. To be fair, they did push through some beta drivers within weeks of some complaints from me. However, this is crucial to good SLI performance in new games.

3. It doesn't appear that the 9800 GTX is going to be that much faster when compared to the 8800 GTX's, so then I assume that two 8800's would be significantly faster than a single 9800 GTX assuming the graphics intensive title (i.e. Crysis) makes use of SLI well?

4. After purchasing a 9262, should there be a future motherboard upgrade resulting in a model number change, is it possible to just change out the internals at a later time to continue the upgrade process?

5. What's the reason that when looking at the 8 gig ram option, both Xotic and PNB only sell it in 667 vice 800 mhz?

If anyone here has any suggestions to anything I've written, I'm very open for suggestion, when I buy it will be with the intent to get a bleeding edge system, but I'd like to be able to keep it bleeding edge for at least a year, if not longer.

Thanks, and I appreciate all the great information that I've read here over the last week, it's really helped me break out of what was becoming a bad Alienware cycle! Have a great day,

Eric

 

(a) Yes, you will be able to upgrade from single 9800 to dual 9800 in SLi, when/as/if SLi for those GPUs becomes available.

(b) The honest answer is: no-one knows what the NP9262 will, or will not, support viz CPUs until the CPU in question becomes available (at least for Clevo to test). However, the thing to be kept in mind is that the new Nehalem architecture will be released soon, and no current computer, desktop, laptop, Clevo, or any other brand, will be able to support a Nehalem-class CPU because of the radical redesign of the entire chipset/CPU architecture. Since I would expect Intel to put more of its efforts into Nehalem-class CPUs and less into developing additional LGA775 CPUs, I think the most reasonable conclusion to draw is that the upgrade path for the NP9262 CPU is pretty short - as it is for any current system in existence.

As far as I know, driver updates for GPUs are driven more by NVidia's timetable and resources than by those of the particular model OEM; however, it seems that _Dell/Alienware gets slightly more preferential treatment from NVidia than does Clevo, and by extension, Sager. Honestly, there were big problems with getting SLi to work acceptably with the 8800s, and I would expect there to be a number of hiccups and bumps on the path to getting SLi functioning well with the 9800s.

I haven't seen specific benchmarks, but it's probably fair to say that, as of now, two 8800s in SLi would probably be at least a bit faster than a single 9800.

Again, because Nehalem should be released shortly, my guess is that the NP926x series (i.e., the Clevo D90xC series) is at the end of its revision path, and that there are unlikely to be any new motherboard revisions released; instead, the next major revision is likely to be the release of a successor system based on Nehalem.

Probably because of the clock speed of the FSB, which in the P965 chipset is 1066MHz; since the RAM is DDR2, the chipset would never fully utilize 800MHz RAM (absent OC'ing, that is ).

 

This system is the fastest, no doubt about that. It also has the best cooling system that any notebook would love to have.

However....

If you plan on taking this system to the middle east.... then I recommend to get a air compressor (if its not available there) to blow out the vents and notebook.

You must keep it as clean as possible, I have had many friends (that were deployed) permanently damaged their notebooks due to no upkeep or lack of cleaning.

One friend was smart and added a special notebook filter to his notebook to help prevent less dust or sand from intaking into the system. ... But he still did regular (weekly) dusting and airing out of his system.

Remember this:
"Take care of your notebook and it will take care of your."

 

I appreciate the quick and detailed replies, many great points, but some further questions arise.

1. From my original question #5, with reference to the FSB for the proc I was looking at is 1333, and for the 1,2, and 4 GB options the memory freq was 800mhz, but only 667 for the 8 gig option.

2. How long until Sager/Clevo come out with something on Nehalem? I'm guessing we're looking at 3-5 months right now?

Gophn - Thanks for the tips, I regularly clean my current computer, the dust is insidious here. It's amazing that anything mechanical works for more than a few weeks in this environment.

Bed time for me now, appreciate the info and looking forward to any more anyone can contribute,

 

you do not really need 8 gigs, I do not know anyone that even fully utilizes 4GBs, let alone 8GBs. If you are going to do super high resolution (20 megapixel) graphics/texture editing... then maybe it would be utilized

The memory speed would have little to no impact to the overall performance... especially in such a high end system.

I have inside info. There is no plans to replace the Clevo D901C (Sager 9262) at the moment. That pretty much is confirmed for at least 2-3 more quarters. So I would not expect any major board upgrades or model replacements for this system until 2009... even if that early.

