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2 GB Nvidia Quadro FX5000M card announced; coming to Elitebook 8740w

Nvidia has just announced their first bunch of “Fermi” Quadro workstation class graphics card that supports DirectX 11 for both desktops and notebooks. The Nvidia Quadro FX5000M not only has 2 GB of memory (which we already knew about from ‘service parts’ for the Elitebook 8740w that have been posted on HP’s website for months now), but is superior to the current (and now, former) top of the line Quadro FX3800M in almost every way imaginable, at least on paper.

Aside from having double the memory, the Quadro FX5000M is also Nvidia’s first, and currently only, mobile Quadro card supporting the latest iterations of DirectX (DX11), OpenGL (Open GL 4.0) and shader model (5.0). Compared to the Quadro FX3800M, the FX5000M has more than double the number of cores (320 vs 128 cores), 20% more bandwidth (76.8 vs 64 GB/sec) and of course, again, has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory (vs the FX3800M topping out at 1 GB; GDDR3). There’s even an unseen “improvement” in terms of heat/power consumption, since the Quadro FX5000M still has a TDP of 100W, so theoretically it should perform much better than older flagship Quadro cards, while consuming similar amounts of energy.

The best part of all this is that the Quadro FX5000M will be available for the Elitebook 8740w in the future, though at an unspecified date and price. If you’ve already gotten an Elitebook 8740w, fear not for there’s always the ability to swap parts like people have been doing for ages… You’d better start studying that 8740w service manual now!

New HP Probooks launched

HP just launched their new line of low-end business notebooks today (with your choice of 14, 15.6 or 17.3 inch models), giving them the new sub-brand of HP Probooks. The new line of HP Probooks today come under their s-series, which is the entry-level part of HP’s business notebook line (there’s s, b, p and w which stand for standard, business, professional and workstation respectively). Well, there’s really nothing groundbreaking about today’s new releases, besides their price tags which are surprisingly low for business notebooks. There’s the usual feature-trickle from higher-end Elitebook models such as Quick Look 2, HP Spare Key and File Sanitizer, HDMI port, docking station compatibility and the availability of optional dedicated graphics. The BIGGEST (most prominent, rather) change is the new HP Probooks have chiclet keyboards, in-line with the rumor posted three weeks ago… well, what did I tell yeh?!

Left 4 Dead maxed out on Elitebook 8730w

BUSTED! Left 4 Dead works nicely with all settings maxed out on the HP Elitebook 8730w Mobile Workstation PC. The unit I used for testing had a T9400 2.53 GHz Intel Centrino 2 processor, 4 GB of RAM, 1 GB of graphics (Nvidia Quadro FX3700M), Windows Vista Ultimate and a lovely 17 inch Dream Color display. And the game settings were as follows:

• 1920 x 1200 full HD resolution, played on full screen
• Film grain – Maxed out
• Anti-aliasing – 16X MSAA
• 16X anisotropic filtering
• Vertical sync and multicore rendering OFF
• Shader detail – Very high
• Effect, model/texture and paged pool memory – All high

The game ran smoothly at around 30 to 40 frames per second. In “normal” scenes, things were buttery smooth and in “horde” scenes (Where tons of zombies rush at you), frame rate dropped to 20-24 FPS – depending on your eyes, you may or may not notice it – but the difference wasn’t large and the game was still more than playable (I could smoothly spin round and round while spamming my machine gun without much frame stuttering).

I did notice, however, the graphics card would take a little “breather” now and then – the screen image would freeze for about 2 seconds before going back to normal. On the positive side, it doesn’t happen often; around once or twice per entire campaign (with 5 scenarios).

After 3 hours of non-stop gaming (using a gaming mouse + notebook keyboard), the Elitebook 8730w did feel slightly warm around the palmrest area and upper left side of the keyboard, and very hot at the bottom. Core Temp reports processor temperature hovers around 58 to 64 degrees Celcius when gaming but don’t worry, the magnesium-alloy casing does a good job at keeping the exterior deck comfortable warm (versus blazing hot).

