*** Official X8100 (Sager 8120) Owners Thread ***

I think this debate is getting a little skewed somewhat.

I have dealt with Kobalt for a couple of years and have had a number of systems from them. Prior to this I had 2 alienware systems (1 from pre dell and post dell)

Alienware mucked me about left right and center with my M17 i had constant problems with it, i had a hard drive where it failed after 3 weeks and dell wanted me to pay them £70 to send me a new one before they shipped a replacement for them to refund it when the old one was returned! or ship it back to ireland and they will swap it out. Knowing dellienware of old i didnt want to be without my machine for many weeks so i skipped it and bullied them into doing it without charging me. Bloody cheek!

Then was the entire 4 series graphics card saga. They took £300 from me for these cards and kept bumping the eta back and back and back. It took a letter to thier CEO at his HOME address to get my money back.

So i moved to Clevo via Kobalt for no other reason at the start then they would provide a pro forma invoice so i could charge it to work. Novatech who would have been my first choice wouldnt. From then on i have worked with Kobalt.

I have Met both Andrew and Neil a number of times and aside from the formers coffee making skills i have never had any reason to complain AT them. I have complained TO them as they are a reseller for Clevo but the problems are very rarely a matter that Kobalt can do anything about.

For example i had a problem with SLI on my 280's on my M980 (Commanche SLI) Neil, Alex and I worked for months trying pretty much everything we could think of. In the end the only people who could fix it was Clevo I know 100% for a fact that Neil was probably more annoyed with the situation then I was! For someone who has £2000 worth of laptop they are having to battle with that must mean he was pretty annoyed!

Suffice to say that i sold my M980 and was confident enough with Andrew and Neils Team that I clubbed and brought an X8100 with 285's, my first chassis was working incorrectly (again a fault from Clevo) we isolated the fault and fixed it, Simple as that.

During my time with Kobalt I have had 2 HDDs pop and 2 Optical drives pop on me, on each of these times I have simply called them they have shipped a replacement out to me no quibble and asked that i post the old one back so they can RMA it. No fuss No problem.

I have brought alot of computer equipment from alot of companies for over 20 years. I have never dealt with a company who take everything so personally (you know what im talking about) and try thier hardest to make sure thier customers are happy then these guys. I have spoken to alot of Kobalt customers over the months and they generally although possibly frustrated by similar issues always have good things to say about the guys and thier effort there.

Anyone who questions the integrity or goodwill of Kobalt have never dealt with them.

 

@Jonkhss - generally fine. Little slow at times but what do you expect from Heaven, its very much like vantage in that it's...well...a feature test designed to stress the machine with high end features.
I did notice an occasional model dissapearance in the background, but reading around I think that's simply a driver bug/bug with heaven as I've seen it mentioned elsewhere and it wouldn't affect gameplay if you were playing a game based on the engine at all.
Actually the best looking thing in the test is some of the day/night cycles and the assorted lighting with it IMO.

************
@Kobalt/Machines not quite right debate

Hi guys, like Pman, I'm going to join the bandwagon and ask you step back from Kobalt.

As Neil said, I was in the office for almost two hours on Thursday discussing the machine, the state it was in and various things around it, as well as speaking to them almost daily on the status for a couple of weeks before hand; because I want a machine that works out the box as much as the next guy, but I appreciate these are custom builds and specialist models, produced in much fewer numbers and have much fewer users than more common systems (which still sometimes suffer similar issues, there have been mass production Toshibas with stutter for example), and because they're generally much closer to the cutting edge, there are higher chance of issues appearing, especially in the initial period after release.

I was well prepared for the machine to be somewhere around the region it was, because I had seen the reports from people who had recieved from other vendors several weeks earlier, and I spoke quite frankly with Neil and Andrew about the machine whilst I was in the office for them; that the machine was likely still in need of further BIOS updates to get it to the level we wanted, but that progress was obviously being made.