The Clevo D901C still remains the most powerful notebook (with a desktop platform), even after the new Montevina platform was launched just recently.

 

Gophn , u mean even if the Nehalem is released in September :"http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-nehalem-cpu-bloomfield,5968.html"
there will be no support for it for at least 6-9 month?

And is there confirmed information that the same motherboard on a 9262 can handle 2x 9800 GTX??? i hate to get a 9262 with a 9800 GTX just to find out i cant upgrade to SLI and the previous 2x8800 outperforms

 

As far as I can confirm... there is no replacement for the Clevo D901C any time soon... in their roadmap.

From previous years with big announcements, Clevo likes to launch new models at CeBIT (in March)... thats when i would expect to see a new update or replacement model if they [Clevo] choose to launch it.

 

Just so's I don't look like a complete buffoon (half a buffoon is notoriety enough ), what Gophn says makes perfect sense, and I just want to make clear that I wasn't implying that Clevo would have a Nehalem-based system out the door the minute Intel released the first Nehalem-class chips. Gophn clearly has better intel, and better experience, on what Clevo is likely to do; however, from what I've seen, provided there isn't some huge muck-up with Nehalems, I wouldn't expect to start seeing a Nehalem-based Clevo until some time next August - my guess is that a prototype or design concept would be demonstrated at CeBIT in March, with initial RTM coming in August, much like with the 8660s.

 

^^ yup, what Shyster says it what usually happen with Clevo.

CeBIT (in March) for announcing/presenting new models.
Computex (in Summer) for official launching of models with more details (pricing, shipping dates, upgrades, etc)

 

I had the D900T unfortunately after 3 solid years of daily (7 days/7-8hr per day) my board gave out. I know for a fact that to replace it would be a waste because of the changes in chips and chipsets happening now. I cannot tell you how much not having that machine working has affected my work.

I am seriously looking at the 900C because its the same machine only updated! You get used to a Clevo its hard to change.

What I have been hearing and reading is that the new Quad CPU series and design of the D900C has been optimized for heat issues that existed in the "T" models. And on top of that the Nehalem would greatly reduce the heat issues even further.

Right now I am toying with the whether SLI is even worth it and which quad is better. And if I should wait for Nehalem.

I appreciate any suggestions.

 

The D901C has the world's best cooling design for a notebook... so I would not expect this system to overheat.

I would definitely get this notebook if my notebook were to crap out.. but its been 2.5 years and still solid.

I would go for any quad-core and probably get a single 9800M.. since that would be very bang for the buck for my overall usages and gaming needs.

SLI is nice, but the games have to support SLI and the drivers must be stable/optimized to get the most out of the second card. And when the SLI is working, its a really nice boost in gaming performance.

 

SLI is worth it if you want the best and the fastest.Take it from somebody who went from an Ati X1600 to a geforce 7950GTX and then to 8800M GTX SLI
About quad, definitely worth it for futureproofing and for the ultimate power

 

yeah, i am waiting for some kind of announcement that 9262 current version will support 9800 gtx sli so i don't get an un-upgradeable model

 

I supose the setting is there.
But the 9800M GTX is rumored to have a higher TDP than 45W ...so I dunno.

 

2 8800m GTX would be better than 1 9800m gtx if the game supports sli.. but if you can wait then, yeah wait for the 9800gtx to come out then get one.. coz this thing is so easy to upgrade anytime..

 

But then again i believe SLi 9800m GTX would cost roughly $800 more than SLi 9800m GT, is it really worth the cost? (Unless you plan to wait a long time for a price drop)

 

hmm. if you ask me, 800 isn't worth that little extra performance. besides, the 9800 in sli already blows other lappys away.. and it would be able to handle most games at a respectable level. so 800?? not worth imho.

 

Alfonz-

From my searches on this very board, it seems that 9800 GTX support is a foregone conclusion, it's just a matter of getting the drivers to work. I do agree that I'd like to wait and be sure, but as I can't actually purchase for probably another month, maybe less, hopefully we'll know by then. I'm one of those people who's not worried about the cost (I'm not rich, just when I'm going to buy something, I get the best possible item within reason, and I save to that price point). Once I purchase a 9262, it'll have the top of everything, though probably not the SSD's as I think they'll come down in price in the next 2-3 quarters, and the speed probably isn't worth the cost right now.

Shyster1-

Thanks for the great response, you took a lot of time and I appreciate it, it certainly helps.

