Well, I joined the club.

I'm running an old Dell Inspirion 6000 that is getting a bit long in the tooth, basically just email and wifi access for my current desktop (don't ask ). I will soon be traveling (for work, in Video Games) and needed something small but game worthy as it can get for a 15".

Here is what I got (Xotic PC):

1x Sager NP8662 (Built on Clevo M860TU)

- Warranty: 3 Year Labor* 1 Year Parts Warra
- Software Bundle (Not Installed): No Software Bundle
- Microsoft Office Software: No Office Software
- Operating System: None Standard - Drivers & Utilit
- Fingerprint Reader: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- Battery: Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
- Sound Card: Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audi
- Camera: Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- Wireless Network: Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 530
- Bluetooth: Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Memory Card Reader: Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader (MS/
- Primary Hard Drive: ~ 80GB Intel X25-M Solid State D
- Optical Drive: ~ 2X Blue-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Supe
- Ram: ~ 4,096MB DDR3 1066MHz Dual Chan
- Video Card: nVidia GeForce GTX 260M 1,024MB
- Processor: ~Intel® Q9000 45nm "Montevina" C
- Arctic Silver: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- Display: 15.4" WUXGA "Matte Type" Super C

Now I know most of you will balk at the quad (but I am hoping I can drop something else in a bit later and my current gaming needs do not need to be Crysis level (I play Warhammer online that has Quad support as it is) and I will be watching BR movies during travel.

How'd I do?

 

That's a sweet computer, enjoy.
I will give you some positive reinforcement on the CPU, I think quads are the way to go these days.

 

I think it`s a great choice. More and more games support QC. Crysis support QC too and the Q9000 will perform pretty well I think.

EDIT: Welcome to NBR

 

Hi Infernal_Machine. Welcome to NBR. It looks like you got all the bells and whistles alright. Have fun with your machine.

 

Welcome to the club ! You have got a pretty good configuration and it's going to be good enough for a couple of years of sweet gaming! And the quad cores will prove good in the long run .... Do get a 64-bit OS to make use of the full 4 GB RAM.

 

welcome to nbr. Be sure to monitor your temps though im sure this machine has good cooling properties.

 

I am very surprised to see the Q9000 there because so many chose what everyone else is going for instead of actually looking at the technical details (bottlenecks), excellent choice.

 

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!

There were a couple of factors:

1) multi-threaded apps are becoming more prevalent, fast enough to worry about it now? Probably not but in addition to the gaming and movies/email, etc. I will be using photoshop and while not hardcore heavy, some video editing on the rare occasion and more often than not multiple apps open (music, email, Photoshop, etc).

2) For years now games were not CPU bound but GPU bound and I think the amount of RAM on the NV card and the system RAM (I will be running Vista 64 until W7) should help immensely in this area.

3) The SSD, coupled with the above will help keep overhead low where the quad will be able to do just fine.

Again, my gaming expectations are not Crysis running at 120FPS, it IS a 15" notebook, afterall , I will save that for my Intel Quad/Dual 4870 rig at home!

I'm also working on PC games that are unannounced and DO support quad core so it makes sense for my purposes. It's a work machine on the go that lets me play Warhammer respectably.

If I could have, I most certainly would have added a higher clocked quad (hoping I can drop in the Q93xx at some point).

EDIT: I forgot to mention I purchased it from xoticpc for the better warranty over direct from Sager.

 

I think Q9000 should not be much helpful because of low clock speed and l2 cache.
I think you should go for the low/hi-end processor or Q9100 if possible.

 

I believe 4 cores lower cache >>> 2 cores higher cache easily

 

It shipped out this afternoon!

Exciting!

 

welcome nice laptop i personally like the solid state disk very much should be running like hell with that harddisc

grretings flode

 

I've been preaching the Q9000 to deaf ears, so.... good choice. I see the P9600 as a waste of money over the P8700.

 

It arrived yesteday!

Ordered it without an OS so I had to find the Intel drivers for Vista to recognize the SSHD, once pass that issue it was all good.

Good build quality, the casing seems solid and well put together, keyboard is nice (textures, not smooth), screen is awesome (not glossy) and it runs Warhammer great =D

It does run HOT however, directly below the right hand rest, pretty toasty. The touchpad buttons are a little stiff, perhaps they will break in.

Great little beast!

Was tempted to put Win7 on there but doesn't the current RC expire at the end of this month?

 

The RC expires in um... somewhere between May and July of next year.

 

I received mine yesterday too and I am so glad that I chose the Q9000. Not only have I had no problems in any game performance (GPU dependent) but I find I can multitask so much more without slow downs. As you know, you can also set the affinity of each Core to do this even better. I have even started games from the beginning again because I am finding that I enjoy them more due to the maxed out graphics.

I also set up Riva Tuner to show the Core(s) usage in gaming and it is very interesting, very few games only use two cores.

My Q9000 is idling from 34C - 45C on all cores and my GPU is cool as well.

My hard disk is usually around 60C though but I have a new one on the way from Kobalt soon.

 

Let us know about the temps with your Kobalt in! Also, what *is* the Kobalt you're using on that machine?

 

lol, I purchased my NP862 from Kobaltcomputers but my (5400 RPM) hard disk was reaching temperatures as high as 67C. When I replaced it with my spare Samsung 5400 RPM the temps were reasonable. My Hard disk has been at 53C for ages.

Kobalt Computers said that they will send me a new hard disk since the problem has been narrowed down to the hard disk as opposed to the actual laptop.

On another note, I just tried GTA IV and it was running about 33 fps at 1680 X 1050 but then I remembered that I haven't even patched it yet!