Sager NP5793

Intro

Although the Sager NP5791 put up some great performance numbers, people may be surprised at how much MORE power the NP-5793 offers. By going to our benchmark database and selecting Sager from the Make drop down and 3dMark06 from the benchmark drop down, you can see the improvement in performance between the models. This is a taste of things to come.

The Sager NP-5793 (like the 5791) should not be considered a ‘Desktop Replacement”. The large 17 inch screen may scare people, but the 5793 is definitely manageable during transportation while still boasting a powerful Core 2 Duo Extreme CPU and the latest and most powerful graphic card Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTX.

Specs:
Sager 5793 Intel® Centrino® Duo "Santa Rosa" Gaming Notebook Silver trim
17" WUXGA LCD (Glossy 1920x1200)
Intel® Core™ Duo Extreme X9000 2.8 GHz Processor 6MB L2Cache - 800MHz FSB
4GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz 2 x 2048MB (64-Bit Vista Required)
1GB Intel® Turbo Memory (Requires Windows Vista)
Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTX w/512MB
200GB | 7200 RPM | SATA-300 HDD
8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL MULTI DRIVE W/ SOFTWARE
4-in-1 Memory Card Reader (MS/MSPRO/SD/MMC)
Integrated 56K v.90 Internal Modem
Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN / 802.11N
10/100/1000 Mbps Fast Ethernet
Microsoft Windows VISTA ULTIMATE 32/64-Bit Edition
2.0M Digital Video Camera
Smart Li-Ion Battery Pack for 5793
Free Notebook Carrying Case
No Office Software
Built-In Bluetooth Module
Sager 1 Year Warranty, Lifetime Tech Support
(No Accidental Protection Policy)

SubTotal: $3,376.00
Shipping: $46.88
Ships in about: 15 days
Order Total: 3,422.88

What’s in the Box:



Software & OS

This is the first Notebook I have reviewed that contains Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit Edition. The 5793 also ships with Security Manager, Cyberlink power DVD player and Nero home Essentials SE for burning CDs/DVDs.


Design

Reviewing Sagers never get old. They all have a very professional and “all business” feel as you pull it from the box and set it on the table. The design is pretty much the exact same as the Sager NP5791 model I reviewed back in November of 2007 only this time I opted to get the Silver trim instead of the Orange trim. I liked the Orange trim a bit more. It is amazing what a little bit of color will add to a notebook’s appearance.



Screen:

Not all the components are the same from the previous Sager NP5791 model, obviously. This version has the WUXGA LCD (Glossy 1920x1200) screen which makes the screen a bit clearer and a bit more pleasing to the eye than the WSXGA+ (1680x1050) screen. This model shipped with no dead pixels and very little if any screen leakage. You can clearly see a big difference in resolution from the 5791, especially when put next to other models with a 1920x1200 resolution. In these shots the 5791 is on the left and the Alienware m5750 is on the right.



And of course, like most laptops today and all Sagers, the 5791 has eight levels of brightness settings that can be adjusted using the function key (FN) + the F8 key to lower the brightness and F9 key to raise it.



Keyboard

Playing games, web surfing, word processing and the most grueling CPU intensive processes will keep the keyboard a warm, comfortable temperature. The 5793 ships with a full size keyboard, which includes a numeric keyboard and 13 function keys. The function keys are Pressing Fn + the ~ key will play or pause DVDs, F1 will toggle the touchpad, F2 will turn the LCD Blacklight off, F3 will mute the sound on the notebook, F4 will initiate sleep mode, F5 and F6 will decrease and increase the sound volume respectably, F7 toggles the display through each output, F8 and F9 decrease and increase the LCD brightness respectively, F10 turns on/off the built in webcam, F11 toggles Wifi on/off F12 toggles the bluetooth module, Scr Lk toggles the scroll lock and Num Lk toggles NumLock on/off.

Again, like the past Sager's I've reviewed, the F10 and F12 do not show the orange shade markings the rest of the function keys do to tell users that these keys actually serve as alternate functions. The only way to find out if the F10 and F12 have alternate functions is reading the manual or testing the keys yourself.

The comfort level on the keyboard is normal but like all Sagers, the build is very strong. There is no flex noticeable. The notebook is not too high off the ground for users wrists to be at a strange angle and the keyboard is not set back too far for users forearms to rest on the edge of the notebook. I found this to be a complaint on the Sager NP9262, because of the height of he notebook.

Touchpad

Even after experiencing the new Alienware touchpad design of the m15x, the Sager still holds the title for the best touchpad design. I love the texture of the touchpad and scroll pad. As you can imagine, just like the touchpad on the 5791, the 5793 has a great texture providing excellent tactile feedback, giving users a wonderful sense of direction and acceleration while using it. To the left of the touchpad is the scrollpad, which is extremely useful for scrolling through documents or websites. Sometimes while using the touchpad user’s fingers may venture into the scrollpad area. To prevent this, the designer could have split up the touchpad from the scrollpad, but once users get familiar with the touchpad this will not be a problem.



