*** Official Sager NP8170/Clevo P170HM Owners Lounge ***

maybe if it's delayed long enough I can get one with the 6970m.

 

After going back and forth I think I am going to hold out for the 6970m. 485 just isn't in the budget (ok my wifes budget for me) but I would hate to have an older gpu like the 460 in a brand new lappy.

 

Well that's the perfect excuse for me to wait on the 6970M. If it's really less than $100 more than the GTX 460M, it's all I need.

Maybe I'll spend the 485M money on a better CPU.

 

When is the 6970M supposed to come out?

 

I don't even know if it's coming to this machine, but I'll wait a few weeks to see what comes of it.

 

Me too! As if we have a choice

 

Still no reviews of this thing yet? I'm surfing on a netbook and scanning through pages is a real pain. (read: I'm being lazy)

 

Nobody has the NP8170 yet. Still on backorder unless some review site got an early production model.

 

We would like to clear some questions for our customers that Sager have been receiving these past few days, in regards to the availability of AMD Mobility Radeon 6970 card on Sager models.

1ST question: which Sager Models will be offered with the AMD Mobility Radeon 6970?

Answer: NP7280, NP8150, NP8170.

2nd question: when will the card be released

Answer: at this time the card is still being debugged and tuned between Clevo R&D and AMD, there are no clear ETA when the card will exit this stage. Therefore no availability of ETA when the card can be mass produced can be given at this time, as of now we don’t see the card being ready in the next two to three weeks officially from Clevo.

3rd question: how much will the card cost

Answer: again at this time the card is still in the early stages of being debugged and tuned, many components of the card module has not been finalized so any reference prices released would be null. Pricing would only make sense when the product gets very close to be finalized and soon ready for mass production.

 

Thanks a lot for the clarification

Then either Eurocom will sell cards that are not 'debugged' properly or...they live in a planet where the day is not 24 hours, therefore, the beginning of February is not 10 days from now but 2/3 weeks as you say

 

Thank you for at least confirming that the units will be getting the card. That helps the decision for some.

 

Ok, money sent, and should be home just in time for this bad boy to be fired up, so i can check out in full HD, just how bad my gaming really is!!!

 

Sager update:

Please do not misunderstand the 2 to 3 weeks’ time frame, it is just to clarify so that customers do not have high hopes expecting that the AMD 6970 will be released soon. This is particularly true with the Feb 1st date being passed around. At this time even if all the stars lined up perfectly, and the card does get out of debugging / tuning in 2 to 3 weeks, which is iffy with the Chinese new year vacation coming.

Please understand that there are logistics lead times from R&D closing the project to getting the components in stock to manufacturing and final verification testing.

Therefore the 2 to 3 weeks reference is only to the debugging/tuning stage, and does not referring to when the product will actually be brought to market and begin shipping.

 

Whoever said March a week or two ago was 100% correct

 

does it have EFI BIOS?

 

Is there a big difference between 8gb and 6gb of ram with the 2630qm processor? I will be using the laptop mainly for gaming btw. Also how easy will it be to add more ram if I need to in the future, easy enough to do it myself?

 

Personally I would choose the 8GB RAM. Although 6GB should be adequate, it can't hurt to have more. Then you can just add another 8GB later and max out your RAM. Apparently they're figuring out where the RAM will be installed in the machine if you get two sticks. Two are on the bottom under the removeable access panel, but the other two are on the top of the motherboard under the keyboard, a little harder to access.

 

So I take it the NP8170 does not have the ability to run without using the discrete graphics card and use the IGP on the Intel processor for extended battery life? Trying to decide between this and waiting to see what Alienware will do and I seem to remember they have featured this ability in their most recent designs.

 

So far no laptops with high end GPU's feature switchable graphics. Seems they opt for the mid range GPU's. It was reported here the reason was because Optimus can cause compatability issues with games. I believe that. But that doesn't mean they can't somehow make a manual switching GPU. I think a majority of users would be fine even if it were a BIOS switch that required a reboot. I'd much prefer that to be honest. No need to mess with hybrid drivers.

