Official Win 7 Z Series

The new Z series with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit is now on sale in Australia at about the same price as its Vista predecessor.

I had hoped that the new Z night have had a faster CPU or some other improvement over the previous model but, apart from the new OS, it has the same specs as the previous version, with with the same P9700 (2.80 GHz) CPU, 6 GB DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable up to 8 GB) and NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS with 256 MB SDRAM.

Is there any definite news on any significant hardware updates planned for the Z near future? If not, as seems to be the case, I guess I will bite the bullet and pick up the latest Z later today in the hope that it will (may) hopefully be noticeably quicker than my trusty 2 year old Vista SZ.

 

the US Windows 7 series got the 3.06ghz processor officially

 

Hey mate what is the price for the new Zs in Australia? Sony Australia's website has the new models up but without the prices. I would be disappointed if the pricing is the same as before since the Australian dollar has shot up so much in recent months. Mind my language but Apple (arrgh!) dropped their prices significantly with their new models due to the currency.

 

Thanks MegaMan X,

I saw that the USA had the 3.06 instead of the P9700 (2.80ghz) but wonder how long it will take for us to catch up!

I note that the Z's being offered today on Sony's Singapore, Thailand and Malaysian websites all still have the 2.80ghz (but are all still showing Vista as the OS), and that the Z has temporarily disappeared from the Hong Kong web site (presumably being updated) where it had previously been a 2.80ghz with Vista OS.

It will be interesting to see what CPU's turn up when these Asian sites update for Win 7. I suspect we might be left with the 2.80ghz for a while.

There are currently tax incentives to buy new PC's in Oz before 31 December so I might be better off just settling for the 2.80ghz instead of waiting in the hope that we get the 3.06ghz by the end of this year.

 

Hi heavenly_wild,

You are right - with the strength of the AU$ the price SHOULD have dropped significantly, but it hasn't - surprise, surprise!! In fact I think it may have actually gone up slightly!!!

I was in Hong Kong in Feb 09 and the top of the range Z was then around HK$19,980 which equated to AU$3,962. This same HK$19,980 now equates to AU$2,780, a price drop of almost AU$1,200, (the position with the Japanese Yen would be similar) but our price for the Z remains unchanged.

Makes buying overseas very tempting! Even adding freight and 10% GST you would be way ahead.

 

I would not recommend getting the 3.06 anyways.

That is a 35TDP rated processor. I highly believe that the Z should stay between the 28TDP and 25TDP processors.

I personally had the choice between the 3.06 and 2.8, but the heat that was outputted from the 3.06 was too much, and the CPU downclocked and throttled up and down like mad. Also, for day to day applications, 3.06 is OVERKILL.

Even at 2.80, I have to say I don't fully use it except when I'm gaming. My 28TDP processor is massively cooled because I've tore the whole laptop apart and applied thermal grease (IC Diamond 7) to the CPU, and both the X4500 and 9300m so my notebook runs ALOT cooler than everyone's else's Z.

 

Thanks for the advice MegaMan X.

How do you find the speed of the 2 SSD's in comparison to a 7,200 rpm HDD, or haven't you had the opportunity to compare?

 

drummo one SSD runs faster then 7200 HDD. and two runs even more faster

 

See how the VelociRaptor (a 10,000RPM HDD drive) at its very best is placed 7th in speed compared to the SSDs in the graph?

Two of my 128GB SSD in Raid 0 256GB blows any 7,200rpm drive out the water. There's no question about it.

If a single SSD is 2x faster than a single 10,000RPM drive, my dual SSD runs circles around a 7,200rpm drive. When I open an application, its opened at the click of the mouse. It's incredible. I no longer wait for the computer, the computer waits for me?!

 

TLN - sounds good to me!

 

Hi MegaMan X,

Thanks for the info and the table. The comparison with the VelociRaptor is seriously impressive and puts things into perspective.

 

All Windows 7 drivers, and the BIOS update, for Z690, are available on Sony's website. http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNZ690J&SelectOS=48

I will be trying the BIOS update later today.

ETA: All Windows 7 versions appear to be listed.

 

See how the chart says "Sequential Read Performance"? How much of your laptop use is going to be sequential reads?

What matters are random reads and random creates, and to a smaller extent random rewrites.

 

Computer readssequental when starting up or opening a big file. if your disk unfragmented. and what about random read SSD crashed all HDD even more. SSD is a flash ram so theres about zero access time. (0.1 msec in tests) and hdd takes more time to turn a heads. (~5-10 msec or about). so in random test ssd shows even better.

the only one ssd bad in is batarey time. ssd got two states: "work" and "don't work" at time. and when in second(almost all the time) it takes more power then hdd to read(or write). On the other hand hdd need power to read/write(less then ssd) and to turn heads(more then ssd).
so if you watch movied for examle ssd is less energy efficient then hdd.

btw: excuse my bad english, it's not my native.

 

I can't see any video driver.

 

Cool. Thanks for sharing the link & I appreciate it. Hopefully, I'm gonna be able to run the BIOS (R4041M3) update under Windows Vista instead of Windows 7.

 

But Sony is saying that you need R4043M3 not R4041M3 as provided on the page above.

 

Sony is saying that laptop sold only a year ago can't run windows 7.

 

Apparently Win7 x64 drivers will be avail for the Z5xx series, I just had an online chat with a Sony rep, he doesn't know the exact date though. See attached screenshot.