[Review] Sager NP8652 / Clevo P650SG with 980m Initial Impressions and Review by HTWingNut

Guys, are there intermediate resolutions on that screen between 1080p and 4k? There should be, right? For a better balance between performance and quality. Otherwise it makes no sense to play current games at 4k with those rates.

 

i can recommend the 3K panasonic screen check my sig

 

Hmm, so any idea guys if that 4k display can drive 1440p at 60 hz for example? Would appreciate any info as I have to decide soon
@Jaybee, so that screen has a lot of intermediate resolutions? How do games look at say 1440p?

 

Any 60hz display is capable of doing 60hz at lower resolutions.

 

what meaker said. also, here are the natively supported resolutions by the 3K panasonic display:


u can also just use custom resolutions in the nvidia control panel, no problem

i either game at 3K or full HD, never used 1440p before. but i can say that the scaling is pretty good on this display

 

Awesome! So i can use the 4k Sharp Panel (not 3k panel) and set up all those resolutions above and still get better quality than 1080p with good performance, right? So if I understood correctly there are no disadvantages whatsoever to game with a 4k display if you can set up slightly higher resolutions than 1080p and still get good performance even though at the 4k the performance will be abysmal. Sorry for all those questions.

 

Probably not unless you create the custom resolutions in Intel driver yourself. I heard there are no intermediate 16:9 resolutions between 4K and 1080p by default. Anyway you'll probably want to stick with 1080p and 720p if running non-native res for fewer interpolation artifacts.

 

It's not set up for a color keyboard. You'd have to get one of the bigger laptops like the P750ZM.

 

Then I don't understand anymore how to reconcile this with what @Meaker and others above said. I was planning to run it at 1920x1440 or 2048 x 1536 or even 4k with whatever font adjustment win7 does and game at 1920x1440 to get good framerate. Can somebody with that 4k Sharp screen report if they are able to do that?

Thank you and sorry if I'm missing smth obvious here

 

Do the math. 1920x1440 and 2048x1536 are 4:3 aspect ratio. On a native 16:9 4K (3840x2160) screen, you're either gonna get a stretched picture or pillarboxing.

The resolutions @jaybee83 showed you are what is available on his 3K (2880x1620) screen. Plus, his laptop is non-Optimus while this is Optimus, which means a different hardware and driver software combo is driving the screen (Nvidia vs. Intel). Therefore, you're not gonna get the same list of available default resolutions on a 4K screen.

You can ask other P65xSx 4K screen users like @Cakefish what resolutions they have available, but I recall reading that there are no intermediate 16:9 resolutions between 4K and 1080p by default, such as 3200x1800, 2880x1620, 2560x1440, etc. However, like I said, it's not a big deal because you can simply go into the Intel driver control panel and create them yourself.

 

2048x1152 is the only 16:9 resolution available by default that slots between 3840x2160 and 1920x1080 on the Sharp 4K display. Why don't they have 2880x1620 or 2560x1440 options? No idea. Intel must have their reasons.

I didn't even realise you could set custom resolutions in the Intel Control Panel. Will have to play around with that! Would be petty nice to get 1440p support for some games where 4K is too demanding but where the 980M is overkill for 1152p/1080p.

 

If you like interpolation artifacts

 

It might cause issues having a large number of resolutions listed, or they just could not be bothered. It's stored in the monitor's firmware and reports what it can do to the GPU btw.

 

Hey Peeps,

Is it normal for my laptop to stay at a steady 3.4 Ghz when running intensive games? I thought it should be able to go up to 3.6ghz if needed?

The reason I ask is I'm playing Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm (currently in beta, based on SC2 engine) and it runs like a champ on my desktop (i7 4.0ghz, GeForce GTX 770) where I'm getting 80+ fps.

On the 8652 (980m, i7, 2.4-3.6Ghz) I can keep a decently solid 59/60 FPS (due to v-sync and refresh rate), but it regularly dips into the 40-55fps range, sometimes even lower.

