Introducing The 2013 Series 7 Chronos with AMD HD8870M!

Good news, thx

 

I’m not really sure if i should buy this Laptop.
I am searching for a thin but powerful Notebook for testing VirtualMaschines, doing Home-Office, Photoshop and playing games. Most Time I play FPS like Crysis and Battlefield or COD.
This Maschine seems like the best solution for me. But how long? I don’t want to spend 1500€ and at the end of this year I can not play new games. I don’t need to play Games on FullHD and Ultra Config. But Medium on 1600x900 would be fine.

What do you guys think? Is this Laptop good for gaming the next 3 years ?

 

well all i can say, it runs metro 2033 on 1600x900 and high settings with ~40+ fps and skyrim on very high +2x AA and 4xAF with 35 fps on fullhd.

but if you consider that new consoles will arrive soon, i would say even desktop pcs will see a hard time for a while - if they have the same low quality code like they had in the last years. games are hardly optimized for pcs, so much power is wasted. just compare xbox360 hardware to current pc hardware and then compare fps in games ! it could run 200-300% better if they would optimize for pc.

i suggest you buy a notebook + playstation 4

 

you will never get an iptimal gaming experience from a laptop. This is one of the better ones for current games however. If you are getting something exclusively for gaming (and you seem to like the higher end games), you may want to stick to something other than laptops

 

Did someone install win7 on this ? Is it a problem because of UEFI ?
I wonder why everyone sticks to win8, which benefit (other than included license) do you get from it ?

I hope someone with BIOS skills will sort out the gpu throttling issue and power limits soon, so we can add a 120w adapter to the beast !

 

If you dont like 8 just install start8 replacement start menu.
Win 8 = touch friendly / faster / working drivers from samsung so its pretty much a stupidity to roll back to win7 with all the driver issues instead of installing start 8 which costs 5 dollars.

 

Best Buy is showing this as of today for those of you who were talking about the "ATIV" series. INGRAM MICRO INC BBFB DIRECT ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T Tablet with 128GB Memory XE700T1C-A - Best Buy

This doesn't seem to have many of the specs people had pulled from other sites about it. Maybe I've confused it with something else?

*EDIT: Yeah, It's not what I thought peeps were talking about a few pages back. Call me blonde and move along!

 

Does anyone know if the 870Z5E/880Z5E also comes with a HDD? Do we know any date, when it will be released?

 

+1, if the ATIV's will be coming with SSD's I'll wait for them. If its purely the colour difference I won't

 

Depends on the price. I don´t want to pay +200€/$ for a SSD, when i can get one for 100€ by myself, which is even better. But i need to know this, otherwise i have to send back my m4 SSD for now...

 

Install limit on Office 2007? Haha I have Office 2007 Home and Student edition on disc and I've lost track of the number of times I've installed that thing and activated it. They've never come to me with an activation limit haha. I've probably done the whole thing 50 times.

 

Ehhh definitely not dude. You're right about not being able to MAX it, but i'm confident it'll be able to get it up there. I'll try my copy of GTA 4 when I get the Chronos, because that'll give me a good indication. GTA5 is supposed to be a lot more optimized than GTA 4 though.

People who are posting specs so far say it is running WELL above or at the GTX 670m level, and that's WITH old unofficial drivers! I honestly just can't imagine how good things are going to get when ATI brings out their official drivers.

 

They aren't they aren't....I'm still realistic here. You're right, 1080p for sure, but some things like draw distance and shadows will probably have to be turned down.

 

Your dorm doesn't have mailboxes like mine does?! Haha

 

Exactly. I'd almost rather them put an HDD in these so I can put the SSD of my choice in myself on Day 1. If they put an SSD in in the factory, I bet it wouldn't be as fast as the 840 pro.

 

getting impatient here. i just want to see a US release and price on a 8870 model. everything samsung is getting buried by the Galaxy SIV

 

Yeah! I also prefer this. I can even use the 2,5" HDD with a cheap External Chassis and so i have a 1TB external drive and a way better internal SSD AND iam still better off

 

That is what i’m Planning. Buying a Notebook as a Desktop Replacement (I have no space in my livingroom and bedroom). In 1 maybe 2 Years a new Playstation or XBOX.
I know that playing on notebooks isn’t that good as on Desktop PC but I have no other choice.