Gophn-

Great info, but as regards the memory, perhaps I'm a bit niave, I thought windows would take advantage of any memory it has access to. Maybe not efficiently, but it would use it (up to the 6.8 GB Limit of the 901C mobo). I may be greatly mistaken, and I have no reason to believe that other than it makes sense. Which means I'm probably wrong as windows never makes sense in it's design.

Eric

 

@Falken1:

With respect to memory in excess of 4GB, I don't have data to back me up, so this is largely speculative, but I think that if you're running _Vista the system may benefit from more than 4GB even if you're not doing extensive video/photo editing, although I doubt if the additional benefit would produce a significant noticeable effect.

The basis for my speculation has to do with the revisions MS made to the prefetch functionality in WinXP; specifically, what MS now calls superfetch will much more aggressively prefetch files (data, code, etc) based on the user's usage habits and will generally attempt to maximize its use of reasonably available RAM to prefetch as much as possible - in any event, it will prefetch much more than WinXP would using the older prefetch.

Thus, if you had a system with 8GB of physical RAM (with about 6.8GB or so being useable given the address space limitations), it is possible that _Vista would use that full 6.8GB (or at least as much as still leaves sufficient RAM for current user/system operations) to prefetch files that its algorithms tell it you are likely to be using sooner or later. Of course, that may also come with a bit of an additional performance hit as more prefetching necessarily implies more background disk I/O, which may take up time otherwise available to other low-priority processes - the offset to this, however, is that _Vista is supposed to be more oriented toward preferring the appearance of doing stuff over doing stuff the most efficiently (i.e., _Vista will take the time to make sure the screen is continually updated, so that the cursor moves and the system doesn't look "frozen" even if doing so results in lower overall performance because the GUI updating takes time away from disk I/O and other necessary background processes).

All in all, Gophn is probably correct in saying that most users are unlikely to really have a need for, or notice a benefit from, 8GB of physical RAM unless they're doing intensive video/photo editing or something else based on an app that has been optimized to effectively use so much RAM.

 

i wrote to nvidia about this, there is a probability 9800 GTX SLI might need a motherboard change...still waiting for an answer from them. So it is not 100% that current 9262 can support 9800GTXin SLI. i am wishing that it is, then ill probably buy the laptop tomorow.....

 

There was a thread on this board that talked about Sager already testing the 9800 GTX in SLI, I'll look to find it again. The issue was getting the drivers to work. Let's hope that Nvidia is wrong!

 

Has NVidia said that a motherboard change would be needed? Otherwise, on what basis have you concluded that there is a probability that such a change is needed?

 

they haven't explained it yet. But i am not willing to take such a risk ,pay money and not ending up with what i want (2x9800 GTX)

 

There's nothing wrong with that, but that's not the same thing as stating that there's a probability that a motherboard change might be required. Also, NVidia is not the best source for that sort of information as NVidia doesn't design, or make, the motherboard, Clevo does; so your letter might have been better sent to Clevo, or Sager for that matter, but not NVidia.

Also, and here I'm assuming that you've made your decision based on the fact that a motherboard change was required in order for the D901C to support two 8800Ms in SLi, the fact that a motherboard change was required for SLi 8800Ms is not particularly relevant to the question of whether or not the D901C as currently designed will support dual 9800M GTXs in SLi because of the nature of that prior change.

Specifically, what happened with the 8800M/SLi issue was that NVidia made a fairly last-minute decision to produce most of the GPU in-house as opposed to following its customary practice of leaving most of the card design (other than the chip itself) up to the various vendors, and in particular, decided to require that the EDID data for the display unit be fed to the GPUs directly from the display unit and not from an ancillary EPROM or BIOS module as had always been done in the past by the vendors who built GPUs based on NVidia chips.

Since almost all notebook displays use EDID-less LCDs, that meant that they all had to be changed in order to supply the EDID data to the GPUs in accordance with NVidia's one approved method of doing so. Since the display unit is still the same, i.e., EDID-less, that can only mean that Clevo (and, most likely, any other ODM/OEM who offered 8800Ms in SLi) designed a work-around for the problem, which most likely meant adding an IC onto the motherboard on the circuitry between the display unit and the GPUs so that, from the perspective of the GPUs, the EDID data would appear to be coming from the display unit, and not from some other source like an ancillary EPROM. This is speculation, yes, but it is backed up by the fact that one of the resellers did state that the revisions necessary involved soldering a new chip onto the motherboard (for the upgrade package that was offered to owners of pre-existing D901Cs that had earlier motherboard versions).

