Sager NP9285 Review Discussion

The Sager NP9285 is one of the largest and most powerful notebooks on the market. It weighs 12 lbs, has a desktop Core i7 processor, and the fastest graphics card available - the Nvidia GTX 480M 2GB. Read our review to find out how monstrous this machine really is.

Read the full content of this Article: Sager NP9285 Review

 

Can you compare it to laptops in the same size and performance class? For example, there are other Clevo laptops with a desktop Core i7 and an ATI HD 5870M or maybe an ASUS (also with a 5870M). It doesn't make much sense to compare this to a Lenovo Y460 and I almost laughed out loud when I saw that one of the 3 laptops you chose for comparison was a Sony Z.

 

I'm surprised at how cool the 480M stays.

 

The only reason the Z was included was when we saw it had a significant lead over this system in overall system performance when tested in PCMark Vantage.

 

We need more gaming benchmarks than just L4D, great game but not exactly demanding.
I knew cooling would not be a issue with this laptop, it's legendary.
One thing this laptop needs is a cosmetic redesign, I know you can only do so much with it's size but adding maybe a backlit keyboard or some well placed aluminum accents do make it look less intimidating.
It hasn't changed in years and looks exactly like the one I bought 2+ years ago.
I guess if it's not broke....

 

This is a question I have to ask that has probably been asked before:

What is the point of a notebook that big?

Lan Parties?

 

-Moving from room to room.
-Going to a friend house (Carrying LCD+PC+keyboard+Wires etc is annoying)
-Lan parties
-useful for people who travel a lot
-Portable workstation (Video editing etc)
-Access to Desktop CPU since mobile Cpus are not that powerful
-etc

They are many reasons but it depends on your use

 

Yeah, but that's solely because it had that ridiculous SSD array in it. Otherwise the NP9285 stomps the Z.

I can see this notebook being "practical" for a few types of people:
-Video editors who move around (having a desktop CPU and three internal hard drives is nice)
-LAN parties
-CAD/other design engineers needing a lot of power and mobility.

I have some more game benchmarks and some benchmarks where I OC'ed the GTX 480M, I will post those soon.

 

Holy crap, that thing is massive.

 

Nice Review Chaz thanks ...

I know Speedy is enjoying his because its all he talks about ...

 

true is the best machine i ever own and i try a lot of gaming laptops before this
and this is definitely something i will recommend to enthusiast people

thanks for the review Chaz

 

Did you guys mix up the L4D graphs under the Gaming Performance section?

 

Just a heads up, I was able to do a detailed review of another Clevo-based unit with the GTX 480M on another site (which I won't link to here so I don't feel like a spamhole), and I have to be honest...the 480M sucks.

I was able to test it against the GTX 285M and Mobility 5870 (and my editor was able to do benches on the Mobility 5850 to add as well), and...it's more or less the fastest mobile GPU on the market, but that's like a three-legged dog winning a race because the other dogs only have two legs and pretty much just have to drag themselves across the finish line.

Mobile graphics performance has stagnated horribly, and the 480M still isn't anywhere near what performance-class cards on the desktop are pulling; a desktop Radeon HD 5770 would still beat it handily. It's a desktop GeForce GTX 465 (already a dismal product on its own) that's had its clocks SEVERELY curtailed to the point where you have to wonder if it was even worth it, and it still has a hundred watt TDP.

The GTX 480M also costs a fortune to get in a decent notebook, and when Asus is selling a notebook with a Mobility 5870 that performs about 90-95% as fast for $1,200 at Best Buy, you need to ask yourself how badly you want PhysX.

 

Its a laptop or suitcase lol

 

The review is in line with what I expected, more or less. One thing though - you keep referring to the screen on this beast as "good" - while I found (if it's anything like my D900F) that it's far from good, out of the box.
I had to do a thorough calibration of it to get near acceptable colours from it - out of the box it had a bluish tint on everything, the colour temperature was far from the 6500K standard, and the shadow detail was bad.
Was I just unlucky with my specimen, or has the screen been upgraded lately?
Not that the D900F's screen was particularly bad - I have seen worse on many laptops, but still ...

 

this is not about PhysX at all the performance Difference on games" is noticeable from HD5870 to GTX 480 like on the Desktop versions
i agree the price is ridiculous but nividia is not pushing people to buy it

if you own a laptop with an HD5870 and you try to upgrade to GTX480 is not worth it that is for sure

and the machine you talking about from Bestbuy runs hot out of the box and the people is returning them because the HD5870 runs at 100c

 

Can someone explain why its only getting 30FPS (ave) in Left 4 Dead "balanced settings" and 72FPS with the settings "maxed"???

