*** Official Sager NP9380, NP9390 / Clevo P370SM, P370SM3, P375SM Owner's Lounge ***

I don't think they are that bad, I don't use headphones very often and I can barely hear the fans until they really ramp up and even then they are not that bad.

 

Updated - into Phase 3 now with 8 days and counting so far. I will definitely take some pictures of the Carbon Fiber Wrap. I have heard all the positive reviews of the rubberized external finish of the case, but I really wanted something that wasn't "Blingy" but sharp looking.

 

Looking good, it does take about 4 business days for the computer to get from Sager to us, I'll keep an eye out for it.

 

Hi,

I am planning to buy a P370SM model with two 780m GPUs. I've got some questions concerning temperature and fans:

1) Has someone got experiences in underclocking, undervolting his GPU in terms of lowering the temps and reducing the fan noise?

2) How about experiences in using Throttlestop to lock the CPUs multiplier to save battery life and lower temps?

3) Has anyone tried to remove one of his GPUs to enable the optimus-technology (switching back to the intelHD-graphics)?

Thanks in advance!

 

1 - This machine runs the GPUs so cool it's hilarious. With a 100 core, 500memory OC from mythlogic's initial IC Diamond pasting, I never seem to crack 86 degrees on the main GPU and 82 on the slave GPU, even with a 36-38 degree celcius, 80% humidity environment playing BF4 on everything Ultra at 1080p while having a second monitor active. So, not really necessary to undervolt/underclock for temperatures.

2 - Nope, sorry, have not tried it yet.

3 - This machine as far as I remember lacks the ability to use Optimus, even if you use a single GPU. So this cannot work.

 

I guess, question 1 is about different matter. Most reviews are pointing at noticeable level of noise at idle/low load state. While cooling under load is undeniably welcome, the non-gaming state is also very important, thus questions about undervolting/underclocking to reduce background noise.

From what I read on forum, neither P370SM nor bigger brother P570WM can be undervolted which is very sad as it might solve noise problem when excessive cooling is not necessary.

 

I undervolt/underclock/overclock my 4900m in my NP9380s using Intel XTU. It's a great app and a must have to prevent throttling which occurs even at stock speeds with Haswell. The app easily allows for multiple profiles to be set and changed on the fly to suit user needs.

 

How does it sound during simple web browsing? can you make it near silent?
the 120Hz screen is very tempting but 2x780M and no optimus, it's asking to be an airplane before take off. can you undervolt GPU as well?

 

Using an unlocked bios you can change any settings you like.

The cards do have the usual suite of power saving features even without optimus of course.

 

So, question to the masses, if I have a day of say... 36 degrees celcius-38 degrees celcius ambient temperature, with about 80% humidity or higher, what should I expect while gaming for my CPU, an i7-4800MQ? Most games seem to send it into at least the low 80 degrees, even at lower temps (26-28 ambient), though the humidity is always high. Should I attempt to repaste this? This is with fans on max.

Please note that IC Diamond is the paste job done by Mythlogic, and I don't remember my GPUs EVER crossing 86 degrees celcius, even in these aforementioned conditions, while my fan was set to max, with an OC to 950/6000 on both cards.

Does it sound like my CPU has a bad paste job? It seems weird that almost all games I play seem to send it so high; when the GPUs run so cool. Heck, often times I'll be gaming (in 3D) with the 780Ms running at something like 69 deg main and 63 deg slave and my CPU's like 84-80 across its cores.

And if not, anyone has any recommendations for XTU to help with the temps a little until I can get that NotePal U3 cooler that DXGDAG (I think that's his name anyway) said he used when I asked if he lived in an igloo? I won't mind losing a little turbo on my CPU (as it seems to throttle to 3.3 - 3.1 or so when it gets in the medium-high 90s anyway) if I can drop let's say... a solid 10 degrees or so off the temps ^_^.

