**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

some of those programs are made for desktop workstations, requiring significant number crunching.
you may want to check if they have CUDA support to make use of the gpus superior GFlops.
i think the 8690 is an excellent choice as a portable workstation, as i find the bigger 17inchers a little too bulky already. just make sure it has enough power to run your programs.

 

dang XP

well, I believe the processor is enough, and also i can probably upgrade it (hopefully). Well the programs do utilize CUDA so its alright. Also I mean the ATI have teraflops..but soldered in that's the prob XD

 

the ati cards are definitely a better deal than the nvidia imho. but do note that for commercial/industrial applications, nvidia and CUDA has a wider support base. i use use premiere pro cs5 and some other video editing software. they have support for nvidia and CUDA but not ati's counterpart.

 

yeah true true. Well the programs do support CUDA. but I mean for my school research or say for my explicit personal research, I don't know if I'll program in CUDA language. Unless there is another way to exploit all hardware's. Either way though, I would get the Nvidia GTX 285M as it can be removed and replaced by another card. Its a better idea then buying the 17 inch with the 480M. Don't you think? I mean i can get the D900F, but the size, battery life of it, and I myself might regret later for not getting the intel i7 980XM...

 

wasn't w860cu has an FX2800m option?
btw, seeing for your game requirement, IMO you should take FX2800m with i5, if your budget not enough for i7 + FX2800m. i5 will do just fine, as long as you didn't do 24 hours protein simulation

 

LOL................. umm for me I'm gonna be doing physics simulation, data analysis (from video, audio, sensors and other stuff..not just data tables ). Anyway I'm gonna be doing 3D sim for physics, aerodynamics, CFC, for fun, propulsion and stuff. I might do research on the unknown :confused2: (hard to explain). And school work, multimedia and gaming for sho. So an i5 is enough? Well xoticpc price for this lappy is around 1100-1300 in USD I believe? My plan is around 800 to 2500 CDN. hope tis enough...if not i might have to go for an envy

 

huh...care to explain yourself Aikimox? :confused2:

 

Hey how does this machine par with mobile workstations such as the elitebook 8740w or with an Asus?

 

Updated the initial post guys. Sorry I've been gone for so long, been busy. Btw, I updated my W860CU with the MySn XMG7C .12 bios and it works great. HT can now be disabled and there are OC options for extreme CPUs.

 

Good to see you back, yah I'm somewhat poking around again too, I'm diligently observing this GPU activity, and how it pertains to the 8690 and it's future. ( Looks like a buncha hip hype to me, even the 480m has trouble making the 280m look bad in games...but we'll see with some driver maturity )

 

Well I doubt the W860CU will see a GTX 480M in it's future. I see the GTX 460M taking that spot. The Asus G53 and Medion Akoya X6811 will have it too. The high power consumption and heat from the 480M isn't worth it in a 15" chassis.

 

Does anyone know where I can find this MySn XMG7C .12 Bios?

All I could find is XMG7CGH.12 which is the one for the W870CU.

Edit: Nevermind, I just noticed that this is the same Bios that was used, looks like ChiNoobonic had some brass and tried it lol. He took one for the team.

 

Just so everyone is clear on what i did. I flashed my w860 with the w870's bios. ONLY THE BIOS. Use the w860's EC.

 

Updated the 1st post with the MySn XMG7C .12 BIOS. I took out the W870CU's EC update, so this is just the BIOS only. This BIOS adds the feature to disable Hyper-Threading and has OC options for extreme CPU's. NOTE: Make sure you have the W860CU's .10 EC firmware installed before you apply the BIOS update. Follow this thread for instructions to update your BIOS. You do this at your own risk.

Tested by myself and LaptopNut.

 

hey since ur so good with Sagers, can you check my post (I think it was a page or 2 back) and see if Sagers a good idea for me bro

 

The W860CU is basically on par with all of those. They all use the same processors, the only difference is with the graphic cards. You can equip the W860 with a 5870 like the Asus G73 or even the FX3800 like the HP. As it relates to quality, Clevo wins, hands down.