 

that is true they must be backwards

 

The benchmarks were not entered correctly in the review; L4D2 is the one with 72 FPS average, the other set is for Shattered Horizon @ 1920x1200 with balanced settings.

Oh I agree with you - it's far from one of the better screens I have seen. As far as notebook screens go today though, it's decent; I felt the contrast and brightness were satisfactory, which is "good enough" in my book. A lot of notebooks I have tested recently had washed-out screens and some weren't bright enough. The NP9285 is better by comparison.

 

If the card really maxes out at 60*C isn't there quite a bit more room to push the card? Obviously it isn't constrained by temps, is there some other reason it has its crippling clock speeds? Is it constrained by power and stability at higher clocks?

 

Yeah I would love to see how far this card can be pushed
Waiting on those OC benchmarks Mr.Jefferies

 

the high temps are mostly due to a sloppy thermal compund job or heatsink not properly seated..
had high temps on mine, opened er up and used ocz freeze, 10-12 degree drop on load...
thats still a lot easier and cheaper than shelling out approx $400 for a 5-10% faster card..

read Dustin Sklavos's article on the other site... very insightful

 

i dont think it'll overclock much because if i'm not mistaken 100 watts is the limit of power a MXM slot can supply..

 

Here are some overclocked benchmarks that weren't included in the main review.

Default:
425/1200/850
Heaven v2.1 Benchmark: 20.6 FPS
3DM06 1280x1024 16004

Overclocked:
471/1330/942
Heaven v2.1 Benchmark: 22.9 FPS
3DM06 1280x1024 16506

While keeping the ratio between the memory and shader clock the same as default, the above was the best I could get on stock voltage. Gunning the shader clock would likely increase performance more. Still, a 10% increase isn't bad.

------------

3DMark Vantage with my overclock is also attached. 3DMark in general doesn't seem to show the same amount of performance increase I got from overclocking in the Heaven v2.1 benchmark; info on that benchmark can be found here:
Heaven Benchmark 2.1 | Unigine (3D engine for games and real-time virtual worlds)
It is DirectX 11 and tests tessellation, so it is a very intense benchmark. I ran it at 1920x1200 with almost everything enabled and 8X AF. It looked great.

 

the problem is the voltages .800mv is to low for that chip my max overclock was 530-1060-1402 and after that it crashes on vantage

i try to flash the card with nvidia bios editor but the gpu is not supported on revision 5.6

if we can get more juice to this card it will overclock to like 650 on the core easy because the temps are real good

 

The joke is that the GTX 480M is so middling the only reason you'd spend that much to get it over the 5870 is because you want PhysX.

My editor handled the Asus G73 with the 5870 and found it to be pretty superb and had no problems with it, pointing out that the system actually ran quite cool. The GTX 480M is a stopgap, nothing more than a way for an arrogant company to ameliorate a bruised ego.

 

Decent audio is why I went with the Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q708 last year while it was still on sale - quad-core CPU, SLI graphics, SSD and a keyboard that's got a sensible layout. Very happy with it I must say.

This machine only makes sense if you need Gulftown-on-the-go, which for some will be enough to plunk down $4k+.

 

Hey, that's just like my HP laptop! Except it has the power of a netbook.

 

Talk about expensive! I would expect it to be a good amount more expensive than a GTX 285M, but not $500 more expensive. Guess that's where the profits come from.

An impressive laptop in several ways. Makes my laptop look small, and my laptop makes my work laptop look small (and that's still a 14 inch laptop). 1920x1200 is nice, too, not enough laptops with that resolution anymore.

 

This.

It is pretty dumb. Comparing it to an Asus and an Alienware (mx15 or mx17) would have been a lot more useful, given that only serious gamers would ever want a piece of kit like this.

Perhaps you could do an additional comparison article?

 

That vantage GPU score is not that impressive. I score higher with my 8800m GTX SLI in the 9000+ range on the GPU score. Now that is only a synthetic benchmark of course.

 

great review charles!

hummmm, they are up to 9700 gpu on a stock voltage of... .0850 volts...

 

Some overvoltage would do this GPU good. Since now at least all those G73 users bashing the GPU that it would be too hot to run shuts up. 60 degrees on load is damn good and some overvoltage would just do this good and get the GPU far ahead of 5870m with a very nice overclock

 

Wow. It sure seems like a waste of money. Seems like a much better solution for almost everyone would be to get a desktop that's more powerful for 1/3 the cost and then get a laptop that is half the size and cost, but 3/4 of the power (like the Asus G73JH). The only way I could see myself going for this is if I absolutely needed maximum power on the go and money wasn't a factor.

