I 7 Laptop

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Found this on my ISP's home page this morning.

Intels version of Core i7 and today it did. The benchmarks are in and they say it's fast. Really freaking fast.

Just like the Core i7 chip for desktops, the mobile version (formerly called Clarksfield) is meant for handling heavy computing tasks — gaming, video editing, and other programs that require faster processing speed.

What makes the chips so fast and oh so capable? The quad-core family of processors use Intel's Turbo Boost Technology, which can accelerate the processor clock speed up to 75 percent when you need more power. Basically the processor will change the clock speed depending on your power consumption, the processor temperature and the number of cores being used. That is just a primer and we promise to have a more in depth Giz Explains soon.

But what does it all mean in terms of improvement? LAPTOP Magazine found out that the fastest 2.0 GHz Intel Core i7 920QM CPU (there are two other versions with lower clock speeds) "shredded through every benchmark record" in the books. When tested against other dual core and quad core laptops the Core i7 model tore it up every time. It wrecked the synthetic benchmarks, but also cut down video transcoding times and kicked ass on frame rates while playing Far Cry 2.

Yachtsman1

[Barry Beckham]

But will you be able to afford it Eric

[Lin Evans]

Hi Barry,

The processor itself is actually "cheaper" than earlier models of quad core, etc., Intel, but how much improvement it will offer heavily animated PTE shows, if at all, is still to be determined.

Dell jumped the gun on the Intel non-disclosure agreement and began promoting it on their web site, but what really gets expensive is the addition of a decent video card, the faster processor and RAM. Starting with Dell's Alienware $1499 base price, it gets expensive quickly. The top of the line nVidia m280 with one gigabyte video ram (which has about the same video performance as an nVidia 8800 GT on a desktop). The 15" version of the Alienware M15x only allows the nVidia GeForce GTX 260m as a top of line video card. It has an acceptable 810 rating which is less powerful than a GeForce desktop 8800 GT, but still plenty to run probably any PTE graphic combo smoothly. This adds $250 to the base price. Add the Intel i7 920xm 2GHz (3.06 in turbo mode) processor and that a whopping $950 addition. Add the 1920x180 WLED screen to get 1080p and that adds $150. The system comes with Vista Home Edition 64 bit. If you want to upgrade it can cost as much as an additional $150. The system comes with medium performance 3 gig RAM, but with Vista you really need fast RAM and more of it. Most would agree that 8 meg of RAM is ideal. Add the additional fast RAM to get 8 Gig of Dual Channel DDR3 1333 Mhz and that adds another $800. Upgrade the 250 Gig HD to 500 Gigabytes and that adds $75. Want a BluRay player to play those h.264 mp4's? Then add another $150. Want a BluRay Burner instead of just a reader? Then add another $250.

Now we are at the best part of $4000 instead of the $1499 for the base system.

The bottom line is that if you want the bells and whistles it's not going to be cheap - and you still have a system which will perform about like a relatively inexpensive desktop with a really good high-end video card such as an nVidia GeForce GTX 285 at 1/3 the price.

Portable high-end computing is way expensive, no matter how you look at it.

Best regards,

Lin

But will you be able to afford it Eric

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Lin

Food for thought, some of us don't have room for a desk top, which is why I use lap tops. A laptop is also the only way our camera club can use PTE (portability). So it would appear if the resource requirements increase much further for PTE, we will be sticking with what we have. As you know I was considering a cube system earlier this year, so it would be both portable & up-gradeable. Looks like if your prices are correct a cube would still be the way to go when W7 is proven.

Barry

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Yachtsman1

[Lin Evans]

Hi Eric,

Yes, though you can probably get decent results with just the better video card with a portable, it's actually not PTE which is driving the need for increased performance, but rather the operating system.

If you can find an older model laptop which can use XP rather than Vista, you don't need the additional RAM and 2 gigabytes will do fine. That's a huge savings right there. The better video card which would be ideal for PTE is only an additional $250 and with inexpensive external hard disks available (a gigabyte fast USB for about $110 here in the states) there really is no need to buy more than the 250 gig standard drive. The better display resolution is probably a must so if one could find an XP system rather than a Vista system the price would be well within reason.

