Sager NP5790 Review ? Photos, Benchmarks & Impressions Inside!

I ordered my Sager NP5790 from XoticPC.com. It's a 17” desktop replacement – it's meant to sit plugged in on your desk and stay there; it would probably do some damage if you tried to use it on your lap for any length of time. This is my first ever laptop, so I don't really have much to compare it to, but I am a enthusiast PC gamer, so the majority of this review will consist of testing my shiny new Go 7950 GTX in real-world gaming benchmarks.

The Specs
-17” Glossy WUXGA (1920x1200)
-Core 2 Duo T7300 – 2.0 Ghz (Santa Rosa)
-Nvidia GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512MB
-2GB DDR2 667
-160 GB, 7200 RPM hard drive
-CD/DVD Burner
-1.3 Megapixel integrated webcam
-Intel Wireless A/G/N
-Windows Vista Business 32-bit (ordered without an OS – got Vista free from my University)


Reason for purchasing
Some may wonder why someone would buy a gaming notebook. Why not buy a low-end laptop and a meaty gaming desktop? The answer (for me, at least): college. I go to college out of state, and it would be a pain (and a risk) to ship my big 'ol desktop tower and widescreen monitor back and forth all the time. Just taking my laptop on the plane is a much easier way to transport a computer. It's also great for LAN parties on campus, so I can just walk to wherever it is, instead of having to hitch a ride and spend time setting up. It's the convenience factor mostly.


Where and How Purcahsed
I bought it from XoticPC for $2202 (including $100 off for the pre-order special). I think it's a terrific value, especially considering how absurdly overpriced similar gaming laptops from Alienware or Dell are.


Photos and Build Quality
The Box:


Opening the box:


With the lid shut:


The accessories:


On the desk with Vista:


Left side with Zalman ZM-NC1000 cooler:


Front:


Right side (without the cooler):


Bottom:


Back:


Playing some Oblivion:



The notebook feels quite sturdy. There's a tiny bit of flex to the screen, but considering how large it is I suppose that's to be expected; it's nothing to worry about. No keyboard flex that I could detect. The screen hinges feel extremely sturdy: you have to use one hand to hold the base down when you open the lid. I expect to have many years of faithful opening and closing. I was actually a little surprised by the orange trim. When I first saw pictures of the notebook online I thought it actually looked kind of ugly, mostly because of the orange trim. I thought it was a bright, neon orange. But seeing it in real life, it's actually a pleasant light coppery color. It looks very nice on the black body of the notebok. The lid is covered with a lightly brushed metal, and it too looks amazing.


Screen
I was a little worried about the WUXGA screen. I had originally planned to go with a WSXGA (1680x1050), but changed my mind when I found out there would be a delay for those. I was a little reluctant though, since I didn't know how readable 1920x1200 would be on a 17” screen. I am happy to report that my fears were unfounded. The screen is absolutely stunning, and it's perfectly readable. However it is nice to know that I can increase the DPI to make the text more readable if I need to. While viewing color gradient test images, there is no noticeable banding or "steps" in the color, and while playing fast-paced shooters there is no ghosting. I'm also pleased to have no dead pixels.


Speakers
The speakers are a bit tinny sounding. However, compared to other peoples' laptops that I've heard, they sound quite good. They're certainly no match for even some cheap 2.1 speakers or a pair of headphones, but they get the job done. Thanks to Gophn for pointing this out: in the Realtek Audio settings, if you set the Environment to “Carpeted Hallway” and the Equalizer to “Soft” it improves the audio quality greatly.


