*** Official Clevo x7200 and Sager NP7280 owners lounge ***

Thank you, good to know. Mine is going to be shipping today, so I just got a bit worried about any concerns

 

If price were no object, I've heard nothing but good stuff for the Intel X-25 Extreme SSDs. However, I don't think you'll find two of them for < $500 (USD).

With that said, I went with a single Crucial C300 and two Momentus XTs - in RAID-1. If you go with a 128GB C300, this setup can come in around $500 USD. Anyway, once I updated the firmware to "0006" on the C300 (which is a pain as it cannot be done within the x7200), the numbers on a number of different benches are pretty good when compared to other SSDs.

BTW, has anyone set up SSDs on RAID? I thought I saw somewhere TRIM commands are not used within RAID - at least in Win 7, anyway.

If so, is it safe to assume the performance degradation used in a SSD based RAID would be the same on a system that did not have TRIM - but just take a bit longer to see?

 

It was definitely missing from the site yesterday and this morning.

As for the decision to not offer 470m on the x7200, my guess is the 6970m is en route and will beat it severely in price/performance -- our resellers may just see no reason to keep it as an option.

*Feeling stupid for just ordering an x7200 with dual 470ms*

 

The problem with forecasting technology is that there will always be better things right around the corner. Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat, but I also think this thing will last me quite a long time.

I look at it this way: I'm actually glad to be coming back to nVidia, even though the 470M is not the highest pie in the sky, their control panel is so much easier to use than the catalyst control panel that I'm using currently.

 

Sorry, I'm a bit new to this, so 2x SSDs in RAID 0 will perform worse than a single SSD on the x7200?

 

Agreed, but I quite literally just ordered mine 4 days ago. I'm just worried I'll be getting a whole lot less raw performance for the same price.

On the other hand, I still have a huge chip on my shoulder from having dealt with ATI/AMD's total lack support of 4870 X2 on my w90vp (thank God for NBR tweakers). I remember swearing I'd never use Mobility products again.

Edit: Heck with it. I just had Xotic upgrade my order to dual GTX 485ms (huge props to their rep for catching my order right before it shipped from Sager). I would regret it if I didn't have the top-end cards (I'm looking to this laptop to be my primary machine for some time), plus I have the money and I deserve it

 

In this case the situation is much more pleasant I guess - you managed to grab the dual 470s just in time before it became unavailable. And everyone else would have to settle down for either a dual 460s or a much more expensive 485 sli.

 

We've yet to see how better those things would prove to be, as well as how close that corner is.

 

Great point! Like always, the waiting game is just that: A Game! You can wait forever!

 

Dunno. That is why I posed the question. What is the slow-down performance of an SSD RAID not being used with TRIM vs. a single disk that does use the TRIM command? Or am I mistaken and TRIM *does* work with a RAID volume?

If you're wondering what I'm talking about in regards to SSD degradation, there are plenty of articles. Here are a few I just pulled up:

The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News - explains the problem

The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News - explains TRIM

Analysis: SSD performance -- is a slowdown inevitable? - Computerworld

Search, and you'll find other reviewers who have documented the problem.

 

Answered my own question -

"One downside though, is that RAID arrays are not supported by TRIM at this time, so those picking up cheap, small SSDs for RAID-0 performance will be left cold, and could suffer a worse performance in the long term than their non-RAIDed friends." - bit-tech

Although the article is about 1 yr old, I don't think things have changed in this regard.

 

:cry: oh well... looks like 1x SSD is the way to go for this. Just wanted to get the fastest boot, load and shutdown times possible.


--

on another note, any dual 485m gtx owners want to comment on the battery life in high performance mode ???
I want to make sure that when I game and decide to run from room to room, my 100% charge doesn't fly down to 0 in 3 seconds flat lol

 

If it's of any use, on a single nVidia 460M, I get just over 40 minutes when everything is at max - screen brightness, drives, etc.

 

The intel drives support trim in raid 0 with the latest drivers

 

lol so I'm assuming I have to be an Olympic sprinter to keep the x7200 from turning off when transporting it from room to room... lol It can actually be quite entertaining i think...

 

So is it safe to say that if I use 2x OCZ vertex 2 in raid 0 on the 7280 (x7200) it will give me the best possible boot and load times?

 

You sure about that speedy? I had heard previously that this was the case:

-If the BIOS is set to RAID mode and a single drive is there (Not in an array) it can receive TRIM commands
-Drives in a RAID array though still do not receive TRIM commands

 

Speedy, I found an article from May 2010 that talks about Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver for Intel Desktop Boards. The article said RAID 0, 1, 0+1 support was likely, but unconfirmed in that driver.

Do you know if it is now confirmed?

Also, note, this release of drivers is for Intel Desktop motherboards. Would that apply to the MB/controller found in the x7200? All my device manager says is an Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/PCH SATA RAID controller.