 

D G D X G D G......symmetry right?

i undervolt 4930 -0.05v, short 37w long 30w, 3.1~3.2g in game, never exceed 80c really good temp
780m undervolt to 0.95v core, havent compare but assassins creed 3 both under 70c

now gettig 2 cpu hs, plan to add heatpipe

 

Gomen nasai! I'm bad with names, don't take it personally D=. I'll try to remember this time ^_^. Also, I might try for a stable 3.4GHz with that tiny undervolt as you have done. If I ever crash, I can always lower the boost a tiny bit, yes? I'm still trying to figure out the throttlestop guide, it's not written in a way I can easily understand. My brain is weird that way, it's difficult for me to begin to understand things sometimes D=.

Anyway, I'll figure out this throttlestop and XTU thingy. I WILL MAKE MY LAPTOP INTO TEH MACHINE OF THE GODS!

 

Real quick, if somebody could give this a look over before I go ahead an order this thing. My main concern is if it is worth putting in 2x mSATA SSD's in RAID 0 and running my OS off of it. Or if it would be better to run my OS off of a single standard SSD out of the primary bay? And what about storage, I really need capacity but don't really want to sacrifice read/write speed. Thank you all.

 

What do you guys use to overclock the GPU? I have been using nvidia inspector with the new beta nvidia driver and when I load up any games the screen is black. Any ideas?

 

I am going to be getting a Sager NP9380SM this week and I wanted to know what you all think about getting a 250gb SSD (OS & Programs) as primary and a 1 TB 7200rpm HDD as a secondary(for Data)...not in RAID.
This won't slow my system too much will it? or should I buy the ODD bay caddy and stick the HDD in there instead? I have never deal with SSD's before, and from what I have read in here, this laptop seems to be picky as to what kind of SSD/HDD configurations it likes. So any help would be appreciated.

Also, any thoughts on which SSD I should get, the Samsung 840 EVO SSD or the Crucial M500 SSD?
Thanks

 

Hey does anyone know if powernotebooks.com has NBR member discounts? I need to stay under $2000 and it's the difference between the Sager NP9380 and the NP9380SM3 (120hz 3D screen)<====(This one put me over my budget). Thanks everyone.

By the way, I wanted to thank everyone on this thread. You have all helped me make my decision on this notebook, by giving me great input and helpful advise. So, thanks.

 

I use nvidia inspector and the latest drivers and I have no such issues. I am using the modded bios though; you may need that.

 

I use either MSI Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX. Try that.

I have a Sandisk SSD for my boot drive (and programs) and my 1TB HDD for my games and other stuff. Works flawlessly.

I would get the Samsung SSD.

 

I have the modded vbios but not sure how to install it.

 

I have the crucial m5s SSD in raid and its extremely fast. I have my regular hds in raid and it getting a lil boost.

 

Nvflash on a dos bootable stick is the safest way.

 

I am very close (within a few weeks at most) to ordering a NP 9380. My budget is 1750, 1800 max. (actually it's more like 1500 but I can stretch it some)....


My plan was to get it coming with an 8970m, IC thermal paste, and an upgraded 1 TB 7200 rpm HD. (I think it ended up being 1580). With the left over money I will get a 256 or 240 gb SSD drive from amazon since the reseller prices are so high. I am just checking to see if this is the best use of my money. I will use this machine as a desktop replacement that is meant to be used 95% for gaming. Do I have right plan? I will hopefully get another 8970m in 3-6 months. (Quick question on that...do you think if you buy a laptop from a reseller they will sell you another card at a later time?)

 

I asked powernotebooks.com that very same question 2 days ago. His response was that, As long as the GPU is still available on the market by the time you are ready for it, it can still be installed by you, or Sager. I am not sure if the other retailers do it. I read somewhere on here that Myhlogic does have a customer upgrade program. Where they will install it for you.