I strongly believe this is the case, with no other business I've dealt with have I had this level of personal attention to detail, and I would still happily buy another machine from them, because I know I can get this level of care out of them.
Even if they haven't been able to despatch a system out as fast as Dell/Fujitsu-Seimens because they don't bulk stack thier machines and half prebuild, the customer service has gone far beyond these companies which should seemingly be able to afford far more in terms of customer service.
Unlike Dell, Kobalt have never gone back on a promise to me, and given previous experience with them (I saw some of the Beta drivers and bits and pieces they were sent by Clevo/Nvidia when we were dealing with the M980)
I have full confidence they will try and get everything resolved in the most timely manner they can force out of Clevo.

The jitter is not a massive issue and is tolerable in the medium term, it's not something you'd always notice unless you're the actual user sitting there using the machine or being relatively critical, because it can be fairly hard to notice if you're not staring directly at the machine and focusing on something that shouldnt really be moving, and it doesn't happen ALL the time the machine is in full screen 3d, it pops in and out, sometimes you'll get a bout, othertimes it'll appear for a second then dissapear for another minute. The rolling bars are only in some titles and thus if you dont test titles which invoke this, you'd never see it.

Kobalt delayed the machine coming out, as some of you know, BECAUSE they were testing BIOS, software setups, and they genuinely were tinkering around with the machine for a week or so on the test bench to see what the situation was before they shipped. The issue of the jittering (noticed in 3dmark) was discussed with them in the office whilst I was there, and they were already going to keep an ear out for updates for me, because we quite plainly discussed given the circumstances around the improvements between the .11 and oc bios, that there was likely still progress needing to be made. There were companies selling/ordering these systems in the US and Germany long before Kobalt, so surely more concern should be laid at the attitude and proactiveness towards issues these resellers have sold, rather than Kobalt's.

Actually I almost applaud Andrew for putting up with my daily emails for about 2 weeks before I collected, and unlike when I dealt with other companies, he answered every single one. Given how busy he is that again is attention to detail in terms of customer care.

I am quite sure that until the issues have been resolved to my satisfaction, Kobalt will be doing thier best for me at every level, and likely more than some of the other system resellers who have shipped these systems in a worse state (with the .11 rather than oc bios), earlier than them. My financial record with Kobalt and the machine in my hands attests to just how much they have tried to make sure I have a machine I can depend upon and appreciate.

I've said this a few times, but Kobalt have given me the most personal customer service I have had, and despite the limitations they face as a smaller SI, they have done everything they can to surpass my expectations and keep me happy. Far more than I can say for Dell or for Fujitsu-Siemens, who, as Aikimox suggests, have far more resources available. What does that say about Kobalt as a company and thier attitude towards thier customers? It isn't Kobalt who I had on the verge of a small claims court case...

I feel confident my issues will be fixed in a reasonable time period, or Kobalt will sort me out one way or another. I would prefer their name isn't smeared on NBR over an issue that isn't thier fault and they are trying to get corrected.

 

I'm not blaming Kobalt for the problem and it doesn't really apply to me since I have no interest in purchasing an X8100. However, I have been generally frustrated by ODM's feeling it's okay to ship half baked products to consumers for >$2000+ and then patching it several months to a year later (see M15x throttling/M17x touchpad/Asus G73 GSOD).

I always thought Clevo was above all that but apparently they are not. They're ultimately responsible for the QC of their products and unlike Dell, they design these machines from the ground up so there should be no room for error.

Considering that Crossfire 5870m has been around now for months with Dell actively giving AMD feedback, I think we all expected Clevo to have a fully working solution out of the box. The M17x-R2 works without error now in Crossfire but it wasn't fun getting to this point, we had to fight for driver + vbios updates. It's just a shame that now Clevo has joined this sad state of affairs. Asus was in a similar situation, GSOD central with their 5870s amongst a bunch of other issues and they only recently fixed that.

Maybe AMD just sucks? I've always felt their mobile solutions were half assed. Anyway, no offense to Kobalt and apologies if it seems I was attacking you guys directly, you seem like the type of vendor a customer would want to deal with. But on the same token, for every good Clevo reseller there's several shady ones which makes Aikimox's point valid about being weary of mom and pop shops vs a big company like Dell.

