Samsung Series 7 Gamer NP700G7C with AMD Radeon HD 7970M/Geforce GTX 675M

Don't despair! If it's a bad brick , it just happens. If it isn't charging that could be another issue.. I know that is happens often on asus because of known bios issues and those are only fixed with a bios update. Sorry you are dealing with this.. I know it's frustrating!

 

My asus g73s has experienced this often. Right now its RMAd due to HDD fail,but I think it's partly that driver. Just a possibility. Keep us posted !

 

Is there an option somewhere that I can specify what each dial does? Does the dials do anything in terms of overclocking on is it merely ON/OFF of certain hardware, such as fans, lights, etc.

 

Its not a question of believing you. Nowhere did I suggest or deny that the GTX675 would produce more heat and require more power than the 7970.

There is no doubt that the GTX 675 gets hot. The fan and vent responsible for cooling it indeed get very hot. The real issue and question to be concerned with is whether the cooling system in place is sufficient to handle that heat and prevent the computer as a whole from getting uncomfortably warm. The answer to that question appears to be a Yes.


I got this computer a month ago and have been completely pleased and do not regret not waiting for the 7970 version. That being said, If I knew the 7970 comp was going to be available in a week or two, I'd wait for it. Since there is no clear answer on whether it will be available, its important not to misrepresent the GTX 675 model which is likely more than adequate for most people and has no real heat/noise issues (not with games like D3, WOW, Civ V, and Skyim, at least. Truly hardcore gamers should certainly considering holding out for a potentially cooler and more powerful setup.)

 

Hi all,

Currently debating picking up one of these or a 15" Clevo. I am a big Samsung fan and want to convince myself that the bigger size and weight are worth it. I do also have my sights set on the 7970m so like the rest of you would really like to hear an update as I am looking to purchase this week. I have a few questions for people that own the NP700G7C:

- Is the bulk and weight pretty much a dealbreaker for portability (taking on a plane etc.?)
- Is the panel 120Hz even with the 675M and do you think you could do 3D on it with a 3DVision kit?

cheers,
Kyle

 

This laptop is on the lighter side when it comes to up-to-date gaming laptop, but the weight is still heavy to carry around everywhere. it's a little under 9 lbs without the power adapter so keep that in mind. adapters about 3-5 lbs I think (judging by my own carrying).

Panel is 120Hz (or 60 if you wish) but don' tknow about 3D comp. I personally dont' care for 3D so didn't even take the time to research it.

 

Thanks for the info! Sounds like a bit of a beast to tote around but having the 17.3 inch screen is always nice. I have been sucked into the 3D thing more as I got a 3D 1080p projector recently. Kingdom of Amular: Reckoning looks awesome on it!

 

No, there no way I see that the mode dial settings can be user specified or changed from what they are hard programmed in by Samsung. (Maybe this will be changed in the future by some ambitious hackers or Samsung offereing a new mode changer software).
The dial settings do change the clocking. From what I understand at this time, it overclocks and runs everything full speed when put into the "Gamer" mode. When you switch to other modes, it does not over-clock anymore but runs at a slower clock pace. I am not sure if each successive lower setting further decreases clock speeds or if it just stays at the normal clock rate for all the lower settings except for the singel Gamer mode where it boosts it.

 

They have other models priced around $120 I believe. I have the Mamba Shift black/red and a 13" Macbook so I don't quite need the Boa. I couldn't ask for a better backpack. But the minute I get my new 17" w/ 7970, I'm buying a Boa from booq and it will by my backpack for that laptop.

I did come across another brand that has high quality backpacks (the also use ballistic nylon) that might be a little cheaper. Let me see if I can find them.

---

Found it (it's the brand Mythlogic "recommends"):

Laptop Backpacks & Laptop Cases for men by SLAPPA

The Slappa bags run around $125 as well. I found a good looking sub-$100 line from Targus:

Backpacks for Laptops by Targus USA

although it looks like those are 16".

 

Hi all - 1st post...
Like many others I'm looking at the ASUS G75-DS71 and this here Samsung... and wondering about the 7970m.

Three questions on the Samsung:
1. I hate glossy screens! But this one seems 'less glossy' than most, and has great reviews
for quality.
Might a glossy hater like me be pleased?

2. The red lights flashing on the left and right in sync with sound when in gamer mode.
Is it possible to turn this off somehow? If not, those blinking lights could be a deal breaker for me.

3. Several reviews hawk on the high temps while gaming, yet a number of folks here say it's not an issue.
I'm hesitant with the Samsung as I know the ASUS runs super cool and quite.

Thanks!

 

1) The screen is the absolute best looking screen I have ever had on a laptop, by a longshot. I can't imagine anyone being displeased with it.

