Introducing The 2013 Series 7 Chronos with AMD HD8870M!

No offense, but this is simply not true. Haswell will be announced sometime this summer, and devices will most likely not be available until the fall or winter. Googling Haswell will show that their original Q2 launch Window has somewhat slipped, and Intel has never been on time with any of its releases. It would be awesome if they were, as I'd gladly take double the graphics performance, 10-20% increased CPU performance and better battery life (though no real world testing has been done on any of these claims). But Haswell is definitely not right around the corner, but aways off. Just depends if you need a machine now or can wait.

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I believe Haswell is an upgrade for lower power solutions. Don't expect gpu performance on par with high end discrete models. It will be a significant upgrade over the Intel 4000 but I doubt it will be on the level of 8870 or gtx660 even.

This Asus vs Samsung argument is getting a little silly. Every laptop has its tradeoffs, you decide which ones are more important. Personally I don't think raid 0 ssd make sense. I'd prefer a single ssd and a lower price. A good ssd is so fast anyway.

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Agreed on Haswell, though performance increase is always a good thing.

As for the Asus SSD, supposedly you can unraid them though, which is pretty sweet. OS and apps on one drive. Steam library, music and movies on other. I have a NAS, so I'd backup to that. That said I'd take a 128GB SSD over a 1TB 5400 any day.

As for the comparison, I think it makes total sense. Both of these laptops are top of the line portables with decent dedicated GPUs coming from two recognizable companies that have actually been turning profits in the PC market (Lenovo being the third, Samsung being the lowest).

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Hello everyone. New here.

Is this the 2013 Samsung Series 7 chronos? How would I go about getting the 16gb version?

I like the price.


SAMSUNG COMPUTER 15.6" TouchScreen Laptop 8GB Memory 1TB Hard Drive NP780Z5E-S - Best Buy

 

I think there is no 16GB RAM. In EU there are 2 models fo 17 inch.
4GB soldered for S01+S02 model and 8GB soldered for S03+S04 model.

They simply add a 4GB RAM module to it, that's 8GB for "low end" and 12GB for "high end".
You can swap those +4GB for +8...for a total of 12GB for S01+S02 and 16GB for S03+S04.

Having 16GB in my desktop PC, I never saw more than 6GB usage at all - NEVER.
But you could make a RAM drive on system start and use it as some kind of cache for heavy read/write tools. That's few GB per second, makes SSDs look like a joke.

 

There is no argument on Asus vs Samsumg other than the one you are making it to be. Both are top end notebooks with characteristics that allow their comparison. As for the RAID 0 not making any sense to you, why?. I think it makes perfect sense. In my opinion, what does not make any sense indeed is to slap a 1TB HDD 5400rpm on a 2013 high end model.

 

Cyberport.de - Computer, Notebooks, Fernseher, Apple, Handys & Digitalkameras

Here you go. There are CPU differences.
3610QM and 3635QM: ARK | Compare Intel® Products

Very confusing. 3635QM should be BGA -> soldered. 3610QM isn't.
Still can't figure out why S04 costs more but offers less.

Maybe better display? Chassis?

 

3610 is typo error.

Samsung Serie 7 Chronos NP770Z7E-S03DE | ARLT Computer

 

Agree that a 5400 doesn't make sense, but do you really get any real world improvements with ssds in raid? If you can unraid them that's great. Having 512gb of ssd space is pretty sweet.

Fair enough about the Asus v Samsung talk. It just seemed like people were trash talking rather than making objective comments about either and that was getting silly.



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I'd like to point you to this link:
AMD Radeon HD 8870M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

On there, it says that the 8870 should have performance comparable to the current GTX 670m.
Now if you go here: PassMark Software - Video Card Benchmarks - High End Video Cards

Do a control+F for the 650M and the 8870M and you can see that the benchmark scores are quite a bit higher. Also, does the amount of VRAM (2GB vs. 1GB) really affect benchmarks?

Oh and also, even if everything you've said is true, reviewers still say that it gets very hot while gaming, and that the fan is loud when it's running. I'm not talking about your BIOS update making it not run, i'm talking about how the physical operation of the fan is loud.

