thinking of picking the hp zd7000 over the sager 8970...

well what kind of graphics does the HP have? that might answer your question.

From my understanding of the forum's rules on price discussion I am not allowed to sling dollar amounts your way in order to compare the products. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Having said that, I will tell you that for a -marginally- larger investment my system has double the RAM, double the VRAM (better GPU besides), the fastest mass-market notebook drive available, and RAIDability.
Though I haven't seen the HP screen, I cannot say if its quality is better or worse than the screen on the Sager (though I'll assume with a fancy name like "brightview" it is newer.)
Comes down to what you feel is 'necessary' for your needs. Good luck with your decision process!

The pricing discussion problem really only comes with pricefighting resellers leading to flaming, not separate products from different companies.

I had a ZD7k. I returned it and bought a 8790. I had the 1440x900 screen for the ZD7k. I like the ZD7k keyboard a little better. It has seperate keys for home, pg up, pg down, and end. The graphics card on the ZD7k is nowhere near the one in the 8790. The ZD7k has not spdif out. Also, my ZD7k broke within a week - it was a vid card issue.

The real reason to not buy from HP is technical support. HP tech support is horrible. I had a small driver issue when I first got my ZD7k. I talked to tech support and their solution was to return the ZD and buy a new one (2 weeks or more delay from China). It turned out to be a simple fix, but HP could not help. Their tech support is AWFUL! Sager's tech support is good. I had a problem with my DVD drive on my 8790. Sager sent a new one to me right away and I did the swap and sent back the old drive. That equaled zero downtime. I was on the phone for about 5 minutes too. HP tech callas lasted forever and were of no help.

I would buy a Sager just for the technical support. Also, I think the 8790 looks better. All of the added options are good too.

-S

The ONLY reason I would choose the ZD7000 is the keyboard. Other than that, the Sager distroys it, and PCT distroys HP's so called tech support anyday.

Don't forget, currently ZD7000 is also cheaper (with 10% discount and $100 rebate). I configured 3.2EE for around $2,700.00 with WSXGA, 80 hdd 5400 rpm, Nvidia 128mb, and 4x DVD+R/RW. Plus if you ever want to return it for whatever reason (mine due to dead pixels), you are not charged for shipping it back to them. They prepared Fedex to come and pick up the laptop.

Now i am torn between the two. On the other hand, Sager NP8790 is sleeker, built sturdier, and the camera is a plus. Don't forget the 258mb ATI M11.

Again, The only reason "I" would choose the ZD7000 over the Sager is the keyboard.

Personally I would not buy a system that has half the vram of what the market maxes at, 256vram is going to be outdated soon enough, I sure as heck dont want to start off with half of that. The heatpipe used in the Sagers is much better than what HP uses, mostly due to Sagers being a little bigger and not worried about the barbie doll effect that HP is. And $ is of no concern to me either, as if I cant afford what I want, I dont need to be in it.

Believe you me, 128mb and 258mb vram doesn't make all that much different. On paper you would think that it does, but look at all these benchmarks( one being the 5960 V.S 8790 series).

in addition to the tech support..also keep in mind that you will probably not get any kind of support from who you are buying it from...which is costco...
and you will get a very limited if any, warrantee on your purchase......

someone posted some benchmarks with the 8790 clocked at the same speed as the 5690..and i think the 8790 won in all of the comparisons....

8790 was purposely underclocked because they did not know what it could handle...once they realized the 9700 was cable of much more, sager started shipping the 5690, more or less over clocked...which is why it's getting better marks....5690 stock settings are actually overclocked, compared to what the 8790 started out as...

hell, i think those numbers are great too..i dont mean to put down the 5690, i just want to make sure the 8790 doesnt get bad press either....a year from now, that 256 mb video might really be worthwhile..i'm hoping getting the 8790 now instead of the 5690 will be a good longterm investment....

The 8790 will smoke the 5690 in graphics performance today, with effects AA and AF turned up a notch. I think the posted benchmarks are at default - no AA, 4XAF. Not saying the 5690 is not a good machine, it is, but 256 vid is better.

Well, seeing that I build a new pc every other month, I know just how big of a differance 128vram vs. 256vram is....

Vram is one thing, you should also look at the chip: m11 only has 4 pipelines. You can install heck, even 512vram, it would not make a whole lot difference when there's bottleneck somewhere else.

yeah i never realized it but the 8790 did beat the 5690 in most (all?) of the benchmarks when you overclocked the 8790 to the 5690's stock clock speed.

I build a new pc every other month....

Im constantly upgrading, or building from scratch, and simply farting around with all kinds of stuff. Put it this way, on average I spend atleast 1500 a month on computer hardware, some months its 3 times that. Im into refrigerant cooled, water cooled, EXTREME overclocking, etc... I have ran/used just about every peice of hardware out there, and have tried just about every config known to man. I go to work, come home, and work on pc's, I HAVE NO LIFE, my wife plays games on her pc's and I just like to tweak and build mine. I utilize Love Controls to run most of my cooling needs, so if anyone here is into high end control systems, you know exactly what Im playing with. Im not saying I know everything, but I do know that when done correctly 128vram can not par up with 256vram, and the 4x vs 8x is not even a comparision at this present time, as 8x is not even fully utilized currently. So if anyone is saying that a 128vram will keep up with a 256vram only because the 256vram is running on a 4x, they are obviously not educated on the matter.

Im also not saying that everyone needs that kind of vram, or anything else for that matter, if all you do is simple task, then buy a simple machine, but if you push the envelope in the least, you should atleast buy whats cutting edge at the time.

Live within your means.... to sum it up.