Sager NP9860 Review

This is my 3rd Sager/Clevo laptop, I primarily game with them and pack these beasties to work for when I'm bored. I ordered it from PCTporque this time instead of Sager direct, as you can actually save a few $$ doing so turns out. I also rather like the fact that the machines are sold by people who seem to be interested in some mild overclocking and gaming ~8). Refreshing from the sterile, official and dry sales people from other sellers. Having said that, lets get to the 9860. WOW! This laptop is more like a squished desktop, one that has been flattened a bit down to this heavy Monolith. (reminds me of the Mnolith from 2010 hehe)
They expanded he keyboard to include a number pad. I never used one, so no matter to me that there is one added now, only con I can see against having one is that I accidentally strike the {ins} key when I use the cursor keys. Big deal? Nah, I'll get used to the leyout eventually, so this is only a very minor annoyance. There is a lot of extra space on the key surface now, why not slap some keys there.
Screen is very nice, only two things different from any of the other 11 or so laptops I have owned, The wide-screen format and the glossy surface. I like the wide-screen so far, the only games I am currently playing is really EQ2 and occasionally Steam stuff. So far they all support the native res and look really nice doing it. I cannot see any future issues, I'm willing to bet that there will be a lot of support for wide-screen format in upcomming games. I am mixed on the glossy sheen on the screen, on one hand it's easy to clean, but reflects a lot of images from the background. This is requiring me to turn the lights out (Oh darn!). This could be a problem in lit areas, but so far it is only minor annoyance for me personally. I am curious why anyone would delibrately look for a glossy screen?
Upgradability is the big one that I was looking for. I was stoked when the Dell's came out with some sort of video upgradability, but it never really caught on enough for me. You could upgrade, but it was tough getting the parts you needed, and then you pretty much hosed your warranty. I bought two Dells, an I8000 and an I8100, then decided that the upgrade path was not all that good and eventually sold them off. The 9860 is awesome in this area, the base chipset is new, so will be around and kicking for a year or more, the video card manufacturers finally agreed to some sort of standard, and are making their latest cards for the laptops, and theyare based on the PCI Express standard, so it looks like we are gtg for a while with these small plug in cards. Memory has 4 slots! We can slap in a fast 2 gig of mem and turn off those damn swap files! I love doing this, bout time we can in the laptops. Processor is as usual, socketed for your upgrade pleasure. One thing I noticed, was that in running CPUZ for an ID check, I see the memory is running 3/4 against the FSB of 200, for a 266 speed. This means the board can most likely support the newer 1066fsb processors. I don't know if the cooling will cut it as it is, but I'll bet it will no sweat, as my 3.8ghz processor only gets warm, not hot. This only leaves the power brick support, will it cut the mustard on the power demands? We shall see...
I'm not gonna bother posting pictures, it's been done to death. Here are my specs and benchies though if anyone is curious.

9860 (ordered Wed 16th, shipped Fri 18th, delivered Sat 19th)

3.8ghz
DVD burner
DVD player
1gig mem
60gig 7200rpm
ATI X800 (overclocks like everyone elses, VERY good) (495/510)

My 3dmarks :
3dmark01 22195
3dmark03 uhhh forgot, but it was like 11k+ somewhere around Vrods
3dmark05 4886

used all the drivers 4.12 - 5.2,benches are pretty much the same, so I will leave the 5.1 on till a new mobility comes out I suppose.
BTW if anyone wants to use the ATI drivers right off the official site, just manually choose the video card as an X800pro or any X800 for that matter, and manually install the driver. Then manually install the control panel. Works just fine. You may lose the powerplay, but for me this is fine, I don't even use ACPI in the OS, I manually chose standard PC after the XP Pro install. So I have zero battery saving features. For me this is the only way I use laptops, just for simple full powered desktop replacement.

Any questions? hehe

I have no dead pixels on my machine. I just installed another pair of 512DDR2's from PQI (Newegg, sorry PCT, but just could not beat the price). Gmelfi, you cannot turn off the ACPI in the bios without someone hacking a bios for us, but you can do it from winXP in the device manager. Beware though, you will lose ALL ACPI functions (No lid options, no power saving stuff nadda, nill and nothing). I just had to do a re-install to turn on Hyperthreading (had it off for some testing, not really sure I like it on actually, seems sluggish with it on)...

To rid your machine of ACPI stuff, just go to the device manager, select from the menu up top View --> devices by connection --> ACPI Multi-processor PC --> right-click --> update driver --> chose manually --> select either standarPC (no hyperthreading), or standard multi-processor PC.. You will need to reboot and you will see it find all the new devices and maybe a reboot or two later voila, no ACPI stuff.

dang, this laptop really does not suck! I found out looking for a I915 tweaker, that most 915 boards use a clockgen compatible clockgenerator. You guys know what this means? See if you can see anything unusual about this picture...






I tested many fsb options and the board only supports a max increase of up to 215.7fsb. Most likely due to no PCIXpress lock, and no mem options. I lock hard with just 1 more mhz fsb. At this speed though, I can game and benchmark all day long without any noticable heat or fan operation changes. Runs like a dream. Have fun, and I probably should insert a disclaimer here.. :Blah blah can possibly cause damage blah blah could void warranty blah blah... I never have speed issues with the 3.8ghz, so I wont use the speed increase, but it is nice to know that the board and heatsink can support a future processor upgrade. ~8)

You wont notice any improvement in 3dmark05, it is all video card in that benchie. Re-run 05' a bunch, and you will see it rise and fall a hand full of points all the time, it's just wackiness in the os, or pc or benchmark margine of error. Try 3Dmark01 instead, it's a great processor bench.