ASUS Zenbook UX51Vz-DH71 Review | Windows 8 Laptop Reviews
ASUS Zenbook UX51Vz Review | Digital Trends

 

Actually, in raid 0 you keep 512gb of space so in any case the only thing you are doing by raid 0 is increasing your PC performance, how is that counterproductive?. Now, the risk in having raid 0 is that if one ssd fails all the data in the non corrupted one is also lost and this is a very valid argument. However, the chance of such failure in a platter HDD was low and in ssd is even lower so I really doubt it should be of any concern.
I wish Samsung would put out a model with a 2x256GB ssd in raid to work together with the 8870m.

In that benchmark the GTX 680 performs better than the GTX 690 and the GTX 670 is above the GTX 670MX.....
I don't know what exactly is that they are measuring but is not performance so disregard that benchmark.
Look at the notebookcheck link instead, the 8870 in the best case will perform between the gtx660m and gtx670mso I would expect in average around 25% performance over the GT650m considering it doesn't throttle which, according to someone who posted previously about the 8770m model, happens.

I am considering whether to get the Asus or wait for the Samsung so I try to look at both as objective as possible. The best way is a review of the machine itself and I really don't understand why still there isn't any. This keeping the information from going out just makes me feel suspicious and uneasy about the Samsung model.

 

I'd definitely wait for the beefed up version.

And yes, the HDD is easily accessible and swappable to an SSD. I plan on doing the exact same thing on day 1 when I get mine. Someone posted a shot with the bottom removed and you can easily see where the HDD is and how easy it is to swap.

 

Yea. I don't think anyone here is talking trash about the Chronos. Samsung has just made some choices that forces one to scratch their head. The hard drive is one of them, MVA screen tech is another, along with GPU throttling and the use of plastic materials.

Give me a Chronos with IPS screen, full metallic body, non-throttled 8870M GPU with ample cooling and a 256GB SSD and it would be a great deal for the price.

As it is, there is no harm in questioning its value when an alternative has components similar to those above (albeit for a higher price), in a slimmer form factor and with almost universal positive reviews.

Regardless ill wait for benchmarking of both the U500VX and Chronos before I buy either one.

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Yes, that is it! That's the first time I've seen it officially on a US site, actually.

Unfortunately, that is the midrange 8770m model. The model with the 8870m GPU is coming out soon and will have significantly better GPU performance than that model. Still really cool to see it officially on best buys site.

 

Okay didn't realize you kept all the space while striping. I guess I'm used to thinking about 0+1. You're right that losing all your data in the event one drive corrupts is a valid point.

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assuming the 8870 isn't throttled to death

i should be able to post up 3dmark and hwinfo cvs files tonight. was toying around with the laptop yesterday, i found all the settings i need to force the gpu on, etc. so it should give a decent idea of what it's capable of doing.

 

I wish professional reviews would just come out already for this machine. I'm so tired of all the doubt for a machine that no one has even used, touched, or experienced. (Except the very, very few who've adopted the 8770m model).

 

First, I feel the MVA panel could be an advantage over IPS panel, especially if it is a very good one. Have much higher static contrast.
Here is a pretty good MVA panel review: BenQ GW2450HM Review
Main negative is the color shifts that you get. Power consumption of that panel also seems fairly low compared to other 24in IPS monitors. IDK much about IPS vs MVA power consumption though.

Secondly, do we know for certain the GPU is throttling. The 3dmark11 score is right where notebookcheck.net says it should be. The slightly faster 8790m is listed at 2238. It could just be aggressively underclocking to save power when not at full usage. 57 degrees seems like an extremely low throttling temperature especially with low fan speeds. It just doesn't make much sense.

 

we don't know anything outside of what the three or four of us early adopters have posted up

consensus so far is the HDD is awful and the swap for an SSD should be straightforward.

 

Maybe you need of a short comparative between U500VZ/UX51VZ and NP770Z5E:

CPU:
3635QM vs 3612QM/3632QM Chronos is slight better.

GPU:
8870m vs GT650m Chronos is much better.

RAM:
It seems same level with 4GB soldered for both, but there is a little hope that on dark side of Chronos motherboard RAM is not soldered, but at this moment we say parity.

