**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

You'll never know until they announce it. Anyway the new mobile fermi looks stupid. Absurd TDP and heat. The desktop fermi was also disappointing in benchmarks considering its price, power consumption and heat. It will likely not be a big upgrade over the 5870. And anyway the 5870 can play pretty much any game on max so no reason to be excited about a new GPU so soon.

 

I originally ordered my 8690 with an i5 but bit my tongue and my new baby is coming to me with an i7 720QM and 4GB 1333mhz RAM!

Super excited guys! I'm really stoked to see this awesome Full HD screen everyone is raving about and start playing some games on it! I had a 5790 a couple years back with a 7950gtx which was basically one of the best cards at the time and the 5870 basically doubles in performance so the gaming experience should be a treat.

 

^^
congrats on the purchase!

you will LOVE the full HD screen! when i first saw it, i coudlnt believe how sharp and detailed it was, especially how ridiculously bright it can go. By far the brightest screen i have ever seen, plus the viewing angles are amazing.
I have an external 23" dell monitor which is also 1080p, and the sager blows it away!

 

Last time when I messed up the thermal pads in my GPU, I brought it to a repair shop (they didn't fix it in the end though), they were repairing a vaio at the moment, when they turned on my Sager, they simply said "wow, it's beautiful".

 

too true, i believe my brightness is toned down to around 20% lol

 

Yeah, I went from the np5760 to the np8690. It is quite the improvement.

 

just curious question about thermal compounds/thermal paste for the 8690..

i went with the stock option for thermal paste
but does anyone have any numbers (or feedback/comments) on the benefits of going with a "higher quality" thermal compound? (ie: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound or IC Diamond Thermal Compound listed on XoticPC's site)

does it really make a significant temperature difference? enough for it to justify an extra $40?

Are there other thermal paste brands people would recommend? (assuming you can use any thermal compound?)

or is stock paste sufficient?
any recommendations/knowledge would be good to know!

 

Thermal paste is good for you CPU and GPU and helps to lower the temps a bit. However, it is not worth paying companies $40 to apply it for you, as you they only use half a grain of the compound and you can buy your own tube for a lot less. If you really want thermal paste, just buy yourself a tube and apply it yourself.

I chose stock paste with the intention of applying the paste myself, but so far, the temps are pretty decent (I'm getting 48-52C for CPU; and 56-60C for GPU (700/1000) at idle, ambient around 28C), so I saw no point in opening it up to apply the paste.

 

Can anyone comment on the 8690's noise levels at idle/load? I don't mind a little bit of audible noise at idle but I cannot stand laptops that sound like vacuum cleaners at idle.

 

If the room is absolutely silent, then yes you can hear it. But if you're gaming, watching a movie, or listening to music, or even have a fan or air conditioner open in the room then it is inaudible.

 

Thanks for the fast reply wintering! Did anybody order their 8690 from Powernotebooks.com? If so, how long did the whole process take from the time of order until the day you received the laptop?

 

i buy from a local reseller here, and it toooook a loooong time... they say i'll get it by next week, but it means already 1 month. been exited>quite exited>not exited... hope that the stuff get me exited once more... hehe

 

Placed my order for the NP8690 this afternoon, from Donald @ PowerNotebooks.com. The order process was quick, easy, and simple. And Donald was very helpful in answering all of my questions. I can't wait to get my laptop, already bought an IKEA desk for my room to put it on. This what I got, do you guys think I will regret not getting 8GB of RAM? I went down to 6GB to get the price a little lower. I guess I could always upgrade the RAM later, is that pretty difficult?


1 Sager NP8690 - Gaming Laptop - $2,544.00
15.6” Full HD (1920x1080) 16:9 LED Backlit Super Clear Glossy Widescreen
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5870 w/1GB GDDR5
Intel® Core™ i7-820QM (1.73~3.06GHz, 45W) w/8M L3 Cache - 10Gb/s DMI I/O BUS - 4 Cores
IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
6GB (2 SODIMMS) DDR3/1333 Dual Channel Memory (Only available with QM Processors)
160GB Intel® X25-M SATA Solid-State Drive
4x Blu-Ray Reader/8x Super Multi Combo Drive
7-in-1 Memory Card Reader (All versions of MS + SD/MMC)
Built-in Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 Wireless Card
Built-in Bluetooth Wireless
Li-Polymer Battery Pack 3800mAh, 42.18Wh
Windows 7 Premium - (64-Bit installed - 64 and 32-bit CD included)
Full Range Auto Switching AC Adapter
Standard Carrying Case
3-Year Labor 1-Year Parts (Year 2 & 3 Labor by PNB)-Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Support
NO Dead Pixel Guarantee
NO MCE Remote & IR Receiver
NO Spare Battery
NO "Medialess" Microsoft Office Software
NO Spare AC Adapter

