Sager NP8130 or NP8150?

Hey guys

I narrow my choice down to these two gaming notebooks.

NP8130

Pro:
Cheap Price
Matte Screen

Con:
560m ONLY

NP8150

Pro:
485m or 580m

Con:
More expensive then the 8130 if stuck with 560m
Glare Screen

I want to be able to play BF3 on Max or close to Max setting. That is the game that my gaming need is build around.

Therefore should I spent the extra 400 or 600 for the most powerful 15.6 inches gaming laptop on the face of the planet?

OR​

Should I spent around $1200 (below my $1500 budget) and get a Matte screen plus a good GPU.

Therefore my final conclusion to you guys is Matte screen vs 485m/580m...which is more important?

FYI I game outdoor as much as indoor so Matte screen is very important for me, but having a powerful GPU is the most important thing in gaming IMO, so what is the right choice?

Thanks

 

Honestly, if you want to play BF3 at the highest settings it appears that a laptop will not be plausible.

The 560M is not a pushover card by any means, but the 580M is the best bet by far. Your budget is $1500 though; you'd be better off getting the 2720QM and sticking with the 560M in the P151HM1 (NP8130). Get a better hard drive too; the 750GB for space or the 500GB hybrid drive for better loading times. Your budget for 485M/580M should be ~$2200 I'd say, if it's laptop and BF3 as your main goals.

In that case, I'd recommend the P170HM (NP8170). The extra hard drive bay + stock matte screen + larger power brick + lower price for same hardware as the P150HM (NP8150) is pretty good in my opinion.

 

It will take more than 1500 bucks to max BF3. It probably is not even possible in a laptop seeing as how the GTX580 used in the demo was not maxed and dual 580m is equal to a GTX 580(roughly) . That being said, we don't know the specs for BF3 yet.

I too want to max BF 3 but I will be using a desktop with dual 580s for that. Those 2 cards alone are like 1000 bucks.

 

Hey sorry I think you misunderstand me or I didn't really get my point across or lack thereof . I have a gaming PC and probably will be able to run BF3 at High with max everything but I am tire of sitting in one place every time I want to play game, and so I know that laptop graphic are still inferior to desktop and will always be considering that my desktop graphic card is almost as big as a 13inches laptop. I will sacrifice graphic performance for ease of portability seeing that I travel almost every day. I really enjoy the fact that I can game anywhere I want, whenever I want, and it ain't no crime

I just check the benchmark and I have to say I will have to pass on the 560m and the Matte screen unfortunately. Why doesn't the 8150 have any Matte screen option? From the benchmark not all game beside the big 3 (crysis, crysis 2, and metro 2033) can run on ultra past 50fps while the 485m graphic card can. I can increase my budget to a max of $2200 as I feel it is a worthy investment and with my current laptop dying, I have a wonderful excuse.

Is the NP8170 as heavy or as big as the Asus 17inches, cause after seeing it first hand at Bestbuy, no way am I buying anything as big as that. Crap I forgot it has Matte screen, why you....

I didn't know the CPU really matter? What exactly does the CPU do if increase, and I still don't know much about HD so better HD increase loading time? (like in game loading screen?)

Yes hence I will increase to $2200 MAX, wallet say NO, heart say YES! Actually I figure it be around $1700 cause I honestly don't know what extra upgrade I need so if you guys can tell me upgrade to get would pretty much appreciated. I didn't know that even desktop PC couldn't run it

OK if it mean medium but max everything, does that mean medium for BF3 would look better than any other modern games that is play at MAX. So would battlefield 3 medium setting with full AA and AF be better looking than Dirt 2 and Dirt 3 (cause those two racing game are simply breathtaking)?

If YES, then I'm sold NP8170 here I come....if it actually fit in a backpack....

 

You can get the 95% gamut Matte FHD screen as an upgrade at most of the resellers. It's probably one of the most important upgrades you can buy. Also, as far as overall size goes, the 8170 is probably a bit too big for you. I think it's a tad bit smaller than the Asus 17inchers, but still pretty darn big. My 8130 is very hefty, and the power brick is HUGE. The 8150 is probably at the upper limit of what I would call 'portable' if you factor in the brick.

Your best bet considering you can go up to $2200 for your budget is getting the 8150 with the 580m graphics. I've heard it mentioned all over the place that CPU upgrades won't make much difference, unless you do lots of video encoding or need virtualization support. So basically, upgrade the cpu after everything else is done.