Display:
MVA FHD vs IPS FHD, we can say that display of ASUS has very poor space color around a 60% of AdobeRGB a medium contrast around 500:1.
We can say nothing on display of Chronos, but a Chronos owner that have owned a Sony Vaio S15 (same panel of Asus U500VZ) known even for orangegate has said that the colors are much better on Samsung.

Throttling:
Unfortunately Chronos owners have not supplied a log of their tests, but we can say that 8770m (not 8870m) hits a better score in 3Dmark11 vs GT650m (2200 vs 2100) despite the light GPU throttling remarked.
Asus U500VZ/UX51VZ has throttling on CPU in fact is proofed that on game like Crysis 2 it throttling at 1.2GHz, but even with others games its CPU has throttling.

Battery Life:
No doubt that Chronos wins.

Storage:
It's true that RAID 0 if Asus Wins in perfomance, but maybe you don't know that it uses low-end SSD, Sandisk for 128GB model and ADATA for 256GB model.
It uses proprietary connector so you are not able to swap or upgrade anything, and at the end of warranty if you will have a SSD failure then you will have a expensive pain.
Also in test as 4K and acc. time that in daily use are much important than Seq Read or Seq Write a single 840Pro destroy ADATA RAID 0 of Asus..

Price:
Chronos Wins with no doubt, even if you add the price of 256GB SSD.

Weight and size:
Asus U500VZ/UX51VZ: height x width x depth (in mm): 20 x 380 x 254; 2.2Kg
Samsung NP770Z5E: height x width x depth (in mm): 20.9 x 376 x 249.9; 2.35Kg

 

Not sure about the processor here, looking at passmark benchmark results the 3635qm gets about 2000 less than the 3630qm or 3632qm. Its really odd to since spec for spec they are identical except for socket compatibility.

 

Passmark is known to be unreliable...

 

Haha indeed. Something I will be doing from the very beginning, before I even power it on a first time.
This is the best SSD on the market: Amazon.com: Samsung Electronics 840 Pro Series 2.5-Inch 256 GB SATA 6GB/s Solid State Drive MZ-7PD256BW: Computers & Accessories

 

Why doesn't this have an SSD? Seems like it would be perfect for this kind of machine.

 

It's an option?

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My best guesses are...

1. Best Buy model, just like the asus vivobook at bestbuy has a 2nd gen i3 while everywhere else had a 3rd gen i3. Going with an HD saves money.
2. Windows 8. Win8 boots alot faster than windows 7. after it got rolling I was getting 20 second boots out of the 5400rpm platter spinner. Thats acceptable for many.

 

Went to Elkjøp in Norway, one of the largest electronics shops in Scandinavia, and asked them about the chronos. The H-version is expected in stock on 27.03.13. This is for the version with touch panel, 8870m and 256GB SSD.

 

They are saying the same thing here in The Netherlands. 14.03.13 is the date that big-suppliers will receive the actual bulk orders from Samsung. From then on it's getting distributed to the actual retailers, which will likely result in the first NP770Z5E-S01, 8870m, NO-TOUCH, Matte Screen versions to really hit the market in the week of 18.03.13.

So 3 to 4 weeks left for Europe I suppose?

 

Hmm... decisions, decisions.

Ive found the 8770 version at stores in my area, do I go for it or wait for the 8870 model to see the light of day. At $1199, its not a bad deal. What do folks think of it?

 

WAIT!! The 8870 is going to be an absolute beast

 

I followed the Asus UX51VZ or whatever it's called thread before it came out, this feels like a repeat. Same concerns about throttling and what the actual hardware configurations and model numbers would be, pointless arguments every other page comparing it to other laptops, etc. I don't know why I read these threads before a device is out lol.

(the funny thing is I'm probably going to wait for a Haswell version of the Thinkpad X1 Carbon anyway but this is a nice option I'm considering.)

 

this sucks. I actually expected it to be available last week already since some german sites mentioned 8.02.2013 and around. So thinking I could have a np770Z5E in europe before march is really unrealistic?

