Introducing The 2013 Series 7 Chronos with AMD HD8870M!

Yes you can. I did.

 

Bought mine for software development. I wanted a video card, but don't need it for lots of hardcore gaming. I wanted a HD screen with touch and a quad core processor. Everything is a tradeoff. I'm going to keep it with the HDD and not add a few hundred dollars more expense for an SSD and a voided warranty. Not sure how much faster it would be with an SSD. Would be nice to have some benchmarks to compare how much faster it would be. Compilers and linkers typically do lots of I/O. I haven't gotten to the point of actually compiling my software yet. And once I do, I can only compare it to my three year old Dell machine with a 7200 HDD.

 

Hey I've just bought this laptop (NP780Z5E, touch screen + 8870M variant) but it seems that the graphics card isn't performing as well as I expected.

I made sure that I'm on high performance mode and tried to run Battlefield 3 but I can't even get above 30fps on the lowest settings at 720p. I then tried to run a less demanding game (Black Ops 2) but the same thing happens.

On the AMD driver website there is no option to select the 8xxx range so I'm presuming because this graphics chipset has just been released that the drivers are still being worked on and will come out at a later date.
Does anyone know if the beta Catalyst drivers are designed for the 8xxx range?

There's also a lot of talk on this forum about the graphics card being throttled but I haven't experienced it myself, unless my laptop is constantly being throttled :S

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Courtesy of Alchemist (Page 253) "The first boot is about 40 seconds... after it gets all its updates it will boot in 19-21 seconds off the standard 5400rpm HD. I swapped this out for a samsung 840 ssd and my boots are between 8-9 seconds now."

 

I got mine for software development as well. your right, everything is a tradeoff... in the case of HD/SSD its one of space for speed. The hard drive is completely workable, after all updates are in place you get 20 second boots and near instant resumes. Apps load the way they normally do off a HD and you have nearly 1tb of storage available. Since I was going to be mobile alot and wanted speed I swapped mine out for a 250gb samsung 840 ssd at a cost of $149 (on sale). Now I get 7-9 second boots and just about every app loads instantly and project builds fly, although I only have about 130gb free.

 

After you start an application, Right-Click on Desktop, select "Switchable-Graphic Card": you'll find a list of recent application, select Battlefield 3 or Black Ops 2 and set both of them on "High Performance"... let me know if those was the problem

 

The high performance setting was already pre-selected, I turned it onto 'power saving' and then back on to 'high performance' to make sure but that doesn't seem to be causing the problem

 

That's more like igpu performance. Are you running on battery perhaps? Is silent mode on? Turning off silent mode did the trick for a user.

 

I'm running on high performance mode with the mains adapter connected.

When you say silent mode I presume you're not talking about the volume level?

 

"Silent mode" is designed by Samsung and should limit the notebook fan noise downclocking CPU and forcing the use of iGPU over dGPU: there's a combination of Fn + FX to enable/disable (don't know the exact function key because i don't have one)...

 

By itself, boot time isn't very interesting. I may restart my machine once a week. Visual Studio and/or Netbeans is running all the time. More interesting is the time to start working again if my machine has been sleeping, the time to compile, and the time to get to the first breakpoint in the debugger.

Although I've found that installing updates from Microsoft is very slow. I wonder if that's because of the slow disk.

 

Man, you're speaking about power settings, but you must select high performance in the catalyst. Right click on desktop, go to the switchable graphics settings, select the game and set it in high performance. This has not anything in common with "power saving" or "high performance" in Windows power settings. If this doesn't solve your issue, you must be in silent mode

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Nope, I'm talking about the Catalyst settings, the game was already on the high performance mode.

 

Then you should try using HwInfo to create a log of the system while playing BF3 or Black Ops 2: it will tell us something more about your poor performance

 

According to Notebookcheck test at 720p and high details you should go to about 36fps

 

This solved it! Thanks so much!

It's Fn11 (the fan icon), somehow the 'Samsung Optimized' power mode is better than the 'High performance' mode lol, that's why I missed it the first time.

I can see what everyone is talking about regarding the throttling, seems to not allow temperatures above 75 degrees

 

Give us some HwInfo64 Log!!! (damn, i feared this could happened even on the 15" -.-" )

 

It's a PSU throttling not a temperature throttling, that's why we need HwInfo64 Log..

 

3Dmark 2013 scores for NP780Z5E S01UK AMD 8870M GPU (with Samsung provided drivers):
As mentioned previously, this reports as Intel HD4000, and throws up "unsupported driver" warnings on each run.

