What are peoples experience with Desktop i7 on their Laptops?

http://www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk/comanche_overview.php

This is the UK equivalent of of what you purchase on sager/xotic etc.

You get a 920, 950, or 975 i7 processor. GTX 280 as standard.

The machines aren't that pretty to look at mind you . But what kind of difference are you looking at, compared to those systems like say, M15x and other gaming machines, which are based around Quad-core or mobile i7?

I know, performance is likely to be better, but how much?

Does heating become an issue on these systems? Stability?

If you could buy this, or one with mobile i7 and a GTX 260/280, for a few hundred pounds cheaper, which would you go for?

Thanks

 

Performance is better, but you'll only notice it if you run heavily CPU-dependent programs. If all you plan to use your machine for is gaming or basic office tasks, it's significant overkill. The market for these machines is largely the workstation market, and for people whom, for example, run multiple VMs simultaneously and actually need all that processing power.

Heating is not an issue to date on these machines, and they're quite stable. It's largely a matter of the fact that these are big, beefy machines. It's like, oh, buying a dump truck to haul things around as opposed to a pickup truck. It all depends on how much stuff you need to haul.

 

Thanks for your input. I may settle for an M15x/Envy 15 I guess, when the prices get more reasonable - or I'll see what the arrandale brings in January.

 

This being the Sager subforum, I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you of the WC860CU, which Kobalt has as the G860. If you're a gamer, this one comes with the same i7s as the M15x/Envy 15, but packs a GTX 280M instead of the M15x 260M, or the Envy 15 HD4830. The only real complaint most people have had with it (except for an apparently inconsistent fan issue, and inadequately applied thermal paste in some cases) is that fact that battery life is abysmal. Oh, and for some the lack of a backlit keyboard is a big minus as well, but the Kobalt Comanche didn't have that either, so I don't know if it was a concern in your case. Or you could go for the G870 (WC870CU) if you're looking for a 17" model, with dual hard drives.

 

Unless your doing some serious rendering/video encoding/photoshopping you wont really need an i7 there are very few applications that can take advantage of a quad core/threaded processor nevermind octa-threaded
Games = VGA cards in SLI/Crossfire over more core imo

 

Most of what I was going to post has been covered Main thing to bear in mind is that the socket 1366 i7 CPUs run at their stock speed with full Hyperthreading i.e. a 920 on load will run at 2.66GHz with Hyperthreading whereas a mobile i7 will only give you this at its stock speed but it will ramp up when only using 2 cores for example. You also get three HDDs and a more powerful chipset in the D900F but as reported I wouldn't suggest buying one if you need to carry it around a lot.

I assume the thermal paste comment is in reference to other Clevo resellers and not Kobalt specifically?! I know some Sager resellers offer Arctic Silver on the CPU, we use MX2 on the CPU and GPU so I think any thermal paste application problems are either because the stock cooling pads are used for the CPU (which actually come pre-applied on the heat sinks) or that rubbish paste is used on the GPUs.

 

I don't have one but need to throw in my 2 cents. I do agree sure its not as pretty as a Alienware M15X or M17X. It dosn't have a light up keyboard, or Face recognition (Dosn't work on Windows 7 yet anyways).

Don't do what i did and go by looks, yes i love how the M17X looks. It looks frinkin sweet with all the lights etc. But man does it have ISSUES, its like a gold diggering Girlfriend. At first you get her and get together because she is hot, then you get sick of her issues and taking your money and not giving anything back.

I am 85-95% sure that i will be ordering the 9280 laptop because...
1. No DCP latancy issues, or audio issues like many Alienwares.
2. Its a DESKTOP processor so its faster then any laptop one by far.
3. I am so mad at Dell and their techs, they don't know anything and its IMPOSSIBLE to get any help with parts or anything. I had a bad HD first 3-4 weeks it finally took me to call my SALES rep (Thank god he's nice) and had to talk to him. He told me it took him 6 phone calls to get it done.

So good luck, wish you all the best whatever laptop you choose.

EDIT: Forgot I just get the dual 280s for my laptop But i wasted around 350 dollers for MAYBE a 10% increase in performance. Thats with Sli also. Save your money and get 260

 

It was meant to be a general statement, yes, and not directed specifically at Kobalt. I think we've seen... half a dozen, maybe, cases in this forum, and I didn't really keep track of whom the actual resellers were that they got them from. I think they may have all been from Sager in the US, but, as I said, I wasn't keeping track.

 

Thanks for the post. Do you know when you are looking to have available finance options? I noticed Rock (or stone?)/novatech have similar (if not the same) system as kobalt, albeit more expensive, however they are offering finance options at the mo...

 

Np

Finance will be available early in the new year, it's been in the works for quite a few months and we're just waiting for the certification to come through before we can offer it

 

Yeah, I'm actually surprised at how cool my NP9820 runs! And that Quad Core i7 just burns through CAD stuff like nobody's business. Who needs a desktop?

 

I was running @ 100% on all 8 CPUs in some of my benchmarks on the thread in my sig and full GPU, Max - GPU - 50C / CPU - 70C
Coooool