 

It would be worth it for Samsung too: they would sell other Momentus HDDs and other 840/840 Pro SSDs!

 

I've asked official to ATI if they will release drivers for ATI 8870M, and they officially reply me today that they'll NEVER release ANY Driver for 8870M !!!
And they say that the assistance (driver) will be released only by Samsung !!! W.T.F. ???!!!

 

So Samsung is in charge of the 8870m drivers??

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

That...seems...unlikely. But I suppose time will tell.

 

That's what I said when everyone wanted those catalyst beta drivers installed.
We depend on Samsung, expect the crappiest support you have experienced so far.

They are already 5 months old, let's see how long an update takes.
You depend on community releases.

Maybe someone can hack catalyst drivers or something.

 

Maybe it's because I'm a newcomer to Samsung laptops, but why is a framer / end user assembly company responsible for display drivers for a card they bought from AMD??

 

Shpank yoo... now I know a hard drive to stay away from!

 

Interesting, I hit a hard limit the last two times i've installed it (office 2007 home and student) on first launch it asks about activation and when I try to active it, it tells me ive exceeded my installation limit as per the EULA and if I believe ive reached this message in error to call microsoft. First time I called microsoft and the guy basically argued with me for 20 minutes, saying i can only install X times then I need to buy another copy or a new version. He kept asking me how many computers ive installed it on... I kept telling him that im a software developer, usually have a mobile and desktop rig at any given time and cycle through machines at least once a year... so what maybe a dozen machines? he finally let me activate it. The last time it gave me the same message, i called them and they activated it no problem. I guess its who you get, but the whole idea of it is irritating.

 

This can't be correct hahaha. Like no way. Customer Support always has their heads up their asses. Every time I contact Samsung Chat they tell me something completely different for the same question over and over.

 

It's also written in AMD support forum as a sticky...

 

The tighter the performance and thermal specs are on a machine the more likely the manufacturer will want to control gpu driver updates because a general driver might not take those constraints into account yielding too much heat, etc. There was a time a few years back when all laptop gpu drivers came from the manufacturer instead of the gpu maker for this reason. Samsung has a fairly tight little package here and we already know they are striking a balance with power, heat and performance and a gpu driver could throw this off fairly easily, so I wouldn't be surprised if they are controlling driver releases for the chronos.

 

exacty, I think we will really don't see any drivers in AMD site for ours 8870m...
And this is bad, 'cause AMD sucks, but Samsung Sucks more with this type of assistance...
We've already, a driver old by 3 month... :-(
All those improvements month by month from ati, we will miss them all ??!!!

 

FYI: For those with Office 2010 and 2013, you can transfer Office to a different PC once every 90 days.

 

Calm down calm down. Nothing at all is confirmed in any way.

 

If this is true and they handle updates like they do on their phones then we are so screwed...

Typed on my Galaxy Note II

 

it was the same way with the ENVY 14 that i had. you could use catalytst drivers, but would be rolling the dice each time, and at one point, it was just broken. HP never updated their graphics drivers either.

 

Lol off course it has mailboxes but I had the laptop delivered to my home because I'm hardly at my dorm during the day.

 

FYI, Why Android Updates Are So Slow

 

Yep, but its single PC per 90 days is a stumbling block for me. I usually have at least 2 rigs setup at a time... deskop and notebook and I think this is going to become 3 with a tablet added to the mix. So thats three copies of office to make that happen now... sure you can buy office 365 but then its $100 a year.

My office usage is very light... I never use anything but excel but probably use excel 1-2 times a week, sometimes more sometimes less. I'm not a heavy office user, If I want to do documents I use a desktop publisher for more control than word offers. So I really can't justify the expense of buying office anymore. I'll keep pushing my 2007 license onto new machines until they say i can't anymore then probably go to open office or some other alternative.

 

OT, but thats why I always buy unlocked devices directly from google... they always get the latest right out the gate without all the carrier headaches.

 

Who have done a new install of win 8, and upgraded all drivers throught SW upgrade Samsung... Can you try to close your screen ? It Suspended right and back immediately normal ? mine Crash and have to reboot !!!
Also tried to set "any action" when close the screen, it crash also !!!
I'm Italian, with a 770Z5E-S01IT with a Samsung 256GB 840PRO...