 

I just tried the HDMI output on a full hd TV and I was surprised because the crossfire is working perfectly !

My first thought was : ok the crossfire is enabled but only 1 GPU work with the HDMI output. So i did some tests in CMR dirt 2, and I could see visually (not only on the fps counter) the framerate difference with CF enabled or disabled.

My other games run without any graphic issues, the 2 GPU are perfectly synchronised with the HDMI output.

Someone can explain this ?

I hope this is not a bad motherboard design and that it will be fixed with the future bios

 

Thank you for confirming my previous suspicions, I hadn't had a chance to check that out yet as I've been working all weekend. It seems if an external display works fine, it does indeed suggest that it is related to the way the configuration communicates with the screen, which I had suspected because of the symptoms. In laptops, obviously the screen is controlled by the motherboard/BIOS.
I wonder if Clevo only tested the configuration with the older H04 screen?

 

What is the PSU rated at for the X8100?

 

It's a 220w FSP block. I can't see power being the issue though, as I remember the older screen had slightly higher power usage.

 

Get a kill a watt and see how much power your system pulls. Can you run a test for me?

Test:
-----
1. Turn on furmark, wprime 1.55 (1024MB test + 8 threads) and GPU-Z
2. Run all 3 at the same time and monitor your GPU Load% in GPU-Z


Let me know if the GPU Load % fluctuates between 0%-60-80%.

 

Hey everyone,

I just received my X8100
So far it's running fantastic!
There i only one minor issue i have: it seems that when i am in 2d mode only one of my 2 HD5870's downclocks to 150/200 the second one stays at 700/1000.
Is there any way to make the second one downclock automatically?

 

What software are you using to check the clocks? Could be an incorrect reading. Do you notice a difference in temps when this happens?

 

Wprime in the background running 1024*8, with furmark as the main programme. Overlay flickered a lot, but for the 10-20 seconds I ran furmark, both cards stayed in the 70-80% usage region.

Couldn't see any drops to 0% except before and after the test

 

I use AMD GPU Clock Tool and while ingame MSI Afterburner to read the clocks and temps.
I do see that the downclocked GPU runs about 10°C cooler than the non-downclocked GPU @ Idle.
After 1 hour of Crysis both GPU's max around 70 to 75°C.

 

Hmm, I had the same problem with Nvidia cards and the reason was the driver screwing the PowerMizer. Maybe you should try to reinstall the drivers.

 

Thanks, I actually left out one detail for the test: For furmark the stability test needed to be run with xtreme burn, post fx and displacement mapping selected. If you have time, try re-running it with those setting + wprime and monitor your GPU-Z. If you let it run for a few minutes you will see whether or not load% drops to 0% or near. IF it does drop to 0% at any time, you have power issues. If not, then you're fine.

 

OK, I fixed my own problem but I thought I'd share. The GameMate Media Player that shows the HDMI in content has a profile in the NVIDIA control panel under Manage 3d settings, Program settings. Ask for the gamemate.exe program setting or browse and add gamemate if not already there, then go to Vertical Sync and force OFF! Whalla, no further freezing of hanging up.

 

Any 5870 "sli" owners yet ?

 

The crossfire setup that's been being discussed and I did some stock benches for is the 5870m dual card setup. SLI is NVIDIAs name for dual cards whereas crossfire is AMDs.

 

I am one!
- 10char

 

How much 3dmark 2006 in 1280x1024 does it score with stock freq ?

 

Hey X8100 owners, are you guys overall happy with your purchase? Even with the stuttering issues? My finger is on the trigger for getting a very nice speced version of this and I would like to know if there are any issues I have to watch out for. Might purchase tommorow.

 

Over 18k as per my picture earlier in the thread.

