building a barebones

I'm thinking to build a barebones np8662 as a sort of "test ground" if you will. My friends and I are all splitting the bill, as it's about 9 of us going for this. Here's what we want to know.

Would it be feasible to use any of these on battery, under ANY circumstances?

q9100 / 260m
qx9300 / 260m
q9100 / 280m
qx9300 / 280m

We want to know if any of these won't work, PERIOD on battery at all, before we go out trying to spend on it. The problem is that some of us want to see if it can go full banzai in day to day operation, whereas to me, I'd just be happy if even a q9100 / 260m was battery-able and didn't cause the whole room to heat up. The rest of the specs are:

500gb/ 7200rpm
4gb ddr3 ram
wsxga screen
dvd+rw
vista ultimate.

which of the above specs would provide best performance, while maintaining a modicum of cooling and some useability on notes? (When we're done testing, the final result laptop we're going to give to the club for its office's mobile gaming rig)

 

QX9300 / 280m is an issue, if put under full load while on battery.

 

Read this first before trying anything, might save you some time.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=382349

 

right, i figured either q9100 / 260m, or qx9300 / 260m... and i was a bit shocked when the qx9300 used less watts on the grounds of better components. However, this machine also has to be usable for note-taking at college wide meetings, and also be able to withstand long (4 to 6 hour) gaming sessions as well as a club computer, without overheating.

 

This is what I get with a OC'd Q9200.
This is after gaming for about an hour and then running the benchmark.
Had a QX9300 and got a 12700 in 3DMARK06 with stock GPU(260M GTX) but put that in another laptop
Q9200 is very stable OC'd with setFSB and the cooling system works fantastic with no mods.
Did add a OCZ Vertex SSD that absolutely kicks butt.

 

You might want to consider buying something larger to build. You can pick up a 17-18inch bare bones and then deck it out all you want without having to worry about heat or power problems. As far as note taking (with out being plugged in) goes it wouldn't be very practical, but for long hours of intense gaming it might make more sense. Then you could also think about SLI.

 

I second this. But if you absolutely need a 15 incher, I would say QX9300 with 260M. Oh and just so you know there is also the W860CU coming out this month, with i7 and a GTX 280M stock (M860TU's successor)

 

This is what I get when I OC CPU and OC GPU to 280M GTX levels.
Could be a little higher than stock 280M GTX clocks
Not bad
Same as the new W860CU with 280M GTX and i7 CPU

 

Nine people to one computer? Or is test to ensure the quality of future purchases?

Just return it in 30 days if your not happy.

Feel sorry for any of you wanting to play multiplayer. Unless it's 'one person uses the keypad, one person fires' etc.

I believe using any quad-core (any maybe the X9100 too, though this hasn't been tested) would cause similar effects on battery. Using a T9900 has proved stable enough.

 

New drivers( 186.61)
Point I'm trying to make is you can get good benchmark scores but do not expect good battery life 1.5 to 2 hours tops.

 

well the problem came to be as follows:

We have just been confirmed office space as a club, and we already have a home-built i7 / SLi monster sitting in the office waiting for use. I was taking notes during my class on the Presidency when the club's president scribbled down to see if my laptop could handle a quad-core. He asked me about my laptop for about 40 minutes and I told him that if he really wanted a quad-core solution, to go with the 5797 as it can handle all the CPUs and GPUs without overheating. (I showed him the photo gallery on xoticpc and on powernotebooks of both the 5797 and 8662, and the cpu choices, as well as my instruction manual.) The perception was that the 5797 would not be portable enough even going from room to room within 2 buildings, and was voted down 5-4.

I'm going to run it by them again, however I'm more interested in stability over absolute performance, so I'd rather see the q9100 and the 260m in because presumably it will not release as much heat as the qx9300. If I can get the vote reversed, then absolutely qx9300 / 280m for the rig. As it stands right now, it looks more and more 260m with either a q9100 or a qx9300.

the q9200 is out because we made a rule not to use ES or QS samples.

 

If this is your scenario - go for the new W860CU instead.

Can anyone tell me the difference in temps with the Q9000 to QX9300 in an M860ETU? I would have thought that temps would have been similar.

 

Your call but you are going to spend a arm and a leg for OEM CPU's.
You can get very,very good ES and QS CPU's for great deals and save a lot of money.
As long as you find a reputable reseller ( I love Ebay! ) those sample CPU's are just as good as OEM's from my dealings with them.
Just do your homework, ask questions and get the right one.

 

Or he can look for someone selling an OEM CPU for cheap. He is one of the few people that sticks honorably to his morals.

 

According to that dutch review site the battery on the W860CU is horrendous.

 

Dutch or Deustch?

As I've stated before, I don't trust that review. That review makes out like the laptop is only slightly more manouverable than a desktop.

I'll wait until the first wave hits the public. Public perception on a whole tends to be a lot more accurate than any professional critics sole opinion in my experience.

 

For the battery, the Anandtech review comes out pretty poor, too. Admittedly, Anandtech is reviewing a i7-920XM in a W870CU instead of a W860CU, so a lesser processor in a W860CU should probably last longer, but even so, they're getting a little over an hour at idle. I don't want to imagine how fast that battery goes under load.

Here's the link to the page with the setup:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3647&p=4

And here's the link to the page with the battery results:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3647&p=8

 

17inch not pot portable enough for room to room? If you've ever seen those 18inch asus/hp monster laptops, the 5797 is not one of them. I've taking mine to class and back no problem, it even has silent mode to not disturb other students. Admittedly most people would not want to take it to class as its bulkier than your average 15-17inch but its still portable enough to transport from room to room easily. If you want the maximum amount of performance for price the 5797 or the new W870CU is your best choice. The only better laptops would be m17x (way expensive) or NP9850 (way big). And your running the risk of power/heat problems if you try to put both a quad core and 280m in a 15.4inch.