Thinkpads Forum

Heh, the first i7 940XM engineering samples are hitting eBay now. That suggests actual release of the official 940XM might be a little ahead of schedule! I can't wait!

Yup, and they don´t seem to be as expensive as I expected The only remaining question is the BIOS support.

Marin85 wrote:Yup, and they don´t seem to be as expensive as I expected The only remaining question is the BIOS support.

There's that... and other things. For the record-- some reasonably extensive testing of the 920XM ES elsewhere indicated these chips were not fully qualified; they ran hotter than actual 920XM OEM chips (by about 5C) and only about 1 in 5 were actually stable at the rated 100C. I would wonder if the 940XM ES chips are similarly underbinned. Personally I'm waiting for the real thing.

[quote="xiphmont"]
There's that... and other things......./// Personally I'm waiting for the real thing.[/quote]


Real thing YOU SAY >lol< thought I had a laptop(s) with one of 'em.... LOL

Giday...marin so what happening in Europe ,,, see the Smoke-stack is blowing off again

Cheers everyone

xiphmont wrote:There's that... and other things. For the record-- some reasonably extensive testing of the 920XM ES elsewhere indicated these chips were not fully qualified; they ran hotter than actual 920XM OEM chips (by about 5C) and only about 1 in 5 were actually stable at the rated 100C. I would wonder if the 940XM ES chips are similarly underbinned. Personally I'm waiting for the real thing.

Good to know! So, I guess I will be waiting for the real thing, too, and for a W701 unit... 'cause I guess, after I get my 940XM, I will need a laptop for it

@ausmike: So, now you are picking on me, huh... Oh, I don´t know about the smoke-stack, and frankly, I don´t care since I am a complete and utter egoist! To tell the truth, I was caring only as long as I was stuck the first time due to the flight cancellations here. Don´t get me wrong, I was stuck not because of the smoke-stack, but because of the flight cancellations (Lufthansa is sooo cheap...). That was another way to say that I haven´t had much time to look in the news about the current state of the vulcano ash clouds above Europe, but I really hope they will go away as soon as possible. The problem with those is that they will be staying up there for quite long time.

Cheers,

Marin

ausmike wrote:
Real thing YOU SAY >lol< thought I had a laptop(s) with one of 'em.... LOL

The 940XM isn't for sale anywhere that I can find either by itself or in a product. Do you actually have a SLBSC (not a Q4AP)? If so, congrats!

The ES/QS chips are not rated or binned for OEM sale; they only have to hold together long enough for equipment qualification, not for day-to-day computing. As such, they're allowed to run with a far narrower error margin. They're not officially qualified to meet full spec, and in the case of the 920XM ES, it was demonstrated conclusively that they did not. Given that the release price of the 940XM is slated to be $1000 and the ES chips just starting to pop up months ahead of schedule are selling for _well less_ than that--- I think the sellers and buyers all know what they're actually getting-- a fun bit of speed that isn't stable enough for actual production work.

Nothing wrong with that.

@ausmike: Hey Mike...Do you have your W701 yet? Where are your travels taking you these days?
@Marin85: Where are you in your decision-making process? Last I heard you were waiting for the i7-940XM, is that right? What is it that you're doing that makes you need all that power? Although with that said, I have to stop myself, because "need" is not necessarily the standard by which I go either. I'm often times guided more by my "want"-based approach. haha...That's, for example, the reason that I own an iPad.

Anyway, I'm still waiting for the HP 8740w with the DC2 IPS display, which also has more than 1B colors and 133% color gamut. I called the folks at HP Small Business and the original May arrival date of the DC2 display fell through, and now it is reportedly mid-June.

HP's 14"(!) 8440p and 8440w both have VA panels, by the way! S-VA to be exact, which is above TN, but below IPS. They are quite a bit above TN if some of the reviews are to be believed. (See pages 29 and 44-45/154 in those models' Maintenance and Service Guide) Plus, they have the option of going with the Core i7-620M, the currently highest-end dual-core i7 @ 2.66GHz (3.33GHz with Turbo Boost). I still think that personally, I'd be better off with a dual-core i7 with a native clock of 2.66GHz rather than a quad-core i7-720QM w/ "only" 1.6GHz (2.8GHz w/ Turbo Boost). I may be wrong. I'll let the price do the deciding.

Crunch wrote:@Marin85: Where are you in your decision-making process? Last I heard you were waiting for the i7-940XM, is that right? What is it that you're doing that makes you need all that power?