Processor and Performance
I'm pleased with the desktop performance of the notebook. I had 2GB of RAM and a fast dual-core proc in my old desktop, so it's not much of an upgrade, but I have no complaints. Vista feels much snappier and more responsive than XP does, most likely because of Super Fetch caching all of my most commonly used programs, and because of Vista's more efficient use of RAM (un-used RAM is wasted RAM) One note: 2GB is the minimum I would consider putting in this notebook. Sitting idle at the desktop uses nearly 600MB of RAM. While gaming, depending on the game your RAM usage can shoot up to over 1.7GB (say, in a 64-man game of Battlefield 2142 at max settings)


The Benchmarks
Now for the meat and potatoes. I'm not a fan of synthetic benchmarks, so this will mainly be focused on what kind of framerates you'll actually see while you're playing games. Each game will be tested at the “best playable” settings – basically, the settings that I'll actually play at, that will give me very smooth gameplay without compromising image quality. I am extremely demanding of my hardware, and I'm extremely picky about my graphics. We'll see if the Go 7950 GTX can meet my expectations...

One note: Under normal circumstances (i.e., a desktop monitor), AA is practically a requirement. However, I've found that 1920x1200 on a 17” screen practically eliminates jaggies, so enabling anti-aliasing provides very little image quality improvement for a huge performance cost. All games were tested without AA and with Vertical Sync (Vsync) turned off, and using the stock 32-bit Vista drivers from the Sager driver CD.

FEAR
Tested using the in-game performance benchmark.

Settings: 1920x1200, 0xAA, 8xAF, all settings maxed except soft shadows off

Minimum: 34
Average: 56
Maximum: 116

FPS Distribution:
0% Below 25 FPS
18% 25 – 40 FPS
82% Above 40 FPS

Image quality sample:



Oblivion – Outdoors - Dense Forest
Benchmarked using FRAPS: my character runs due south from the Weynon Priory for one minute, going through thick forests and putting tremendous stress on the GPU.

Settings: 1920x1200, 0xAA, 8xAF, maximum in-game settings except for Tree Fade at 1/2, Actor/Item/Object Fade at 3/4, Self-shadows, grass shadows, and shadow filtering off; HDR enabled

Average: 20.35 FPS

Image quality sample:



Oblivion – Indoors
Benchmarked using FRAPS: my character runs through some Ayleid ruins for one minute.

Settings: (same as above) 1920x1200, 0xAA, 8xAF, maximum in-game settings except for Tree Fade at 1/2, Actor/Item/Object Fade at 3/4, Self-shadows, grass shadows, and shadow filtering off; HDR enabled

Average: 50.63 FPS

Image quality sample:



Counter-Strike: Source Stress Test
Tested using the in-game performance benchmark.

Settings: 1920x1200, 0xAA, 8xAF, maximum in-game settings.

Average: 158.32 FPS

Image quality sample:



Half Life 2: Lost Coast Stress Test
Tested using the in-game performance benchmark.

Settings: 1920x1200, 0xAA, 8xAF, maximum in-game settings.

Average: 96.97 FPS




Company of Heroes (Demo)
Tested using the in-game performance benchmark.

Settings: 1680x1050, 0xAA, “Automatic” settings (mostly high or max)

Minimum: 16.8 FPS
Average: 34.9 FPS
Maximum: 67.2 FPS

Image quality sample:



Medieval II: Total War (Demo)
Benchmarked with FRAPS, using the introduction for the "Battle of Otumba" mission. It's important to note that Real-time Strategy games are usually limited by the CPU, rather than the GPU. So if you configured your 5790 with a Core 2 Duo greater than my 2.0 GHz, you'll probably see higher framerates.

Settings: 1920x1200, 0xAA, 4xAF, all settings on "High".

Average: 18 FPS (perfectly playable for an RTS)

Image quality sample:



Call of Duty 2
Benchmarked with FRAPS, playing through the “End of the Beginning” level (which is also available in the single-player demo) for 3 minutes.

Settings: 1920x1200, 0xAA, Anisotropic filtering-enabled, maximum in-game settings, Soften Smoke on everything, textures on “Extra” setting.

Average: 32.47 FPS

Image quality sample:



3DMark06
While 3DMark06 is not a very good indicator of real-world gaming performance (particularly with the 8XXX-series, where it tends to score higher than it should), I've included it for comparison's sake.

Tested at default settings: 1280x1024, 0xAA, etc.