 

Thanks for the quick response, it's about as I expected. It's going to be hard to resist regardless, especially watching the review of the NP8150 right now.

 

I was a little irritated at first at lack of switchable graphics. But I don't think I'll be lugging this beast around much. I have my M11x for those kinds of things. But maybe someone will work around it or Sager / Clevo will work out something with just a BIOS, firmware, and/or software update.

 

Some one said they still got over 2 hours on full brightness while playing games on battery with the 15''. With a dimmer screen, no games being played and any other battery saving methods, you will still get something much more decent than previous gen.

 

I'm assuming these machines clock down on battery too like most other Sagers. But still should manage many games fine even downclocked. But yeah, if I can get over 2 hours just web surfing, etc. I'll be happy.

 

I am going to bump this question up, as I would like to know this as well.

 

Yes they come with AMI Aptio bios's which is a form of EFI BIOS, but it doesn't have any kind of flashy interface like the ASUS's etc do. But they do support all EFI features, like 2.2TB+ size booting, etc.

 

Based on the review by XoticPC:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...levo-p150hm-owners-lounge-64.html#post7079119

No it does not have EFI.

 

I have to wait till I get home to watch the review.

Which is it though.

Actually UEFI is the most current iteration. To bad its not supported. UEFI is supposed to speed up the boot process and that's the main hope I have for it.

 

AMI Aptio is a UEFI implementation, it has the ability to boot EFI bootloaders, 2.2TB+ HD's, the speedups that go along with a UEFI implementation, the only thing it doesn't have is a nice looking skin on it, which clevo could implement if they wanted to. If you want to see all of the possible features with Aptio, please check this link: AMI | American Megatrends Inc. : Aptio® So all the Clevo Sandybridge laptops have Aptio on them, as per the spec from intel that all 6 series chipsets require a UEFI implementation.

 

So you're saying it DOES have UEFI?

 

Yes, sir, it DOES have UEFI

Just for completeness sake, so did the last generation of Clevo's as the Phoenix SecureCore BIOS they had was also a UEFI implementation, with just a few other things turned off. So they have been UEFI for a while. I blame ASUS for munging all this "If it doesn't have a fancy interface its not UEFI" stuff as really the big 3 AMI, AWARD/Phoenix, Intel have had UEFI based BIOS's for a while now, just no one made a big deal of it

 

So my existing 8760 has UEFI? I know with the SSD it boots in about 16 seconds, which is plenty fast.

Sounds like the new models won't really be to much faster at boot up.

This is good to know.

This is another opportunity for RESELLERS to update the system spec’s.

 

Yes the 8760 has a UEFI BIOS, its 1.0 spec unlike 2.0 spec, but it does implement some of the same features.

 

I just just put in an order for a Clevo P170HM from Malibal!

Here are the specs I went with:
i7-2920XM
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 485M 2GB
6X Blu-ray Burner
Intel® 6300 Ultimate-N 802.11A/B/G/N
No Hard Drive
No RAM

I plan to use two Intel 80 GB X25M Mainstream SATA II Gen 2 in RAID0 that I already own. I hope that installing this won't be difficult.

For RAM I'm considering buying 8GB Kingston DDR3 1600 from Newegg Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3K2/8GX for OC purposes but I'd love some feedback regarding any benefit I'd get from going this route vs 1300.

 

Please note this which I posted in the other owner thread:

 

Hi, all.

I am getting a laptop and 24 hours ago, I was totally clueless about laptops. After a few hours of walk and talk in the local PC stores, I get more information on specs and was recommended Asus G73JW A1 a lot.

Back home, I started reading on G73JW and really like it a lot. Apart from possible keyboard problems, it seems to be the dream laptop for me. I am just moments from getting one until I was introduced to Clevo P170HM a couple of hours ago.

Now, I am reading up on P170HM and getting confused. I asked about and got many different views about how P170HM compares to G73JW. So I decided to ask here, the P170HM board. Kindly bear with my newbie-ish questions, I really am still clueless, 24 hours later.

Why did you get a P170HM?

What aspects is a P170HM better than G73JW?

What are the cons of a P170HM?

I am continuing my research on P170HM but being a PC nerd, a lot of stuff need further reading and it is getting a little tedious.

