VAIO SA or wait for Ivy Bridge?

I noticed there have been serious price drops on the VAIO SA since I last looked a long time ago.

I am looking for a model with the i5 2430M, TPM, fingerprint reader, 1600x900 and the 6630M video and the like.

I noticed at the bottom level there are some for different price ranges from $899 to $1000 but while some are more $$$ the specs seem the same even though it has different model #s.

Can someone fill me in as to which the best model # to get is with the specs I am looking for?

Also since the SA has the onboard gpu and usb 3.0, does it pay to wait for ivy bridge or to get the Sony VAIO SA now?

Samsung has a 1600x900 in a 14" but its heavier and I hear the screen is bad plus it has less features than this Sony supposedly.

 

The way to save money is to wait for Ivy Bridge and, when that comes out, wait for Haswell which is going to be a much bigger capability increase than IB which is only a refinement of the current SB chips.

You can save a fortune by always insisting on next-gen technology.

If you actually need a computer, you may want to consider something already on the market.

 

IB cpus aren't going to be much different from SB. From what I've heard probably only 5 to 10% better at same clock speed + same DDR3. Not a great deal. You'd better buying the best current SB cpu if you feel concerned about CPU performance.

 

The problem for me is Ivy Bridge is going to be out in June 2012 or so for the i5 models. i7 mobile will be out in April 2012 perhaps.

The VAIO SA has dropped significantly in price and there will be one more non ivy bridge replacement that is faster to replace existing cpus which isn't out right now to give a slight speed boost for certain models. So an i5 2430M will see an i5 2435M as the last sandy bridge but its unclear if Sony will carry these models or jump straight to ivy bridge.

I guess Sandy Bridge with USB 3.0 and a sheet battery is going to be as good as it gets for someone who needs a notebook ASAP. I'll hold out as long as possible, so either prices will drop or ivy bridge will arrive by that time.

This VAIO with 1600x900 resolution beats other in the weight and spec category bar none and now finally has decent pricing to boot.

 

Why is that a problem? More specifically, what computing capabilities do you need that the SB chips lack and the IB will have?

 

you read it wrong.

they launch all full voltage cpus together, only the ulv ones are left for latter.

there are various chipset changes, and probably the most important thing might be the variable tdp cpus, and that is one hell of a thing, aside the better battery life and so forth

however haswell for mobile cpus will be a major step, since its going to disappear with the northbidge since the southbridge is already on the cpu die

 

Intel sas up to 60% increased performance on ivy bridge. But intel always develops new chips to make increased profit margins and for progression to keep the business model current.

The truth is you have to dive in at some point.

Ok let me give more info here:

I have a Dell Inspiron 530 with E4400 and I wanted a notebook which would be faster in performance than my desktop that I can use for everything. No need for a desktop and a notebook pc. Just one PC for everything is fine.

The power of this current computer is pretty much plenty for my needs with the exception of video performance on stuff like Google Earth with full options enabled or stuff akin to that used mainly for imaging which use anti aliasing and whatnot.

The VAIO SA is a lot better for my needs but would be even better in an ivy bridge with an upgraded GPU.

But it won't be till the end of the ivy bridge lifecycle that the price will be comparable to what the sandy bridges are now.

So I prolly won't get anything for a long long time. Even $1000 is pushing it for me these days.

If I spend $1000 on a PC I need to use it to make that money back and some and that geerally doesn't happen.

 

What is Ivy Bridge and what does it do?

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Ivy Bridge is the code name for the next set of CPUs from Intel. This generation (i7-2XXX, i5-2XXX, i3-2XXX) are Sandy Bridge whereas the previous generation was Arrandale(i7-XXX, i5-XXX, etc.)

