VAIO S series Refresh

List of full specs for the newly refreshed version of the Vaio S series which was released yesterday in Singapore. :thumbsup:













Sadly, only faster processor, hybrid HDD and slightly longer battery life. Everything else is the same though...

 

Bump for more info on this!!

 

Do you think we'll see any difference for the S15 version?

Also, does Sony offer a more "world universal" specific s-series, or is there a chance we'll see a slightly different version for the US?

 

Sad to say, the new S15 is just an upgrade of the HDD to a Hybrid one.

The specs are more or less similar to other countries because the previous model of the S series can also currently be found on the U.S website. it's exactly the same, only much better because you can customize it to be more powerful.

 

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Thank you for the updated information, I appreciate it. I'm a little confused as to what the benefit of the hybrid bed will offer?

Also, it seems or I simply misunderstood, that we can expect to be able to customize the refresh unit.

Do you think we'll see a Haswell equipped version some time this year?

 

This is lame. No IPS screen.

 

The Hybrid HDD is faster than a traditional HDD but slower than a full-fledged SSD.

I'm very sure when this refreshed unit is released in the US, it will be customizable. It's been like this all this while.

As for the Haswell line-up, most probably after June since Intel will be launching the processors in June.

 

My thoughts exactly. If not for school, I will put off buying this until after June when Intel launches their Haswell processors.

 

I'm planning to hold off until June as well; my only question is as to what GPU Sony will implement if in fact the Haswell integrated graphics are as powerful as they claim to be.

If the Haswell integrated graphics are more powerful than the discrete GPU in the current s series, it'll have to be something half way decent, or am I just being overly optimistic?

Thanks for the info so far, I appreciate it.

 

Haswell's IGP will be better than the HD4000 but it would have to be a huge (300%) improvement to be better than a 640M, even assuming Nvidia doesn't improve that card at all for 2013.

The big winner with Haswell would be the Z, if they make a new one.

 

Haswell's IGP is according to an Intel summit to be a 100% improvement over the current HD4000. That's pretty good if you ask me. Twice the performance... MY HD4000 suits all my gaming needs 'perfectly' but I can see those who play BF3 or COD or Crysis might fancy more juice from the IGP...

 

Ehh, take that figure with a grain of salt. It depends on which processors they're comparing and how they are benchmarking them. HD3000 vs HD4000 for example has a very wide spread - in some cases the 4000 has 80%+ higher performance but sometimes only 10-20%.

In normal use the 4000 isn't really twice as good as the 3000, yet the sales pitch from Intel from Sandy to Ivy Bridge was the same - they claimed "double" the performance.

 

Agreed, I don't expect the integrated version of the Haswell GPU that will find it's way into a S15 style package will be faster than the 640M on gaming performance but I could be wrong.

I think what you will probably find in the new Haswell S15 will be the GT2 GPU which will be 20% - 25% faster than the current Ivy Bridge HD 4000. It should be released in Q2 so I imagine it will be Q3 by the time new models are in store. The much better performing GT3 graphics is said to have been postponed until Q3 2013. This package is expected to bring 2.5x the performance of the current HD4000 iGPU. Now if the new S15 comes with the GT3, that will be interesting.

The new GT3 should be at least as quick as the 640M LE currently found on the S15 - At stock speeds. Which means Sony would need to find a faster discrete GPU or there would be little point in including one. However it will all come down to Thermal load. The S15 is a small and light package, it can't efficiently dissipate the type of heat generated by the current 660M or faster type GPUs nor really meet their power needs, hence why they don't even use a stock 640M on the current model.

They currently use the lower TPD CPUs and GPUs in the S15, this is due to thermal/power constraints. There is talk of the GT3 coming in a 47W package, if this is true then I see no reason why they can't include it in the new S15 and I think this would make it almost pointless to keep the current 640M LE as the GT3 should be at least as quick.

However if the GT3 proves to be as quick as they say, I don't see Nvidia standing still as it will eat into a big chunk of their current discrete GPU market so it will be interesting to see how they react.

Either way don't expect to see a GT3 S15 replacement in stores till at least Q4 2013, if there ever is one.