Finally, you probably will want to get at least 4gb(1 dimm), and you can add more later on your own for much cheaper. You will probably want the IC diamond thermal compound, although you can buy it and apply it yourself for less than the $40 they usually charge. You can also throw in any hdd you want, and buy an ssd from newegg or somewhere for muuuch cheaper and install it yourself. That's probably your best bet as far as future proofing your machine within that budget. Good luck!!!

 

Ok. The P170HM is just a 17 inch, it isn't as bulky as my D900F, so it should fit in backpacks. If not, simply ask for a good backpack here, people ask a lot. I can only suggest the Alienware Orion, as it's all I've ever used, but others might have better ideas.

If you can throw it up to $2200, let me see...

You can get the P170HM with the GTX 580M, the i7-2720QM, two 500GB 7200 RPM hybrid hard drives (the hybrid drives basically use a 4GB SSD chip + the 500GB drive to launch programs faster than normal drives would), the intel 6230N wireless card, IC Diamond compound, 1920 x 1080 Matte-type screen and 8GB of RAM for about $2273.68 from Malibal or XoticPC. If one hard drive is enough, or you don't care for the loading speed with programs, feel free to remove the 2nd hard drive or change them to regular 500GBs, or 750GBs for more space. It'll drop your price as well.

A lot of people say the 2630QM is fine for gaming, I personally would say the 2720QM is the safest bet, and sweet spot in price; especially for programs that will only use two CPU cores and need them at high speeds. But this is because I live in a very hot country and my CPU probably will never be running at its highest of clocks; so it may be different for you.

 

Xoticpc didn't list Matte screen as an option? I am looking at the Targus XL backpack and that thing can even hold an Asus Gaming 17inches (WOW) and I need a big backpack anyway. I hate having regular small standard backpack. The weight is not much of an issue if I have a big backpack that can support the weight.

580m appear to be worst than the 485m with the benchmark test off the only two known game as of right now (Mafia 2 and Dirt 2). It about 2 to 5 fps less which make no sense. It should be 8 to 9 fps more I would think but that not what the benchmark say. How can that be 200 dollar more for less performance?

What is 95% gamut and why is that needed? I hear this all the time but I don't know what it actually do.

Is upgrading a laptop as easy as building your own desktop PC? I worry that I might screw it up and void the warrantly. I am new to laptop but I am an experience desktop user in terms of building at least 7 gaming computer by now. It probably should be easier since it smaller.

I thought xoticpc is cheap, why is newegg cheaper? I didn't know thanks for the suggestion but I don't have experience laptop and it might void warranty.

Thanks hope to get an answer from you soon!

 

Our cash price on that configuration is $2263.98, but yea - close enough.

 

What exactly does a hybrid drive with 4 SSD do?

 

it takes random data that you access very often and it stores it in the 4gb ssd, but you cant store stuff in there manually, unlike the one that i have on my current dell. mine is a 120gb hybrid with 2gb ssd, so i use it to do my paging files and thats where my download folder is

also just saw that ibm made a breakthrough in pcm which could lead to cheaper, faster and more reliable ssds. IBM develops a new kind of phase-change memory (PCM) so within the next few years the price of ssds should drop dramatically

 

I built it on your website then posted the price directly; unless you counted your discount on RAM, as the builder states it's -$0.

 

I just checked xotic's website, the 95% matte type screen is the 3rd of the screen options, top of the list when you customize. 95% color gamut means that it can display 95% of the possible colors in Adobe's RGB gamut(I believe). Basically this means that colors are more vivid and sort of 'pop' compared to lower gamut screens. Most people on this forum will absolutely swear by this particular screen, so it's well worth it.

As far as the 580m, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's supposedly 10-15% faster than the 485m. It's also only been out for a few weeks, so those are some very very early benchmarks. You might find that the 580m will pull ahead as more benchmarks are done, or as driver support increases.

As far as upgrading is concerned, it's pretty easy(and encouraged) on clevo/sager laptops. Their warranty covers all the parts included with the laptop(ie it does NOT cover aftermarket parts that you install yourself), and you will find no 'warranty void if...' stickers anywhere inside. Some of the resellers could probably back me up on this, but they will provide you with how-to's on upgrading and will cover any failures(as long as it wasn't 'accidental damage'). But yeah, you should be able to upgrade and do it yourself pretty easily. If not, you can ship it back to them and have them do the work for you for free usually.

xoticpc and other resellers are cheap, but newegg is cheaper to buy individual components. Resellers and manufacturers mark up the parts to make a profit. The greatest thing about clevo/sager resellers is they don't mark them up very much, so it's as cheap as they can make it while still staying in business

 

yeah i got 2263.98 as well so check again

 

Well look at that. I opened up a new page side-by-side with the old page, and the new page is cheaper. I guess prices dropped today. Hehe.