Intel uses what they call the tick-tock model for releasing processors, mainly they change the architecture w/ smaller transistor size etc, and release it on the tick, then the next year, they follow up with an improved version of the original w/ same transistor size, etc called the tock. The main difference between SB and IB is mainly an increased GPU performance over the HD3000 (which is actually a very capable chip) and some CPU tweaks, but because they're essentially the same chip notice a 5-10% boost in CPU performance (as someone stated earlier) which may sound like a lot, but considering most people don't even use their CPUs to 70% of their power, is fairly useless.

 

Thanks for clarification. Although faster machine is always better choice for me, mostly cause I use it for video post processing including conversion and authoring where my i7 cpu runs at 90%+ capacity, still waiting for next gen is like waiting for next summer. There will be always something faster or better. For now my recently purchased SA upgraded with huge ssd is best fastest portable lightweight studio deck for the buck around. It processes material three times faster comparing to my previous Thinkpad based on T7500. Thanks.

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Some new info on IB

Intel's Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge Benchmarks Leaked

It seems that the cpu bump is around 7-15% and up to 25% for excel. the biggest jump seems to be in gpu performance.

56% faster performance in ArcSoft Media Expresso
192% higher overall 3DMark Vantage Performance Preset - Score
17% faster performance in 3DMark Vantage Performance Preset - CPU benchmark
199% faster performance in 3DMark Vantage Performance Preset - GPU benchmark

the above benchmark compare the 2000HD vs the new 4000HD, therefore it is unknown how much better the 4000HD is from the 3000HD. So maybe it won't be such a big leap, and if you choose the discrete gpu option, you probably won't be using the integrated gpu for gaming.

Thing is, once intel releases the cpu, sony will probably update their line in june, not earlier I would imagine.

more info from http://www.anandtech.com/show/5166/ivy-bridge-overview

all of these are desktop variants, so still waiting on the mobile versions of course.

 

When I went to on line sony store first time I was positively surprised about price for top of the line i7-2640M 2.80(3.50) vaio SA. I did quite a lot of research before that for similar laptops on Asus, HP, Lenovo and Samsung and one particular sony model beat the competition all the way. So I got it.

Silver color for SA is not very appealing for some of us but for some reason it was $299 cheaper to black version. With exactly same configuration. So why overpay? Better put that money toward ram extension which I did for $25 filling free slot to max 8GB of what my sa can handle. On top of that I spent $500 on 512GB SSD from Crucial replacing factory HDD. During thanksgiving weekend I requested a $100 refund from Sony due to price match policyseeing my SA discounted just for a few days and they did.

So for little over two grand I have i7-2.80 fast and superlight laptop with BD-ROM, 8GB ram and huge 512GB SSD. Factory HDD ended up in caddy which I got from newmodeus allowing me to swap it with BD-ROM easy whenever I need.

Now, try to find a matching laptop out there for that money from reputable brand.

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IB is a 22nm SB that will be lower power due to finFETs and will have a boosted integrated graphics. Care to explain what other changes there will be?

Not according to previous leaked Intel slides. Again can you provide more info?

Variable TDP and more power efficiency, some more speed improvements.

IB!=Haswell. If one wants to wait for mobile Haswell one have to be very patient...

 

Care to share how can I get some phone numbers of industrial spies? aside that you cant only shrink it and call it done, it wont work that way.

try seeing how latter all of the ULV cpus are released, and do point me to those slides

never said that they are equals

 

That's why Intel has called "Tick+" for a reason, lol. It's expected to be bigger than it's normal Tick/Tock cycle release.

 

Megol, one thing you might be right, intel is apparently killing the ULV cpus, swapping those for 2 U series cpus. And it appears that they are going to be released at the same time as the other cpus, however one thing must be said the need to release latter is because ULV cpus are much higher binned components than other cpus, thus leading to latter release dates, its also a strange thing since there were comments regarding poor yelds on 22nm pieces. and currently we only have vr zone to confirm this. but it seems legit

 

Intel's mobile Ivy Bridge CPU line-up revealed by VR-Zone.com

supposedly the mobile lineup has now leaked above ^^