They’ve done it! They’ve finally done it! Earlier today, the 17 inch Elitebook 8740w appeared in its full unofficial glory on HP USA but the good news keeps on coming – seems that in the midst of all the 8740w madness, HP has also quietly added the new 1 GB ATI FirePro M5800 workstation graphics card (the one discovered 2 months ago in a service manual) as an option for the existing 15 inch Elitebook 8540w. They’ve also added a little note on the same specifications page (here) stating that DreamColor display options for the Elitebook 8540w will be available in May.
The listed “DDR3” ATI FirePro M5800 suggests that it could be based off an ATI Mobility Radeon 54×0 or 56×0 card, instead of the Mobility Radeon 5800 series rumored earlier, which means that it won’t be a whole lot more powerful than its Nvidia Quadro FX counterparts, but will still offer two main advantages – DirectX 11 support and power-sipping efficiency.
I hope the DreamColor display for the 8740w is available before May…
Hey Brad,
Very nice site..I visit as much as I do engadget lately. The ATI FirePro news is good news for the 8540w..hopefully it is based on the much more powerful Firepro (5800 series) as you previously speculated.
The question to you is…as Nvidia rolls out Fermi based chips, will HP incorporate a Fermi based DirectX 11 Quadro in the 8540w in the near future?
@Chema I would suspect (means I cannot confirm) that it is the DC1 display for the 8740w, seeing that 1. DC2 isn’t available for the 8540w until May and 2. HP would make a big hoo-haa celebration/announcement of DreamColor 2, potentially, with Dreamworks (which so far, they haven’t). Besides, with the availability of the backlit keyboard and same 2.0 MP webcam, that means the display bezel probably didn’t need to be re-engineered/re-designed to house new components, so all they got/had to do is drop the existing DC1 panel in, while waiting for DC2 to arrive.
@Vin Thank you for your comment =) . I haven’t received any word about new Nvidia cards in the HP Elitebooks (or any news about Fermi Mobile for that matter), so I can’t really be sure… however I’d say it’s unlikely the 8540w will get new graphics (again, not impossible, but most likely no). New processors, yes, expect the new Core i5/i7 mobile processors that Intel will release a few months down the road to be added as options for the Elitebooks. Fermi for desktop will be available towards April or near summer if they delay again (they’ve delayed it many times before), so I would guess that, in a best case scenario, Fermi Mobile will be announced somewhere during summer or fall and will become available somewhere during holiday season 2010, for the consumer line. But the reality now is that Fermi desktop cards, powerful they may be, seem to be powerhogs at the moment, so it’ll take quite a bit of work for miniaturization/reduction in size, heat and power consumption for a mobile version to come out, so 2011 is also likely. And Nvidia/ATI both have this habit of catering to consumer/gaming graphics first, before catering to the CAD/workstation side -another- few months down the road. So, doing some quick math (and taking into account time between announcement and availability, and the time it takes for manufacturers to make and announce new notebooks with such new cards) Fermi for Mobile, workstation-class cards are likely to become available towards late 2011 or 2012, by which time, the Elitebooks’ 18-24 month lifecycle would dictate it’s time for a bunch of new models (perhaps by then, we’ll see USB 3.0 ports become ‘standard’ in most notebooks).
I have a feeling that we’ll only be seeing Fermi (Mobile) based Nvidia Quadro cards in the Elitebook 8550w in a few years time đŸ˜‰ . For now, your best bet would be a fully kitted out 8540w if you want it to be as future-resistant as possible. I share similar concern/ponderings about graphics as you and many do have about the Elitebook 8540w as the recent new availability of the FirePro M5800 on the Elitebook 8540w means I’m at one of the ‘final’ decision stages of making a leap for a new notebook (8540w has been my candidate since January). For now, it still remains a mystery which Mobility Radeon card the FirePro M5800 will be based off, but “DDR3” does not bode well, so there’s a probability it also could be based off a 5400 or 5600 series card (instead of 5800 series). If the FirePro is more powerful than the current Quadro FX1800M, then I’ll wait till it comes out. Same case if it matches the FX1800M, or sits between the FX880M and FX1800M, I would still go for the FirePro for lower power consumption. But if the FirePro is weaker than the FX880M, then I’m afraid I’ll just have to go for the Nvidia FX1800M option.
