Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Any suggestions if it is possible to use 1333 Memory instead of 1066 on this vaio MB? Anyone able to test?

 

Here is yet another vaio z review from Hardware zone. This one is a review of the i7 with 8gb RAM and 256gb SSD

 

ooops, forget the link:

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=3165&cid=14&pg=1

 

Has anyone seen the signature collection glossy version, either in person, or maybe some more thorough photos online? I want reactions, or either URLs to see better pictures. I've only found 1 youtube video.

Also - with the signature collection glossy premium version....what's the difference between that and a top end CTO version (in the US)? Only the 1080p?

 

So I ordered a 384GB SSD setup for my Z...which I also thought would be Triple SSD...not Quad. After reading about the SSD saturation problems...and wanting the most power under my hood....I wonder if Sony will let me upgrade further to 512GB. Ship date isn't until March 23rd.

EDIT: (I wonder if going from Triple to Quad SSDs would make that much of a difference in benchmark tests)

 

Sony Style policy is you will have to just cancel the order and place a new order.

 

*delete post*

 

Should work fine, just remember that latency plays an important role in performance as well.

 

for those of you guys pre-ordering the CTOs, are you getting any discounts?

 

Canadians seem to be already getting discounts on some of the more significant upgrades like SSDs. Mine is priced slightly lower than the Z from Sonystyle USA with similar config, and that's without currency conversion, which makes a greater price difference.

 

could you tell more about bus/latency cause I'm lost in today's RAM and do not know how much that can affect performance and what 1333 bus will give over 1066

 

I was saying because even though many reps say you can't get a discount because its a preorder, the fact is that they can give you a credit instead.

 

This is a great article for i7's, eventhough it is for desktop kit.

http://www.techspot.com/article/131-intel-corei7-memory-performance/page15.html

 

Does anyone know what's Sony's stance on the zero-dead pixels?

 

count
hey there

i just wanted to ask how the process is to get a discount by calling in?

would it be better to order a higher speced system? and if you dont mind me asking how much of a discount did you get?

 

thanks! very good article indeed. so far no benefit in 1333 for us.

 

was today in Sony Plaza NYC,
they say new Zs were expected tomorrow but most likely they will be a week later.

I want to look at the signature Z to check what 1080p screen look like.
So far I want to go with conics fully loaded model but with HDD.
since my X25-M G2 does a good job so far. Here's my current stats without any preparation:

--------------------------------------------------
Sequential Read : 251.981 MB/s
Sequential Write : 95.673 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 196.957 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 63.529 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 19.602 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 25.865 MB/s
--------------------------------------------------

And this is after several months of usage with 13% free space.


Anyone knows how long would conics assemble and ship to USA?
And is there any alternative site with worldwide warranty?

 

I found this site that is about SSD drives. Seems like a useful site for SSD owners.

http://www.evga.com/FORUMS/tm.aspx?m=202035&mpage=1&print=true

 

He's not talking about an ACTUAL discount, just the fact that some of the CTO options are cheaper in Canada than the US. I don't know if anyone has actually managed to get a legitimate discount from SonyStyle Canada; I'd like to know too.

If anyone cares I've done a comparison chart of Canadian versus USA CTO options in my post on the first page of this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5846110#post5846110

The cheaper options are the CPU, the SSDs (and NOT the 512gb option - I plan to complain about that one) and the BD burner.

 

One of the important points that I learned from the site is that you should
NOT Defrag your SSDs with Microsoft's Defrag program....it can drastically reduce performance of your drives.

Diskeeper Home with HyperFast appears to be useful for defragging SSDs

 

I'm in dilemma...

Z116:
Processor: Intel Core i5-540M Processor 2.53 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.06 GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
Memory: 6 GB DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable up to 8 GB)
Flash Memory: 128 GB (64 GB x 2, Serial ATA)
Display: 13.1″ wide (WXGA++: 1600 x 900) TFT colour display (VAIO Display Premium, LED backlight)
Graphics Accelerator: NVidia GeForce GT 330M GPU with CUDA – 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM (SPEED MODE)
Optical Drive: DVDRW Double Layer
Bluetooth: Bluetooth standard Ver.2.1 + EDR
Fingerprint Sensor: Fingerprint
Camera: Effective Pixels 640 x 480
Weight: 1.38 Kg (including the supplied battery)

