SZ- good enough to game? Wait for new models?

Hi everyone, my 4.5 year old IBM Thinkpad T41 is on its way out, and I was thinking about going Sony. I wanted a Sony instead of the IBM, but I read tons of great reviews about the T41 at the time, and thought it'd be a better choice.

Anyway, the SZ series seems to be the perfect balance of power/looks/weight/price. I am not a huge fan of the keyboard, I like the keyboard of the TZ better (since it seems more durable).

There are a ton of different models of SZ, and I'm not sure which ones to avoid? What's the best place to buy one (price wise/quality of service/no tax?)

And will I be able to do some very light gaming on the SZ with the 8400? I would want to try hellgate london and crysis, I know crysis eats rigs alive, but I'd still want to try it on low settings if possible.

Also, I've read through these forums and some people think Sony will drop new laptops in a month or two. Are there any signs that this is going to be true, if so- are there any faults in the SZ line (or models to avoid) that would make it better for me to wait and see what the future holds?

Thanks!

 

As where to shop portable1 seems to be getting more and more recommendations. (price and very good cc) As to the new models they will not be getting a new graphics upgrade but it might have slightly better battery time. Concerning crysis I think it should run. I think it was H3rman that had tried it. Scroll the forums a little for the thread. The only fault that has come up somewhat consistent is screen defects, but there hasn't been that many reports recently so they might have fixed it. Also many users dont want the keyboard. There might always be a better one on the new line.

EDIT: Did a quick search for that thread and seems like I'm just mumbling, =can't find it. I'd still bet a penny on it running though.

 

I own the SZ150 which has the Geforce 7400. Able to play Hellgate London on low possibly medium settings. Never tried Crysis though.

There is the SZ7 series coming out very soon, but its just a refresh with rumors speculating that the video card will still be the same as the previous SZ (8400 GS)

 

Isn't there an SZ900 series though?

Sony is so confusing

If the new model comes out soon, I can wait- I can probably ride my current one for a month or so. And if the new one isn't worth it, the older ones should drop down a little bit.

Right now I'm thinking about:

VGN-SZ650N/C
VGN-SZ640N06
VGN-SZ680N02

And thank you both for the answers

 

I have a VGN-SZ61WN/C (I think its called the VGN-SZ650N/C in the US), its one of the Carbon Fibre ones.

Has the following specs

• T7500 2.2GHz Intel Core2Duo
• 160GB Hybrid HDD
• Hybrid gfx (Intel 965GM & NVIDIA 8400M GS, 64MB)
• 2GB DDR2 RAM

I can play Crysis at the lowest settings, and it plays quite smooth (would run even smoother if I installed XP). I'm using the latest 169.09 drivers from laptopvideo2go.com

There is no SZ900, but there is an SZ690 with a special coating that costs a couple of hundred extra. Nothing is different hardware wise, only looks nicer with the coating!

The new SZ7 series is out in the US, but from what I've heard, the only real difference is that they use the new Pynren CPUs where the SZ6xx uses the Santa Rosa!

Only difference between the 2 CPUs is the power consumption and heat given off. And AFAIK, the current specs for the SZ7 series doesn't seem to be as good as the top end SZ6 series!

As to where to buy, if you are in the US, I hear PortableOne are excellent!

 

waiting for the new models of TZ ad SZ ..

 

why not go back to a TXN?

 

the new generation will have 6mb instead of 3mb L2 cache, additional SSE(?) instructions, and possibly recognize 4 full gigs of ram.
Tests show a 10-12% increase in performance when comparing pernyrn vs same speed santa rosa cpus.
Is gaming performance dependent only on gpu power?

 

Gaming power when it comes to the 8400M GS will be limited by it's GPU power over the CPU, yes. I've basically gathered that the cheapest core2duo processors will be plenty to keep up with the 8400M GS.

 

that is 100% impossible on ANY 32-bit OS, whether it be Windows, Linux, MAC or what have you!

A 32-bit OS can only handle 4GB, and some is used for hidden parts of the system, so the absolute MAX that Windows will see is 3.5GB! As for Linux i'm not 100% sure, but it might be 3.75GB, however you will never get the full use of the 4GB with a 32-bit OS!

And if you have a 512MB gfx card, then that is like having 4.5GB running a 32-bit OS, so Windows, Linux, etc will make use of 512MB LESS than if you ran integrated gfx!

 

Yes, I'm aware. Is it foolish to think that the SZ7 will ship with vista 64bit? Why hasn't Sony done this before?
The SZ791 comes with 4gb ram. Wouldnt this be sort of fraudulent/scandalous?

 

You get 3.58 on a Dell XPS M1530 with Vista 32

 

VGN-SZ691N/X is on sale for $2000, I might just get that.

 

Not all penryn cpu's will have 6mb L2 cache, only the high end ones. The low ends have 3mb L2 cache.

 

IMO, yes, cos Sony have always stated that they dont support 64-bit OS's, and if you have any problems with them, then tough!

However the likes of HP and Dell, dont fully support them, but they still do to some extent!

 

I might be a little late but I have a little input. I have a sz220/b and it plays just about everything. I personally like rts games and it handles supreme commander and command and conquer quite well. It does pretty well with Star Wars Empire at War too. On top of that I have a few emulators that provides me with a time travel back to the good ol days. I think there are some big changes with the new processors and the basic way that computers are made so research into what you want and make your decision.

 

I have an SZ660 and I tried running Team Fortress 2 on medium to low settings and it seemed to handle it decently.

When I say decent, I'm talking 30-35fps avg.

However, load times seemed to take forever just to load a map. On my desktop (which is pretty fast), steam games normally take a decent time to load, but on the laptop it was at least 3x as long. Not sure if I have some setting wrong or what not.

Also, one other problem during TF2 was that the video crapped out on me and I got some weird glitch. Screen went to this strange geometrical viewpoint (can't really describe it). Ended up having to hard shut down. Have not tried playing again as I haven't seen the need to since. Maybe if I update drivers it will help. I am running Vista 32 on that as well.

So there's my quick little review on the short time that I've experienced gaming on my SZ660.

 

I read another post about sz700 update so I held off with buying the 691 for the moment. The gaming stories are VERY helpful, real world use is far more important to me than benchmark numbers.

I'm not sure what to do, there are so many other laptops that can smoke the sonys power, but none look as sexy :-/

 

in the 13.3" range?? what smokes it? I know theres a couple with SLIGHTLY better specs, but nothing smokes it.

 

14 inch range I mean.

I'm not looking to go larger than 14 inches, and there's an Asus that has an 8600GT in it. I just want to avoid that brand because of the weird issues I've read about from the Asus forum.

Im going to wait and see how the SZ700s turn out, if they're too expensive then hopefully a price reduction on the SZ600s will let me pick up an even better one

I was also looking at Toshibas, because you can get some of them with HDDVD drives, but they're a little bulky for my tastes (and very ugly, unless they look better in person). I already have a PS3, so a HDDVD player would be nice.

 

Anyone else experiencing the "GPU has stopped working but restarted ok" I get a 15s black screen in game when this happens.