*** Official Sager NP8150/Clevo P150HM Owners Lounge ***

So according to PCWorld.com the new Intel 3rd Gen SSD's are dropping Mar 1st. This may have been discussed before, but I might just have my first legitimate reconfigure request for this machine. I'm assuming that with all other things the same you should always go with the Intel SSD's for reliability.

 

Intel G2's have proven their reliability, but G3's are a different ballgame. I don't doubt Intel did their homework with this one, but it's still new tech so you never know. I'd stick with G2 for the time being.

 

After doing some reading, I'm tempted to upgrade the wireless card and the screen to a matte, and was wondering if anyone had any advice that would justify the $200 upgrades to my $2500 lappy (self employed high school student, with enough money to burn only once)

 

The wireless card is $35, not much in the big picture, but money nonetheless. Know that to take advantage of the speeds, your ISP service needs to be that speed and your wireless router needs to be capable of transmitting those speeds. I highly doubt anyone has a 300-450mbs connection at a consumer level. Even if there was one available, it probably costs a ton. Plus the router is is gonna cost anywhere between 100-200. So, the only benefit of the 6300 is the upgraded range you get. Are you ever gonna need all that? No, but its bragging rights for the most part.

As for the screen, get it. Especially if its that 95% gamut screen. I'm have to 1280x800 glossy, so anything is an upgrade. Half the reason I choose the np8130 is for the standard matte screen. There is a lot of light in classrooms/lecture halls and that could get annoying at times. So, when college rolls around you'll be thanking you're self you got it.

 

Glad you said that. I was wondering about it myself.

 

as a college student, i completely agree.. do the screen if you can swing it. my current lappy has a glossy and i said never again lol. the wifi isn't as big of a deal. i just bumped it up to the 6230 cuz it wasn't that much more, but i want to keep the integrated bluetooth (vs the 6300)

 

C300 FTW..

I was actually very lucky to get one at a slick price..

Otherwise I would not have even thought of this super-expensive drive...

It's blazing fast..!

 

Samsung, Intel, Corsair, Crucial, all are decent. I'd just steer clear of OCZ for the time being until they come clean with their manufacturing process and performance numbers.

 

speakin of ssd's, anyone have info for the corsair p3's? benches?

 

AFAIK the Intel G3's are the same as the Corsair P3's and the Crucial C300's as far as controller and expected performance.

I've already selected the Corsair P3 for my build, but I might just switch to Intel, because well, it's Intel. According to the article I read the 128GB Intel G3 is going for about $45.00-55.00 cheaper than the Corsair's current price on Newegg. We'll see how much it actually costs on release day.

I'm also shooting for that C300 that's being advertised on the classifieds right now. I PM'ed the seller and I hope he's willing to ship to FPO/APO, because a 256GB C300 for only $40.00 more than a 128GB Corsair P3 sounds like a good deal to me.

 

Anyone know anything about the plextor ssd's? Seen here on newegg..? Saw that it's a bit cheaper then the p3's.. Couldn't really find any reviews of it though..

 

+1

Performance is all that matters to me and the 485m is loads better than the 460!

 

I hear what your all saying and it makes sense i my head that the performance should be my chief concern. But I wonder what good is a high-performance laptop if you can't see any of the said performance due to ambient light interference?!

Perhaps I'm being too picky here especially as the matte screen option isn't offered in Australia...

 

Have you done any research on performance for these drives though? Intel is constantly getting spanked by Corsair, Samsung, and OCZ with read and write times. Personally, I would not simply go with Intel just over brand name recognition. There are better drives on the market IMO. I've also had a Samsung SSD for a couple of years and it has been solid.

 

Yeah, here are the read/write times compared to price differences (as mentioned in the article, but not likely to reflect ground truth Maximum PC | Intel 510 Series SATA3 SSD Coming March 1st):

Crucial C300 128 GB: $244.99 @ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148348
Read: 355 MB/s
Write: 140 MB/s
Random 4k read: 50,000 IOPS
Random 4k write: 30,000 IOPS

Corsair P3 128GB: $319.99 @ Newegg.com - Corsair Performance 3 Series CSSD-P3128GB2-BRKT 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Read: up to 410 MB/s
Write: up to 210 MB/s
Random 4k read: not specified by manufacturer
Random 4k write: not specified by manufacturer
Special Note: Reading through Corsair's support forum it appears the 4k speeds in benchmarks on this drive are really slow compared to the C300. Many owners are threatening to return it if Corsair doesn't fix it with a firmware update. No wonder they don't report the 4k speeds on it.

Intel 510 Series 120 GB: ~$280.00
Read: up to 470 MB/s
Write: up to 315 MB/s (this may end up being less for the smaller capacities)
Random 4k read: 20,000 IOPS
Random 4k write: 4,000 IOPS

It appears the Intel 510 will be the most attractive option for price/performance. C300 still wins random 4k speeds. The C400 should be coming out soon too.

 

Thank You! for the tips hispeed4567 and hizzaah, college is the number one reason for the purchase. Will be calling xoticpc for the change first thing tomorrow!