I ran Firestrike on both machines and I get ~7800 on my desktop and ~8900 on the laptop, so in benchmarks it seems like the laptop is far more powerful.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that Firestrike is GPU intensive and Heroes of the Storm/SC2 is more CPU intensive. If that's true, I'm wondering why my laptop stays in the 3.4 range and never goes to 3.6.

Oh, and did anyone (Lone?) figure out if having a larger power brick (+180W) give the computer enough power to never hit any current limit?

 

3.6ghz is the maximum single core turbo and 3.4ghz is the maximum quad core turbo.

 

The FPS is probably dropping due to the CPU.. This game probably loves taxing your CPU and the 4710HQ is throttling sometimes... What are your temps?

 

MOBA, STR, Simulators are very CPU intensive .

 

WiDi isn't working, any idea why?

Hi Guys! thanks for your time.
I haven't been able to install/use WiDi. I have everything required by this list: http://supportkb.intel.com/wireless...lfservice/intelwidi/#portal/1026/article/2511

I have:
1. Processors checked!: 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4720HQ
2. Graphics checked!: Intel® HD Graphics 4600 (driver: 15.36.1.8)
3. Wireless Adapters checked!: Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 (driver version 17.13.11 x64)
4. Operating Systems checked!: Microsoft Windows 7*

Any idea why I get this error when I try to install WiDiSetup.exe?

Edit 2: Yes I did click in Additional information, it redirects to the page I posted above.



Thanks

 

Did you click additional info?

 

Hi @pukemon. Yes I did click on "Additional information", it is just a URL and redirects to the page I post before: http://supportkb.intel.com/wireless...lfservice/intelwidi/#portal/1026/article/2511

Any idea?

 

u sure ure on the latest wifi drivers? also try and start the setup.exe with administrator rights...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

hi am looking for gaming laptop figured out to get either a asus g751 or a sager as my budget is like 1600 to 1700$ which to get any lead please?

 

Has anybody ever figured-out how to use the SIM card slot to connect this laptop, eg If I had an AT&T shared data plan can I get a SIM card for this device and plug it in to get data over 4g or LTE network? (I am in USA). Just curious there is a SIM card slot but is there the hardware already in the laptop to connect to cellular network? Or requires special M.2 card to be installed? I have no idea how this works, and didn't see any mention of it in this thread.

 

The opinions here will likely be a bit biased, but I'd get the Sager as you get get a thinner, lighter laptop with similar specs. Plus if you purchase it from a good reseller you'll get excellent support. Asus support seems to have many horror stories on this and other forums.

 

but performance is very pleasing for the g751 as well less price what do you think?

 

You need to buy a huawei modem or something which will need to be inserted into a M2 Pcie slot on your 8651..

 

Exactly, you will loose your PCI-E storage option. The cards will be shorter but you can adjust the height of the screw where it attaches.

 

Hmm wondering if I should upgrade to the 980m from the 970m... It's a $200 difference, is it worth it? What are the pros and con's between the two models? ( heat difference, power difference, IPS screen difference, speed difference after GPU OC?) I can still change my order since my laptop is backordered till Tuesday since they are out of the IPS screens for the 970m model.


What made you guys make the jump?

 

Depends on how often you want to play high-end Games 2 years from now. One or Two years from now: if you find the 970m to be inadequate, you will not be able to pay $200 to change from a 970m to 980m easily.

 

I have a 970M model Clevo P651SE (see my sig)., one of the main reasons I didn't go for the 980M version is that when I bought my Clevo in the UK last month, the 980M versions was £260 more i.e. $380! If you can upgrade for only $200, it's probably worth it.

On the downside the case is thicker than the 970M version, and a little heavier, although it does mean it supports being able to have two drives, where one is 9.5mm (the 970M only supports either two 7.5mm drives or one 9.5mm drive).

 

The 980M is however a large step ahead of the 970M, so you do get a fair amount more performance.

 

Agreed. You need a heavily overclocked 970m to match a stock 980m, and even then it's barely equal to. Plus you have some OC headroom on the 980m as well.