On this german site they say "Deliverable within 1 week." So that's wrong right?
Edit: forgot link: http://www.otto.de/Samsung-Serie-7-...NavigationEntries,0;search=queryText,np770z5e

 

So, I bought the np770Z5E from Best Buy yesterday and have been toying around with it. Build quality seems to be very nice and the screen looks fantastic on this laptop. I know everyone here wants to know how the 8770m compares with say the gt650m. Problem is, I cannot get anything to even recognize the 8770m. CCC says I have it, the device manager says it is there, the drivers are up to date and I have put the laptop into complete performance mode for everything and even disabled the intel hd 4000. 3DMark 11 Basic will not score this card. In addition, it appears the games are mostly running on intel hd 4000 too, because if I disable it, I get nothing. Perhaps I got a bad card, or a driver that is not recognized for this thing does not yet exist.

 

Hellow everyone, I'm new here..

I also wait this notebook. Anyway, I heard that the release date of this model will be the early day of March in Korea. (It was planned to release on the mid day of February, but delayed... I don't know why they were delayed) I got this information by Samsung notebook service center and by another person's web post. In Korea the model name of the new series 7 chronos is NT770Z5E-S78S , NT770Z5E-S78 (I heard that the former 'S78S' is online sale version and the latter 'S78' is offline sale version.) This model take a reservation like another countries, and the lowest price is about 1,540,000won(≒ $1,420). (+ The factory price of this model is 1,820,000won≒$1,679)

The specification of the notebook is..
i7-3635QM(2.4GHz-3.4GHz),15.6inch(1920x1080),Radeon HD 8870m(gddr5 2gb),8gb RAM,750Gb HDD,no Optical drive, 8cell battery, windows 8, 2.35kg, no touch-screen.(I heard that the another model NT780z5e will be take touch-screen.)

 

Here are the results I am getting - from 3D Mark 11 basic on the 8770m model. If someone else is experiencing something different let me know.
Score: P2242
Graphics: 1949

If I am not mistaken that means this card is a hair worse than the GT650? This doesn't sound right to me.

Wow on Ultra 1080p - I am getting around 30-40 fps
Diablo 3 on Highest settings at 1080p - I am getting around 30 fps

Overall impression is that it is a very nice laptop. HDD is rather slow, screen is great, processor and battery life are great, GPU performance is under what I was expecting. Basically, it could handle all the games that I really actually play right now, but in the future, I am not so sure. I do have my desktop for that, but I was still hoping to get more performance. Therefore, I think this guy is going to have to go back to BestBuy and I will have to explore my alternatives.

 

The higher-end model with a 8870m will be coming out soon, and is a good alternative to the lower end version!
How do you find the laptop so far?

 

That definitely is running on the Integrated it sounds like.

 

this.

i don't think 40 sec boot up time is acceptable in 2013. most of the ppl on this forum who are planning or have already bought this laptop will change to SSD. but in samsung's defense, i think it's a good way to keep the cost down so it will be attract more potential customers

 

It seems that there are many people that don't know how works a system with a switching gpu.
Output is even on Intel card, because dGPU uses its buffer to connect it to display.
(This is the reason because some software detects HD4000 instead the dGPU)
You can't never disable the Intel GPU!
Is there someone that think HD4000 could hit 2200 at 3dmark11?
I want just remember that GT650m hits 2100 on 3dmark11.

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I couldn't get HWinfo64 to run...wouldn't let me run it then 3dmark. Kept crashing 3dmark / couldn't initialize the benchmarking.

Look about right?

 

Yes, very well. The 8770m and the GT 650m are very close but with a slight advantage to the GT 650m. Whether this is the result of throttling or not remains to be determined. Here is a comparison between the Asus UX51VZ (i7 3612qm) vs Samsung NP700Z7C-S04DE (i7 3635qm) both having GT 650m.

Result

If you compare the graphic score of the asus model to your own it just just about 10-15% better performance for the GT 650m but that is expected anyways.

AMD Radeon HD 8770M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

 

So...not sure if I did this correctly, but here is the HWinfo64 CSV file that I managed to get while I was running 3dmark. I can't read it to save my life.

edit: er...that didn't do anything at all. lemme try it again after dinner.

 

Sorry, but this file is description of your system. It's not a log of your test with 3dmark11...

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I know its why I took it down haha. like I said I'll see where the log function is when I get home.