Ice Storm
Score: 54220
Graphics Score: 65157
Physics Score: 34156

Cloud Gate
Score: 11129
Graphics Score: 15562
Physics Score: 5573

Fire Strike
Score: 2072
Graphics Score: 2161
Physics Score: 6763
Combined Score: 882

Will update the drivers and re-run.

 

Cuurys today

 

Can be usefull know if the CPU is working with Turbo Boost enabled: if so, maybe with ThrottleStop or through Windows Power Management we can turn it off in order to save some precious Watts... anyway, we need HwInfo64 Log ASAP mate!!!

 

Sounds like you depend on resume alot more than I do. The biggest difference you will see between the HD and an SSD in sleep/resume times is that it will take a bit longer to sleep and let the HD spin down... so if you shut the lid then open it right away it may end up taking longer to resume than you would think as it first has to finish sleeping then resume.

You will notice a difference in compiling large projects or doing anything with alot of disk access... a 5400rpm drive is what it is... samsung includes their intellimemory software to try to cache files which may help a bit if you can live with all the memory it consumes. (I couldn't since I use VMs alot).

As it ships... the HD is the bottleneck in the system... so whenever there is a delay its the obvious cause. That said, it gives you 1tb of disk space so plenty of room for projects and windows 8 boots alot faster so you get 20 second boots where windows 7 with this drive would be pushing 2 minutes. I thought about keeping the HD in mine but wanted to go with no moving parts and speed on the portable... I connect it to a dock at my desk and I have an external 1tb usb3 drive there. I also stumbled on a deal, microcenter had the 840 ssd for $149 so it wasn't a costly upgrade.

 

Completely agree about trade-offs. My company laptop has an SSD and it's nice, but the price for adding one to this machine would be prohibitive (for what I'm willing to invest). Thanks for the info.

 

If you want to save power... just hit quiet mode Fn+F11. The CPU maxes at 1.15ghz while in quiet mode, only the igpu is used and performance is kept at a level where the unit can be passively cooled so little to know fan activity.

 

Those of you with the 8870m gpu model, how is the heat with extended GPU use? Also has anyone got a chance to run the new 3dmark on it yet?

 

Because now is in stock, when is out the home delivery is disabled and you cannot pickup from the store because they don't have it.

 

Was playing it for around 2 hours and was fine, I also have a cooling tray which is sits on and think that helps a little. Played Planetside 2 which is known to be an absolute hog and at full res everything on medium was very playable. Couldn`t work out how to show framerate on there. Other games are also very good although the others are a little older. Not seen any affects of the CPU Boost (throttle).

 

Can you try playing on high/figure out the highest you can go?

 

You missed it Alchemist!
He posted them like an hour ago

 

Just an update (been away all weekend). So I upgraded the hard drive to Samsung 840 Pro SSD and used a recovery disk. That worked well but I decided to do a clean format as my capacity was taken up by a recovery partition and the fact that Windows 8 may not have been installed in the way you`d hope for an SSD.

The clean install went well. Didn`t need to give a serial number on install like old versions of Windows 8. Took a bit of downloading for Samsung drivers (through SW Update tool) but got it to the same state as from recovery disk except my SSD is now showing 236Gb instead of 220Gb. Those who are thinking about a clean install, do it, I had no problems.

I have had two odd things, one is that some games don`t work full screen in a resolution lower than native. I`m wandering if its an issue with the switchable graphics between the Intel andAMD 8870 but think it would just take a driver update, will continue to have a play. The other is regarding shadowing on an old flight sim not working (Lock-On game), got to see if the Intel graphics has the same effect.

Overall very chuffed, never seen a computer, let alone Laptop open up apps / Internet pages so quickly. If you are thinking about it, do it but I would highly recommend the SSD upgrade as I see the HD as the only weak link in an otherwise superb Laptop. Just be aware it will affect your warranty.

 

If that is the case, why have they not let me kow that I can pick mine up. I was due to pick it up last Friday.

 

Great info. I'm not sure it will effect your warranty though... I talked to samsung support such that it is back when I first got it (didn't give them my serial number though) and asked about installing and ssd. They said I could install an ssd but would need to reinstall windows on the new drive.

 

So I found out how to show framerate. At 1920 x 1080 res medium it was holding 60fps. On High in all setting it was getting between 25-40 fps with it holding around the mid 30's most the time. Really impressive IMO. Hopefully as new drivers get released, it will get quicker on games like this.

 

Excellent! Thanks, been looking for this.

Definitely a significant performance boost over the 8770. +8% in ice storm, +17% in Cloud Gate and +30% in Fire Strike. So the newer the game the better the 8870 performs over the 8770.

 

That sounds interesting. I kind of hoped the fact I replaced with a Samsung drive that I might have some comeback. Hopefully we will never need it.