Benchmarking is what I am doing... (lol, not really) But power is never enough! Part of what I am doing involves some heavier computations in Mathematica and Matlab and I also have a few things in mind I would like to test, so I am also looking ahead to CUDA and OpenCL, though I must say I have pretty much no idea of that, but I am willing to learn Then add some visualization (I hope) and there you are... The only problem is (the way I understand these things) that not every heavy algorithm is suitable for processing by a GPU, so a strong CPU won´t hurt. Besides, strong cpu is always a great supplement to a strong GPU, say Quadro FX3800. And given that Starcraft II is effectively already out, and the upcoming of Diablo III, strong GPU + strong CPU would be nice. Of course, such a system should cover for at least 5 years. So may plans are, as of now, getting a W701 (or similar, depending on what I will be reading) with a i7-940XM (most likely bought separately), but currently I am not really able to justify the expense as my current ThinkPad is serving me pretty well, and for the other things there are desktops and supercomputers (first ones for heavy computing, second ones for gaming ) In other words, I don´t have any firm plans as of yet.

Now, here is a question, is it already confirmed that the HP 8740w comes with an IPS display??

Crunch wrote:HP's 14"(!) 8440p and 8440w both have VA panels, by the way! S-VA to be exact, which is above TN, but below IPS. They are quite a bit above TN if some of the reviews are to be believed.

That sounds pretty intersting. One must admit, it kind of competes to Lenovo, and even pretty well so (if not better)!

Crunch wrote:HP's 14"(!) 8440p and 8440w both have VA panels, by the way! S-VA to be exact, which is above TN, but below IPS. They are quite a bit above TN if some of the reviews are to be believed. (See pages 29 and 44-45/154 in those models' Maintenance and Service Guide)

Are you sure about that, Crunch? I looked at the Maintenance and Service Guide, and p.117 has the 14.0-in SVA eDP Display Specifications. eDP is Embedded Displayport, which is rapidly replacing the LVDS interface. But does SVA stand for vertical alignment? This panel only has a +_40° horizontal viewing angle, and the vertical measurement is +120/-40°. Shouldn't VA panels typically have a viewing angle of about 176°?

Well, 178/178, and yep, I'm sure. IPS is making its way into the 4th generation iPhone this month, which is only a 3.5" screen. Hitachi is also making inroads with bringing more IPS screens to other high-end mobile devices this year, and eventually even to more mainstream devices.

Add to that the fact that both Dell and HP have come out with very affordable IPS monitors (sub-$400 range), and Apple added IPS to both versions of the iMac as well as both versions of its Cinema Display monitors. The iPad also sports an IPS display. Apple doesn't make a lot of noise about its monitors having IPS, but if you dig enough, you'll find it right on Apple's main site. They stress the fact that they're all LED-backlit a lot more.

This is great. Next year at this time, we may just have a nice assortment of affordable IPS displays to choose from, including amongst at least high-end laptops.

Alright, I've been able to find out that HP has a specialist working for them who deals specifically with the high-end/DreamColor displays. The screen that you get with the 8740w right now is not IPS, and neither is the "DreamColor 1". However, the ETA date of availability of the IPS screen, which HP calls the "DreamColor 2", or "DC2", has moved to around 6/21. That is, IF it moves through QA between now and that approximate date. To upgrade from the screen that they offer now to the DC2 display, it will be a hefty $550, but that does not bother me personally. HP does admit that they did jump the gun with announcing it too early, but that does not change the fact that this DC2 display will be a premium display with over 1 billion colors, 133% gamut, and IPS technology, which I've always said that I'd be more than happy to pay for.

I've waited this long to get another high-end laptop with the bigger 17" screen that I had in the W700, which, in retrospect, I sold prematurely. Having said that, I'll wait another 3-4 weeks to see if HP does come through and, at long last, is the company that will return IPS to laptops.

On a different note, it appears that the 8740w, never mind which screen, is also put together a lot better than the "plasticky" behemoth that the W701 apparently is, and it has more CPU and GPU options than does the W701.

I always like to say that anticipation is half the fun, but this has been a lot of anticipating.

so, is this HP whiz bang screen that you're lusting over available in matte finish, or is it so shiny I can see myself in it?

AMATX wrote:so, is this HP whiz bang screen that you're lusting over available in matte finish, or is it so shiny I can see myself in it?

I am almost certain that it has a matte finish.

Indeed, DC2 really seems like it is going to be IPS In fact, it is confirmed by some very reliable source that DC2 uses IPS panel . And I have to correct my opinion on the exterior desing of 8740w: I saw today some more pics of it, and it appears to be quite elegant IMHO. Also, the ATI FirePro M7820 3DMark06 score is damm close to that of Quadro FX3800M and is going most likely to surpass it with the next driver releases from AMD.