Vista is a huge resource hog. Maybe Windows 7 will be less - it remains to be seen. It's also quite possible that not everyone really wants to take advantage of the potential for video drop-in and for the very complex and resource heavy graphics possible with PTE. It's certainly "possible" to have beautiful slideshows without using huge amounts of resources, but definitely the "cube" would be a less expensive way to go than a top-end gaming laptop. It's very easy to get $7,000 into a really top-end gaming laptop. These things weigh over 20 pounds and are anything but convenient as "portable" machines.

Someday, these powerful laptops will be very reasonably priced, but right now the manufacturer's know that they can get these ridiculous prices because "some" people will pay to have to have the latest and greatest. Enough, I suppose, to make it feasible to build these monster systems and call them "laptops."

The important thing for someone who is contemplating purchasing a laptop to run and demo PTE, is to have sufficient power to handle 1080p with graphics. Realistically, the video card is the most important piece of the puzzle. Actually, for use in the home, it's quite possible to put a small desktop system together which doesn't take up much room at all. My Dell 530 is only 6.5 x 14 x 16 inches. I was able to shoehorn a 750w power supply into it and add an nVidia GeForce 8800 GT card which is more powerful than about any noteook video card and which will play any PTE Graphics or video. The power supply cost me less that $120 and the video card can be had for about $100.00 right now. Couple that with perhaps a 17" flat screen display and you have a pretty compact system which you can put XP on for about $1200 with a 500 gig HD. It will play virtually "anything" you throw at it and doesn't take up much desktop space. The CPU can set on the floor under your desk and the total footprint for the monitor and keyboard is only 20 inches x 16 inches.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin

Food for thought, some of us don't have room for a desk top, which is why I use lap tops. A laptop is also the only way our camera club can use PTE (portability). So it would appear if the resource requirements increase much further for PTE, we will be sticking with what we have. As you know I was considering a cube system earlier this year, so it would be both portable & up-gradeable. Looks like if your prices are correct a cube would still be the way to go when W7 is proven.

Barry

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Yachtsman1

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Lin

I don't have Vista, I use XP SP3 on my Sony & Samsung laptops, the Samsung is now two years old and not a conventional laptop it's termed a desktop laptop, no battery, which isn't a bind as I don't try to use it any where without power. The Sony is now 4 years old with an 80 GB HD the Samsung has 250GB, both have upgraded ram 2.8 & 3.8GB. I also have a 1TB external HD which I store my Raw files on. I previously used CD's & DVD's but after hearing discs have a limited life, bought the Freecom HD from Amazon for just over £100. If my experience with laptops, (I'm on my fifth in 12 years), is anything to go by the Samsung will start to give trouble shortly, hence the look out for a replacement/alternative. The reason the machine needs to be portable is so I can carry it around to different venues to run my shows on, I've found using other peoples machines can be fatal and embarassing which happened at our camera club only last week using the club machine which is only two years old but struggled with my 5.6 show with very little animation. Hopefully my laptops will keep going until next summer when we should know what Widows 7 is like.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1

[Barry Beckham]

I can't quite understand what the fascination with laptops is, especially when bought as a main machine. (ie, not bought because transportation was important) Years ago I discovered that I could get a desktop with more power and far cheaper than a laptop and I have used it for demos ever since.

Add to that the keyboard of a laptop is small, the screen small, the power often isn't there. Give me more power and I am interested, but it has to be a better price than $4000 for a laptop.

Then I suppose that even if you owned one of these super computers and created some fast complex animation, many people would not be able to view it anyway because they would still be on much lower power machines.

When most of us visit a camera club we go their by car because we need projectors, speakers, screen sometimes, so I took the view that if I am doing that I might as well take a desktop. If I had to fly somewhere, then it may be difficult to board the plane with my desktop under my arm