So I just purchased an SR over the phone a minute ago

and I CTO'd it with these specs..

T6600 Processor (2.2Ghz)
4GB RAM
320 GB HDD
ATI HD 4570 (512VMB) graphics


for a grand total of.....$854!


If you're looking to order a Vaio, do it by phone because apparently it's cheaper lol

 

That's a really great deal!

Do you mean ATI 4570? That still gives you slightly better graphics than the S with 310m graphics. Also the SR is lighter than the S. But the batter life is probably somewhat better with the S.

 

Yes you're right, my fault. Yeah I liked the S but I couldn't bring myself to pay $1100 for a basic i5 CPU and Intel HD graphics.

 

I am thinking about the S over the SR. The price of the SR is good but I don't need the dedicated graphics and am worried about its affect on battery life. The i5 processor of the S should be considerably faster than the t6600 in the SR...right? Will sonystyle sell the S or only Best Buy? If so, how will the version differ? Any thoughts on the pluses of each model would be appreciated. I am not a gamer so am just looking for good performance and decent (4 hours) battery life.

 

Battery Life: S > SR
Portability: SR > S
CPU: S > SR (most people won't be able to tell a difference)
GPU: SR > S
RAM: S > SR

I personally went with the SR because of the price and I'm not going to be pushing the machine to it's max potential so the difference between the T6600 and i5 is negligible for me. I'm also a student and it is lighter which swayed my decision a bit.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

You say the weight is better on the SR....do you have the figures?

What about build? The stories about the S mention magnesium...not sure how much. I believe only the lid in magnesium on the SR.

 

The Best Buy that I went to advertised the S-series as 4.4 lbs.

 

"Weighing just over 4 pounds and less than an inch thick, the VAIO SR is made of durable carbon fiber material" - http://www.productwiki.com/sony-vaio-sr-series/

 

I wouldn't directly compare the Core i5's "nehalem"/westmere architecture to the older penryn-based Core 2 Duo based merely on its Ghz rating. The core i5 is significantly faster than the Core 2 Duo. They both have two cores, yes, but the i5 has 4 threads (two per core), so it can process data in parallel much more quickly than the T6600 jkelly chose for his SR. Upgrade it much more and you're in my S Series' territory anyway. The i5 also has turbo boost, meaning it will intelligently charge up to 2.5ghz if/when you need it, saving battery life.

The ram is DDR3 1066mhz on the S, on the SR it is DDR2 and 800mhz. No contest there, SR is a whole generation behind.

Portability I would say they're about the same really...the S Series is 4.4 lbs too, as is the SR. I know my S feels really solid (and I'm sure the SR does too). I'd say it's a draw there.

The separate GPU the SR has wins in power, but it does affect the battery life too. The Intel HD graphics seems to be very capable, also has turbo boost tech, and will be perfectly suitable for 95ish% of the market.

I think the bottom line is they're both great machines, but the SR is a generation old in two essential areas, its RAM and the CPU. The battery life is probably similar for both, but again, the S is simply more powerful so I guess you get more "bang" for your battery's "buck". I would've bought the SR January last year when it came out, but not now.

 

jKelly17, did you REALLY get that price? I am in the market for a new SR and if that's what you're paying w/ Tax in the states, I would die to get a walk through of what you did exactly.

 

When it comes to RAM, the whole DDR3 vs. DDR2 right now is a marketing ploy. There is no significant difference due to the fact that DDR3 higher clocked memory has a higher latency as well (meaning it's just as slow as low latency lower clocked DDR2). Price point and benchmarks will tell you what I'm saying.

The point of DDR3 is to move technology forward (potentially getting lower latency DDR3 in the future) and to force buyers to upgrade their ram along with CPUs. If you simply buy a new motherboard + cpu and use your old ram, the market isn't as saturated by new purchased.

All in all, the battery life in an S is probably atleast an hour or two higher than the SR with integrated Intel graphics. Graphics-wise, I could be mistaken Dubbs, but aren't you the one who bought the Best Buy model S? To compare the integrated GPU model to the SR is absolutely no comparison. No matter what you are doing, no matter how powerful the CPU in the S you have might have is in comparison to a cheap t6600, you won't be utilizing the full potential of the CPU because of the lack of a dedicated GPU. The i5 has 4 threads? The 310M has over 20.

If you can't utilize the full potential of the I5, then I'd say there's no real point to saying that it performs better.

Some examples of things your S will not do as well as the $850 SR:

1. Video Editing
2. Sound Editing
3. Photo Editing
4. Multi-Display Functionality
5. Any sort of New Gaming (A cheap 2.0 GHz C2D is more than enough to game)

All of the above supports GPU acceleration. When the S gets the 310M, then the SR can burn. For now, the SR isn't even a value choice -- it's a clear winner over the Best Buy model.