As for the SSD question, I can't help you with that one. I have had that same laptop for almost 4 years so, I never had to deal with SSD's because they weren't as cost effective as they are now. But, from everything that I have read, they are definitely the way to go if your a gamer. The HDD is the biggest bottleneck in a computer, a SSD will definitely bump up your speed. Just make sure that you get one that is reliable. For the most part they are, but a few manufacturers like OCZ and Corsair and Kingston have had issues with their firmware on the controllers. I don't think that Samsung's 840 series have had any firmware issues...yet.

 

Above post is correct about the upgrade. As long as the parts are still available then contact your reseller. They can either arrange the sale of the card for your install or getting it back to Sager for their installation of it. This is true with any reseller/builder. Cost effective wise though it's better to do it at time of purchase as laptop parts tend to get more expensive over time for the components that are in high demand and low supply.

SSD will decrease your boot times and cause stuff that's installed to it to load faster. It won't get you more FPS though. You'll basically be able to install games to it and the game load will be fast as well as any maps that you have to load. Otherwise no impact on gaming performance.

 

My $0.02

If you are good with your hands you could always consider skipping on the factory applied paste and instead doing it yourself. You wouldn't be saving too much money but as a primary gaming machine this would allow you the freedom to select your own cooling paste and more importantly an opportunity to lap the heatsinks. I've done it many times in the past and it results in some very real temperature drops when the system is taxed such as during gaming.

Seeing that the main purpose will be gaming you might want to upgrade to the 780m instead of buying an ss. Like the post above suggests, an ssd won't really make a difference in fps but the 780m is quite a step up from the ati offering.

 

See, you learn something new everyday. I did not know that about SSD's. Does anyone in here know how it effects video encoding and graphic design? Because if I can get away with not spending the money on a SSD and all I would lose would be that, I get a little slower load time, that would be great.

 

The benefit of a SSD is its much faster Read/Write times which for video encoding and graphic design probably wont benefit you much.
In my opinion SSD are the #1 improvement comptuers have seen in the last 2-3yrs when you consider their performance boost from a HDD. Jump over to youtube and type HDD vs SSD and watch a few comparisons and see if its something you want.
I will only use a HDD now for storage, for my OS drives on my computers its gotta be a SSD, they just make everything feel faster.

 

I took your advice and went over to You tube. I have to admit that the SSD's specs, as compared to HDD, is extremely impressive. I am getting conflicting information though. According to some video's that I watched, having the SSD boosts performance in game play because it is constantly redrawing. Mind you, the bump in performance is not significant, but it is about a 10% bump as compared to HDD. Now I m confused as to what I should get. Do you think I should go with the SSD or the HDD? Keep in mind that I am going to be using this laptop mostly for video encoding, graphic design, CAD and occasionally some gaming. Thank you in advance.

 

finally received my new hs! :thumbsup: lets see what an extra pipe do....

 

Played some Assassin's Creed III, runs fluently in Boston (haven't tried other regions yet), even with TXAA on. I don't know about the FPS, but it's smooth.

 

Extra heatpipe?

 

It may help with some performance because of the redrawing but that is also what the video RAM is for, to hold pre-rendered images.

 

The two situation its likely to help is when you are out of system ram and hdd thrashing which still wont be great, the other is if a game is constantly streaming level data in an open world.

 

Was out of town, so I had a few line items to update for Phase 3! Getting closer with 14 days and counting!

 

"10/14/2013 - Phase 3 - This line item shows up in my XoticPC account/order tracking but has no corresponding email or information on what this date/line item means. 14 days and counting"

Doesnt show up on your side as it was internal notes added.

From 9-30 when the order was placed today will mark the 11th business day, keep in mind we always quote business days as we're not in the office on the weekend. But we are getting closer. Looking like we're shooting for today or tomorrow.

 

It's a fair statement, my next update will include both business days and calendar days for the sake of being inline with XoticPC's quotes. I think it's also fair to keep the calendar dates as those are still days a customer is agonizingly waiting for an awesome system from XoticPC!

 

Updated Phases 4,5,6 and Business Days versus Calendar Days on this post going forward. Looks like I'm one phase from shipping!