Score: 5311


Heat and Noise
The NP5790 is a little bit loud; not annoyingly so, but probably on par with an average desktop. In a quiet study area of the library, or in an average sized college classroom (say, ~50 students), it would be loud enough to distract others. In a library's group study/computer area, or in an auditorium-sized classroom, the noise level would be acceptable. If it's just sitting on the desk in your room, the noise easily blends into the background – it's not distracting at all.

There are two fans: the large one spins constantly and it's pretty quiet, but the louder, higher-pitched GPU fan will frequently spin up and stay on for a little while before calming down again.

I bought a Zalman ZM-NC1000 notebook cooler (as recommend on these forums) to keep my notebook cool. It's very quiet (although you can hear a difference between the lowest and highest fan setting, but it's not really noticeable unless you're paying attention to it), and it fits my 17” notebook perfectly. The sides do hang over the edge, but the actual feet of the notebook sit completely inside the Zalman's frame. It also helps to raise up the notebook screen and tilt the keyboard for ergonomic goodness. Zalman claims that its cooler will lower your temperatures and decrease noise (by preventing fans from spinning up as frequently). Let's see how accurate Zalman's claims are...
(note: all temperatures refer to the video card core temp)

IDLE
The idle temperatures were actually the same with and without the cooler: they bounced between 40 C and 45 C. At 45 C the GPU fan spins up until it hits 40 C, then stops. The temp slowly climbs back up to 45 C and the process repeats. But how long does the loud GPU fan spin when you're sitting at idle (or just surfing the web)?

Without Cooler: The fan spins for 2 minutes, 36 seconds, then stops for 35 seconds, then spins up again. Repeat.
With Cooler: The fans spins for 48 seconds, then stops for 40 seconds, then spins up again. Repeat.

FULL LOAD
I tested full-load temperatures by torturing my video card with RTHDRIBL running at full screen 1920x1200 and 4xAA for about twenty minutes. The results:

Without Cooler: 60 C
With Cooler: 55 C

--------------

As you can see, the Zalman ZM-NC1000 has a significant impact on noise and heat. Not only did it reduce my load temp by 5 C, but more importantly, it decreased the amount of time that the loud GPU fan was spinning by almost two minutes. I think the purchase was worthwhile.


Keyboard and Touchpad
I'm used to the ergonomic split-style keyboards, so this "normal" keyboard took a little getting used to, but it feels fine. It's a full-size keyboard complete with dedicated number pad, and the keys are very quiet while typing. I LOVE that the CTRL key is in the proper place (bottom left corner), since I know some other laptops have the Fn key there. As for the touchpad, it works fine, although as a desktop replacement you'll almost always be using a regular mouse anyway. The sleep function button (Fn+F3) is a bit misplaced since it's right between the mute and volume down buttons, but thankfully it can be disabled.


Input and Output Ports
The notebook comes with 4 USB 2.0 ports, a mini firewire port, a card reader, an ExpressCard slot, a LAN jack, an old-school telephone jack, an old-school Serial Port, and S-Video or DVI outputs.


Wireless
I tested out the wireless briefly, and it seemed to work fine. Strong connection, and fast speeds. It supports the new Wireless-N standard (but is still backwards compatible with A and G), so it'll be good into the future. I don't have any bluetooth devices, so I couldn't try that out.

Battery life
Although this is a desktop replacement notebook, and it will almost never be off the AC adapter, I did test to see how long the battery would last. I tested in what I thought would be a realistic off-AC situation: just basic office activities and web browsing on the WiFi connection.

Settings: Default "unplugged" settings - LCD brightness at half, WiFi turned on, and using Vista's "Power Saver" setting in the power options. Ran until the laptop turned off.

Battery life: 1 hour, 43 minutes


Operating System and Software
CD's included: Nero 7 Essentials, PowerDVD 7, and device driver CD's: one for Vista and one for XP. Included with the drivers is BisonCam, a program that lets your record video from the Webcam. I installed Vista myself, so I can't comment on how they set it up, but I'm quite pleased Vista. It works well, and it has several new features that I think are worth it for the upgrade from XP - like improved performance monitoring, vastly improved Backup utility, etc.