Features:

Security Module

If you are the type of person to worry about unauthorized people accessing the data on your notebook, the 5793 has a great security feature that will protect your data from people you do not want accessing it. The security feature is the fingerprint reader module. This allows users to scan their fingerprints into the computer so they are the only ones with access. This feature is perfect for college students who do not want to trust their roommates in the same room with their precious notebook, or employees of a corporation who would like to hide sensitive data from other employees. The reasons to have this feature are infinite, but it is an extremely solid security solution. You can also use the fingerprint reader to access your e-mail or other application based passwords.

Setting up your fingerprint access is extremely easy. Swipe your finger once on the reader, and a prompt will walk you through the short instruction process. The accuracy and the technology in fingerprint reading is so advanced these days, that your actual fingerprint will show up on the screen as you set up your own access.



Multimedia Keys –

There are three Application Hot Keys located at the top of the keyboard. Three hot keys on notebooks are pretty standard these days and usually are set to generic functionalities as these are. The first Application Hot Key launches your default e-mail client. The second Hot Key launches the default internet browser and the third hot key can be set to different windows applications such as Microsoft Word or Virus Software.



LEDS -

There is one set of seven LEDs on the 5791 and is located at the front of the notebook to the right of the audio ports. The first icon is the generic Power icon with what looks like a wall plug when AC power is in use. When Orange, this represents the AC/DC Adapter is being used. When Green, the Computer is On and when Blinking Green, the computer is in sleep mode. The second icon looks like a battery; when Orange, the battery is charging, Green when the battery is fully charged and when blinking orange, the battery has reached a critically lower power state. The third icon looks like a can, and is always green. This LED represents hard drive activity. The fourth LED resembles a wifi signal; when green this represents wireless LAN is powered on. When Orange, this represents bluetooth mode is powered on. The last three LEDs are all green and represent the Number Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock toggle.




Wifi

Wifi is stock in the 5793. Wifi has become almost a standard feature on notebooks in today’s market for notebooks and have been integrated nicely to the point where even computer novices can turn a notebook on, search for a wireless connection and logon. There were no problems using the 5793’s wireless card. IN fact, using Vista makes logging on to wireless networks a lot easier. There is a 'connect' icon in the start menu that will bring up all available wireless networks detected. I have two wireless networks in my house, so it asks me which one I want to logon to. It also sets it up so you can name them and have the notebook remember tthe settings the next time it detects it again. Very useful.

Speakers

There are two speakers located on the left and right side of the 5791 notebook. Both are pointed outward instead of inward so sound is not really directed towards the users. It can be difficult at times hearing sound out of the speakers if you are using the notebook in a public place. The quality of the speakers is no better or worse than your average notebook speakers.

Input and Output Ports

This time around, not all of the USB ports are on one side like they were on the 9260, but Sager still needs to spread the wealth around a bit more. There are four USB port total, two on back and two on the right and none on the left. Most users would prefer a single USB port on each side for convenience.



Front



Webcam Pictures

WoW! The webcam has the best quality and motion I've seen in a notebook yet. I'm not too sure if it has anything to do with the 2.0 MP and Vista combination but the shots are definitely an improvement from previous model Sagers including the 5791. The only problem was capturing these shots. For some reason when you open the VideoView Software, I receive an "Cannot Open Registration Key" Error. This doesn't allow you to use any of the taskbar menus.




The front of the notebook has four audio ports which consist of a Line-In audio jack, S/PDIF Out jack, Microphone In and Headphone Out jack. Like the 9260 there are also two latches, which hold the screen down. The left latch seemed a bit stuck and when closing the lid it was visible that it was not locking in place. The lid can still close with only one lock. To the right of the audio jacks are the 7 LEDs and directly under the LDEs is an Infrared and Consumer Infrared Transceiver.

Right Side: The right side of the laptop contains two USB 2.0 ports, RJ-11 phone pack, RJ-45 LAN jack, an optional Cable (CATV) Antenna Jack, Express card slot (34/54), an optical drive and 7-in-1 card reader. Every laptop every made should have a 7-in-1 card reader which consists of supporting formats: MMC (Multimedia Card) / SD (secure Digital) / MS (Memory Stick) / MS Pro (Memory Stick Pro) / MS Duo (requires PC adaptor) / Mini SD (requires PC adaptor) / RS MMC (requires PC adaptor).



Left Side: (As Shown; Orange Trim Model) The left side of the notebook contains the security lock slot, Optical CD/DVD drive, emergency eject hole and the second speaker.



Rear: The back of the notebook has the widely popular DVI video output port, DC Power in connection, an S-video in jack, fan intake/output, a serial port and two USB 2.0 ports.



Bottom: The bottom of the laptop is where five fan vents are, battery release, optical device release latch, component bay cover, infrared and consumer infrared transceiver and a tiny sub woofer. If you compare the bottom of this unit with the 5791, you can see Sager upgraded their cooling system by adding another fan. This is mainly due to the extreme CPU’s heat. But the extra fan comes at a disadvantage which buyers may or may not care about. Noise; the system is much nosier than the 5791, but the extra noise comes with the extra cooling which does the job. So buyers are sacrificing noise level for higher performance.