2) The red lights flashing are obvious the first week or two, but they quickly fade away into obscurity as you become used to the comp and they will not likely bother you in the slightest. They cannot be turned off.

3) I only really care about the temp of the laptop base as I do use the comp with it resting on my legs. All areas of the underside stay cool except for the GPU vent itself.

3) The keyboard region above the GPU does become warmer during heavy play, probably a few degrees relative to the palm rest area or the right half of the keyboard, but for me that is a non issue as the heat level has never risen to an uncomfortable level and does not make my hand sweat. And to reiterate, the aluminum plam rest area stays cool. Such a detail is going to be highly subjective and may also depend on the extent to which one uses the keyboard for the most demanding games. Some may prefer a separate game pad or wireless keyboard anyways, which will also mitigate the concern.

 

sigh... still no news on 7970...
think gonna grab the 675 next week..
cant wait any longer..

 

I've had my Samsung Series 7 Gamer for two weeks.

This is my take on whether or not someone should hold out on buying the current model running with a GTX 675m or wait for the 7970m or even the Kepler based GTX 680m.

If you have a decent gaming laptop, and you don't urgently need one, it may pay to wait a few more months for Samsung to "possibly" release an upgrade to the Series 7 gamer simply because the performance gains of the next generation GPUs are significant. That being said, my prior laptop died in February 2011, and I waited 15 months to replace it. If I had a working laptop, I might have decided to hold out a little longer to see what's released in the market.

As it is, I'm very satisified with my purchase. Despite reports to the contrary, I have not found the laptop to run hot after hours of Skyrim with maxed settings and several graphical improvement mods running. The quality of the display is unbelievably good, head and shoulders better than anything that I have ever seen.

Reasons to buy now

1. GTX 675m may not be the king of the hill, but it's still faster than any other card on the market, except the 7970m.

2. Notebookcheck.net benchmarks show significantly greater frame rates for the 7970m versus the 675m. Some of the gains are due to superior CPU in the laptop tested with the 7970m. My laptop fluctuated between 40-60 FPC while playing Skyrim in full HD in Ultra while outdoors, which is faster than the benchmark posted of 40 FPS for Skyrim on notebookcheck.net. Even after I heavily modded the game, it only drops below 40 FPS in heavily modded areas. I attribute the gains versus other laptops with the same GPU to the Ivy Bridge processor. No doubt, the GPU benchmarks prove that the 7970m is much faster, but the gap is a little narrower than stated on the website.

3. Current model Samsung Gamer was recently released. It's not likely that they'll upgrade the GPU any time soon.

4. You can pay hundreds more for an Alienware laptop with a 7970m, or you can try to configure a fairly bareboned Clevo based laptop in order to include the 7970m at the same price as the current Series 7 gamer. If you try to match the specs of the Series 7 Gamer with a Clevo clone, it will cost you hundreds more (upgrade display, upgrade memory, Blu Ray, upgrade intel wireless, upgrade HDD, 2nd HDD, etc.). Correct me if I'm wrong on this. I comparision shopped a Sager. By the time I matched the specs of the Series 7 Gamer, I exceeded the price.

5. Driver updates are expected eventually that will improve the performance of the 675m with the latest games, and thus narrow the performance gap a little bit.

Reasons not to buy now

1. As the 7970m proves, the new crop of GPU's will raise the bar with greater performance using less power and generating less heat. Laptop manufacturers that did not package their gaming laptops with the most power hungry and warmest GPU's will likely not shy away from offering the top end 28nm GPU's in their laptops. I personally predict that several manufacturers that have never packaged their laptops with the highest end GPU's will embrace the 7970m and the 680m. This is speculation, of course, but by Christmas, there might be several options out there besides an overpriced Alienware, or a Clevo based model.

In summary. Do you have a decent gaming laptop? Can you hold out a few more months (6 months maybe)? Then the new GPUs may change the market and new options may become available. If you are currently without a gaming laptop, I see no reason to delay your purchase. The Series 7 Gamer is an incredible laptop, and I am 100% satisified with my purchase. It will play every current game in max settings. BF3 is reportedly borderline in ultra, but let's face it, a slight overclocking should take care of that. Eventually, as game manufactures design for the new 28nm chips, I may have to settle for slightly reduced settings, but I don't expect to have to run any game in less than High settings for the next 4 to 5 years, at which time, I will be ready to replace it anyway...

 

The Slappa backpack perfectly fits my laptop. It pretty much carries my laptop, NZXT Cooler, my monstrous powerbrick, Xbox controller, external HDD.

 

Really nice info here..
Thx alot..
It clears my doubt, i am really in need of new laptop..
Currently runnin diablo low setting at 20fps..
Gonna get it next week in singapore PCShow..
Hope it will be there, samsung website has not update and still show 6970 version..