 

Great discussion guys. Won't the dedicated graphics on the SR eat up battery life?

BTW...I just played with the S at my local best buy. I was sadly disappointed in the audio. I know the SR has week audio but the S is very tinny. No base. I compared it to a cheaper CW model next to it. The CW sounded much richer.....but still not great. Youtube is a big part of the internet experience so I think laptop speakers are important.

 

Yeah, you're right about that Newz -- mostly because the ATI HD 4570 isn't designed to be a battery saver. I think I was able to acknowledge that in my earlier post, for those of you who might be wondering the same.

 

I just checked Sony Style. You can't even CTO the SR online anymore, so calling in is probably the only way to order, at least in the US.

I got a chance to check out the S-series at Best Buy yesterday. It was already on the floor and available for sale, at least according to the lady with the white shirt and clipboard.

I have an SR, but I think the S that I checked out was cool too. Things that stood out were the illuminated keyboard, new(er) processor technology, and the keypad rest shape. Typical Sony build (which is good), but the screen on the S, at least on that specific floor model, felt wobbly. I personally don't like it when screens do that.

Overall, I almost jumped on it as a gift for the wife. But when I asked her, she said she was still very happy with the CS-series I got her for Valentine's '08. I'm cool with that, maybe an SSD/8GB memory upgrade on the horizon.

I'm not a fan of 16:9's, but I wouldn't have gotten it for myself.

Regards,
Paolo

After thoughts :

In case any of you are interested for a look-see-buy, the Best Buy I am referring to is the one in Pleasant Hill (Walnut Creek area).

When the time comes to replace her CS, the SR, even if it were already out of production, would still be a contender if you could get one brand new, with recent specs of course.

 

I just went to the US Sonystyle site and I can CTO a new SR -- are you from the states or maybe Canada?

 

The core i arrandales do have an dedicated GPU built into them, in addition to the 2 CPU cores. This of course makes the comparison of the number of threads even more in the favour of the 310m, but it does not eat away cpu performance as much as you claim.

As I said in another topic, the GPU core could use up power otherwise used to overclock the CPU cores more, but the effect should be limited.

You are correct though that the ATI card in the SR outperforms the Best Buy S models significantly in areas where graphics comes into play.

Edit:

The integrated graphics should have no problems with handeling multiple screens, provided that you don't do any graphic intensive things on them. I have 2 old 7300GT's in my system. Together these perform considerably less well than the IGP, but they could handle 4 20" to 23" screens just fine when I needed them for software testing.


As for the DDR3 ram, indeed the performance isn't much different, but due to the improved production processes, the power consumption has been reduced in comparison to DDR2 ram. It is for this reason that DDR3 is interesting.
Edit:
It of course does mean that favouring any product over another because it has DDR3 ram instead of DDR2 is rather pointless.
The focus should instead be on comparing the battery life, because that is where the difference in ram should be noticable.

 

I just called the Sony Style number, asked to purchase an SR and that I wanted it customized, upgraded the HDD and GPU, and then the price. And with tax it was $905, sorry did not include that.

 

Is that with the 7% school discount too?

 

Jkelly, Thanks so much for the reply. I realize I emphasized the wrong word and my statement sounds disbelieving about the wrong subject. You however answered the question the way I intended, so it seems no harm done. I will go ahead and see what I can do about getting myself one. What brought you to decide to order it over the phone instead of online?

Solinx, you've done your homework as well haven't you?

The discrete S will blow away the SR, regardless of the "clockrate" of the speculated 310 vs. 4570 with the addition of CUDA and more threads. So we completely agree.

For "Multi-Display Functionality" it was a broad category meaning "Doing anything while using Multiple Displays". The idea was that the SR could do all of the following on that list better than the BB S series, and "provided that you don't do any graphic intensive" is admission that the SR does indeed meet that statement. I think you'd agree that the SR COULD do multi-window 3d-rendering if we wanted without considerable thought about it (hell the 3450 in my SR-190 can).

 

nvidia G 310M is basically a G 210M with the name changed for marketing purposes. It's not the same as the difference between the GT 230M and the GT 330M.

I'm already pissed off at Sony for not including a better GPU in the Vaio F (srsly include a GTS 360M at the very least) and for not adding the GT 330M option to the CTO Vaio CW.

 

Yeah, I'm going to use my next notebook on a daily basis and it is quite a sum, so I really want to know what I'm getting
It helps that I used to built my own desktop systems on a very limited budget

Yeah, you'd best not try that with an IGP, I... ehm... heard it doesn't look pretty.