 

I'm seriously considering an x8100 from Xotic. Currently, I have a G73 which just doesn't have enough gaming oomph or bells and whistles, and I'm selling my desktop (once again) to move to an all mobile platform. I've scoured through this thread, but still have a couple questions:

1. What is the general status of graphics drivers for dual 5870ms? I had a w90vp-x2 which I loved, but official graphics drivers were non-existant and flashing the cards to special configs to get new drivers was not something I enjoyed doing.
2. Apart from synthetic benches which I couldn't care less about, would the stock i7 740 be a bottleneck if playing games at highest settings 1920x1080? Also, I've been out of the mobile game for a while, but can you OC Core i7 mobiles yet?
3. For those of you who have been round the mobile gaming block (I've had an XPS, P7811-fx, w90vp, G73), how would you rate this machine in terms of price/performance, ease-of-use, and upgrade-ability?
4. I'm not one to wait on new tech, especially for laptops, but are the newer fermi (460s, 470s) worth holding off for?

Thanks

 

@ Bytales:
My test result shows 14576 3DMarks. However if you look a the graph it ends up close to 18000 3DMarks.
But the score can be easily increased by overclocking, I've managed to OC both GPU's to 800/1100 without any issues.
Here is a screencap of the results:







@ Lickwidpain:
I am very happy with my purchase! I have not experienced any stuttering at all so far.
I think the X8100 is a fabulous machine, i totally recommend it to anyone

 

Just for reference, judging by Clevo's site, they've updated thier branded X8100 5870 drivers to what could be considered 10.9 betas (7.63 revision, originals were 7.50, mobility 10.8s were 7.62).

AMD/ATI's 10.9 Mobility should be out any day, which should be newer, but its a solid option for those who want to stick with the manufacturer released drivers. Its also the same driver revision the Dell guys got given IIRC, although whether they'll be identical across the board is another matter.

Edit: Just so you can see it works, does exist, and powerplay works
PS Sat in furmark for a couple of minutes earlier and it didn't break 75 either, so these cards definately run cooler *loaded* than the old GTX285ms...mine used to hit mid 80s after a few mins of furmark, at the point I took the picture they were still cooling down, a minute or two later the main card was sitting at 42 degrees with the second idling at 40. Nice and cool for a laptop like this

 

Hope that helps.


@Likwidpain

Yes Im happy, I'll be even happier once all the issues are resolved, but yes, its an extremely beasty and capable machine.

My only slight niggle with the overall design of machine is that whilst the screen is extremely colourful and pretty bright (both CCFL and LED), it's not up to the standards of the desktop monitors I'm used, but this has been a common complaint with me across all the laptops I've owned, and not a fault with the X8100 per se, I prefer the better colour depth, viewing angles and black depths of a decent MVA/PVA/IPS desktop screen, especially as my standard use screen for everything else is a Panasonic 1080p Plasma which obvious has extremely good colour rendition and perfect viewing angles, but laptops always tend to use TN based panels simply because they're cheaper and consume less power in general.
I also prefer a standard style keyboard rather than Mac style chiclet, flat keys, but thats real personal preference stuff, and its not something I've been unable to adjust to. Oh a sloping edge at the front would be nice but come on, now Im really picking things apart.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I think I'm gonna order this beast. I'll keep you posted. Oh, one last question. How is the HDMI in been working out. I'm looking to record footage of my Blaze Blue skills on the PS3.

 

Oh, by the way for new users who haven't seen this tip before; providing you have Clevo's Realtek drivers installed rather than MS drivers; right click on the speaker icon and chose playback devices.

Wait until it loads (seems to sometimes take 10 secs or so) and the click into speakers. Click the Dolby tab.

Go to 'Natural Bass'. Adjust this to approximately 4-5.

If you compare a song before and after, you should notice that thanks to the subwoofer now being used for mid frequency, the sound should be fuller and less 'toppy'.

Only downside is it makes the occasional pops when the system seems to turn the speakers back on after a period of silence a little harsher, but worth it for the overall sound improvement.

@Likwidpain - sorry couldn't tell you, I use a plasma for the rest of my kit so find little reason to have to use the HDMI in.

 

You can stop the poping by turning off the power management of the Realtek driver itself. If you click on the battery icon button on the Realtek HD Audio Control Panel you can change this.