As for the current refresh, very lame. hardly an improvement over the current S15 but then again I didn't expect any different. I just hope they fix the damn orange-gate issue on the refreshed S15.

 

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Thank you, great post.

What I was really trying to point out was that the GT640m LE, when over-clocked, is about on par with the Nvidia GT650m (feel free to correct me as needed) and that was the card they (Intel) was directly comparing their Haswell integrated graphics to.

In short: Haswell GT3 integrated graphics equate to Nvidia GT650m (the video is on youtube from CES2013, for reference).

So, taking that in to account, wouldn't that alone confirm the need for something more powerful or, as previously stated, why even offer "discrete graphics" if they can't even best the integrated graphics alone?

I'd simply like to see Sony make a conscience effort to offer a powerful notebook that has real gaming potential. I'm cognizant of most people automatically defaulting to "weight," but is 6-8lbs really too heavy?

 

You are correct in that the 640M LE when OC'ed is about on par with a 650M which if you ask me is awesome on a notebook the size and weight of a S15. The OC already turn the S15 into a proper gaming laptop.

I would expect the GT3 to be more on par with the 640M than the 650M. The video you see on youtube has no frame rates shown, it just has a 650M vs a GT3 playing Dirt which is not the most graphically challenging game. All that video shows is both GPUs can run the game smooth on high settings. Someone seems to think that apparently the GT3 was running around 40fps and the 650M was running approx 50fps but they could be rubbish numbers, we will have to wait for real benchmarks to know it's true performance.

Either way, if the GT3 turns out to be at 640M-650M levels of gaming performance, there will be little point in offering these cards as discrete options. However like I said before the current S15 is not made to handle the power and thermal loads of discrete graphics like the 660-680M which means Sony would be in a difficult position. However I expect Nvidia will release newer faster mobile GPUs by the time the Haswell GT3 version is out.

In saying all this I still don't expect Sony to release a S15 refresh with a Haswell GT3 chip anytime soon, if at all. I think most of the new VAIO line-up will use the GT2 Haswell CPU/GPU combo which is only around 25% faster than the current HD4000 GPU.

 

Agreed. I think it's very likely that for the next refresh, Sony will use a GT2 Haswell CPU/GPU. Probably after that, then Sony will use a GT3. 2 refreshes later. That would mean towards the end of the year since Sony has the tendency to refresh their line-up every 6 months.

 

How much better is the battery life? Guess they really couldn't do much for a laptop that is thinner and lighter than the average 15.6incher but 2-3 hours for just wifi and browsing on the current model is pretty mediocre.

 

Realistically, about 4 - 5 hrs.

 

I didn't have my S15 for long but I would of thought you could get much more than 2-3 hrs out of a full charge if all you are doing is surfing the net with WiFi enabled. Are you using Optimus? Make sure you are flicking the switch at the top of the keyboard to Stamina if all you are doing is web browsing. It will lower the CPU clock speed and increase your battery life. Also try a medium brightness level, not the maximum when trying to get the most out of the battery.

I would of thought you could get at least 4 hrs out of the current S15 if only using it to browse the net.

The new revision of the S15 should have the same battery life, maybe ever so slightly better but not by much. At a guess, no more than an extra 0.5hrs if they are using the same battery.

 

For me, the current GPU is too slow. OCing can't be taken into account since it doesn't work anymore on the newer models. I want a 650M or comparable. IMO, they should get rid of the ODD and either put in more battery or shrink down the computer. I really think an ODD is a very niche device nowadays, but for that it is taking up way too much space and weight. I'm waiting until a Haswell refresh with a better GPU. If they don't upgrade it, I'll look for something else (possibly the Asus UX51).

 

I tend to agree. Last years S15 prior to Win8 which could be OC'ed was good, it took the 640M LE to 650M levels of performance which I found awesome for such a compact laptop. It's a pity this can no longer be done.

I also agree that there is now little need to waste so much space on a Optical Drive, in a laptop designed to be light/compact, where the space is at a premium. Like you said, they could use that space for a larger battery or even better, for a larger heatsink to accommodate a faster discrete GPU.

On the odd circumstance when you do need a ODD, there is plenty of USB3 portable drives.

