Sony Vaio F13

It seems sony-asia are a bit early on making the specs of the F13 official:

VPCF137HG:F-Series : VAIO Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific
VPCF136FG:F-Series : VAIO Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific
VPCF135FG:F-Series : VAIO Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific

Very good news in my opinion: Geforce 425 and USB 3.0 on the top models!

 

Thanks cylob for the info, anyway...

dx11 games isn't playable with 425M lol

edit:
looks like all 13 models specifications are out... z13 and others....

 

^425m is dx11 isn't it?

 

Sigh. And I just bought a full price F12.

 

Wrong. 425M is DX11 compatible.

 

If you look closely, there are two 1080p screen options as rumored in the F11/F12 thread.

 

Whoa, that's weird.

The F13 is getting 425M (which is just slightly faster than 335M) and USB 3.0, while the Z13 is keeping 330M and USB 2.0.

I wonder why the Z13 is being left out of the updates, and whether the Z14 will finally get them or not. :\

 

i mean 425M is not high end graphic...
which mean if you play modern warfare 2 in its full hd screen you will only get 23fps

that sample is only for dx 10 game, want to play dx 11 game with 425M? i bet black ops will only run with low quality setting...

 

Bottom line, 425M is faster and supports more features. What's bad about that? Now the question is why isn't Z13 getting the upgrades also.

 

Have benchmarks been published for mobile 425? I understand it to be similar performance to 350m/5650.

 

It's slightly faster than a 335M.

NVIDIA Geforce GT 425M - Notebookcheck

 

No but the 420M has been benched and its a bit faster than a 330M and a bit slower than a 335M. Which means I guess that the 425M should be a little bit faster than a 335M.

Which makes F series more competitive against Dell Studio XPS 16 assuming the price doesn't go way up.

 

if i am going to get a new notebook 15" i won't choose F...
asus g53jw which is 15.6" even have GTX460 inside...
Medion ERAZER X6811 also have GTX460 inside

 

The 425 will come in at about or just under the 350m speed

 

what i am talking is about size vs power, not the power itself...

my reference is:
13.x"-14.x" = 330m,425m
15.x"-16.x" = 360m,460m
17.x"-18.x" = 480m

sony computer always have downgraded graphic...
and i believe that vaio f 840qm with 425m wont last for 3 hours

edit:
last one is resolution...
13.x"-14.x" = 480p-720p
15.x"-16.x" = 720p-1080p
17.x"-18.x" = 1080p

that is why 1080p need 460m and not 425m

 

Does anyone know how the new graphics card compares to the 330? Comparisons have been made to a 350.

Also, the f12 has only very recently launched in the uk - has it been out in the states for a while?

 

The F series battery life numbers are already poor even in the multimedia/desktop replacement class so I can't see Sony even attempting to put upper tier 2, low tier 1 mobile graphics in their notebooks. The existing solutions in most Sonys seem to be underclocked to juke battery life numbers anyway as many people have clocked their Fs and Zs back up to the stock speeds and seen almost no change in idle and load temps.

 

Look at my reply at the top of this page.

Yep, a few months or so.

 

I haven't seen any exact direct comparisons yet (beyond what you can see yourself by comparing the 330M/425M scores of 3DMark and other benchmarks on notebookcheck).

But you can estimate it by looking at this:

and

Comparing 335/330 scores shows a few percent difference on average.

However, keep in mind:

In the end, I estimate the 425M to be around 3-5~% faster on average, depending on the application. It also supports DirectX 11, unlike 330M's 10.1 support only.

However, since the 330M in Z12/F12 is underclocked, and its unknown if the new 425M part will be underclocked by the same amount or not, the performance difference may be more significant.

 

Notebookcheck hasn't reviewed 425m and the 3dmark scores they showed are either for the 420 or estimated. If you read their 425 review they touch on this a bit.

I think the 425 will be more than 5% faster than our 330's?

Lastly, the 330m in the Z/F is not underclocked. It's a lower voltage part that runs at lower clock speeds. MY guess would be that Sony opts for a low-voltage version of the 425m as well (if available).