 

Congrats on your purchase Philthy! What kind of applications will you be running? Very few people, even gamers, find themselves using more than 4GB of RAM; 8GB is straight up overkill and you probably won't notice a difference between 4GB, 6GB, and 8GB in normal use (even under heavy gaming). As for upgrading the RAM; it is one of the easiest components to upgrade/replace! Simply unscrew the back panel (only a couple screws in most Sagers), locate the RAM, and replace/upgrade the desired DIMMs!

 

Just simple applications (word processor, internet browser, ect...) and for games I play WoW, until Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 are out. And thank you for explaining to me how to change the RAM, that doesn't sound too difficult. Gives me a little more piece of mind.

 

8GB of RAM is useless unless you'll be running all those apps and games at the same time. 4GB is more than enough. RAM prices will drop soon enough, and you can upgrade then. Though I doubt it'll be necessary.

 

wow....havent been here in a lonng time. i got my 8690 back in nov09 been playing with it happily since then and i havent taken off the cpu sticker.. . Great laptop add me as a owner.

 

I'll be getting my DeathAdder, Qck mousepad and Tripp Lite surge protector next week. Now all I need is a game to play online.

 

To be honest, that's really overkill just to play starcraft 2, WoW and Diablo 3.

 

Maybe he wants to play them all simultaneously?

 

Maybe, I usually have all 4 of my WoW accounts on 4 separate windows running at max settings at the same time on my 8690, my old laptop could only support 1 at lowest settings.

 

So I have this Everest Ultimate Edition which I think is pretty cool, tells me lots of stuff and it seems to have good ratings. And then there's also Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor. Well I'm not the most expert at computers but I thought that I was pretty right in thinking that the CPU Clock reading that shows up on the sidebar gadget of Everest was measuring the same thing as what the Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor was reading. But then I was screwing around with the settings just now and I turned on the quiet mode option (the LED "M" button above the keyboard) and I noticed that what this did (besides make it a little bit quieter) was turn off turbo boost on my processor so that, I take it, all four cores were now running continuously at 1.60 GHz and so I thought that this is what the CPU clock reading from Everest would show

PHP:

as well. But now that I"ve turned on quiet mode the CPU clock hums along at only 1066 MHz. Shouldn't it be 1600 MHz? Is something wrong with the everest sensor or is something wrong happening where I'm not getting accurate readings? Because afterwards I decided to compare and I noticed when quiet mode was off CPU Clock on Everest was always a little higher than the readings for the Turbo Boost Monitor. I posted an image with this down below.

Laptop Specs: NP8690 i7-720qm 1.60 GHz, 8 GB 1333 ram, Nvidia GTX285m

 

Everest is right on this... quiet mode locks the CPUs in an underclocked mode and the fan to medium, so you should have around 1GHz CPU with no turbo boost at all.

 

Is the Turbo Boost Monitor supposed to be measuring what the CPU clock is at any given time? Because if it is it's usually not the same as the Everest CPU clock thing and if the Everest CPU clock thing is pretty accurate then wouldn't that mean that the Turbo Boost monitor is actually pretty crappy? Just wondering cause seem to reccommend utility a lot.

 

Just got word from Donald of Powernotebooks.com that my 8690 is due to ship out on the 19th. It will be shipped out via 3 day UPS Ground so I'll receive the laptop in about 3 weeks. It is going to be a long 3 weeks...!

 

^ ya i ordered from powernotebooks too, i remember it taking around 2 1/2 weeks or so. The prices are unbeatable tho, and they have like a thousand positive reviews lol
id recommend prepping software/bios/stuff for it, you might want this too:
http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/ (and this remap file http://forum.notebookreview.com/att...fficial-w860cu-np8690-owners-lounge-remap.zip ) it sets the / and * on the top right to be your volume controls, which this laptop direly needs imo..

 

Yes I like to dual box my MMO accounts and usually have Foxfire running with multiple tabs opened in the background.