Size and Weight

The size and weight of the notebook are very tolerable, especially when you are talking about a notebook with a 17 inch screen. 8 pounds is about the average weight for a notebook this size and lying in bed or on the couch with it in your lap is not the least bit uncomfortable.

Rated: 17" WSXGA 15.6" (w) x 11.5" (d) x 1.8" (h) and 8.35 lbs
Actual: Weight: 8.10 lbs

Heat and Noise

Like the 5791, the 5793’s fans are also considerably loud even when attending to simple tasks like web surfing or word processing. When hard core gaming becomes involved, expect the noise level to increase. However, if you happen to be a gamer, you should take into account that you are probably going to be using headphones or external speakers, so the noise may be something that does not bother you at all. But it is indeed present.

Battery Life

The two following battery tests were taken on the assigned brightness level. The test runs until the battery reaches 10%, which is the stock setting in which the notebook will notify a user with a low battery warning.

1/8 [Vista Power Saver Managment]– 139 minutes (web surfing, trailer watching, youtube)
8/8 [Vista Balanced Power Managment]– 103 minutes (web surfing, trailer watching, youtube)

The Battery life is very manageable on both brightness settings with their respective power managements. I'm willing to bet even on 8/8 and Power Saver Mode, you can get close to the 139 minute mark. Anything over two hours with this video card and process is very good and these numbers out perform the 5791 by a very larger margin.


Synthetic/Gaming Benchmarks

Here is a list of tested synthetic and gaming benchmarks. All results are with stock hardware settings.


The 3Dmark Benchmarks are the most common benchmarks used to determine if the notebook is configured to play the latest games. More specifically, it is used to determine the direct X performance of the graphics cards. The higher the score, the more suited your notebook is to playing games. The number behind the 3dMark Benchmark (3dmark2001, 3dmark03 etc) is related to the year the test relates to technology, which is why the 2001 scores are always significantly higher than the 06 scores. You can compare the scores of this notebook to other notebooks by going here.


Super Pi calculates Pi to a certain amount of digits you prescribe, and the faster it does it, the better your notebook performs. For all my tests using Super Pi I calculate to 2 million digits of accuracy.


Cinabench runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. This test is important to graphic designers and 3D editors. The higher the bench, the better the performance.



wPrime is an "application designed to use a highly multithreaded approach to calculating the square-roots of large amounts of numbers (up to 32 billion at this stage!)".





This next benchmark I ran is called HD Tune which measures raw performance of transfer rates, access times, CPU usage, burst rate and the overall health of your hard drive setup. A couple of obvious notes; the burst rate should always be higher than the maximum transfer rate of your score. In this case it is. The second number to look at is the Access Time. The bigger the number, the better the performance. This is an interesting test because this is the first notebook I have reviewed that has a SATAII 300 hard drive inside. The past hard drives I’ve tested have either been SATA 150 or SSD.


As you can see by the test, the SATAII 3.0 GB/sec hard drive shows practically no performance increase over the SATA 1.5 GB/sec hard drive in the Alienware m15x. The max write speed is a bit higher in the SATAII but the average write time is a little lower while the MAX write speed is considerably higher in regular SATA In fact, the hard drive in the 5793 runs over 10 degrees Celsius warmer than the m15x hard drive which could possibly make it more prone to failure. Here is a list of comparable tests by model.


Gaming Benchmarks

Every benchmark/screenshot in this section is run on the highest settings available, with AA off, unless otherwise noted. Every resolution is run at 1920x1200p (unless noted) on Vista with stock NVIDIA Graphics Driver 7.15.11.6744.

A lot of these benchmarks may not seem very impressive, but you must take into consideration that these settings are the highest possible, with AA on the highest setting (when tested), unless noted. All of these games play beautifully on the most recent graphically intensive games.



By going to our benchmark database and selecting Sager from the Make drop down and Counterstrike Source Stress Test Benchmark, you can clearly see the improvement in frames per second over the previous model and CPU. The 5791 scored a 128 FPS stress test at 1680x1050 resolution where the 5793 totally blows that score away at 1920x1200 resolution! Counterstrike source plays as crisp as it gets!



Pros:
Performance – Scores very high benchmark scores; Runs games beautifully
Screen – No dead pixels, no light leakage, crisp, bright
Touchpad – best textured touch pad on the market
Weight – medium weight for a 17 inch notebook
Battery Life – over two hours with the right power configuration
Free Stuff – Ships with free laptop carrying case

Cons:
Noise – Fans come on, come off, come on, come off while surfing the web
Keyboard - markings left off the function keys..(again)


Conclusion:

For the price, the Sager NP5793 is a steal! With options that include the Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor and currently the best Graphics card on the market, Nvidia 8800 GTX, the 5793 outperforms its predecessors (NP5792 and NP5791) by a large margin. Even though the NP5791 has a great graphics card (7950GTX), by comparing the gaming benchmarks with the NP5793, you can clearly see the difference in performance. The 5793 takes the cake.


If you have any questions about anything written here you can e-mail me: Dukefrukem[at]notebookforums.com