 

ok thanks. Dont you just hate it....Sony never upgrade graphics cards midway through the cycle upgrade. Never say never I guess!

 

I'm not really affected cuz the Z13 keeps its 330M.

 

The 425M, according to Nvidia, supports Optimus graphic switching. This should definitely help with battery life over the F11/F12 with the 330. Sony will have Optimus enabled on their 425, right? It would make absolutely zero sense for Sony to not enable this feature.

 

How exactly would they enable optimus on an i7 cpu? The i7's don't have the integrated GPU like the i5's and i3's.

 

No it won't have optimus (check the specs), and yes it makes zero sense indeed... (except keeping hybrid GPUs for the more expensive Z market)

 

^It doesn't make zero sense, the i7 and the chipset that support i7 don't have integrated Intel GPU's. If they enabled optimus, what exactly would the system switch to when it shut off the Nvidia chip???

 

F13 (like F11/F12) also has i5 with integrated GMA HD, no technical excuse for not using it.
When you get an i7, you are definitly not concerned about power consumption, so yes optimus does not make sense with i7.

 

^you sure about that?

 

Sure about what ? It surely doesn't have optimus.

 

Are you sure they offer an i5? Here's my point.

The f was released with PM55 chipset and i7 (maybe they did an i5 sku at some point, but I don't recall that).

PM55 chipset doesn't support integrated graphics. So...to build an i5/optimus unit they would need a new systemboard with an HM55/57 chipset, new bios, new drivers, images, etc. You can drop an i5 into the current PM55 chipset, but you'd lose the integrated graphics still, and thus any optimus hopes.

Not to mention, since the F is an expensive and large chassis, and i5 unit likely wouldn't sell that well.

 

Outside of the US the F11 and F12 are sold with i5 CPUs as the default chip on at least 1 or 2 models - they cannot use the integrated graphics as you've stated since the PM55 can't do it.

I wouldn't be surprised if they jumped platforms and started using the i5-based i7 chips almost everyone else is. The i7 quads don't have much room for flexibility and with the duals getting better every day, the (already growing) speed gap will probably just get worse.

That and with the i5 you don't have the battery issues you do in the i7 (if done right XD)

 

^Thanks, I didn't realize they were offering i5 elsewhere. For the "i5 based i7's" are you referring to the dual core i7's (6xx series)? I seriously doubt that would happen in the F. The thermals are there for the real (quad) i7's. Those i7's are typically found in systems that can't handle a quad core i7 (e.g. the Z). Those chips are only a few $$ less than the quad i7's to boot.

Anyhow, about the graphics, sony very rarely does an entire board revision without introducing an entirely new platform. So, I seriously doubt we'll see an HM55 chipset show up...and even less likely would be an optimus appearance.

 

According to the Sony Canada site, the F13 will be configurable with the i5-460m. In other parts of the world, an i5 F has been available from almost the beginning. I figured(hoped) they would pair it with an HM55 chipset. That's why I mentioned Optimus.

 

In my eyes there is another problem with the Vaio F-Series.
I was going to buy the F11 but then i heard and read about the heavy noise problems with the laptop cooler. I waited til the release of the F12, but same (maybe not so heavy) noise problems there with the cooler...

What do you think... is there a chance that Sony finally recognized the problem and fixed it with a new cooler system?

 

Posts have been moved to the Sony F owners thread. Please continue to use that to discuss your notebook or prospective purchase. Link is below.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...io-f-series-i5-i7-owners-thread-part-5-a.html

Yeah I'm confused. You can customize 2x versions of the F series in the UK and you always could:

F(V) series (plastic palm rest, crap screen, dual core i5/i7) or
F(X) series (faux leather palm rest, nice screen, quad core i7)

I prefer the Arrandale dual cores to be honest because they run cooler, quieter, have lower power consumption, generally turbo boost higher than equivalent quad cores and are faster if not using heavily threaded programs. It helps that they are also cheaper too but they just seem more suited for laptops than Clarksfield does.

But when it came to the F series, I wanted the faux leather palm rest and the nice screen so I totally sold out. If they offered the nice screen on the F(V) I would have gone that way, plastic palm rest be damned!