 

Both are good, but I see the 980m remaining relevant for a LONG time. It should have a similar run to the 680m.

 

Yeah, I'm tempted to just jump all in with the P750ZM. Was hoping for a significant bump in 2016 with Skylake and Pascal, but Nvidia will likely hold out on us and rebrand Maxwell through 2016 I have a feeling.

 

I'm sorry if this has be been clarified. Will this Crucial M.2 work on this machine? I read something about M key and B key so I'm not sure what key is this SSD and which one supported. If it's compatible, which m.2 slot should I use?

 

Yes, it'll be compatible. I use the 250GB version in the slot next to the wireless card.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

With m.2 you just need to mate the right kind for storage, sata drives with sata slots and pci express drives with pci express slots.

 

completely agreed, the moment i saw the performance numbers on the 980M the first thing that popped to mind was the 680M/7970M generation which lasted for quite a while since it was SO significant in terms of performance boost compared to previous gen hardware

 

Thanks to HTWingNut for your super thorough reviews.

I have a couple of questions for anyone:

1) In your review, you stated that the stock temps were high so you repasted with IC Diamond. Do you remember how high those temps were? It annoys me a little that I would have to take apart the laptop and repaste it, but I suppose it isn't too hard on these.

2) How does this clevo chassis feel? I'm looking between the P650SG and the MSI GS-60 right now, and will be using them at a University this fall. I just want to know if, in your opinion, the Clevo is a sturdy and reliable option for a long period of use (4 years, if possible).

Thank you.

 

Yes it will work, it will just run at SATA III speeds as a SATA drive not a PCIe drive.

1) CPU temps were in 90C's, GPU in upper 80C's. It really is not hard to repaste. You'd be silly not to, to be honest. It's very easy to do on these machines. Even for first time it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes if you take your absolute time. I can repaste this sucker in less than 10 minutes.

2) The GS60 was quite a solid machine. But the P650SG runs a lot cooler and is also solid, just more plastic. Take some due care and it should survive your four years just fine. No laptop except for some Panasonic and Dell models are guaranteed against damage, so I'd suggest getting a replacement warranty from squaretrade or something.

 

Well if you want the 980M then the Sager is the only option of the two in the thinner segment. Of course if you get the 970M version the cooling is designed to handle the 980M so you get quite a bit of head room.

 

The 980M is one of the main reasons I was looking at the Sager. It fits the 980 in a decently small form factor that can cool well (unlike the Gigabyte, IMO), and I'm actually about to order it. Thanks everyone for the help.

 

Well enjoy it, the 980M really is a beast and should keep you going for some time.

 

What are the limitations of using a PCIe(x4) M.2 SSD on the NP8652?
Are the M.2 PCIe lanes shared with any other ports?

 

Everything still runs, though now that I think about it maybe the wireless card might have to share the bandwidth due to it using the SB for a connection too. Either way not a big impact even if it does.

 

Thanks. I asked because most desktop system boards have issues with PCIe M.2 drives. The M.2 PCIe lanes are usually shared with some other device(s) on the board. I'm working on building a desktop as well, and every motherboard manual I downloaded says something about the PCIe M.2 drives.

If there is more than one M.2 slot, then sometimes the second slot can't be used. Or sometimes it's certain SATA ports. It varies from board to board, but they all have something.

Couldn't find any manuals for the newer Sagers to download, so I was wondering if the manual for the NP8652 says anything about PCIe M.2 drives?

 

I'm thinking of getting this to replace my aging 8150. Can anyone tell me how the thermal threshold of the 8652 with 980m compares to the 8150 with the 485m?
I live in a tropical country and heat is always an issue here. Ty.

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

The other storage m.2 is sata only regardless of what you put in the pci-e capable slot.

 

It will be fine... As long as the CPU+GPU is properly pasted with some good Gelid GC Extreme or IC Diamond... I guess you are used to repasting.. it's pretty simple even in this machine!

 

The 980m should still run a tad cooler, the 485m was a pretty hot chip.