If the drivers *do* work in the x7200, perhaps someone out there has a set of SSDs in a RAID volume (0 or 1) that could try this out? The results from an administrator level prompt with "fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify" will let us know. DisableDeleteNotify = 0 means Windows 7 TRIM commands are enabled.

 

Windows issuing the command does not mean that the drive is getting it though. The only way to be sure is wait and see if performance degrades with use.

Pretty sure windows will issue TRIM commands to a platter drive as well.....does not mean it does anything

 

Yeah, good point. All the fsutil command let's us know is that Windows is configured to issue the commands. It doesn't guarantee the drive is obeying those commands. If I could find something "official" from Intel, that would at least let us know it is "supposedly" working that way on a RAID volume.

Perhaps StZu can get those OCZ's and volunteer some testing.

 

Well, I do believe I can, but I first need to put my order in for the x7200, just need to get my tax return ) But I will probably get 2x intel m ssds to play it safe, since I can return them. If they do confirm what speedy says, ill return them and order the Vertex 2s. Gotta love best buys 30 day no restocking fee policy

 

Cool! The hard part will be measuring this. I'm not sure how to create the problem, but I believe it would be something like:

a) Use ATTO or AS SSD benchmarks to get some timings on the RAID volume. May want to get a baseline "boot" time as well.
b) Write gigabytes and gigabytes worth of files to the volume, and then delete. May need to repeat this a couple of times, and empty your recycle bin often.
c) Use ATTO or AS SSD again to record new results, as well as any new boot times.

What are the differences?

Perhaps someone who's actually benched drives could make suggestions over my pathetic attempt to figure this out.

 

On a related note, which driver *should* I be using on the x7200 for the Intel RAID controller? (Single SSD on port 0 and Dual Hybrid XT's on ports 1,2)

 

You would want to write hundreds of GBs, not just gigabytes and gigabytes

Maybe even a TB worth of data would be good

 

Ouchie ) that's getting ahead of me )) sorry guys, highly doubt ill have the time with full time work, full time school and full time marriage

 

that is why you just write a script that constantly copies a file around on the storage volumes

Automated testing is your friend

for (i=1, i<100, i++)
copy file from A to B

 

I just noticed something. If I set my machine up with the 8.9.0.1023 RAID driver, and (assuming the driver is correct for x7200) for the Intel RST 10.​​1.​​0.​​1008 driver, would I have to wipe the current RAID contents in order to install the new one?

Since I'm using RAID-1, could I break the mirror-link, install the new drivers, and then re-establish the RAID?

 

StZu - I found some more information today...

"Intel® Rapid Storage Technology 9.6 supports TRIM in AHCI mode and in RAID mode for drives that are not part of a RAID volume." - Intel source

Some other posts on overclock.net also talk about TRIM not working within the RAID volume.

So, it looks like TRIM within a RAID volume is still not possible.

Not sure if that helps you, but thought it was something you would like to know.

 

Trying to decide between 2 460m's in SLI or a single 485m. I'm leaning towards the 460m's because it seems like you get almost the same performance for a few hundred less. Are there other considerations I need to keep in mind?

 

The raid volume is independent of the storage controller driver, so you should not need to break and re-build the array.

 

What I worry about is that the new driver would have different block sizes, or something that would cause the existing RAID volume to not work correctly - although in the case of mirroring, I don't see how that would be possible.

Regardless, I'll try an in-place upgrade to Intel RST when I can book some spare time in case I run into any problems.

Thanks, scook9.

 

With a single 485m you're pretty much assured good performance in all games; with dual 460 SLI there will be a few games that don't scale well.

With a single 485m you have the option of upgrading to SLI with another card later (although this will be very costly)

I assume with a single 485m you're probably using a few watts less than 460 SLI

 

The single 485m should use less power and is the route I would advocate since upgrading down the road will be easier (just adding a 2nd card vs buying a whole new set)

 

A single GPU that performs around the same as the two is a better choice in my opinion. If you ever find a game is limited to a single GPU, the GTX 460M will be limited at fullHD resolutions if you want higher or maxed out settings. You also limit your future upgrade paths. The single GTX 485M gives you the performance you need right now in all games and leaves you with the option of adding an extra GPU a few years later if you needed to.

 

^^^^Agree to the above to scook9...
__

 

I just upgraded the x7200 drivers to Intel RST 10.1.0.1008.

Was pretty painless. It uninstalled the Intel Matrix stuff, installed the Intel RST drivers and tools, and then rebooted. The driver has a changed the name of the controller in Win 7's device manager and Intel has a new admin tool for monitoring / configuring your drives.

I also ran ATTO and AS SSD benches to compare against the older driver that shipped from Clevo. Nothing significant to report in terms of performance.

 

So, I was looking at the M17-R3 untill the SB recall, and now am exploring some options......

I am considering this instead, and I will probably sell one of my R2's to get some cash back....