Z117:
Processor: Intel Core i7-620M Processor 2.66 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.33 GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
Memory: 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM (max)
Flash Memory: 256 GB (64 GB x 4, Serial ATA)
Display: 13.1″ wide (FullHD: 1920 x 1080) TFT colour display (VAIO Display Premium, LED backlight)
Graphics Accelerator: NVidia GeForce GT 330M GPU with CUDA – 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM (SPEED MODE)
Optical Drive: DVDRW Double Layer
Bluetooth: Bluetooth standard Ver.2.1 + EDR
Fingerprint Sensor: Fingerprint
Camera: Effective Pixels 640 x 480
Weight: 1.41 Kg (including the supplied battery)

Price difference is $700...

Does $700 worth:
- Premium Carbon
- Full HD
- 2GB more RAM
- Quad SSD and 128GB more storage space
- i7 620m over the i5 540m

What do you guys think? is Z117 worth the $700 difference?

 

Sunfox, great comparison there. The product being offered in north america is generally the same then, it seems like the alternate options are not currently available in our market. Marketing decision, I guess. Not enough competition here!!!!

I have been hammering away the last few details of my order before I put it through later this morning and have a question about the 256GB SSD option. I was thinking of buying that option instead of the 192GB option, and as far as I've read, the 256GB option is the only one featuring Quad RAID? Is this true or does no one know yet? This SSD config is the only thing I'm undecided about, so I'm wondering if there's a benefit to the larger SSD aside from just.. space.

If you have any idea please post a reply.. I'd like to know if the 256GB is possibly the Quad Raid setup they're offering.

 

256gb is a bit of a mystery. On international sites, it is listed as being 64gb x 4, or quad RAID. International sites seem to list the total number of logical drives, not the physical number (which maxes out at two dual drives).

However on the US and Canadian sites, it is listed as 256gb x 1. For all SSD options, North America lists the number of physical drives, not logical. So, if the site is to be believed, in North America 256gb will be made up of 128gb x 2, or only dual RAID. The only quad mentioned is the 512gb model, at 256gb x 2 (or, for logical drives, 128gb x 4).

 

Sony probably thinks Americans are too dumb to do multiplication by a number as big as 4, so they chose to use physical drives instead so only multiplication by 2 is needed.

Frankly this is really insulting...

 

I'll test the throttling later tonight.

Yes, and it's disabled by default.

My advice is to just go slowly, very carefully making sure the screwdriver is the correct size for the screws before doing anything. Once that's done, remove all the screws you see on the underside (except for the four screws on the lid that can remain there). Carefully place the screws down so that you know where to put them back when you put it together again. The keyboard/palmrest piece should just come right off with no force. If you have to force it, then you missed a screw. As I mentioned, be exceedingly careful with the flexible ribbon cables. They aren't designed to be bent in any other direction than their intended direction, and will rip with even a little force. Therefore, be careful lifting the keyboard, because it is attached using a ribbon cable (it detaches from the mainboard fairly easily). If you break the keyboard ribbon cable, you'll probably have to pay Sony $300+ for an entire new palmrest/keyboard assembly, and have to wait weeks for stock to arrive.

Not a problem at all.

Sure, if you have a Windows license. I think it's possible to install using the included OEM license as well. Just search the forums for the clean install procedure. The drivers and Sony applications take awhile to get working properly, but the time is worth it.

I'll have to check the first question later (I don't have the Z handy now). As for the lines, I could barely see them on the old Z, and definitely don't see them on the 1080 screen. The screen is totally different: sharper, more vibrant, and glossier than the old screen. I went with the firewire port model, because firewire is faster.

Congratulations! Perhaps you can answer the questions people have been having about the RAIDed SSDs.

I would definitely add the headphones. I tested them out yesterday and they worked and sounded very good. You can't add them later on, so if you're thinking you might want them, purchase them when you buy the notebook. One downside is that the headphones don't work with the iPhone or other devices, as far as I tested, so you'll have to have another pair of headphones if you want to listen using a different source than the Z.

 

Sony North America is accurately showing the total configuration of PHYSICAL drives for all SSD configurations, while International appears to be using the total number of LOGICAL drives.

The problem there is that when 256gb is shown as 256gb x 1, and 512gb is shown as 256gb x 2, one must assume that the 256gb really is 256gb x 1, just like 128gb really is 128gb x 1 as shown. It's possible that it's a mistake, but it's equally possible that it's not. These are being assembled in the USA, so there's no reason that they HAVE to be following what Japan is doing.