 

Other than my issue with the GPU here are my impressions. I was expecting performance of the GPU to be between a gt650 and a gt660, not below it.

Pros
1. Build Quality - very nicely built machine, looks and feels expensive. Has an upscale yet simple macbook like look
2. Screen - The screen quality is very good, but it is glossy. Touch screen is cool, but I don't really see the need to have it on a 15.6" laptop. It the screen flipped around like some ultrabooks then it might make sense. But who know, in a pinch, without a mouse it might be easier to navigate that way. I am just not used to it.
3. Speakers - puts out some very nice sound quality
4. Performance for the footprint - seems amazing what they can get done these days

Cons
1. Harddrive - 5400 rpms - Kind of slow to boot up, but other than that it must have some kind of ram caching or something, because its overall responsiveness is good
2. Cooling - I don't think the cooling system on this laptop is great. I haven't put it through any gaming marathons by any means, but it does get pretty toasty and doesn't have a great deal of airflow. This could be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it. But if you are looking to stuff the 8870m in here, I am not sure how well it will do.
3. Access - you only have the access to ram on the underside of the computer. Cannot even swap out a battery without entirely removing the back cover.

All in all - I think it is a good laptop and I do like it. Just wish that gaming performance was better. I am on the fence on wheter to return it or not. If returned, I would probably order the Asus G55vm. Yes, it is twice as heavy as this, but it has a cooling system that is far superior and a faster hard drive and a gtx660.

I just don't think we are there yet on the dream of having a powerful gaming machine in a nice and slim form factor. We are close. Perhaps the 8870m model will be the answer, but I would be concerned about the cooling. I think this model is adequate for light gaming - MMOs, ARPGS, and most games up until this point. Except maybe the Metros, Crysis, Farcry 3's and such. However, we do need to consider we are about to enter the next console generation. I don't think the a chip on the level of a gt650 is going to be playing modern games for very long. Select modern games yes, but good luck playing some of the 2014 shooters on it. Or the next gen version of ElderScrolls or what have you.

 

Well, I pulled the trigger and picked up one at best buy on my way home from work tonight. I already know its going back (see below) but am running it through its paces to see if I want to try another, wait for the 8870 version or more along to something else.

The first show stopper is the screen, its about 1/3 as bright as the one in the store with the brightness on max. My budget vizio is about twice as bright. I'm in a dimly lit room and its very dull and lifeless.

EDIT: Well i realized this one was fixable. The notebook has a brightness sensor and it leaves the screen a bit low for my tastes. Disabled it and the screen brightness is fine, brighter than the vizio as it should be. Also, they default the screen to 125% so I reset it to 100%.

The second show stopper is Wifi. I decided to download 3dmark (the new win8 one) to do a graphic test... every time i tried it was going to take hours... .so i started a download on my vizio sitting right next to it... and it took 6 minutes, when it was done the samsung was at 7%.

I ran windows experience Index:
7.8
7.8
6.7
6.7
5.9

Next up is 3dmark and then to see if it has 2 memory card slots or only one with the other 4gb soldered on. If anyone wants me to check something let me know.

 

can you run 3dmark06? i know there's a newer version but most benchmarks are still on 06 so I'm more familiar with the numbers

 

I plan to. Just need to download it on my vizio, every time I try on the samsung it says it will take hours. What is odd is that I can grab files of my NAS fine, just not over the internet. Strange.

Here are few other tidbits.

1. It definitely has a plastic back.
2. It definitely only has one Memory Slot with 4gb soldered on the board. Taking off the memory access door only provides access to a single slot and the passmark performance test only recognizes on 4gb memory card.
3. Pasmark CPUMark was 8422. I had been concerned about this because the CPU only ranks in the 5000s on their site.
4. Its a 90960 mWh battery

I ran 3dmark, I'll provide the results below, compared with my vizio. (i3, hd4000)

Ice Storm - 44277 (25333 for vizio)
Cloud Gate - 5707 (3087 for vizio)
Fire Strike - 650 (483 for vizio)

When looking at the physics scores the Samsung had a bigger gap (35668 vs 17922 in ice storm for example).

 

ah that sucks.....i hope the higher end version w/8870 come out soon, and it better be full metal

 

I think we're all hoping this. :|