 

I'm not too picky about SSD speeds as long as they're better than HDD because in the end they aren't helping my framerates much (any?). I got a $120 128gb Kingston SSDnow that was on clearance because it was last gen. I think it's 220Mb/s read and 110Mb/s write (although the reviews say it's closer to 180Mb/s write.

I couldn't justify $300-$400 on an equal size current gen SSD, but this one hits a sweet spot for me. I get the benefits of much faster boot and application load time than an HDD, lower battery use, and increased size than the more comparable versions at this price.

As nice as a 400Mb/s / 350Mb/s drive sounds, I don't think I'm going to be pushing that much data around on my laptop anyway to ever saturate it. Just switching to a cheap SSD like this one makes a world of difference in day to day usage and leaves me a good bit of headroom so that I can possibly upgrade my screen (if malibal ever offers the 95% matte)

 

Its not that bad, I mean unless your outside you really don't see that much reflection on the screen. Sure its glossy but it only interferes with usage if the sun is directly behind you or something along those lines. My laptop is in my room but not next to any windows, I can honestly say with normal usage I can not see any reflections on the screen.

 

Excellent. That's how I've come to see it. As long as it supports TRIM for the most part is what I want. All this hoo ha about super duper write speeds is crazy. For me I don't do a lot of writes, especially with an SSD as primarily a boot drive, and in any case is usually much faster than any HDD.

Although the reduced p/e cycles concerns me for the future though. I don't want to have to worry about my drive being unable to write while just using it on a daily basis. As a boot drive, this is little concern at the moment, but as sizes get larger and prices drop, then it's definitely more of a concern because a user would be much more likely to use ONLY an SSD and thus have tons of writes on a dailly basis on average... anyhow I'm babbling I digress.

 

looks like mythlogic got these new options on the P151HM and P150HM

Intel Core i3-2310M 2.10GHz, 1333MHz DDR3, 3MB Cache, Socket G1 Mobile Processor -$140.30
Intel Core i5-2520M 2.50GHz, 1333MHz DDR3, 3MB Cache, Socket G1 Mobile Processor -$138.00
Intel Core i5-2540M 2.60GHz, 1333MHz DDR3, 3MB Cache, Socket G1 Mobile Processor -$89.70
Intel Core i7-2620M 2.70GHz, 1333MHz DDR3, 4MB Cache, Socket G1 Mobile Processor -$14.95

What do you guys think about these new dual cores for gaming vs the quad cores? The 2620M is like 2.7 to 3.7 turbo I believe.

 

If you play newer games, I'd keep the quad core.

 

Check them out here http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html. Looks like the 2630qm smokes any of the dual cores, even the fastest 2620. It's a step down in price, but not enough for me personally to justify the performance drop.

 

Yep, that was all I checked. This Kingston SSD supports Trim, is relatively spacious for a boot and game drive, and it cost very little. I keep all my backups and file storage on a 12TB home server, so that doesn't matter too much to me, but the 500gb secondary drive should hold everything I need on on the go. Quicker than HDD SSD to boot and save battery + big HDD for storage. That's all I need.

 

Wow never noticed that CPU benchmark ranking. The 2720qm will be a good choice =]

My desktop Q9550 aint so bad after all -.-

 

There are several reasons to desire a faster SSD. If you do, you do; if you don't you don't. Either way a modern 120-128GB SSD will run you in the $250.00-$300.00 ballpark.

Now, I definitely prefer 34nm NAND as of right now, which is why I'm drawing the line at the latest generation of Marvell controllers that are using it. The new SF based SSD's will use 25nm NAND. Long story short, the pipes are halfway clogged with managing the higher density NAND, and the drive takes a performance hit over 34nm NAND. Also, they have the potential to have a much shorter life cycle.

These are my concerns.

 

I'm surprised at the performance increase in those benches from 2630QM to 2720QM. A lot more than I'd expect from such a relatively small MHZ boost.

 

aint that small actually, +200 Mhz in base clock and up to 400 Mhz more in Turbo Boost! really kicks , especially in low-threaded apps id say

 

If you guys haven't seen it, notebookcheck has a couple of these sheets. They're pretty handy to have when shopping around. It's what made me lean towards the config I got.

CPU Comparison
GPU Comparison
GPU Gaming Performance

 

Hi!

Can u help me where can i buy this laptop? Thx.

 

There are many online resellers. Xoticpc, Mythlogic, Malibal, LPC-Digital, Powernotebooks, Reflexnotebooks, and Sager plus many more.

 

Thx. I hope there is a way to send it to Europe.

 

Europe is no problem at all...
__

 

in that case id try either deviltech, hawkforce or schenker notebooks! theyre all located in germany. and ive already read about several other resellers in scandinavia as well.... just search the net, im sure ull find one in ur area

 

Anybody know where an owners manual or technical manual can be found for the P150HM? I want to check some details about the SODIMM slots. From what I understand DDR3-1600 only works in 2 slots and I just want to confirm that via the manual or whatever the resellers are using to get that info. They seem to be only selling the 2x2GB set for some reason as well.

I picked up the set of 2x4GB DDR3-1600 Kingston HyperX off Newegg and after waiting for it to come into stock, and I'm hoping it'll work.