 

I would be pretty surprised if the new S has an ODD. If the Z doesn't come back, I'd say it's almost a certainty that it won't have one.

As for the GPU, I think it could easily take a 650M. It's physically the same as the 640 (and 660) and the S clearly has enough thermal headroom to accommodate that extra heat, since people have OCed their 640 to beyond 650 levels. The Gigabyte u2442f is a 14" that's thinner than the S13P (the smallest Vaio with a dGPU) and the 650M works fine in there.

If Sony uses the DDR5 version in particular it would offer a substantial bump in performance over the 640M LE, better than even the OCed cards. And the 650 can be OCed too...

 

Not sure about this.

First of all the current generation of Windows 8 S15 laptops can't be OC'ed any longer, not with the bios flash.

Second, just because some people have been running 650M speeds on their 640M LE cards does not mean the current S15 has the thermal headroom to run a 650M or even better a 660M. People who have been running them OC'ed speeds have to first of all, increase the fun speed to the maximum profile in an attempt to try reduce the chance of them cooking their GPU/CPU and make sure the laptop is in a well ventilated position, or they run the risk of artifacts - which some people have already reported at those speeds, or at worst killing their S15.

Just because the S15 can be pushed to 650M speeds under X circumstances does not mean Sony will consider that to be inside the normal/acceptable thermal envelope for the unit. I hardly think Sony will want to put a caveat with every S15 they sell to say, please only game with your laptop fan on maximum speed, in a well ventilated area and look out for screen artifacts, if you see any turn off your laptop asap or stop playing games - that is what people currently pushing the unit to 650M speeds need to be aware of and who knows how much they have reduced the life of their unit by running at those higher temperatures.

In short, just because they can run it at 650M speeds does not mean it's safe to do so for an extended period of time or within Sony's acceptable safety margins for a product they expect to last years not months and operate in a wide range of climate conditions. Try run a demanding game on a S15 OC'ed to 650M speed in a room with no AC on a hot summers day (35-40c). I sure wouldn't want to try, not if I want my S15 to last. These are the things Sony need to think about when making a laptop, a wide operating envelope.

 

You must be thinking of those who OC to 900 or 1000 MHz - the 650M's clock is "only" up to 850 MHz, which is much less drastic. I run the 640M in my S13P at 800 MHz and temperatures have only increased by 3 degrees C, hardly enough to push the thermals into dangerous territory - and the 13P is far more compact than the S15, which should only run cooler still.

Furthermore, Sony could implement some throttling if somehow temperatures do get out of hand (blocked vent, or 40 degree C ambient temperatures as you say, which is frankly pretty extreme). That wouldn't make it any worse than the Macbook Pro or the XPS 15, and in most cases it would run at full speed because of its inherently better cooling than those two competitors.

Finally, if they do dump the ODD (as they should), Sony could easily implement a two-fan solution with better venting, like the Gigabyte u4224f. It's 14" and only 0.8" thick and has a GT 650M, and its cooling is excellent. It has two fans and no ODD.

If Sony want to but a beefier GPU in the S they can - I see no engineering limitation there. If a relatively small company like Gigabyte can do it, Sony definitely can.

 

NVidia's 700 series should be coming out by March. We should be seeing a 740m at least in a refresh soon. Although I don't see why they shouldn't include a model with the 750m... Speculation puts the 740m somewhere between the 650m and 660m... Worst case scenario they go with the 730m which is placed somewhere between the 640m and 650m... I really hope we see an upgrade in discrete GPU soon, the 640m is a bit weak for my needs...

 

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I really wish that Sony would offer desktops / notebooks with solid gaming potential in factory spec, no over-clocking, just straight from Sony.

Does anyone know why Sony is typically towards the rear of the pack when it comes to GPUs? They make great notebooks / desktops, I love them, but come on... they're just weak on the gaming side.

Sony has the means to develop something aimed towards gaming and I believe many would be happy if they did.

 

Yes I was thinking those with a 900-1000Mhz OC. I believe there is some stock 650M cards that go to 900Mhz. I had a good read of the OC thread some time ago and noticed a number of people using the 1000Mhz OC were experiencing artifacts on some games which tells you that the 1000Mhz OC is really pushing it to the limits and 900Mhz is not far off. It was not just the increased GPU temp but also the CPU temp as the heatsink is shared and I remember the increased CPU temp was more than 3c over stock while gaming.

