Sager 4880 released - Page 4

no uxga ??

Any idea if this uses a Synaptics touchpad?

Highly probable. Every Sager model I've looked at so far has used Synaptics.

Bottom line on the this model...sort of a middle of the road upgrade over the 3790 at the moment. It has the 915 chipset - but apparently only 333 memory support. Strange. Display is nothing special, but it has the same x700 as most of the top of the line mobile on the go type DTRs coming out. Don't take that wrong it is not the DTR to end all DTRs. BUT most users and GAMERS will find the Centrino perfect for them. Hard core users - video editors, 3d Rendering types will most likely want a P4 unless they want to be free of all wires for a couple hours at a time.

Personally I ordered a 9300. Would have preferred to get a Sager (9300 is FUGLY and it is a Dell (another 4 letter word)). I really needed a 17" UXGA. I wanted something cooler and with more battery life then the 9860. I really did want a centrino and I almost settled but I held out with my current POS for a little longer. Besides 9300 has a 6800Go option...step up over x700 for sure. It also uses DDR2 - still see that as sort of waste of money since there are no speed increases with it yet. Matter of fact I have seen just the opposite over 3200 DDR. But it is the new "standard". As for weight I think there is around a pound difference... I don't want to knock Sagers, I like them and will probably buy more, but this my personal laptop and I got what would make me most productive (and play the latest games of course).

4880 won't be around long in it's current form is my bet. If I had to guess - it will get updates within a month and a half and it will either be replaced or get some SERIOUS updates buy mid-summer. Serious updates might come sooner. Sagers that stick around always seem to evolve quite a bit after thier first intro. They get thier first batch out in the market and see what works, what needs to be fixed and what people want....

Come on Sager

Thanks GalaxiePete for the insight.
It really is where it is all at.

Come on Sager. Don't let the competition be out there way before you.

i wonder if you could stick a x800 in this thing

get a 6800 or x800 in that thing and i will be the first on the list to buy one....

Add 533mhz memory and I might be second in line.

Yeah, me too. The only thing I don't like about it though is the audio port placements. That's one of the huge things swinging me towards looking at a Dell XPS2. But it's a Dell...

well for me in looking at this or the Asus Z71V with has the 6600go card. Now if only sager could get that card and a better screen, then I will get sager.

The question has been asked before in this thread:

Why does it use DDR333?

As it have been said before, this seems like a bottleneck with a 533FSB processor.

Nevermind, i seem to have answered my own question.

According to http://www20.tomshardware.com/mobile...119/index.html

When using a dedicated graphics, the difference between Dual-Channel 533 and Single-Channel is almost non-existent, because the extra bandwith is apperantly only used, when using integrated graphics.

And although DDR2 uses less power then the DDR ram, the memorycontrollor for the DDR2 (Dual-Channel) uses more, so i guess they cancel each other out.

Im looking forward to a review, which will clarify if the 256 MB X700 RAM is an overkill or this is laptop is an excellent choice for a student / gaming laptop.

Where did you get that from that article? With the 4880 it isn't just a matter of single channel vs. dual channel....it's 533mhz vs 333mhz and there seems to be a huge speed difference there.

There is a huge difference, almost 4 times as much memory bandwith, but with a dedicated graphic card the computer simply doesnt use it (according to the article).

A couple of points from the article:

"As the benchmark results tables reveal, the speed advantage afforded by the new platform's dual-channel DDR2-533 memory is a maximum of 5% compared to single-channel mode. This outcome is not really surprising, because if you look at the peak bandwidths of the new CPU's memory and FSB, you can see that the single-channel configuration is already sufficient to provide enough data to the CPU. The doubling of memory bandwidth thus has only a marginal effect on performance."

"The new faster and more frugal DDR2 memory technology turns out to be more of a paper tiger than a real brute when used with the new 533 MHz FSB Pentium M and the 915PM chipset with dedicated graphics chip and memory. The dual-channel memory interface of the 915PM chipset doesn't have much impact either. The performance-limiting factor remains for the time being the too-small maximum FSB bandwidth of Intel's current mobile CPU generation."

I agree that DDR2 looks great on paper, but if the difference is 2-3% on average then i dont think its worth the added cost.

And DDR333 is not a typo, or something, here is the Clevo specs:

http://www.clevo.com.tw/products/M400A.asp

Again, what the article seems to say is that there isn't much advantage to using DDR2 memory at 533mhz vs using DDR memory at 533mhz. There still is however a huge difference between 533mhz memory and 333mhz memory.

Then look at the Benchmarks, sometimes the new platform gets beaten by the old one, and i think the difference in the graphics benchmarks are due to the X600.

All im saying is that DDR2533 isnt gonna be thing that is going to make a huge difference in the performance. And i doubt Clevo made the decision to put DDR333 in this computer without some serious research.

But the only thing that will tell if it makes a difference in this laptop is a review of it, especially in the games.

Does anyone know how the X700 is clocked in this thing?

Does anyone know how the 4880 would stand with the Asus z71v in gaming? Would the 4880's 256mb video card make a huge difference?

I went back and looked at all those benchmarks and with the single exception of a video encoding benchmark, the 533mhz DDR2 had a very clear and significant advantage in every single benchmark. Even in the synthetic and applications benchmarks, the 533mhz machine was clearly faster than the 333mhz. Go back and look at those benchmarks...it seems pretty obvious that the 533mhz DDR2 makes a very noticable difference. If those specs aren't a misprint then Clevo clearly didn't do their homework on this one.

All the synthetic benchmarks in the world are not going to make a difference. Of course is has more memory bandwith using 533 than 333. I have never said otherwise. But im simply saying that it doesnt matter, if it have 1 GB/s, 10 GB/s or 100 GB/s if it cant use it.

I dont think it can use that much memory bandwith, you do, we can agree to disagree

If this thing can run HL2, Doom3 or WOW on decent settings, run my compilers, then i couldnt care less if it were using DDR133. Im trying to look at the whole package here, which seems decent.

That entire review on TomsHardware also disagrees.