 

Ahh, yes Clevo is der bestest.
On a side note....speaking of the GTX460M, if that's what it will be, and I don't see why not. If the 480m has 352 cores, the 460m would most likely have a block or three disabled, which would take it down to 320 or 288. The 480m is 128 cores short of the desktop 480, which are all in blocks of 32. So the most likely number we'll see in the 460 or whatever, will be 320 or as low as 256.

But they might axe it, and take it down to 256, and try to throw some high clocks on it, and bring the memory down to 1g, which could produce a heavy hitter, but I predict 320 at 1GB memory with more like a 500-600mhz core clock actually, because they will be making a lot more 460s than 480s, the 480 will be sold to the high end crowd who want the latest first. I just don't see Nvidia really trying to compete with the mobile 5850, since the 285m is already trying to fill that spot.

Nvidia just wants market share, so I'm betting the 1gb, higher clocked midrange card with be a hit. But I don't think they're out to make a bunch of high end GPUs anyway as usual this time around, Nvidia usually sticks with 2 high end models per line, and then a bunch of midrange and business jazz. But I'm not saying the 460 won't have even less than 256 cores either, which would mirror the desktop GTX280 for the most part. I'm still a bit underwhelmed by the 480m either way, so I actually have higher hopes for a higher clocked,256-320 cored midrange GPU.

Oh please please let us 8690 users have that card, and the bios for it!!! preddddy pwease.

 

my only concern is what kind of performance could we expect froma 460m with such underwhelming results from the 480m

 

a performance similar to the 5850MR, from what i heard in the Asus Forums.

 

underwhelming indeed

 

Though the 460m will definitely be better than the 285m right?

 

I might actually buy a 460M and change out my 5870MR when it's out and available depending on the price. I don't mind trading a bit of performance for CUDA and PhysX because these stuff are actually very helpful for stuff I do.

 

for the right price id be happy with the 460m just being on par with the 5870m, although notebook check rates it one notch lower.
cuda is also immensely important to me and thats whats keeping me from going the ati route.

 

BRO....what do u do?

 

Is there even a good possibility of having the 460m available for the 860cu?

 

Very good possibility, since it's a 75W TDP card same as 285M, and Clevo is a hardcore nvidia fan and can't wait to have better nvidia cards in their machine.

 

that is good news indeed. many video editing programs have better support for cuda- the chief of this being adobe creative suite.
adobe seems to be in some sort of partnership with nvidia and will probably not release updates for ati gpu acceleration for their products.

 

But not anytime soon? Price range estimate?

 

As soon as 460M is out I reckon, not sure about the price, that's why I'm going to have to see if it's worth the price, if it's around same price as 5870MR I will consider, if it's only a bit cheaper than 480M then it's nothx.

 

Oh ok. I hope it would be a cheap card.

 

the price of a 5870mr would be the sweetspot for the 460m imho, assuming performance is more or less equivalent

 

You may think you will be trading a bit of performance but you might actually be surprised how much of a good performance difference Nvidia's Drivers can actually make and I am speaking from experience.

I swapped my GTX 285M for a 5870 and I am glad I didn't sell it because after playing all of my games, I am back with the GTX 285M again.

 

I always root for ATI,but then again I always root for competition for a good reason. I bought a FX5200 128mb card back when it was hip, and that was the last nV card I bought until about 4 years later. I had an X800, an X700, an X850PE, and lastly an X1900XT. The 3870 was kind of weak compared to the 8800 series, so I went nV from then on, but my father bought a HD4890 since I was going to buy one for that system anyway before I gave it to him.

nV for the most part wasn't anything special until G80 in that period of time, but man since G80, it's been a struggle for ATI. So I was very happy when they came out with that 4800 series, that was great. So nV was basically taking the smallest baby steps they could, like the 9800GTX, give me a break, that thing was slower than the 8800GTX that was almost 2 years older. And don't get me started about the 9800GT ( and of course all the mobile versions that were shuffled around, until ATI got it's act together). So I love competition, otherwise we would have these +/- 5% gains in hardware every year lol.
I don't blame nV from a business point either, there are 2 main things that make the business world go around, money, and competition. ( necessity is the mother of all invention on the other hand )

But since I for the most part ditched a desktop, I have had nV hardware in my laptops, and I must admit, I get frustrated with ATI drivers, sometimes they don't even apply AA settings at all to certain games, I don't really understand why. I never usually have trouble making nV drivers stick to games, but ATI drivers are picky or something.