OC'ing the 640M LE to 900Mhz is huge, it runs a stock speed of only 500Mhz, we are talking nearly doubling it's factory stock speed. Try doing that to one of the new intel CPU's using just the stock factory heatstink, no way it will even boot. It's like taking a 3.0Ghz CPU and thinking you can push it to over 5.5Ghz on Air with the stock cooler. Hence to think that the current cooling solution in the Sony S15 is not being pushed to it's limits when asked to deal with the 900Mhz+ OC is being at least a bit naive. If you read a good chunk of the OC thread you will see there is a number of people that are concerned about the increase in CPU temp when both GPU and CPU are under high load.

Don't get me wrong, plenty of people are making the 900Mhz OC work but it is pushing the cooling solution on the S15 to the limits and really narrowing the operating conditions window, way more than Sony would feel comfortable with.

A 35C summers day is not extreme at all in countries like Australia, we have a number of weeks during summer with most days in the 35-39c range, and it's not rare to have a few 40 - 42c days. Now imagine, you didn't have AC in your home, just fans. I fortunately do have AC but I know there is lots of people who don't.

I am not saying Sony can't put a 650M in a package like the S15, I am sure if they wanted to their engineers could find a way, like you said one way would be removing the ODD which would give them way more room for an extra fan or bigger heatsink. All I am saying is that the current S15 is not really designed to deal with the types of heat a 650M puts out, yes it can do it if pushed but only under strict operating conditions and at a much higher risk of component failure.

Like you, I wish Sony would put a real gaming card in the next S15. It's shouldn't be that hard, just drop the ODD and use the space for extra cooling and battery. It can be done, Sony just need to get off their rears and do it.

 

I wanted to inquire as to whether anyone would be able to guess when these new S15s would be available, in the US, and any idea on what i7 they'll be running?

 

If you are waiting for a refresh, your best bet would be after Computex in June when Intel releases the 4th Gen Haswell processors. I'm sure new models of laptops will be released by all the companies. I'm also holding off purchasing a laptop until after Haswell is released. Waiting for all the new models.

 

Any ideas for what/when the refresh will be with the release of the 700m series up to the 750?

 

Intel's marketing has been misleading on this. You only get a 100% improvement on Haswell CPUs sporting the HD-5000 IRIS GPU. Those chips aren't even available yet.

Every mobile Haswell chip in the market now has a HD-4400 at best. This has only an increase of 4 EUs over the HD-4000 from 16 to 20, and it even gets throttled to keep with the lower TDP.

Real world tests have shown very minor improvements on those models. The best IRIS version with the large CrystalWell cache, which would be perfect for Ultrabooks, as the cache doesn't impact TDP, isn't even available in mobile CPUs at all! Its only planned for one Desktop CPU. Bummers all around.


So, I'm waiting for a VAIO S with any old Haswell chip and a Geforce GT 730M, which is a reasonable amount faster than the GT 640. In some games it may improve what you see noticably.

 

You're forgetting that you can replace the ODD with a secondary hard drive, which is extremely useful, given that SSD sizes are still marginal when it comes to storage.

Also, this machine is a business system primarily, according to Sony, and if you lived in a hot country, you'd know that it doesn't have thermal headroom for anything more than a GT 640M, cause you'd already run into a very hot system and throttling.

Nvidia's new GT 730M might help out here; while performing close to a GT 650M, it generates less heat than the GT 640M...

 

It's a performance system primarily, according to Sony. The 640 didn't deliver and a 740 won't deliver either.

 

640m-le on a 2013 laptop? ODD?
It was a good formula for late 2011 but we moved on, I was hoping for a haswell and at least 750m for a 15".
Oh well, I guess they're fine with losing a year until the next redesign comes by.

 

Is it likely for a Haswell S Series refresh to be available in the USA before September, or it's not going to happening until Christmas? No announcements have been made. What's everyone's thoughts?

 

It might not have a refresh at all.
The same as the vaio Z, they might be looking into an entirely new design if at all.