The HP Envy 17 and its overview/specifications pages recently appeared on a HP website, and thanks to that, we now know a whole lot more about this 17 inch “luxury” performance notebook. First off, there really IS a number pad on the right side of the full-sized chiclet keyboard (turns out the info sent by the guy who apparently “bought” an Envy 17 two months ago was right, huh?). Also, in more keyboard-related news, those annoying quick launch buttons in the additional row to the left of the keyboard (found on the Envy 15, and annoyed the heck out of me) are gone on the Envy 17! Nice – now I can finally crouch in games (Ctrl button) without accidentally pressing the stupid calculator button and bring up Left4Dead’s command console (~ button) without hitting the e-mail client button.
Other than that, there’s also:
- Choice of Intel Core i5 dual core and Core i7 dual and quad core processors (as you’d probably expect)
- Up to 4 DDR3 RAM slots (presumably on Core i7 models; we’ll probably see just 2 RAM slots for Core i5 models like on the Elitebooks)
- 1 GB of GDDR5 ATI Mobility Radeon 5850
- NO optical drive (but that’s not an issue for some people like me)
- Thin profile
What’s strange is that the Envy 17′s front lip looks a whole lot like that of the Envy 13 with just two small grills for the speakers in front (the Envy 15 had big, large air intake vents on the front), which either hints to improved cooling efficiency that HP could remove those big (ungainly looking, to some) vents OR the Envy 17 will be a nice and toasty 17 inch frying pan! Hopefully it’s the former, and not the latter. More Envy news as it comes out… I’m sure now that the Envy 17 page has made a short appearance (HP has since pulled down the page), the Envy 14′s pages should be hiding somewhere around too…
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.
Picture by reader T.Y.: Is this the 8740w's lid?!
It looks like we now have enough information to construct a rumors + specifications roundup, with special thanks going out for a few anonymous tipsters, a person by the name ‘HP Fan‘ who has seen an Elitebook 8740w datasheet (!!) and plenty of internet searchers =). First off, a little update about announcement time: a reliable source is “pretty confident” that the Elitebook 8740w will be coming out this month along with other products targeting designers and people who do graphics work (ie DreamColor 2 and new external display panels) – I can see the adrenaline build-up in the crowd already!
HP Elitebook 8740w processor options (Thanks, Google Cache!)
And here’s what’s been confirmed about the HP Elitebook 8740w so far (I’ve included links to old/related posts in case you’ve missed them in the past):
- Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6 GHz quad core processor and 820QM 1.73 GHz quad core processor; ‘other’ Core i5 processors
- 4 DDR3 1333 MHz RAM slots for up to 16 GB of total RAM
- ONE hard disk bay with optical drive; removable optical drive doubles as expansion bay
- NEW ATI FirePro M7820 workstation graphics; with 1GB GDDR5 memory
- Choice of new ATI FirePro M7820 graphics above, Nvidia Quadro FX3800M or Nvidia Quadro FX2800M
- 17 inch display (up to full HD); optional full HD DreamColor 2 display (same tech, but obviously different size, as 8540w DC2)
- Full-size keyboard with number pad; partial-chiclet style!
- Selective number of USB 3.0 ports
- Single-touch trackpad with pointing set; 2 sets of 3 mouse buttons
- 7.86 lbs weight AKA 3.57 kg
Oh, the Elitebook 8740w will also be compatible with some sort of new “2010 Advanced WKS Docking Station”… whatever that means, along with other newly launched Elitebooks (except 2540p and 2740p).
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I’m a curious person who likes doing a lot of thinking and analysis of things. And after yesterday’s revelation of an unannounced ATI FirePro M5800 card, I’ve been thinking… which consumer ATI card would be the mysterious workstation-class FirePro M5800 be based on? The answer, I suspect, lies with HP and their Elitebook 8540w. See, their current Elitebook 8540w makes available two Nvidia Quadro graphics options: the 512 MB Quadro FX880M and 1 GB Quadro FX1800M. Both are 40 nm chipsets. All of ATI’s new Mobility Radeon 5000 series graphics cards are based on the 40 nm process, plus the fact that ATI (with their recent reputation of coming out with all the good stuff) is very unlikely to use their “old” 4000-series designs for a new product… first part solved – the FirePro M5800 will be based off a card in the 5000-series.
Now, which specific card in the ATI Mobility Radeon 5000 series? The Nvidia Quadro card options for the Elitebook 8540w have bandwidth figures of 25.6 to 31.2 GB/s and TDP values of 35W and 45W respectively. So the ATI FirePro M5800 card HP has chosen should sit with specifications somewhere near those ranges. Also, the Nvidia Quadro FX1800M is a DDR3/GDDR5 card. So at first guess, one would probably suspect the ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 as the “base” of the new FirePro card, but no… it has a lower minimum bandwidth (12.8 GB/s) and significantly lower TDP (13W-15W) than the Nvidia cards.
Under the fairly accurate assumption that HP would like to keep power consumption/heat output/TDP similar to Nvidia’s cards, so to get the most out of the Elitebook 8540w’s design, the ATI FirePro M5800 will likely (with high probability) be based off the ATI Mobility Radeon 5850. The Mobility Radeon 5850 ticks all the boxes for being the perfect candidate for creating a workstation-class graphics card which matches/bests Nvidia’s top offering (FX1800M) for 15 inch notebooks – bandwidth (28.8-64 GB/s), DDR3/GDDR5, manufacturing process, TDP (30-39 W) and all are a closer match than any other graphics card that ATI has. So I’m almost 99% certain this will be it – the FirePro M5800 will be based off the ATI Mobility Radeon 5850, and time will tell if my guess is correct.