Good review Chaz.

 

Well I think the bigger point is this...

At stock the difference between the 5870 and the 480 is negligible, almost non-existent. Overvolting could produce some great results and distance itself from the 5870 but I don't know of many, if any people willing to void their warranty and risk frying their computer for this to happen. I think its pretty clear the 480 offers almost nothing in benefit over the 5870 for the average gamer.

 

Depends how well it performs in tesselation and if this will be used to a great extent in future games. Of course most peple would not overvolt. I would definitely give it a try if I had a GTX 480m, I am pretty sure I could pull that GPU pretty far.

 

exactly

if money wasn't a factor is more like it.

take a closer look at the minimum frame rate, since this is what will kill you in gaming online and make a decent game seem not worth the time to play

i really dont think it's called over volting since that is the lowest possible voltage state. it's more like putting the voltage back where it's suppose to be. or at worse.... .0950 or 1.0. while running 0850 when in low gpu state or powersave mode. just like all the other cards do....(speculation of course)

 

Perhaps you can link me benchmarks comparing min FPS of 5870 vs. 480. I'm not following you.

Also the min FPS frame rate reported once in a general benchmark like Crysis means nothing. We saw how in DMC4 (a more elaborate scene by scene benchmark) where the 280GTX had far more lows overall then the 4870, where the 4870 had a more stable overall FPS (less lows). Yet the 4870 had the mark for scoring the lowest FPS of all of either card in one particular part of a scene.

 

I dont know why People who have desktop have to keep bringing up cost yes the price will be lower for a desktop But let see how long it would take a guy with a desktop move room to room Or setup for Lan party

Plugs
Keyboard
Mouse
Case
Monitor
Speakers
70 lb
Then setup time.

Ya this really sound fun taking to a Lan part.

Laptop

Power brick unless your running on battery.
Laptop
12lb

optianl
extra keyboard Mouse.
Backpack
16 lb

 

you cant look at this as a whole. it has to be broken up.
benchmarks for performance
benchmarks for games
and playing a section or two of the game. <--this is the most important part
and more important than that...is playing a game this is random each time you run through it so you find more highs and lows.

most people with desktops have laptops...
and having top of the line just looks better is all..
they can whoop your butt using far lower graphics...rotflmao
ands spend far less. and playing online...it's made so even netbooks can play...lol

i can beat you with this gateway if i wanted to....lol
might not look pretty, but as long as i move far faster than you...i will indeed win...lol

 

True True John, in this regard it would be more putting the GTX 480m back to "normal" voltage. However I assume this has the same amount of levels as the G92, possibly. That means why don´t the GTX 480m uses the "Extra" level of performance which is the highest state.

I don´t quite follow here, were the benchmarks done with the GTX 480m "underclocked" to a lower state?

 

which set of benchmarks?

and that is what im thinking...it would be why the chip is running cooler than people expected.

 

Right so if the 4870 offered more stable performance then the 280 in almost all of the scenes doesnt it mean the 4870 offers better gaming ability? A once ran min FPS check doesnt mean anything in the broad spectrum.

Also you say there are benchmarks all over the place, unfortunately I dont know of any min FPS benchmark detail of the 480 except for in this review....So again I'm not sure what benchmarks you're referring to that demonstrate this min FPS superiority.

-snip- different game settings!

 

try:
m17x thread
g73 thread
toms hardware threads
the other many reviews on the web.

ask speedy to see if he can do a few play through gaming benchmarks or babyhemi. since i put more faith in our members with real world numbers.
speedy has a thread going as well.

 

Those threads are great for 5870 mins FPS benches, but I have yet to see besides these two benchmarks in this review any other minFPS benchmarks done for the 480. I'm still looking/waiting to see this min FPS superiority demonstrated.

Also you know why I was referring back to the 280 vs 4870 DMC4 benchmark runs, to show that a single stat min FPS benchmark means nothing in the broad context of a scene to scene FPS benchmark like DMC4 where we see min FPS in one instance of the game means nothing compared to overall high/low stability throughout ALL of the scenes.

 

nope.
that benchmark means nothing against you actually playing the game.
perfect example.
gta4
the benchmark was nothing like game play.
this was the first real prime example of this.

i play the games i bench just to see how far off or close they are.
and dmc4 my game play was better than my benchmarks.

 

Never did I think I would see a 6,000 dollar Laptop...

It's still slower than my 1995 300ZX Twin Turbo, Which I payed less for...

If I were rich beyond any type of range to be able to count I would own one.. but for 6,000 Never.

 

You could pay someone $100 to pack you stuff up for you and still get 40 moves in before you broke even.