Pricing does not help either with our guesses about placement/positioning as the FirePro M7820 (on Elitebook 8740w) is about 500 bucks cheaper than the “lowest” Nvidia FX2800M card, and it’ll probably be the same case with the 8540w and FirePro M5800. Many would assume that “cheaper = lower end” but you’ve got to factor in the fact that ATI usually has more affordable pricing to attract more buyers (Nvidia has significantly higher market share in the GPU market).
Perhaps HP is waiting for How to Train Your Dragon(!!!) to come out this Friday to show off DC2. The flash movie for it on their Let’s Do Amazing site isn’t up yet… http://www.hp.com/united-states/do-amazing/#/Dreamworks
Which vidcard is going to be better for gaming??
Brad,
Thanks for the detailed commentary.
Please take a look at the following link from an HP press release today 3/24/10.
“The recently announced HP EliteBook 8540w Mobile Workstation also is now available with optional DreamColor display or with the new of ATI FirePro M7820 graphics adapter. ”
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100324xa.html
Whats your take?
its actually quite logical that the firepro 5800 is based on a mid-range radeon, i supose the 5600. just a single look at the ati workstation gpus page helps, dont know why i didnt check that earlier..
firepro 5700 is a 512mb gddr3 dx10.1 sm 4.1 workstation gpu, while the 7750 is a mid-high end (1gb gddr3) and the 8700s are high- and ultra-high-end, corresponding to the radeon 4870 & 4890.
so 5800 is basically the next step from the 5700, in terms of radeons probably 4600>5600.
i just dont get it why HP chose the DDR3 ones, and not GDDR3!?
ATI M5800 Firepro confirmed with HP.
Reply from HP:
1. The HP EliteBook 8540w will have the FirePro M5800 graphics option which we just announced and should be available in the next couple of weeks.
2. We just announced DreamColor on the 8740w and 8540w this week. The target availability for the option is April.
HP includes the ATI FirePro in its’ specs, but as yet you cannot configure the 8540w with that factory option. Perhaps another week or so???
FYI, the M5800 is now available in CTO for $115 less than the FX880M. Plus the base price of CTO systems dropped a few hundred and the 24% discount is still up. So, CTO is now actually competitive with their pre-config systems.
Answer from ATI what are the specifications of “FirePro M5800”: It is based on Mobility Radeon 58xx Series.
Hi, my question: will the 8740w with the ATI FirePro M5800 be aviable in europe/germany? When? Gaming-Qustion: Will Gta IV be running with this configuration? Any chance to have a Benchmark test here, review?
Thanks for the great site! You helped me make the decision to order a custom-configured 8540W with all the bells and whistles. A month ago. I still don’t have it and they can’t tell me when I will, saying only “It’s on hold for a material shortage that is affecting all 8540 orders”. Wacky. Any insight on what the hold-up might be (They can’t or won’t elaborate.)?
Also, if the Dream Color becomes available while I’m waiting I can’t upgrade without starting over… Sigh. Excited and bummed all at once.
The M5800 is based on the 5730, not the 58xx series as speculated. It still outperforms the FX1800M in gaming benchmarks though!
Now someone needs to confirm when the backlit keyboards are coming…I’m not sure I can wait much longer.
I just received my 8540w with the Intel Core i7-620M and ATI FirePro M5800 and scores a 7292 in 3DMark06 with all 3D settings set to Maximum Performance (as opposed to Maximum Quality). Futuremark’s ORB Database classifies it as an ATI Mobility Radeon 5730 GPU. By comparison, an older (and way more expensive) GeForce 8800M GTX on an Alienware m15x laptop can score at least a 9055.