Customer Service
I've been extremely impressed with XoticPC. Their customer service is so much better than any “big” company I've dealt with. Besides having Justin on the forums to answer questions, you can call them and have a real-life human pick up, or e-mail them and receive a prompt response: usually in just a few hours, in my experience. There was an issue with my credit card not being accepted, but once I got it sorted out with the credit card company, Xotic was quick to update my status. They'll definitely get my business again when the time comes for a new laptop.


Conclusion
Overall I am very impressed with my first notebook. Its gaming performance is excellent and well up to my (admittedly high) standards. The screen is beautiful and the build quality is terrific. I couldn't be happier. If you have any questions or benchmark requests, feel free to ask.

 

Wooooohoooooo!!

(I haven´t still read it, I just wanted to say Woooooohooooo first)

Thanks man

 

Joga, please contact Andrew and get this review become an official one for NotebookReview.

This will be a great help for those that are looking into purchasing this notebook, we just need to see it in the News & Reviews section.

You will get paid for it too.

Great job btw.
_______________________
The sound quality is good, its need some configuration within the RealTek software.

Set the Environment option to Carpeted Hallway.
And if you want even more quality, set the Equalizer to Soft (as in Soft Rock)

Try it, it worked well for several people, using WinAmp especially.

 

very nice! Many thanks for the review but let me ask you and the other members here...are thos FPS rates good for those types of games?

 

That´s a pretty good battery for such a beast!

I would appreciate it if you can make some comments about heat, and specially noise (Can you hear the fan all the time? Is it "clearly noticeable" while typing and browsing? Does it come on and off, or is it continuous...) Anything you think can be helpful will do.

Thanks again, and congrats for the machine... ;-)

 

Anything above 25-30 is considered "good". Provided that he used the max settings and max resolution for his tests, and that you can always lower it with very little impact (at those resolutions) thus getting higher framerates, it´s absolutely fine to play any of those games.

 

thanks for the review. I really was looking forward to a real live person that had one of these machines.

 

Nice review! And I like the battery life
I would have reped you for it but couldn't...(You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Joga again.)
So many thx!!!

 

Hey great review!! And nice benchmarks too!

 

At least a couple of us are curious whether you got one with VIA or Texas instruments firewire chipset

Device manager>look up IEEE 1394 bus controller

Thanks

 

It's VIA.

It actually is a little bit loud. I'd say its on par with an average desktop as far as loudness (although that can mean many different things). There are two fans, one spins constantly and it's pretty quiet, but occasionally (every minute?) the other fan spins up for a little while, and its a little louder and higher pitched. Honestly, I never even noticed it until I specifically listened for it just now, it kinda blends into the background. If you're playing a game or listening to music you can't hear any fans at all.

Edit: Also, the palm rest does get a little bit warm, but it's not uncomfortable or anything.

 

Great review, I enjoyed the gaming benchmarks.

It looks like the NP5790 is indeed a worthy replacement of the NP5760. It looks great with the orange. Thanks for taking the time to write this, you made a lot of people happy.

 

Thanks for that, it´s been quite helpful.

Chaz, do you remember the little list we made, comparing noise? I´m afraid I was right...

 

Nice job! how much do they pay you if you make a review?

 

I DEMAND you put Doom 95 benchmarks!


Harry: $40-60.

 

um, Romanian...that was twelve years ago...but in the spirit of solidarity...me too!

 

Hey - Just wanted to say thanks for the review. Couple questions...

I noticed that the oblivion frame rates were lower than the other games... I know is a pretty demanding game...My question is?/

How did it feel? Was it consistently choppy or did you just have brief slowdowns?

 

Actually it was pretty choppy in the forest area. Everywhere else (cities, ruins, caves ,etc.) it's just fine, but it seems to choke in woodlands. The 7XXX-series is known for not doing too well in Oblivion - it's that very reason why I chose the x1800xt instead of the 7900 GT when I built my desktop last year.

I'm going to play around with some of the .ini settings (particularly grass density) and see if I can improve the framerate.

