New samsung series 7 with 8870m review / test

Jup, it is. However there are still some driver issues, causing much lower fps-counts than the 8870m could do, but I hope this will be fixed soon.

 

That's what I like to hear ! So updates will Hopefully be available for download later on which will cause higher fps? I'm new to the gaming aspect of computers lol

 

There will definetely come driver updates. Samsung already offered 5 updated drivers for other parts, when I booted Windows first time.

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cool, then im defiantly going to consider this laptop if it is okay on gaming and pretty portable !

 

Downloading and installing right now:

- GTA IV
- Bioshock infinite
- Medal of honor warfighter
- War thunder
- Warface
- MaldoHD 4.0 for crysis 2

Any test requests?

 

Please report, whether Your GTA-framerates are also so confusing like mine

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Bestbuy now selling 17" NP770Z7E

 

How about the 15.3" touchscreen one?

 

don't buy the 17inch, it has no touch, its too heavy and Best buy increased the price by $200 in 1 day screw that!

the 15inch touch isn't out yet and no sign at all, maybe after 2 weeks or 1 month.

 

Probably any day now, given that Samsung said "late march early april"

 

The 15" is instock @ store. the 17" was online order.

 

Ordered mine last nite when it was $1149US
Glad I did after I saw your post.

 

The 8870 15" is in stores? We all know the 8770 15" is at best buy stores but this is the first im hearing of the 8870 15" in US Best Buy Stores.

 

Bioshock infinite and Crysis 2 with MaldoHD v4.0 performance added.

Crysis 2 with this mod is the most beautiful game I have ever played. In combination with this wonderful screen it was an awesome gaming experience.

This pc can handle any game at 1080p at high (sometimes you do need to turn down shadows or AA a bit) but I still have a feeling something is holding back the 8870m.

I hope it's just drivers that's holding back the 8870m. Heat does not seem the problem since the cpu never throttles thermally and the gpu almost never exceeds 65°C. CPU rarely exceeds 71 °C when gaming. These are temperatures that are well within thermal limitations. It could be psu-related too I think. I've been looking for a 120w psu that fits this samsung but I couldn't find one. Anyone came across one? I reeally want to test that.

Also, could the chronos accept more than 90W? I don't want to fry my mobo.
I know I have asked these questions before but no-one really had an answer.

I'm sorrry I don't test as many games as I intend to but I'm studying for my exams right now.

 

Maybe I'm writing something stupid, but I believe that you have to care only about correct voltage for the psu. If you plug in a 120W adapter it won't push 120W into the laptop all the time, but only the power instantly requested by the hardware. 120W is just the maximum power available.
Instead, a wrong voltage may screw up your battery.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm FAR from being an expert in electronics

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I was thinking the same since the chronos never uses 90W at idle, more like 30W so it would never use 120W when it doesn't need too.

Universal PSU's should be safe to use right? They're made to be used on a whole range of laptop so they won't damage my laptop I suppose?

 

I'd guess you're right, but as I said I'm not an expert. Mr. John Ratsey might know something more

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Correct.

No damage will be done if the PSU watt rating is more than the computer wants (an example is the 130W PSU that is supplied with a Dell docking station although the computer I put in the docking station needed no more than 65W). The voltage rating of the PSU does matter (although things usually work OK at plus or minus 1V from that specified).

A universal PSU (provided it has the appropriate Samsung power plug) would be the easiest way to check whether performance would be improved using a more powerful PSU. A universal PSU is always useful to have around even if the experiment is unsuccessful so the cost is not completely wasted. As I have noted previously, I have a hypothesis that the thermal design may be based around 90W, in which case having more power available won't make any difference.

John

 

Thank you for the info.

I haven't found a universal 120W PSU with the right plug yet .

Like you said I also fear that using all of the 120W of power will be too much for the cooling system to handle. But, since the GPU and CPU both stay under 70°C, I think there is room for a little bit more power.
But I think I'm going to wait for the 8xxxm drivers first, hopefully that'll help. Some people expect huge performance improvements but I don't really see that happening. 10% maybe. We'll see.

 

Added Black Ops 2 performance. This game is a joke in terms of graphics.

Do you guys want skyrim tested?