 

With regards to the comments on no driver support from AMD on their own hardware, I call BS. It makes no sense at all.

The AMD website only shows cards in the 7xxx series at the moment, I will expect the drivers within the next 2 months from them. Yes they should be here now but to believe they will never come is silly right now.

I know from plenty of experience, do not believe everything you hear from customer service. Their answers are often best guesses, not facts.

 

Speaking of "best guesses" here's what I've heard from Currys/PC World customer service:

"We currently have notification that this item will return into stock in the next couple of weeks. My recommendation would be to watch the website which is updated daily with new stock. Once the stock is in our warehouse you will be able to order the item on delivery."

 

Gizmodo'd...

 

So I've had the Chronos (Silver, 15", touch-screen, HD 8870M variant) for almost 3 weeks now and I have to say that I love it.
The few flaws I can first hand account for are:

1) 4GB is soldered onto the motherboard so the maximum amount of RAM that can be installed is only 12GB (for the 8GB version).

2) The backlit keyboard light is a pale blue and in some external lighting situations the keys are almost impossible to read.

3) The touch-screen seems to be a pane of glass on top of a matte display which makes the screen seem 'thick' and may account for the slight graininess seen on white backgrounds.

4) The HD 8870M GPU is throttled by either heat or power limits and can really be detrimental to gaming performance, hopefully this will be rectified soon by a Samsung BIOS update.

Apart from these few flaws, everything is is absolutely amazing and I would still choose this over a rMBP if given the choice.
The performance of the GPU should increase greatly in the near future once AMD release drivers that support the HD 8000M series. I don't believe for a second that AMD wouldn't support a brand new series of graphics cards and leave it to the manufacturer to release them instead.
I know most of these flaws have been pointed out earlier on in this thread but I just wanted to sum up everything in-case any of you were still deciding whether or not to purchase the Chronos.


I do have one question for anyone who has opened up their Chronos to replace the RAM / HDD; I was thinking about installing a Killer Wireless-N 1202 NIC in replacement of the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205.
Firstly, does anyone know if the laptop has three antennas or just two? It would be nice to install a Wireless-N 1103 and experience a 3x3 450Mbps connection.
Secondly, does anyone know if the laptop can actually support other NICs other than Intel ones? I read that certain laptops only support a particular list of NICs as set by the manufacturer and if the NIC you're looking to replace with isn't on the list then it just won't work.

 

Was this the sticky you wer talking about Black83
AMD Game Forums - **STICKY** | Updating Mobility drivers

It has been like that for a long time. But it's not entirely correct. People with 7970m P150EM notebooks for example, can easily install non-clevo drivers. You should also note that this article hasn't been updated since 2/23/2012.

Since people hace already installed 13.3 beta's for their 8870m, i think that there will be direct support from AMD, just not official.

We should also not forget that our gpu is a rebranded 7870m, which is already supported by AMD.

I suggest we all calm down. The 8870m and 8770m are the first 8xxxm cards out there and the series is far from being totally released. It's reasonable there aren't any official 8xxxm drivers out yet from AMD.

 

uninstall HD4000 in device manager, tick the checkbox to delete drivers.
you may do it 2-3 times, windows has a lot of old stuff to reuse after new ones are gone

then sw update should offer options to install them from there

 

yeah it works... windows crashed, rebooted and installed new driver throught SW Upgrade...
Ufff... Samsung

 

Two antennas.

As for NIC I'm not sure, but I've not heard about any NIC restrictions on samsung laptops. HP and some others have those restrictions though. At least Qualcomm/atheros and intel works for previous series 7.

 

Thanks for the info!

I'll buy the Killer Wireless-N 1202 and report back with any compatibility issues.

 

Similar to what I got back:
"Currently we are awaiting stock in from our suppliers of this product.

Regrettably, we are unable to specify the quantity of stock that we will be receiving at any given time. My best recommendation would be for you to continue to refer to the website."

 

Trust me, it's worth the wait, this is an awesome laptop (got my 780Z5E S01UK ordered the day it appeared on Currys/PCWorld). A few tiny complaints with it, but I've yet to see the perfect laptop and this one is 99.9% there - for me at least!