 

i like ati too for their price point vs performance.
however i think cuda support is one main factor why nvidia has the upper hand

 

I just wanted to do a quick update regarding the "no os cash back" that kobalt offers.
For those who do not know, they offer their customers to buy the laptop without an OS and thus after receiving the laptop they issue the money back (why they can't just deduct it from the final price is beyond me).
It's not a terrible large amount (£75) given the price of the laptop, but still.
Anyways, i've been trying to chase them down for the last two weeks in hope for some word (last i heard they were going to issue it after sending the laptop, and ETA would be 10 days before i had the money on my account), but with no results. As a final way to try and get a hold of them i decided to, just now, post on their forums. Hopefully they'll get back to me within a day or two.

It's ridiculous that i have to chase them and 'harass' them with messages for two weeks without a single reply. Beware when buying from kobalt computers if you need that £75 cash back in a reasonable future.

 

Thats not nice of Kobalt, every other reseller I know just deducts the costs right away which seems reasonable. I'm not even sure if the way Kobalt does it is legal, since they charge money for something they do not sell and thereby their products have a higher value than they'd normally have. Kobalt probably gets some tax advantages for that.

 

Hey guys, is it ok if i am taking off the battery while ac is plugged in?

 

I have the same problem, I just called them, they told me to send the bank acc. details. We'll see what it's going to be next. BTW. it's been 4 months now since I received the notebook. I have been sending emails but no body replied. I didn't have an opportunity to call them until now. I suggest you call them.

Yes, you can do that, no problem.

 

Well i don't know how uk laws works but it would explain the stupid system.
I just figured they hadn't learned subtraction -.-
But seriously, it's a horrible system and it's probably hurting both the customer (having to spend time to chase them, getting negative about the company) and the company (having email server boggle up with emails regarding this, people calling and complaining and so on). I'm not one to tell a company how to run it but even a monkey understands this cash back system is beyond bad. It was actually one of the things that made me hesitant to buy from kobalt because i knew i was going to have to chase them down in the end.

I'm not sure my earlier post here or the one i did in the order queries (on their forum) made them get back to me asap but i've now received an email stating that it's been issued.
I recall people having this issue though as well so it's not just you and me. Well, at least they have decent prices. If i ever have to RMA the laptop i hope they'll be easy to deal with.

 

I can not wait for my Sager NP8690! It will be here in about 2 days. I'd like to thank Xotic PC and Justin for their great service!

Also, has anyone tried out the microphone, camera, and fingerprint lock on the sager I haven't heard much about it...

 

mic is good, fingerprint lock is good, cant speak for the camera cuz i havent used it...sorry for the dry response but im sure someone can get more indept if you have any specific questions

 

Nope, thanks! I just wanted to know if they were decent enough to use for skype or vent or something

 

the camera is the weakest part of the 8690 imho.

 

Webcam is insanely horrible, I think most people here will agree with that. If you intend to use a webcam frequently, help yourself and buy a branded webcam like Logitech or the like.

 

Oh well I don't plan on using the camera much. Just the microphone

 

Just got the email saying my 8690 has shipped. I should get it on Monday

 

The webcam is decent enough. Well, if I'm not wrong, almost every single notebook uses the standard 2.0mp webcam (except the worse 1.3mp ones), so not much to complain regarding this.

 

I use the cam daily (Skype, Yahoo messenger), and the mic (Ventrilo) and, for me, they're decent - though I'm not too fussy to be honest. But I should note that they're better than the ones on my last laptop (Acer 7785G). Fingerprint scanner had some problems lately - as it wasn't scanning my prints as quick as before when I log on (maybe I have to clean it or something).

In short, imo, they're good but not the best.

 

Nice! I will be using the mic and cam for the same reason as you. Thanks for the positive insight! Do any of you guys have notebook coolers? I posted on the notebook cooler thread but no responds yet.. and is a notebook cooler necessary for the sager as I know it has an excellent cooling system.