 

Added medal of honour warfighter.

I had to completely deinstall and reinstall both HD4000 and AMD graphics drivers twice because my system was crashing when I closed the lid and catalyst control center didn't want to work anymore. Pretty strange

 

I'm so jealous! Why don't they sell this laptop anywhere in the US?

I've only seen the crappy gimped version with 8770m instead of 8870m.

Yes, I'd love to know! Can you try at 1080p with everything maxed except using FXAA with AA disabled?

 

It'll come . It's definitely worth the wait. I've been looking for a laptop since october 2012. First I waited for the y500 and when it finally was available in my country (6 weeks after it was available in the US) I came across this one. I'm glad I waited.

Skyrim performance added in post #1 . These results are pretty damn good IMO.

 

Prank you have been awesome about all of this. I'm not even sure I'm in the market for a laptop right now but I'm falling in love with this one haha

I was wondering if you could add a picture or two of you holding the laptop, so I can get a better idea of the size? I know it's small, but I'd love to see hands over the keyboard or holding it while it's closed just to get some perspective. Thanks!

 

Thanks man.

I have gigantic hands so that could make the laptop look smaller than it actually is . Maybe a photo with a dvd-box next to it or something? That might give you a better idea of the size. I don't have the time anymore tonight so I'll try to do it tomorrow if that's okay.

 

Oh no worries, any time would be great!

Edit: Also whatever you think is best, you can even do smaller things like pens or something.

 

Apparently, the US release has become the BigFoot sighting now. Some claim to have seen it in their visions but so far, it's a complete mystery. Sadly, by the time it hits US (and I doubt the pricing will be anywhere near the current $1199 Bestbuy model), the newer intel chips and Nvidia cards may be making their way to other laptops.

The main reason why the 8870 version is a 'hotcake' is in the current laptop market, it's the ONLY laptop that offers the highest 'cost-to-value' factor (especially considering the ATI 8870). But 3 months from now, this may all change. Who knows.

 

are there still any Photos needed?

 

Has anyone used this laptop for SimCity? Does it play Simcity well on high settings?

 

Can you please make a close up video in 1080p showing all the chassis details and the finish? Just to let us see how much premium this laptop will feel once in our hands!

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Does anyone know if there are throttling issues with the 15" version?

 

Would you be able to test battery life with:
Screen setting step above lowest,
Volume off
Wifi on
Powersaving mode.

This is how a student would use it in class to take notes without charger.
If it gets close to 8 hours realistic, this or its next incarnation may be something I need to look into.
Touch screen, large touch pad, add a digitizer pad and you have a notetaking beast!

 

Skyrim test please

 

Don't have such

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Yes there are. In-game one or two cores some times drop to 1,2 Ghz. The gpu very rarely goes under its base clock (725 mhz). I almost never go above 72 °C on both CPU and GPU so I suspect this is power-related and not due to heat. When I raise the power limit for the gpu with MSI afterburner for example, the gpu stays at its turboclock when playing far cry 3 but some CPU cores throttle to 1,2 Ghz every now and then. I'm looking for a 120W PSU to see if that resolves the problem.
EDIT: these are not really huge issues. They are just strange.

I'm not going to be able to do an 8 hour test since I am studying for my exams right now. Or do you mean just letting it sit for 8 hours like that?

Check first post please.
I did the test a few das ago already.


And I'm sorry guys that some tests and pictures take so long but I'm very busy studying for my exams right now, like I said above. I'll try to post the size comparison pictures tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the info!! I was most worried about this during gaming. The 8870m seems rather power hungry for that slim of a laptop, but if you think it's power related, that's great news.

One last question: Can you quote me the AC adaptor's voltage (probably 19V), and (for bonus points) do you know if it's a standard 5.5mm/2.5mm (outer/inner diameter) tip? For example the yellow tip in this picture: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41fWUAUCSLL.jpg

I understand if you don't have the means to actually measure, but I figured I'd throw this in there since you seem to be among the most knowledgeable on here so far.

@delpiero: Thanks! Maybe it is not thermally bound as pranktank suggests?

 

I'm not entirely sure if it's all because of the power and I'm also not sure whether a 120W PSU would fix the throttling.