 

They come bam bam bam once it hits a certain point

 

Well, sorry for the spam, but one more update from XoticPC! My rig has shipped! Eleven (11) business days later we are there. I'm excited to get hands and eyes on the machine and take some detailed pictures of the carbon fiber wrap and then bench marking! Pictures to follow once delivered!

 

Looking forward to the review and pics!!!

 

Ok, I am going to call on Thursday to get the Sager NP9380-S. The 3D option looks pretty good for gaming. I can't seem to find any reviews about the 3D portion of this Notebook. Only some information links to NVidia and all there promotional Videos. I wanted to what kind of experiences you have all had running 3D with this machine?

Thanks

 

It's not so much the machine but the hardware you have behind it. Good rule of thumb is if you can play a game at 70 FPS in 2D, you'll see the framerates drop by half in 3D so you'd be getting 35 FPS. Was there other specific information you were looking to gleam?

 

Not anything specific. Just the overall experience. I am going back and forth in my mind, as to, whether or not I should spend the money on the 3D screen. If the overall experience is lousy, then I couldn't justify spending the money on the screen. But, from what everyone tells me about the 120hz screen....it is a real gem. I just wanted to know what everyone's experience was with the 3D end of the screen. If it is not all its specs make it out to be, I would rather spend the money on and SSD or a video card upgrade. My problem is that I only have a $2000.00 limit, and I wanted to get the best possible system for the money I have to work with. My wife has made it abundantly clear that if I go over 2K that I am in the doghouse. Thank you for your input though. I learn so much in here.:thumbsup:

 

I'd get the 3d screen and then you have options to add to it later.

 

You mention a video card upgrade? What video solution are you planning to get?

I ask because the 3d gaming experience and the 120hz experience in 2d is primarily based on your frames per second. Remember that if you can't get over 60 frames per second in a 2d game the 120hz isn't going to be doing much more than a 60hz monitor. It's when your frames are very high that you start to see that silky smoothness from the 120hz screens. This is all depending on how much video horse power you have. Also, in 3d as already mentioned, it cuts your frames in half, so if you already can't take advantage of the 120hz in 2d, it's a safe bet your 3d experience isn't going to stellar.

 

I was planning on getting the single GTX 780M with the 3d 120hz screen with the Sager NP9380-S. Only because all the resellers did not give me any other options except 780M or 780M in SLI.

When I said that I would get a video card upgrade, I meant that I was originally going to get the Standard Sager NP9380 (not Special Edition) and then add a 250GB SSD and upgrade to the dual Radeon HD8970M's with just the standard 60hz screen, instead of getting the special edition of this laptop.

I could not afford he dual 780M's in SLI, but if I go with the Dual Radeon's with the standard screen it falls within my budget. According to the benchmarks, the FPS for the Dual Radeon's in crossfire are about 18-22% less than the Dual 780M's in SLI (depending on the game being played), BUT the price point for the 780M's is a 44% greater. I don't know if I would spend another $400 for a, roughly, 20% bump in FPS.

Don't know if I made that clearer or made it more confusing. Sorry, I am a Hardware Engineer. I work with confusing a lot during my day.

 

I thought that I should add, that if I did end up going with the Standard NP9380 with the Dual 8970M's, I would not be getting the 16MB of RAM and the Blu-ray player that come standard on the NP9380-S (special edition). I would only be getting the 8 MB of RAM and the standard DVD Combo drive to keep the cost of the laptop under 2K.

 

Clear as mud!

I would still get the 3d screen in your configuration, but *not* primarily for the 3d action, but instead for the 120hz 2d portion. My rig arrives tomorrow so In the next couple of days, I can add some hands/eyes on perspective to the 3d experience with two SLI 780's.

 

That would be great. I can't wait. Oh, and thank you for your input. I really do appreciate it.

 

Anyone here using 780M SLI and 120hz display suffering from black screen after some minutes in the game? I don't know if this is driver related or something with the display or the SLI, but the game minimizes and stay black screened or crash sometimes...