 

Are you talking about planetside 2 here?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

Thank you very much, it's great to hear that it's possible to clean install without troubles. Did you use some kind of special ISO like someone suggested some time ago? Or what else?

I remember the discussion with the Samsung rep too, it seemed that swapping the hard disk doesn't void warranty, but we would need some confirmation

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Yeh exactly right, Planetside 2 which is known to be a hog on resources.

 

Same here. Still waiting for home delivery. Ordered last Thursday.
Was on the phone with Currys last night (again) and they expecting stock Tuesday or Wednesday .

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

 

Everything on high is maxed out right?
That's pretty damn good since this guy says he gets 35 fps on max settings in 1080p with his 670m:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYfxSSSaexU
This video doesn't say anything about the real performance of the 670m nor the 8870m though. I just though it was interesting and wanted to share.

From what I've read the 660m really struggles to reach 30 fps with those settings.
I can't wait.

The store from which I ordered did not find it necessary to help me with the payment problems nor to answer my emails. I only get an automatic reply redirecting me to a FAQ-page to "sort it out myself". This is beyond frustrating.

Edit: I hope you guys are liking this post for the good news about the awesome planetside 2 performance and not because of my troubles and bad luck of getting the laptop.

 

Wow nice. Thanks for info!

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

I`ve tried attaching the HwInfo64 log. Had to change the file extension to .txt from .csv otherwise it wouldn`t upload. I was gaming for around 20-30 mins. Let me know what you can decipher!

 

Someone asked for the AS SSD Benchmarks. I've just run one, here's my benchmark:



This is the Samsung 840 Pro 256gb, which I installed on the NP780Z5E S01UK Model. Also note that this was NOT a fresh Windows install, I did a recovery from the Samsung Image (and removed all the bloatware!). I installed Samsung Magician and optimised for reliability.

 

My brother had the full version of Windows 8 on DVD so made an ISO from that but I had trouble getting USB Stick to be bootable. In the end I just used the DVD via an external drive. One problem I have just found with the fresh install is that Windows 8 crashes when I close the lid (instead of sleeping). Will search for a fix and let you know if I do.

 

FYI, I formatted it in tabs, I find it easier to read.
What I see is cpu throttling very few times (something like 40 seconds in total at 1.2 GHz in 25 minutes of gaming).
No thermal throttling
Max CPU temp: 85 °C
Max GPU temp: 67°C
GPU throttling very few times (more or less 50 seconds in total at 300 MHz in 25 minutes of gaming) EDIT: as pointed out, it's not throttling, it simply wasn't used

It was Planetside 2 in FullHD with High Settings, mid 30s fps, am I right? All in all, it looks good to me. What do you think?

 

Thank you, it is aligned so you can enjoy the full speed of your SSD :thumbsup:

Thank you very much, keep us posted! :thumbsup:

 

If i make an image backup using a usb stick and restore to the ssd wouldnt there be a problem with windows activation on the ssd?

And if I want to add win 8 pro...wouldnt it reinstall windows? Isnt there a quick upgrade to pro?

Sent from Samsung Galaxy Note II

 

Jeez this thread exploded while I've been playing Tomb Raider.

The marks on the 8870 3dMark runs look good, definite improvement, but I'm curious. Planetside from the data above (I haven't plotted anything myself) may be good, but from software to software it seems like the 8870 response is spotty. Either big improvement, or none at all. I'm weirded out by it.

My SSD is officially on order though, so I'll hopefully have that swapped out within a week or two. Am I the only one here who doesn't mind carrying a small external hard drive for media? I usually don't keep it plugged in, but it's useful to combat the 256GB size restriction. Transfer what I need over, delete, etc.

 

67 °C max? I must say I am truely impressed. Thanks greth for the test and thank you alfling for the interpretation. I hope a bigger psu and/or throttlestop can push the 8870m to what's it really capable of and eliminate those little bits of throttling.

Damn online store with lousy support... I want to do tests!

 

Thank you.
This is a useful post, in this log I don't see any evidence of throttling, but I have to say that this game doesn't seem a most demanding game as could be Crysis2.

CPU is most of the time at 3.2GHz with some moment with some core at 1.2GHz is some point it has turbo disabled so 2.4GHz specially at the end of test. Max temp was 86°C, but this game doesn't seems to be a most demanding for CPU, in fact CPU load is always under 20%.

GPU is almost always in Turbo mode 775MHz, but for most the time GPU usage was under 64%, it stay with turbo mode on even when in some point has reached 100% of usage, there are some moment where turbo was disabled 725MHz, so I have to say that this game it's not a most demanding game to GPU. Max temp on GPU was 67°C so very good.

As well as the design of the cooling system seems to suggest that GPU has better cooling than CPU.