It's 19V and 4,94A.

I don't have the exact numbers but that definitely isn't the right plug.
You can see the plug here:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81mELpf2J0L._SL1500_.jpg

 

Hm ok. The inside looks slightly larger, though it's hard to say. I have a G50vt with a 19V/120W adapter, so hopefully it will fit... or maybe I can find some tips to convert to the Samsung adapter.

Anyway, I think as soon as the 15" 8870m version is out in the US, I'll bite. Thanks for your help!

 

You're welcome. The plug has a pin in the center, rather than a hole like the one from your picture.

 

Interesting.... A centre pin can enable the notebook to check the PSU power rating. This might mean that the hardware can perform closer to its potential because the BIOS could adjust the power ceiling to suit the higher capacity PSU.

John

 

Thank you very much for all your effort! I very well understand how you feel, last year of aerospace engineering here

I'm still wondering why the hell Samsung did not choose a 35W cpu instead of a 45W one..


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Wow that sounds like great news. I thought the outer ring was - and the inner pin +.

You're welcome . First year of engineering here. We call it 'civil' engineer here but it's just a general engineering study the first 18 months. Then we get to choose a more specified engineering study. But aerospace engineering sounds really, really cool man!

Yeah me too. The 3632qm sounds like the perfect match.

 

That's my hypothesis, based on Dell PSUs in which case you should find that the outside of the outer ring is - and the inside of the outer ring is +. A side effect is that if the centre pin is not present then the BIOS may assume a low PSU rating such as 65W.

When I studied engineering the computer (which used punched cards) was in the maths department.

John

 

Well if you are studying with it, just have the wifi on and the unit in powersaving mode unplugged. If you install battery bar 3.5.4 (I think) and do that a couple of times you will be able to find the average draw power while in the semi idle state, and then after a couple of run throughs (not necessarily the full 8 hours but a couple hours each) you will get a good estimate at what the battery life and can be.

IE the Sager NP9150 with everything knocked down draws between 10,000mW - 13,000mW. Battery bar gives an estimate of about 5 hours of battery life, depending on the battery wear of course. After testing this a couple of times you get a pretty good estimate.

 

I'm sorry this took so long and sorry for the image quality:









Let me know if you want some other pictures.

 

Can you make a close up of the keyboard please? There is a user on another forum who is interested in the French azerty keyboard
Thank you in advance

EDIT: Nevermind, I just remembered about the photos I'm the first page lol

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I took the plunge as well last friday and have Battery Bar installed (since friday as well).

The short version: This baby's battery life is freaking awesome.

The longer version:

I think it should last you through classes easily.

I was doing some work stuff just before over remote desktop. The battery was just over 50% and it was showing 4.5h of battery left (the windows battery estimate at the same time was over 6h).

In the few days I've had it, I've done quite a bit of installing, ran through some benchmarks, copied lots of stuff from and to my server (stuff that's more battery intensive than my usual routine) and Battery bar is estimating a 7.5h full runtime. As I'm writing this (in a dark room with adaptive brightness) it's showing a 8.520mW discharge rate which would mean about 10.5h of battery life. Don't know how much extra turning off wifi would bring.

Also watched a few TV shows and movies over wifi (720p and 1080p mkv). Don't remember the power draw then but my guess would be about 5-6h of battery life over wifi, more if you watched them locally (from the disk).

I'm running on the battery saver profile right now. Or looking at the Samsung settings app for Silent running - the Auto setting (the other two being low and off, so I'm guessing a middle one). On that note, this baby is also REALLY quiet.

Hope this helps.

 

Hi,

Thanks for review and comments! How is the fan noise? Not gaming/3d video/etc, but just normal, say web browsing, etc. I have a Vaio F11 now (first gen i7) and the thing I absolutely hate about it is the fan noise.

BTW, saw the 15" one in Best Buy yesterday, blew me away.

Thanks!

 

The fan noise is literally non-existant when you're operating in silent mode.

 

I'm sorry if it has been already mentioned somewhere in this thread, but did anyone try to force install AMD reference drivers on this machine? You would probably have to reboot into non-signature driver install mode. In any case, a system restore point to set before would not be a bad idea.