 

For really good solid info here on the 7970M, check out the alienware section, specifically 17x forum, real world benchmarks from people with upgraded systems, beauty of them are, they show what they got with R3 revision with old GPU and new 7970M. The difference in remarkable.

You also forgot one CON, the 675 no more then a cheap rebrand attempt by Nvidia to sucker those who don't know. Everyone rebrands, only Nvidia does it in the higher end segment.

 

can the current laptop run 3d? is the screen 120hz?

 

Thanks for the reply.

Seems crazy there isn't an option to turn off the flashing lights.
Can you run in balanced mode and then upclock the cpu/gpu?
Other option not considered?

 

Has anyone played BF3 or Crysis 2 on this yet?

Have seen card benchmarks, but just wondered if anyone here had first hand experience.

Currently have a Samsung with the 650m, and it performs better than the benchmarks suggested.

So, wondering if it's worth the upgrade, or whether to hold out for the 7970.

Either of those games playable at full settings?

 

+1

All speculations of course, but according to Samsung Canada

Code:

...
Supercharge your gaming experience with the blistering processing power of a highend graphics card*. ...

*NVIDIA® Geforce® GTX 675M (2D Model) / AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M (3D Model)

Why to reference 7970M if it will only be available by Christmas?

Plus one of the re-sellers mention July-August time-frame for laptop with 7970M

Code:

Website E-Mails AB04 [email protected]
May 10

to Carlo, Mike, me 
Good afternoon,

I have heard from my purchasing department and the model with the ATI 7970M video will be out in July or August.

Keep in mind that 7970M is pricier ($200-$300 I guess).
Plus, right now Dell offer $130 instant rebate + $200 rebate on systems over $2'199. and $150 rebate on systems over $1'799 (I do not remember - but something like that)

Which gets me M17x with almost the same settings as Samsung for $1'899. Exact price of NP700G7C.

Yes... It will have only 8 Gb (comparing to Samsung's 16 Gb) of RAM ($60 upgrade) and 1TB 5400RPM HDD (I have 128 Gb Vertex 3, so I do not need any upgrades here), no Blu-Ray (I just don't use one).

I like looks of the Samsung more, but Dell's Advanced Customer Service is IMHO better.

But for me looks might overweight Alienware "bulkiness" and Clevo's greediness (check thread for possibility of upgrade GPU) and plain looks
IMHO, of course.

 

Hmmm. The Samsung Canada link definitely seems to signal a probable summer release date. If it's bundled with 3D, I'd imagine that you'd have to factor that into the price in addition to the higher cost of the GPU upgrade.

Were there any clues on pricing that I missed earlier in this thread? I'd be a little disappointed if Samsung adjusts the price of the current model down when the 7970m model is released, but would not feel any buyers regret if they simply released the 7970m model shortly at a higher price point. I stretched my original laptop budget as it is, just to get the current Series 7 Gamer, and can't imagine waiting to spend more money for a laptop with a 3D feature that I don't want at all.

If you can now configure an Alienware with a 7970m at a comparable price and can sacrifice the RAM, the HDD space, and the BD player, it's totally worth it, that is if gaming performance is your number one priority. You can always expand RAM later on, swap the optical drive, and add a 2nd hard drive later on.

Aesthetics was one of the factors that I considered in my purchase decision. I personally don't like the style of the Alienware laptops, and the added bulk, and I'm not a big fan of the appearance of the Clevo laptops. Even so, if looks are not important, and you can live without the extra memory and BD player and can configure M17 with the 7970m at the same price, it would be hard to argue with anyone that goes in that direction. The performance leap is too great compared to the 675M.

By the way, what I meant by the 6 month timeline is that I'm anticipating that by Christmas, there may be multiple options in the marketplace for laptops packaged with the 7970m. Competition is good for the customer. Maybe this will happen sooner as your clues hint at.

Finally, for you students our there looking to get something before the start of the next school year, a July release might be OK, but is August soon enough?

 

So is the keyboard backlighting limited to white for balanced mode and blue and red for game mode? There aren't any other colors or ways to adjust the settings?

 

You cannot get an alienware with a 120hz screen and 7970M by any easy way. It is possible to upgrade maybe, and there is a guy who says through some custom way you may be able to order it.

 

Let's be honest - the 7970 version - when it finally get's here, will be sold at a premium if only for the out of the box 3D. I'd expect it to be in the region of £200 more. Plus, if you wait, you'll be losing the £300ish VAT back. Is the 7970s capability of running 90% of games at 300fps rather than 200fps *really* worth the £500 premium?

 

It is important how loud this notebook is! any review for 675m model? Surely ATI one will be less loudy

 

Mines just been delivered.

All I can say right now is f*ck me.