 

I understand you're trying to help me understand but i'm so bloody irritated trying to get some truth out of this. I don't want to be the guineau pig and have to wait 2 weeks to find out how many partitions/modules I have. lol

Pulled this quote from a few pages back:
So all in all, the Quad SSD is a nice marketing term, but it only goes for the 256, 384 and 512GB models. The rest will not profit from the increased Quad RAID speeds, but it will be plenty fast.

Who knows?

 

Quad SSD is only for 512gb and (possibly) 256gb. I say "possibly" as until Sony changes the listed details or someone actually receives a US CTO order with 256gb, assume the worst.

384gb is a triple RAID (like 192gb), the poster quoted must have assumed that they were using 128gb x 2 and 64gb x 2, but you can't mix member sizes like that in a RAID 0 array, so the only configuration that works is 128gb x 3.

 

Hi,

Went into a Sony store in Sydney, Australia today to try to verify the situation with RAID/TRIM. Took some screen grabs including the driver for the Intel RST RAID (this is from a Z116 i5-540/2x64Gb SSD model) as attached.

Since the Z is running standard Intel ICH9M-E RAID driver V9.5.4.1001 I can't see how it can be supporting TRIM right now. Perhaps Sony is hoping Intel will release a TRIM-enabled RST driver soon (as Intel have hinted to).

Also attached is the CrystalDiskMark for the 2 x 64Gb SSD RAID0, and for comparison the same test on my desktop's Intel X25-M 160Gb SSD. Although the Sony Z RAID performs very well for sequential writes, the Intel X25 kills it on 4k random read/writes. The store did not have a 4x64Gb model to test.

I think I will be going for a unit with no Optical drive and putting in my X25 ...

Mark

 

And the new Z does have SSD's with TRIM? (sorry if I am being ignorant) .. or will it support it soon?

 

sshe11: At minimum, trim is currently not supported by ANYTHING in a RAID array, as the Z is. But I don' t think anyone knows whether the Z's SSDs support it at a firmware level or not.

I would hope yes, since while a custom physical design they would still likely be based on Samsung's standard firmware code (no need to go to the expense of creating something completely custom), and trim support should be a part of their general library at this point. But that's in a perfect world...

 

seeing how the vaio z is just so new right now anyone know if it would even be remotely possible to get any sort of discount by calling in and ordering a cto of the vaio z? i have been saving up for a long time for a really high end laptop and any discount would be great...

also, is the high res screen option for the vaio z going to be offered as a cto for us north american folks?? any one care to speculate?

 

Thanks for your advice, I'll be super-careful! And as for swapping the disks, is that easy as well? Just plug out HDD, plug in SSD? I want to plug in the Intel X-25 G2 disk with the aluminum case just as it is. I hope it fits in nicely.

 

IMHO Its all about competition. Sony has market exclusivity for a laptop like this in the US right now, so they can charge what they want for it. This is why they're being so sticky with only offering the 1080p screen in the highest price model and not offering a regular HD option, simply because THEY CAN. Early adopters always get burned. As soon as a competitor shows up, Sony might no longer hold control of the market. The only way that they can keep their edge would then be to change their pricing or features to get their customers back. Sony will probably restructure pricing and may offer the CTO options that Japan already has based on any competition that appears. So you probably won't be able to get any sort of discount now, since they basically have their own gem in the market. In the older forum, their was talk about calling sony style and you might possibly be able to get a 5% discount out of them if you purchase a warranty with it. No guarantees.

My bet is that if anyone (ahem, apple?) comes out with anything close, Sony will probably (artificially) drop the price of the US CTO to something more like $1500 that has the regular HD option. If a competitor starts offering a 13" 1080p laptop for around $2000, then Sony will probably give in and start allowing it in CTO. If you can wait, 2-3 months maybe, you might be able to get it the way you want it. If you cant wait, conics.net would be happy to take your order and make about a 20% markup. I don't see the regular HD option or 1080p screen coming out within the next month in CTO simply because Sony knows some people would probably return theirs within the 30 day return period for these features. I don't even have one yet and I know I would.

