Sony Vaio S (V) Series - Question

Hi all,

I am doing some research in order to buy a new Laptop and I found out that Sony Vaio S series is possibly what I am looking for. In Sony's UK site, one can customize so I can choose Intel i7 instead of the original i3 CPU. My question is if the laptop would then produce high fan noises since the i7 CPU is more powerful (and possibly more demanding) than i3 CPU? The whole config is below:

Processor: Intel® CoreTM i7-620M, 2.66GHz
Hard drive: 500 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm)
Memory: 8 GB 1066MHz DDR3-SDRAM
Optical Drive: DVD disc drive
Display: 33.8 cm LCD, 1366x768 + webcam
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® 310M 512MB

The laptop would run dual boot with OpenSuse as primary and Win7 as second. I also wonder if this laptop (S series) has known issues with Linux systems? Thanks in advance for any provided information.

 

I think it depends. The CPU has variable clock rates so when the load is low, it may be running at a rate similar to i3. Only when the load is high will the CPU be working really hard and the fan be spinning fast. I'm thinking Sony's thermal capability should be good enough, so the fan should be barely noticeable at low load, and significantly louder than i3 at high load.

But the best thing to do is to test them out yourself, I don't know how possible that is

I run Win7 as primary, it's really very stable. I then use VirtualBox and run Ubuntu within that. Since you have 8GB RAM, and if you have i7, I would imagine running OpenSuse would be a piece of cake. Plus, the drivers tend to be more updated with Win7 (ok ignoring the Sony-specific ones), so for me it was (much) less painful doing things this way

 

Yeah...I would love to test before buying but it is just no possible since this would be a customized laptop. On the other hand, I could go to Sony Center and check the Z series with i7. Would you know if the S series shares the same chassis as the Z series? I am looking to buy the S series cause the Z one is too expensive.

 

Hi marsamb,

I have the i5 520m processor in my VPCS11V9E/B which has a nominal core speed of 2.4Ghz. The S cooling system handles that just fine.

The hardest real work I put the unit to is multi-threaded 3D rendering at high priority. This shoves both cores up to a speed of 2.66Ghz with temperatures at about 70C (room ambient 24.5C). The system gets rid of the heat out the side very well and the metal chassis only gets warm - not hot at all (my S has never been hot once). Obviously the fan is running at full speed in this circumstance but the noise is quite acceptable considering the work being done. It is much quieter with a less offensive tone than some other laptops I've heard doing much less. Torture tests like Prime95 make it run a bit hotter but you're unlikely to thrash it that much in real life.

When the system is idle (or doing stuff like word processing or solitaire) the cores run at somewhere between 1.45Ghz and 1.55Ghz with temperatures around 40C (room ambient 24.5C). Most of the time the fan is inaudible but there are occasional little bursts of activity that might be distracting if you're the type who can't relax unless all your music is stored alphabetically. Sony have got the hysteresis a bit on the sensitive side, no doubt letting discretion be the better part of valour. It doesn't bother me but other users have mentioned being bothered by it.

My guess is that the system will cope with cooling the i7 620m okay (it was the availability of that option that made me relaxed about getting the i5 in this small chassis). But this processor does have a significantly higher idle power consumption (by 10watts) than the i5, as well as higher load max consumption (+15watts). The laws of thermodynamics suggest the cooling system will have to work harder than on the i5. This is likely to impact on noise and battery life. I think an i7 S series is a rare beast so you might not get much first hand info on this.

Just a suggestion: unless you have a specific need for the fastest processor you can get, you could be better off going with the i5 520m or 540m. These actually idle using less power than the i3 330m (and only 4watts more on load) and have the laptop friendly features like turbo-boost, etc. It's a saving of 130 quid on the i7, and if you put this toward the cost of an SSD you would get a much bigger real-world speed up of the laptop than a few extra processor Ghz (plus lighter, cooler, more battery).

Check out this info on the processors and see if the i7 620m is worth it to you:
Notebookcheck: Review Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Processors ?Arrandale?
It was clear it wasn't to me, but your needs might be different.


Have a browse of the S series owners lounge thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...794-official-sony-s-series-owners-thread.html
There's a good search function for nearly six months of info. Stuff about Linux is there (it works but some laptop features don't function).

I'm really pleased with the S so far (more than a month owning). I admired the Z in the Sony store but without a pressing need for anything that small and light, the S was a clear winner in the common sense stakes. The S probably shares no components in common with the Z except things like processors, memory, USB ports, etc; i.e. no common Sony bits. The Z has a completely different construction to make it smaller and lighter (and hence more expensive).

 

Hi PJF,

Thanks a lot for all info you provided below. I would save 110 pounds if I go for i5 540M 2.53Ghz instead of i7 620M, 2.66GHz. I would prefer going for i7 since it is the latest but I am also really concerned about noise. According to the graphs comparing i5 and i7, the i7 CPU consumes a lot more power meaning that the fan needs to spin faster in order to cool down the system. In that case, I might go for i5 540M and also because performance tests shows that there is hardly any difference between i5 and i7. Thanks once again for reply.