Since the MXM standard issued by NVidia does not appear to have been fundamentally changed since that time, it doesn't appear to be the case that NVidia has made any other changes to the standard that would require a change to the motherboard, and it is almost certain that Clevo has continued to carry forward the work-around that was done to the motherboard in order to accomodate the 8800Ms in SLi.

Thus, absent some further, significant change in the MXM standard, there does not appear to be any reason in principle why any further changes to the motherboard would be necessary. That's not to say that such a change is not theoretically possible, just to say that the probability of that change being required is rather small. In addition, even assuming that such a change might be necessary, the odds of an upgrade path being offered by Sager at or near cost is pretty good, based on their willingness to do so with the 8800Ms.

So, since there is no way to say - at least speaking from the outside - that the probability of such a change being required is zero, everyone must evaluate their own risk aversiveness, and make their decision to buy now or hold off based on how averse they are to the combined risk that (i) a motherboard change will be required, and (ii) either no upgrade path will be offered, or will only be offered at a price that is too high to be acceptable.

That being said, based on my own evaluation of the facts and circumstances, I'd say that you're being a little too risk-averse if this is the only issue holding you back and if you otherwise need (as opposed to merely want) a new notebook.

 

Thanks Shyster1, you make a point. But based on what u say above, why arent the 9800 GTX being offered in SLI. i am sure clevo, or sager has had some time to test the units,otherwise they wouldn't offer it in the 9262 , and heck there are allot of notebooks offering it too.
It just scares me man, i dont mind shelling a few extra dollars for a machine that can last 2-3 yrs, for 500$ extra over 3 yrs period, if it improves by 20-25%, thats like 14$ every month...makes sense to me..but to be stuck with an un-upgradeable system, or if waiting just a week or two is difference between getting sli or not... well.......

 

One thought comes immediately to mind: drivers

The drivers for 8800M SLi were pathetic at first, and that may still present a problem.

EDIT: Also, I don't believe the 9800M GTX has actually been released yet, so one could also reasonably speculate that NVidia is having problems - a very real possibility given that apparently many more of the 8-series cards suffer from the heat defect than NVidia has been willing to admit to - in which case Clevo's engineers may just be sitting around playing solitaire, waiting for NVidia to get its act together.

All of this would go double for 9800M GTXs in SLi; first everyone's gotta make sure they can get single GPUs to behave themselves; only then can they really focus on getting them to play nice in pairs.

Lastly, we're not going to hear anything from Clevo until they're pretty sure they've got the bugs worked out - that's simply Clevo's way of doing business, and there is no reason to go reading catastrophe into mere silence.

 

I just hope that nvidia settles this, and at least yes we will offer it when drivers are ready and user can upgrade it lol......

 

Waiting sucks, don't it? Another thing to keep in mind is, even if the D901C as currently designed cannot accomodate 9800M GTX in SLi, Clevo may not revise the motherboard at all, given that the D901C series is basically at the end of its design life-cycle as a consequence of the upcoming release of the Nehalem-class CPUs and chipsets.

Mind you, we're probably still about a year away from seeing a Nehalem-based Clevo if nothing pushes Intel's release date back, so it's very difficult to definitively go one way or the other; however, that possibility should also be kept in mind.

Unfortunately, I don't have any inside information, and those who might(e.g., Gophn, nudge, nudge) aren't saying anything.

 

i am waiting for nvidia answer on this, sager told me that SLI will be available later on too; but they have no idea how soon we will have this function update from the nVIDIA;....

so there you go.
my problem is i am traveling for like 2 month after sep. 1 , so if i dont get my laptop now, ill have to wait for november

 

I hope you don't mind a bit of unsolicited direct advice; however, under those circumstances I would definitely suggest that you consider waiting because otherwise you're going to end up being rushed into making your purchase decision and, should there end up being a necessary motherboard change afterward, God forbid, you would feel rather terrible about your purchase, which is not the way you should be feeling about a system like this. You'd be rushed because, given the time lags due to payment clearing, assembly and testing, and shipping, and the fact that non-business days don't count, you would have to order no later than Aug. 14th or 15th in order to stand any chance of having it delivered before you leave on September 1st.

 

You are absolutely right,i mean i have everything the way i want except for the graphics card.
Now the 9800 GTX is supposed to come out no later than mid august, if i am lucky it is announced in 10 days, then ill have the laptop,if not.....well ill be around here