 

Samsung Series 7 Gamer Review | Gaming Notebook Reviews

 

I left mine in. After installing an OCZ Vertex drive I wasn't able to switch the express cache on. When I tried the OS told me there would be no benefit in doing so as the OCZ SSD was faster. So the msata became an internal "8Gbs flash drive". Also, I thought of dedicating the msata drive to strictly handle virtual memory, but as it only has 8Gbs and the system has 16Gbs of ram it is not recommended.
Upgrading the msata drive to 32Gbs would turn it into a perfect dedicated Virtual Memory drive (less wear and tear on the main SSD).

 

As I am used to super quiet PC's I can tell you that the laptop is louder than ASUS G73 (probably most laptops are). It doesnt sound like an hair dryier but it does get quite loud under full load. I would say between 45 and 50 decibels.

 

My experience with the heat is quite different.
When I was playing Skyrim I noticed a lot of heat venting through the keyboard. Even more alarming was that most of the heat was concentrated around the WASD keys. It reminded me of a hairdryier set on high and blowing air from a foot away. I may have to swap out the existing thermal paste for something more high end. My fingers felt "baked" after a few minutes.

 

I been playing a lot of BF3 and Diablo. No heating problem for me. Seems like all the heat is circulated from the back. Very good laptop

 

This company maybe able to special order replacement lcd screens:

LAPTOP SCREEN, LCD panels from $42. Dell, HP Compaq, Toshiba, Acer, IBM Lenovo, Sony, Gateway, Apple, Asus replacement screen display panel

but you will have to do the swap yourself.

 

Not sure if this power supply is up to snuff but the seller has good ratings. May be worth a look if anyone is looking for a spare...

AC ADAPTER 4 Samsung NP700G7C-S01CA,NP700G7C-S01US CHARGER POWER CORD SUPPLY NEW | eBay

 

bend over then and ill ram a 700g7c

 

So is that a good f*ck me?

 

Let's just say Battlefield 3, everything maxed out, native res and silky smooth.

MW3, everything maxed out - v synced at 120fps.

Glad I didn't hold out for the 7970 now. I can imagine myself upgrading to it, but as far as the games I play are concerned, currently Crysis 2 is the only game that would benefit - and even then, Very high settings are running at around 50/60fps as it is with the 675m.

As far as heat and noise are concerned, it's silent and ice cold compared to my Macbook Pro.

 

i've purchased it today, sending off the receipt to samsung but not going to open it just in case the ati version comes out so i can swap it over.

 

How long are you going to hold on to it without using it?

 

Just got mine back from Intelisol,Inc. (Samsung's repair facility) seems to be working fine and the brick works lol. Not sure what they did since i didn't receive any kind of paperwork or receipt in the box but they sent it back the way it left which makes me feel a lot better. They got it on Tuesday due to the holiday and had it "repaired" by Thursday and then it shipped out Thursday and arrived late afternoon early evening Friday. So all in all my faith has been somewhat restored. This was my first time ever sending something in for warranty work.

 

Usually for power bricks they will just replace with a new or refurbished piece as it is not easily serviceable.

 

3 months ill just keep it in the box

 

If you keep it in the box you might as well don't buy.

 

Is the 7970m version of this laptop available in the uk yet?

 

i think samsung don't even start to make them
im waiting to for this laptop with 7970

 

Having a hard time installing Diablo 3, it has been 45 min an im only at 2%
Also, web browsing is slow. I cant watch any youtube videos because it takes forever for it to download.

PLEASE help this is extremely frustrating....

 

Out of interest, would anyone happen to know if it's technically possible to upgrade the 675m to a 680m? And if so, where the best place to buy mobile GPUs is?

 

any news about model with 7970?

 

Last day for vat back in the UK and Ireland and I'm having a very hard time deciding between this and the Sager/Clevo from pcspecialist.co.uk (Vortex III).

With similar spec on the Sager but dropping the blueray and o/s which I don't need and going with just a 120gig intel ssd the price is pretty much identical taking into account the vat back on the Samsung.

Excluding the vat back, the Sager is pretty much the same price on adding on a 750gig Seagate Momentus hybrid drive and matt screen option, or 100 sterling more with those plus the Radeon 7970. Aaargh, decisions !

 

I just got my Samsung yest. and was wondering if i had to change anything to get the best performance out of my machine??

I know it does every thing it can to save power, so i was wondering if the screen is always running with 120hz, or do you have to set it as that.

Just little things like that i was wondering, Thanks!

 

I've been grinding my teeth for the past few hours but I've finally bitten the bullet and ordered the Samsung. Hopefully the screen is as good as described as that's whats selling it to me along with the huge storage, ram and cpu - I do more photo-editing and virtualisation than gaming so the Nvidia will be more than good enough.
I've been dithering for well over a year on a decent laptop and Sager/Clevos have been top of the list but for the price I just have to give this a go. Lets just hope Samsung do pay back the vat, lol