 

The actual swapping of the disk is a piece of cake. There aren't even any screws holding the disk in; just the rubber braces. Just be careful not to bend the ribbon cable attached to the disk too much when you take out the old/put in the new disk.

 

Doumo arigatou!

 

Hey

thanks for the great explaination with how things works and i guess your right with things being how they are right now it might be a better thing for me to wait 2 or 3 months down the road for deals to pop up or even better options available later on ie 1080p screen....

ive waited this long whats a few more months

also can anyone tell me what the read and write specs are for the blu ray burner?

 

I understood what you meant and I agree with you. I wanted to speculate on why Sony chose to go by physical drives in the North America while in the rest of the world they chose to go by logical drives. I find it very curious that they would intentionally make it more confusing here by using physical drive numbers. The only explanation I can come up with is they think Americans may have difficulty multiplying by four.

 

I will gladly take the role of guinea pig for the 256GB USA model. Ive ordered one from the US site and should be getting it March 16th. If you can wait until then, I can find out once and for all. And after that you can expect bench marks of the US 256GB

Im going to be so disappointed if the 4k random writes/reads on the 256GB SSD get slower upon unraiding them.

 

ok so it's best to use a Backup software and store an image on an external drive .. and then flash the hard disk and reload the image?

How good is Diskeeper at keeping the SSD's performing at like-new levels? Good enough to avoid a re-flash every 6 months?

 

Hey questions, I have a question regarding the new Z with the lower capacity SSD 128GB model. Would it be easier to upgrade the SSD than the quad SSD?

 

I don't think so, I think the 128GB model itself is a RAID 0 2x64GB

 

It shouldn't be any different than installing an OS on any computer/laptop, which would require OS installation, drivers, and programs. I believe it was dimension6 who stated that the video drivers need to be installed while a certain "mode" is manually selected. Was it "auto" mode, can't remember. Other than that, it should be business as usual. If anyone else has anything to add to this, please feel free.

The question is, are these SSD controllers (the Samsung chipset that operate the flash memory modules within SSD) capable of TRIM? If it is, you're good to go. If it's not, no firmware update will enable it. I personally don't know if these drives are TRIM capable or not. I'm sure someone on this forum knows if they can or cannot.

On another note, I read few posts ago someone recommending third party defrag program to run on SSD's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty certain that you do not need to run defrag, ever, on an SSD. SSD's retrieve data differently than traditional hard drives. Therefore defragging is never needed, no matter how much your drives appears to be fragmented. Defragging can actually hurt your SSD since you are performing un-needed writes to the drive. Also, you do not gain any speed advantages by defragging a SSD. Whether it is Windows defrag or any other third party program, I highly recommend not defragging.

 

Thanks, I wonder if it is worth buying the 128GB model and upgrade it further in 12 months to save money. Then again, with Windows 7 taking up 20GBs or so, you are only left with a mere 100GB to work with, which is somewhat limited.

 

Correcting you: There are defrag programs that specificly target SSD harddrives - thus defragging in another way. So, yes, you should to maintennance on the SSD harddrives also. As long as you use the right program with the right settings...

 

Upgrade with what? Remember, the Sony SSDs are a non-standard physical design and you can't just plop in an off-the-shelf model like you can a regular notebook hard drive. And buying a bigger SSD from Sony Parts a year from now is going to cost MANY times more than what it would cost to configure the system that way in the first place.

 

Thanks it is good to know these things

So upgrading will be quite difficult as it is not your standard SSD drive. Doh!

 

Oy, the only thing bugging me right now is whether to pick the i5 or i7. I'm also not sure if I want to get the engraving or not. I'd also like to know whether it's worth waiting for the HD screen - as in, will there be a noticeable difference between the two screens.

The other day I took a screenshot of one of the YouTube videos that showed a screenshot of the Z with the full HD screen (as in, I took a screenshot of a screenshot of the full HD Z running Windows). I then resized the image until it was 13.1" diagonally to see how good or bad the full HD would be and it was too small for me to handle. Unfortunately, the screenshot was low quality, so I'd love if someone could just take a screenshot of their Z running both the full HD and lower HD screen so I and others could see how good or bad the resolutions are (by resizing the image and taking a tape measure to our monitors to see what it's like).

 

Which defrag programs target SSD's specifically? It would be helpful if you can name them.

 

http://www.diskeeper.com/hyperfast/index.aspx .. It's an add-on for their Diskeeper product.