When did you place your order? And what specs did you get, if you don't me asking? Trying to estimate when the systems I ordered last night might come in.

 

I ordered mine Tuesday night but changed/verified the order Thursday night so it has only been 1 business day since the order was actually confirmed.

 

just ordered one from local reseller
the one with GTX 280m

he said that he need 2 days to asemble, and 2 days to ship it
got it for about US$ 1600 @_@

 

in my place, the clevo was sold in 2 variants : gtx 280m and HD 5870

btw, need some info:
1. if i overclock gtx 280m to gtx 285's, will this hold?
2. between i7 720 and gtx 280m, which one have higher performance (i.e, if i need to oc 720qm to bring out the gtx 280m, then the gtx 280m have higher perofrmance theni7 720 qm )
thx

 

what? 10char

 

what indeed!

geniuskidzz why did you even pick the 280m and not get the 5870
and what does this mean

 

So you had the option of getting a GTX280M or a HD5870 and you got the GTX280M? Why would you do that?

The HD5870 is usually cheaper and is much more powerful.

As for the overclocking, that might hold but it depends on the individual chip but even if you do manage it, you won't notice much difference in performance anyway.

 

so i'll stick with stock clock

well, it indeed chepar the 5870 version, but i got his gtx 280m version cheaper US$150 than the actual prize ( the reseller want to restock , but they aren't allowed by the asembler unless they give a proof that their stock already sold out)

so i got this one

 

ah i see. now that makes more sense.
congrats on your purchase!

 

The cheapest is not always necessarily the best- Sometimes, spending a little more now can prevent having to spend even more later.

Aside from storage and RAM(beyond 4GB is the point of rapidly diminishing returns), component upgrades makes no sense (except for hard core enthusiasts, where money is not a concern and maxing the system is the primary goal). The market is geared towards buying a whole new system (which is likely cheaper).

 

well, maybe i'll just put my money into headphones and other things
to upgrade 500 gigs to 640 gigs (largest avalaible in my state) just a little bit awkward for me
it's more reasonable to buy an external drive
also, the ram )4 gigs) is beyond upgrade in my country -_-"

 

I think he's asking which one (CPU or GPU) will be the bottleneck. It will definitely be the GPU, but there's really nothing your CPU can do to compensate for it.

 

GTX280m is still a pretty capable GPU- Unless the new cards are at least 50% faster, I see no point in upgrading (at least at the moment).

 

@thewinteringtree
u got my point
so, at first, i'll oc'ed the gtx 280m to be fuly bring the beast with i7 720, but look's like standart clock will do just fine right now.

@k9hydr4
what new card?

damn, can't wait till friday (GMT +7)

 

As long as it can play the game with High settings and some AA/AF there's no need to OC. The difference between 4x and 8x AA is pretty minimal.

He's talking about the GTX 480m or the mobile fermi card from Nvidia coming out in a month or two.

 

it'll be damn expensive
i think i'll just stick with this one

btw, i usually maxed out the settings, but turn off the shadow option. i usually got the AA @ 8x or 4 x

 

Just turn off the AA, it's pretty much pointless for a game running in full HD on a 15" screen.

 

Ahoy everybody!
I am an owner, too.
Bought my 860CU in Germany, labelled Deviltech 9700 DTX.
One question: The 3.5G module driver can't be installed, the installer routine says the module is not present.
Can pls somebody check this pic:

And tell me it looks the same in his/her W860CU and my module looks complete?
And then maybe tell me what i might have done wrong?

I thought about some BIOS-lock because it might not be able in german mobile radio frequencies.

Thanks for help!
Steve.

 

It appears that you do not have a 3.5g module installed at all... Might want to contact your seller if you paid for such an option.

 

I did not explicitly pay for it. I just downloaded the manual in advance and read there is a 3.5G module built in, so i counted on that. I didn't have the choice of screen (1920x1080 LED included) or fingerprint (included) or webcam (included) or such. All that comes with the PC automatically.
I'm quite pissed now that it does not seem to be aboard.
Can sb. pls post a pic how it _should_ look like?

Big thanks!
Steve.

 

Vendors do not automatically build it with such a module - you have to ask for it. The manual only shows that it is possible to fit.

 

IIRC, what is stated in the manual is that it's a 3.5G module with a "(if configured)" behind.

 

You are right, i just double-checked the manual and it really says "option"
Any idea where i can order such a module? I hate those USB-stick-thingies; looks totally noobish.