EDIT: I also just picked up a C300 256GB SSD for a great price and MYTHLOGIC is letting me have it shipped to them to install for me. With that change, I've upgraded to an i7-2820QM and Windows 7 Ultimate. I think I'm done now, lol.

 

are we absolutely positive that there actually IS a limitation for DDR3-1600? maybe the actual limiting factor is just the thin availability of 4GB modules so far? checking the clevo website, theres no mention of any size limitation:
CLEVO - Products

Furthermore, the i7 memory controller (2720qm and better) is just stated to support DDR3-1600, nothing beyond that:
Intel® Core? i7-2720QM Processor (6M Cache, 2.20 GHz)with SPEC Code(s)SR00W, SR014

any more info on that from the retailers here?

 

Hello! I'm a longtime lurker here of the forums, one who happens to be looking at the Sager NP8150 hungrily. Anyways...I was checking out the Seagate Momentus XT and was hoping to place it in the Sager for a cost efficient fast boot (it seems like most people here are using it for a secondary/primary drive), but recently news of problems with the drive have been popping up everywhere:

Momentus XT hybrid drive causing headaches, Seagate working to fix -- Engadget

Here's a link to the troubleshoot on the Seagate forums: SD24 Didn?t Fix Your Issues? - Seagate Community Forums

Anyone here experiencing freezes/BSOD, clicking, spinup/spindown problems with the XT despite upgrading the firmware? Should we avoid it for the time being? If so I may spring for the SSDs once the price drops from the incoming SSDs with new Sandforce controllers. I'm hoping that Seagate gets their act together and fixes the problem before the Sagers start shipping again, but most people's replies indicate some major underlying problem.

A recent Tom's Hardware article covers the speed loss: The OCZ Vertex 2 Conspiracy: Lost Space, Lost Speed? : Is There A Problem Here, Sir?

 

Ive owned the xt for around six months till i sold my computer.
Id have to say i loved the drive. Most issues are associated with a mac or lenovo iirc.
Had no issues with my 8690 but you do have to temper expectations. It will help your boot up only if you boot up and shut down a lot. If you use many types of prigrams chances are it wont cache these.
The only issue with the xt is that quality seems to vary a lot from drive to drive as you have some noisy drives and some quiet ones; and ones that outright failed during the first few batches.
Sd24 made the drive quieter but degraded performance a bit. I was happier with sd23. But you can change the disks apm with hdtune pro so for me its not really an issue.
Hope that helped.

 

Let us know how the DDR3-1600's work, please. I can't think of a good reason to limit the capacity of RAM either.
Although for the HyperX memory you'll need XMP unlocked to take the advantage which is not available for the HM65 chipset in the P150HM.

 

Guys, I find that processor upgrades for Mythlogic is much much cheaper than compared to many other resellers, why is this so?

Upgrading a 2630 to a 2720 only cost tens of bucks compared to the rest who charges around 150 bucks for Sager models.

Care to explain?

 

Mythlogic get their own parts and assembles them, which allows them do price as they please.

Sager resellers, like xotic, PNB, LPC-Digital, Malibal, etc... get their computers directly from Sager, so they are bound by Sager's pricing guidelines. The resellers are just a different, and much nicer, alternative to dealing with Sager directly.

 

Doesn't the M17x R3 use the same chipset? I was reading that they used XMP on this memory in their initial impressions thread. Nevertheless, does this mean that I have to have XMP profile enabled to get the memory to run at advertised speed/timing? I'm not all that up to par on memory as I just used an XMP profile on my last desktop build.

 

We are not bound by anyone's pricing, that is not true.

 

If you spec it out similarly to another reseller, you will find the price ends up being around the same. At least with the configurations I was looking at. They're just adding cost and removing cost in strategic places as far as I can tell.

Interesting. Hutsady from Xotic PC said that "anyone who sells Sager models must sell that at the prices Sager sets." So according to what you said above, would that mean I would be able to haggle at Malibal?

 

I apologize about that. I was just listing names and recalled that your prices were that of other resellers and I just assumed.

I guess assuming really does make an a$$ out of someone hehe

That's what I assumed. I guess that technically Malibal isn't Sager models. I remember seeing that Malibal gets their computer built from Sager, but that could've been wrong.

 

We sell our own brand MALIBAL, so we don't have to match Sager pricing like Sager resellers have to. Also, we have a low price guarantee - so if you find a laptop for less, let us know.

@hispeed4567 It's no big deal.

 

Hutsady is right all Sager Resellers have Sager minimum pricing guidelines. Non Sager Resellers that purchase from Sager also have a minimum advertised pricing.

We also pricematch for exact configurations.

 

they also added the 510 intel ssd's (gen3 sata 3).. thanks Josh!

 

Well, just consider also the fact that Mythlogic's base price is much higher than the other resellers.

 

Also consider that they are a builder (vs a reseller). You're paying a bit more since they assemble the whole thing from bottom up, in house.. Thats why they have options for configurations that you won't find with the resellers

 

Mythlogic's upgrade pricing is typically better though.

For example it's only $25 more to upgrade to the 2720QM and they include IC diamond in every build, and their base price includes Windows 7.