 

I'm about to buy a M570RU as well, and I'm also struggling over the screen resolution. I'm thinking that 1920x1200 will be an unreasonable resolution to game with, especially as time goes by and the games get more demanding. But at the same time I want the 1920x1200 for work since you can put a lot on the screen at one time.

If you run a game at a reduced resolution of 1680x1050 (or whatever), how does it look on the 1920x1200 screen?

Do you have the option of stretching the smaller resolution across the full 1920x1200 pixels, or can you also just use the center-most 1680x1050 as well?

I'm very glad to hear the 1920x1200 screen looks great.... now if I could just see what it looks like at a non-native resolution .

 

Do you have any photos that you could show us of the case? I also noticed that you have the TV tuner. Have you had a chance to mess around with watching/recording tv yet? I'm curious to know how well that works out. Thanks for the review!

 

Great review! I notice you are using Vista... Would using XP give you a tiny bit more performance in those games?

 

Hi, sorry if I am derailing your thread, but I'm a newbie, and I just bought the same laptop! I am about 45 minutes away from having the notebook in my hands, and I was wondering if I should install Windows x64 or Windows xp pro or Vista 32/64 bit.

I just wanted to know how it would pertain to this computer (driver compatability, gaming wise, etc).

I've never had a duo core processor, and the last computer I bought was a P4 2.4 / Geforce Ti4800SE which I've had for almost 5 years now, but I decided to spend my parent's money. I have been running XP fine, but I've heard there were performance increases with the 64 bit version, so I wanted to inquire about it before I do the deed and install the program on my new laptop.

I dont really stress my current computer out much, because I mainly play WoW and use my computer to write papers / pda files / study on internet (like Kaptest.com) etc. But I was thinking of trying out some new games too, so I wanted to know how the driver compatability would work.

Thanks! (Shout out to XoticPC and this site for helping me find the right laptop, I was almost about to buy a refurbished Dell xps 1710 like my brother :/)

 

I'd recommend Vista 32-bit or 64-bit (doesn't really matter, although I'd personally choose 64-bit since it will improve gaming performance in future games (like Crysis) that are optimized for 64-bit). Definitely not 64-bit XP, since it has awful driver support (unlike 64-bit Vista, which is pretty much on-par with 32-bit Vista at this point).

It automatically stretches whatever resolution you choose to fill the whole screen (although I think you can change that), even if it's a 4:3 ratio resolution. 1680x1050 looks just fine. Even though it's a non-native resolution, it's perfectly acceptable for gaming.

Here are some screenshots - it's hard to get a really clear shot of the screen, but it shows that there's certainly not a drastic difference.

- 1920x1200

- 1680x1050

You can just barely tell a difference between the shots - look particularly at the textures on the boxes, they're just a tiny bit sharper at 1920x1200; even then it's very hard to tell from the photos. The difference is apparent in real life right after you switch the resolution, but after you start playing for a few seconds you completely forget that you're running outside of native resolution.

Your wish is my command:

- The outside of the case - it has two main sections.

- The main section. It has straps to hold the notebook in place, and a little inside pocket to put cables and stuff.

- The smaller outside pocket for mice and other accessories.

Alas, I don't have a TV Tuner. The CATV port on the side comes standard, just in case you want to add a a TV tuner card at a later date.

It might, but it wouldn't be anything significant, I wouldn't think. Nvidia's Vista drivers have improved drastically in recent months, and from what I hear they're now very close or equal to XP's performance. I wouldn't fret over Vista's performance.

 

awesome review, been waiting awhile for this. i was looking at ur oblivion benchmarks and u had shadows turned off. could you run through woodlands w/ everything on (inc shadows) at 1680x1050?

also, do you happen to have medieval 2: total war? haha

thanks

 

Cool thanks for the quick response.

Also one question about Vista 64/32, I have the same config that you have, so how is the notebook's performance with Vista (I've heard that it is a memory hog or something and it is horrid).

 

'ya Know - At first I thought the orange trim was really ugly. I have to say that is growing on me. It kinda reminds me of the orange trim around the switches on my Atari 2600 - Appropiate for a gaming laptop !