Off topic:
The only thing i don't understand about the dual 5780's is why the ATI driver gives them the FirePro 3D Graphics badge in the top right corner rather than Radeon 3D Graphics badge...

 

Thanks for the input. I'm especially pleased to hear drivers can be updated in line with ATI releases.

I'm not sure your point that the x8100 is more expensive (at least in US) than the m17x is accurate. I can get the x8100 about $400 cheaper than a similiarly configured m17x. ...Or did I read you wrong?

Agreed on the superiority of IPS and PVA over TNs. I've come to expect laptops will always have TNs due to lower power and faster response.

I'm almost convinced... for those who have ordered one from Xotic, what's the lead time?

 

I can only comment on US prices last time I looked; it used to be a case of a prebuilt from Sager was a little more expensive apparently than an AW, but that might have changed in the meantime.
But yes happily it will take ATI's mobility driver releases. I've already had on it Clevo's 8.750, 8.763, ATI's 8.762 (10.8 mobility) and 8.771's (10.9 desktop drivers with a modded inf, but I removed this as I'd prefer to wait on the real 10.9 mobilities...). Getting drivers for it isn't looking to be a major issue

As I dont live in the US my up-to-dateness on pricing might be a little...flexible.

 

Well folks, I did it! I ordered the beast from XoticPC! Thanks to Justin W. who put up with my noob questions!

Here are my specs...

- 3 Year Labor* 1 Year Parts Warranty Lifetime -24/7 DOMESTIC Based- Toll Free Telephone Tech Support (Labor Warranty through Xotic PC)
Includes FREE Shipping Both Ways for Warranty Repairs
- No Software Bundle
- No Office Software
- ~Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Installed (64&32-Bit CD Included) w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's
- No Notebook Cooler
- Logitech Anywhere MX 8-Button 2.4GHz Wireless Laser Mouse with Mini Receiver
- Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- No Dock/Hub/Adapter
- None Standard*
- Smart Li-ion Battery (12 Cell)
- Basic Black Business Case - Included
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- No TV Tuner
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- No Network Accessory
- Intel® Ultimate-N 6300 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module
- Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader (MS/MS Pro/MS Duo/MS Pro Duo/SD/Mini-SD/MMC/RS)
- No Floppy Drive
- No Back Up Software
- No Back Up Hard Drive
- HDD Raid Settings - OFF
- ~ 500GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache)
- ~ 500GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache)-
- ~ 80GB Intel X25-M Solid State Drive (SSD2 Serial-ATA II)
- ~ 6X Blue-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
- Standard Finish
- ~ 8,192MB DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS)
- No Video Adapter
- CrossFire Dual 1024MB ATi HD 5870's (2048MB Total) w/GDDR5 DX11 Video Cards (User Upgradeable)
- - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- Intel® Core™ i7-940XM Extreme, 2.13-3.33GHz, (45nm, 8MB L3 cache)
- Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- 18.4" FHD WUXGA Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Dual Lamp Screen (1920x1080)
- Student Promotions! Ask us about our Cash Discounts or FREE Promotional Items & Accessory Bundles for Students - Up to 50% OFF! - Student Verification Required for Promotion


What do you think?

 

Nice spec, should perform very nicely.

 

Sorry, realised although I'd done this I hadn't responded.

The GPU load stayed up until wprime finished and dropped furmark to windowed mode

Based on that, the laptop doesnt have major power issues.

 

Has anyone tried the latest Catalyst 10.9 drivers which include a few Crossfire fixes?

 

Yes I've tried the hacked ones (I've now tried Clevo's 8.75, 8.753. ATIs 10.8 and hacked 10.9s) They haven't been released officially though for mobile cards though, the next official mobile drivers are going to be 10.10.

I don't believe the issues are down to drivers if Im honest.

 

Alright guys, lets get it started! This run was done on air, no additional cooling (A/C, panels removed etc) was done. All stock cooling:

 

Very nice scores
Won't be taking you on though as I'm more interesting in getting the machine to a happy state before considering any tinkering

Im presuming you're using afterburner for your 5870s? Mine run distinctly cool (75 degrees max furmark) so might give them a shot with it in the future once everything else is sorted.