Sager NP7280-S1 / Clevo X7200
- 17.3" FHD 16:9 "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen (1920x1080)-
- Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- Intel® Core™ i7-980X Exreme Edition (3.33-3.6GHz) 12MB L3 Cache, 6.4GT/sec QPI, LGA 1366 6 Cores/12 Threads
- - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- nVidia GeForce GTX 485M 2,048MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 (User Upgradeable)
- No Video Adapter
- ~ 12,288MB DDR3 1333MHz Memory (3 SODIMMS)
- Standard Finish
- ~ 6X Blue-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive-
- ~ 500GB (w/ 4GB SSD Memory) Seagate XT 7200RPM NCQ Hybrid (Serial-ATA II 300 - 32MB Cache)
- ~ 500GB (w/ 4GB SSD Memory) Seagate XT 7200RPM NCQ Hybrid (Serial-ATA II 300 - 32MB Cache)
- Raid 0 Stripe Enabled
- Internal 3-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS)
- Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- -Intel® Ultimate-N 6300 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Basic Black Business Case - Included
- Primary Smart Li-ION Battery Pack - Included
- Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- No Operating System Standard - Drivers & Utility Software Only

What ya all think, how well would one 485M stack up against 2 4870's ? I know I will use the extra memory for my work......this would be a dual purpose system really, games/work.

How well would the 980X cpu stack up against the SB ?

 

It does! ) it saves me about 400 smackers ! I appreciate the help Jclausius and Scook!

The fastest SB the r3 offered was the 2820q which was a fast processor, but by no means even close to the performance of the 980x. even an overclocked 2600k (desktop sb) hardly comes close to the 980x as according to tomshardware. Currently the fastest processor on the market is that 980x even though its a part of the older chipset it still holds the fastest cpu crown... I mean come on.... 6 cores 12 threads with easy overclocks to 4ghz+ !? But thats just me...

The gtx 485m as you probably already know, is the fastest mobile single gpu card on the market and with full dx11 support and great tessellation performance. in comparison to dual 4870s its quite a bit faster with a much newer chipset so if you game you'll be able to see some dx 11 effects.

On the downside your battery should last about 20 minutes on high performance mode

 

No CPU is worth that the amount of money asked for the 980X.

 

...especially if you're just gaming you'll see zero more FPS with a 980X. Even if you're doing heavy video editing and encoding the price premium is still questionable.

 

For application performance, the 980x thrashes the i7 2920xm
Mobile Gaming: Can Core i7-2920XM Beat Desktop Core i7-980X? : So, You Thought Notebooks Were Weak?

Unless you know you need those extra cores for your work Wwoods I would downgrade to the i7 950 and get a 2nd GTX 485m. But that is just me

 

You might as well invest in another GFx card.

 

I get the feeling that if my impatience resulted in me buying a different laptop, such as the X7200 that I would have never even looked at if not for the Sandybridge recall then I would end up regretting it. Once the Sandybridge issue had been fixed and you would have received your original purchase, I bet you would wish you just had more patience.

I too have been considering the X7200 but have decided to just wait it out. The default Sandybridge CPU is very strong and since I am only using it for gaming, not as important anyway. You will also lose the other optimisations, design improvements and anything else that the new generation brings with it if you just settle for the older one.

 

Do yourself a favor and get a second GTX 485M and an i7-950 instead of a i7-980X and a single GTX 485M. The i7-950 is enough for all games and fast enough for any application, GTX 485M SLi will be fast enough to max almost all upcoming games and all current games including Crysis and Metro 2033 (you can still oc both cards). If you need more power on the CPU side you can always overclock the i7-950 using SetFSB which is a big plus.

 

For those few out there with dual GTX 485ms using a single power adapter, have you been able to OC the cards without hitting the safety power trip?

Reason I ask is I ordered my x7200 (i7 950 with dual 485ms) with only the single PSU. I'll likely want to OC the cards a bit when I get it.

 

Actually, I would recommend everyone look at how they will use the machine.

I'm running four or five virtual machines and compiling C/C++, Java, and C# code all day long. The i7-970 hex core was a must in my situation. I have an nVidia 460M in this x7200 and there's not one PC game installed on the machine except default games for Win 7.

 

One question without being able to set voltage on the CPU due to BIOS restrictions, how far can the bus be pushed w/ out losing stability?

 

You could add CUDA enabled programs to that . Hexacore and 1x485m gtx for me soon and I am not playing as well any games.

 

This is off-topic, but are you writing any CUDA software? In my line of work, it's too niche, but I've wondered what would happen if someone would take a database or web server and "CUDA enable" it. Probably not much as those things are more I/O bound and not CPU bound, but still...

 

BTW, great article from scook's post from a Tom's hardware review on the i7-980X vs. i7 (SNB) 2920 XM .

It covers some different use case scenarios for machines.

Thanks, scook!