 

To optimize oblivion try visiting this site.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/95794-13-complete-oblivion-optimization-guide

Also, my experience has been to go to the nvidia properties in the advanced tab and set frames rendered ahead to 1 or 0. That made a huge difference for me, give it a try.

Let me know how the dual core optimization works.

Cheers

 

The differences in screenshots of FEAR are barely visible. The only thing I notice is the edge of the boxes on the sides. I just hope that the higher end 8 series will be MXM-IV (HE) compatible, and I can put one of those in there.

 

Can someone with the base config run wPrime v1.53 and see how fast you finish the 32M? I think I suck and I set my computer up wrong to get such a bad score (I followed that sticky up top too).

 

It's unplayable.

Settings: 1680x1050, 0xAA, 8xAF, All sliders maxed, all settings turned on, including self-shadows, grass shadows, soft shadowing, etc.

Average: 15.85 FPS.

I'm still playing around with the settings. It's strange because the framerate seems alright (on the settings I tested with on the main review - getting 20 FPS) - but it's still stuttering a lot. I think it has something to do with the Frames To Render Ahead as Lukashod said.

I set the iMinGrassSize to 120, and I still got 20 FPS, but there was a lot less stuttering.

*plays around some more*

 

If you are using Vista, remember to go to Advanced Settings and set threads to 2

Read this for more info:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=123570

 

I'm currently using XP pro because I dont have a Vista copy yet, hmm, im getting beaten by a lot of the processors on the list that are slower than mine though.

I got 45.956s on the 32M test, I guess I have to run through those optimization threads to see if I can pick up some speed. (It makes my epeen shrink when all these laptops that have a Core Duo destroy me!)

Thanks for the help!

 

YOU ROCK!

Coolbits doesn't work in Vista, but I used RivaTuner to set the Prerender Limit (same thing as "frames to render ahead") to 1, and it's a completely new game! Using some moderately high settings (1680x1050, iMinGrassSize to 120, shadows off) I now get 25-30 FPS with no stuttering. Whee!!

Edit: I did the multi-threaded tweaks to the .ini file, and now in dense forest areas I get a pretty consistent 30 FPS, sometimes going even higher.


Edit 2: For other NP5790 owners that want to know my exact settings, here they are:
1680x1050, 0xAA, 8xAF, Tree fade at 2/3, Actor/Item/Object fade at 3/4, all shadows off (except tree canopy shadows), specular distance to 1/2, water normal, no blood decals.
In RivaTuner, click on "Direct Draw and Direct3D settings" and on the Vsync tab set Prerender frames to 1.
From the Tom's Hardware tweak guide: Set the following in your Oblivion.ini (located in your User directory, NOT the Program Files):
bUseThreadedBlood=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects= 1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1
bUseMultiThreadedFace Gen=1
iNumHavokThreads=5
iThreads=9
iOpenMPLevel=10
iMinGrassSize=150.

I benchmarked the same way I did in the main review, and averaged 30.25 FPS of silky smooth Oblivion goodness. And it looks pretty much identical to maximum settings.
*is happy*

 

Have you installed the optional drivers for the webcam / bluetooth yet? Its been giving me problems, I think i'll give them a call tomorrow for some help.

 

does it come with an integrated fingerprint reader between the two mouse buttons? If not, what site sells the sager 5790 with the fingerprint reader that all the pictures show it with in the middle of the mouse buttons

 

I think most sites have it for sale, but its going to be a delay

 

some sites say, many dont.

Its clear as mud for most sites on the fingerprint reader. I was about to buy from xoticpc but they said that the reader is not on the 5790 until late august or something. Is this for real? Why late august... I need my laptop now. What other site has the reader with it.

 

Thank you for the great review. I was waiting for someone to finally post one up somewhere so I could figure out the final order for my first laptop as well.

The screen size is my final hurdle between the 1680x1050 or 1920x1200. I see that you went for the 1920x1200 screen. How small does text and icons look at that resolution (in game and out)? Is it a strain on the eye?