The laptop will be for gaming and graphic design so the filesizes are pretty huge (20mb above).

Thank you. Any tips, comments or advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

From my own research, I found that the ASUS G73JW has a kind of iffy keyboard- so typing is supposed to be challenging. In addition, the only real selling point of that model is its cooling system; however, the P170HM (if past sager models are any indication) will have cooling that is more than enough to keep your system running at optimal speeds. I have the NP8690 btw.

For me, I got the P170HM cause it sports the newest processor (not sure if the ASUS G73JW sports sandybridge) and with the specs I choose, its a great gaming laptop. Also I think the G73 looks stupid, but thats just me

 

My current laptop is an old Asus Z96JS. I've used and abused it every day for about 5 1/2 years now and I have to say I haven't had a single problem with it yet. However, no offense to current Asus owners but I think the G73 looks ugly as #$%@. As of 1/10/11 I pre-ordered the P170HM. I like the no frills plain look of the Clevo models and if it is possible I would love to get one without the sager logo but I don't think that is a possibility.

All of the older model reviews have indicated a rock solid build quality and from recent reviews these new models are even better. Laptops never really allowed the option for consumer upgrades other than a few minor things like the HD or some RAM. Clevo is at the forefront of changing this trend. This model has amazing customization options that will allow you to change CPU, RAM, HD, Wireless Adapters, and even the GPU.

So far the only con I found with this model is it is not offered with the AMD 6970m yet. However, this is my personal opinion and Sager indicated this option will be available soon.

There are tons of threads in the Sager/Clevo forum that I found to be very helpful not just for these machines but for the laptop market in general.

 

IMHO 2920XM is waste of money. Obviously up to you, but for $895 you can spend that money a lot other places. But if you are going to overclock, that is about the only RAM available at DDR3 1600. At least you'll be guaranteed an overclock to that speed, where 1333MHz isn't guaranteed at all.

 

The overclock is by multiplier, not FSB so the type of ram doesn't effect overclocking. That of course is assuming the PLL is the same as the 8760/8690. (This PLL is locked and non adjustable in SetFSB)

 

It's not looking good for overclocking at all. Unclewebb has commented that overclocking SB's multipliers might only be possible thru the BIOS, and if the P150hm BIOS's is any indication that feature is locked out...possibly by the HM67 chipset.

 

Do we know (anybody) if Burebista's CPU a K version or not? Unclewebb latter asks this "Any feedback about this when using a new 2500K or 2600K CPU or on a new Sandy Bridge mobile CPU would be appreciated."

So it makes me wonder.

 

The Intel® i7-2920XM is overclockable using the Intel XTU on all Sager models that have that processor.

 

Hi guys.

Is there any way to get this computer with a matte screen ? (fingers crossed...)

 

No, only the Sager NP8130 is available with a matte screen.

 

Can you boot any SATA port? I would like to replace the ODD with a SSD for my OS and boot off of that. This way I can have my other 2 drives in RAID for media. I do a lot of video editing and this would be the best setup.

 

Thanks Paladin44.

I actually went @ powernotebooks and tried a sweet config on a NP8170-S1, it's a killer machine for the money, but glossy is a big no no for me.

NP8130 seems fine but i'd prefer at least 17 inches.

Guess i'm stuck with the 3D version of the G73SW with it's not upgradeable GPU...

 

That will work, as long as you don't want a SATA III SSD. In these models SATA III is supported in the two hard drive bays, but it is not supported in the ODD bay. So you can boot from your SSD in the ODD bay, but it will only support SATA II speed.

 

Are you 100% sure about this? I talked to someone at Xoticpc and he informed me that the bios would only allow booting from the first hard drive. Would love to have a concrete answer on this. I'm using a OCZ Vertex II so SATA II will be just fine.

 

Does Intel XTU let you change the TDP?

 

Check out photodon.com or greenonionssupply.com. I have one of the green onions matte protector for my M11x. Despite being a pain in the rear to install, it looks awesome. Instant matte screen. I plan on getting one for my NP8170. As much as I like matte screens they are a rarity these days.