Bet the system runs like lightning at those clocks, is it 24/7 stable? (I'm a 24/7 clocker, not a benchmark clocker)

 

PS. If any Sager 5870m crossfire x8100 owner wanders in here, could you PM me letting me know if you've noticed any issues in the games I do, and your BIOS/KBC and VBIOS revision numbers.

Sager are only just releasing the X8100 and tend to be quite exacting, and known for holding machines back to deal with issues until Clevo have given them newer BIOS etc (they did with the M980NU as well). It'd be interesting to see if they appear with a different revision of BIOS than us in Europe (due to suppliers, and power vs Clevo etc) etc.

 

Lets hope the quiet thread is a sign of satisfied customers.

 

Does anyone know what kind of PLL the X8100 has?
I'va already managed to OC the GPU's to 800/1100 and now i want to see how far i can push this beast on the CPU

 

Rivatuner and yeah it's 24/7 stable though I wouldn't want to run it at those clocks since they push the system far too hard. My ideal 24/7 would be around 75 TDP + 800/1100 GPU.

 

Yeah, I mean thats a fairly reasonable goal. I discovered the X8100s 5870s run on slightly lower voltage than the standalone counterpart (both 2d and 3d) so they might not respond AS well to clocking, but 800/1100 would be a decent goal on the GPUs...or 825/1100 (as thats almost desktop 5770 clocks and we have the shaders). They DO run pretty cool in this system though so the potential is there. (75 degrees max in furmark without the GPU cooling mods you mentioned in your for sale on your R2)

Until I've got the last niggles out the system though I dont particularly want to play around with stuff like that though, because I've got no 100% baseline yet haha

 

Are these 5870 overclokable to those frequencies just by poppin the number with no additional manipulation whatsoever ?

If so, why aren't the cards running at these frequencies in the first place ?

How much does the power consumption rise with these frequencies ?

If you set up these frequencies and you "idle" in windows doing net and non GPU related stuff, how are these frequencies impact the power consumption and the lifespans onf the gpus ?

Assuming similar speced configs, except for the CPU, what would you choose ? The x8100 or the x7200 ?
Is going the route of desktop cpu really worth the trouble ?
Or one would choose the x7200 because it's a newer chasis ?

 

One would choose the X7200 BECAUSE of the desktop CPU, and honestly the X7200 is looking more enticing by the day. I might change my order if they can get the whole HDMI in thing sorted out.

What do you guys think? Is sacrificing an inch of screen realestate worth going hex core?

 

If you think you'll use the cores, and you're prepared to spend the cash to get SLI cards in the machine (because a single 480m is slower than the crossfire 5870ms, sometimes substantially, as Anandtech's review confirmed)

@Bytales - the clock speeds are set lower for power consumption and heat purposes, and because they didnt particularly need to be that much faster considering what they were aiming to do. May also be some binning involved. How well cards will overclock depends on several factors; voltage/power, cooling, and the chip itself being foremost amongst them. Not all chips are equal, considering these are in laptops AMD may well have decided to play it safe on speeds. Less chance of them going wrong, or overheating.

Not a clue on the actual power increase, it's unlikely to be substantial...but then that depends on your view of substantial. Either way power usage will increase, as will heat, and these machines have a 220W PSU, so the boundaries aren't endless.

 

Has anyone here received a X8100-NP8120 with the 480M card yet?

 

I'm gonna sit tight tight for the dual 470m if I cancel the X8100.
I had no idea shopping for the perfect laptop could be so tedious

 

Doubt many people would bother. If they wanted a single 480m they could go for the other chassis which IIRC are cheaper.

 

Have any of you Crossfire x8100 5870 owners had a chance to compare benches with a desktop equivalent set up (e.g., 2.8-3.0ghz i7 with dual 5770s). I'm just trying to do a comparison with a desktop PC...

 

Nope, although the Anandtech review pits it vs a machine with a 5850 desktop and it comes out pretty decently. As all cores when loaded on an I7 are at 2.4Ghz with a 940XM that also gives some perspective.