 

That's correct. The Sager NP5790 comes without the fingerprint until further notice. If you're looking for one that comes with a fingerprint reader, I would recommend going to Killernotebooks.com and check out their rendition based on the Clevo 570RU chassis. It's called the Executioner-SR. It's about $800 more than the Sager NP5790 offered by XoticPC.

http://www.killernotebooks.com/executioner_sr/executionersr_order_page.html

The cooling modification that they offer standard on every Executioner-SR is just awesome!!!

http://www.guruofgaming.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=165

Plus, K|N also offer the Core 2 Extreme x7800 at 2.6GHz unclocked. The Core 2 Extreme x7800 will cost you $499 more. If you can afford ~$800 more, the cooling mod is definitely worth it! Plus you get the integrated fingerprint reader.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Can others who have gotten their laptops already tell me how loud their CD drives are? I'm afraid mine might be vibrating a lot more than it should be, but that might just be how it's supposed to be.

 

800 dollars seems like a lot just for a better cooling system...why not just buy cooling pad or notebook cooler?

 

Yup, got all the drivers installed. Haven't used the BlueTooth (I don't have any BlueTooth devices), but I have tried out the webcam with the included software (BisonCam). It works well, although it's really "streaky" - like, if you move quickly, it streaks across the screen, but I suppose that's normal.

The text is fine. It is smaller than usual, but it's very sharp. The icons aren't a problem; for me personally it's just the text in the browser that poses any kind of a challenge, and that's easily remedied by setting a minimum text size in the options. So it's not a problem at all.

Sorry to tell you, mine is pretty quiet. I can't really hear it over the fans unless I put my ear right up to it.

 

Don't forget, you're also getting the fingerprint reader. Oh, it also comes with Window XP Pro installed, whereas an OS is extra with the Sager NP5790. But most of us already have Window XP Pro, so it's a mute point.

About the cooling mod, yeah, you're paying more for a custom job. K|N claims though that with their cooling mod, the 7950GXT runs 22 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than stock. And that translate to a more stable and overclockable system, giving you higher benchmark scores. Sure you can add a notebook cooler, but that means another piece of hardware to handle and lug around. And if you add a notebook cooler to K|N Executioner-SR, even more efficient heat dissipation! It's a win-win situation in my opinion.

Disclosure: I have no affiliation with Killernotebooks.com and have not purchased anything from them yet. I'm waiting for DX10 like everyone else who isn't super desperate for a notebook yet.

 

Hey Joga, thanks for all the helpful feedbacks. Much appreciated, my friend!

 

Glad it helped! I just ordered an 5790 and have been waiting for oblivion feedback. I have a p4 2.8 w/ 6800gt and haven't been able to play my favorite game, oblivion, in an acceptable way, so i gave up. Looking forward to playing it in all it's glory.

Something to keep in mind, though, is once you set frames rendered ahead to 1 it may cause anamolies in other games and you may have to change it back and forth. It may not have the same effect with your system.

 

I wanted to ask you about Company of Heroes results. Can you download the demo, or play one of the most intensive parts of the game if you have it? I'm going to buy that game the day I get my lappy.

 

here's a question for you, if I got the executioner sr...and decided to upgrade to a better card in the future because of course the Sager NP5790 can be user-upgradeable, how would we do it with this custom heatsink made for the 7950gtx?

 

thats crap.

Sorry I have already went over the "supposed" Killernotebooks' custom heatsinks... from the previous Clevo models.

Nice try... adding extra copper stand offs to the stock heatsink... DOES NOT MAKE IT CUSTOM (referring to a re-engineered design).

What a crock.. anyone can do that themselves.

Here is what you will find on their "custom heatsink":


( view large image)

$8.99 at Newegg.com

they just stuck these copper passive mini-heatsinks to the stock notebook heatsink.... geez.

 

gophn, if you bought a executioner with the ''custom'' heatsinks how are you supposed to upgrade it by yourself in the future?

 

Hmm, Gophn, right now I have... quite a bit of heatsinks at my disposal. Should I take them home rather than recycling and put them on the GPU for cooling, or does it really not make a big difference?