I love this Elitebook!!

Netbook? Who needs a netbook when you can have THIS! The HP Elitebook 2530p blows away literally any netbook in the market, looking utterly stylish (sexy?) while at it. Of course, such greatness comes at a price – you could buy several netbooks with the price of just ONE Elitebook.

Still, that won’t stop me from comparing the Elitebook 2530p to my humble Mini 2133 and the 2140… (excuse the tiny wireless mouse dongle connected to the Elitebook in the picture above)

The Elitebook 2530p is wider and slightly longer than the HP Mini 2133/Mini 2140. I’d gladly carry a slightly larger bag if I owned one though! Oh, naturally the Elitebook 2530p is about 300 grams heavier than the Mini 2140 but the weight difference wasn’t too significant though.

In terms of thickness, the Elitebook 2530p is a wee bit slimmer than the Mini 2133/Mini 2140. HP says the Elitebook 2530p is 25.2 mm thin while the Mini 2140 is 26.7 mm thin. Put on the Mini 2133/2140′s 6 cell extended battery and it becomes a different story – I like the Elitebook 2530p’s 6 cell battery which sticks out the back of the notebook, as opposed to the Mini’s 6 cell battery which extends downwards so you have a thick bulge at the back that makes the notebook hard to store.

One other thing is that the Elitebook 2530p’s keyboard is about the same size as the one on the HP Mini’s except the arrow keys are larger on the Elitebook while its function keys at the top row are a tad smaller. The Elitebook 2530p also has dedicated Page Up and Page Down keys, something I appreciate a lot. Well, that’s all for today, the Elitebook 2530p is perfect for what it is and dare I say, flawless… with the exception of price and the fact I can’t keep it =( , of course.

Gaming on the Elitebook 8730w

Besides running Photoshop CS4 and other heavy duty applications, I’ve found the HP Elitebook 8730w Mobile Workstation fairly adept at gaming, to a certain extent. That’s what I’ve been doing throughout most of last month: gaming on HP’s Elitebook 8730w.

Before I go on, let me give you guys a run down of the specifications on the one I managed to test out:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53 GHz
• 4 GB of RAM (2 X 2 GB)
• 17 inch Dream Color display (1920 X 1200 resolution!!)
• 160 GB SATA II Hard Disk
• NVIDIA Quadro FX3700M graphics card (1 GB of dedicated memory)

So this is sort of the middle child of the Elitebook 8730w Mobile Workstation line with top graphics and a really nice, but expensive, Dream Color display. Yet this isn’t the best processor it can take (there are configurations with Core 2 Extreme processors available) and larger hard drive options available (HP currently offers up to 320 GB).

Anyway, the Elitebook 8730w runs most games really smoothly, even at the highest settings. I say most games because I haven’t tried things like Crysis Warhead on it yet. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare runs fine (well, most of the time) at full 1920 x 1200 and everything else set at the highest/best quality settings; with frame rates going at around 60 to 90 frames per second.

Unfortunately, there are some shortcomings to using a workstation-class (!!!) graphics card for gaming. For those who aren’t familiar, workstation-class graphics cards like the Nvidia Quadro card on the 8730w are meant to deliver quality frames as opposed to quantity of frames on real gaming cards. Somebody told me that they’re both based on the same thing, only tweaked later for their respective purposes but we’ll save that debate for some other time.

So you can get an amazing amount of detail and fairly smooth frame rates, though you certainly won’t get  200 frames per second as you would on a real gaming PC. Enter very intense game scenes when using a workstation graphics card, and frame rate tends to choke. A good example is when somebody throws a smoke screen bomb or calls in an airstrike which lands in the area in front of you in Call of Duty 4, frame rate drops down to 20 FPS… and you don’t even need benchmarking software for that, for I could notice the frame rate drop noticeably with just my eyes.

It’s not HP’s or Nvidia’s fault for that by the way, blame me for maxing out all the textures and setting “soften smoke edges” to ON (LOL!). Again, I had maxed out literally everything in the game… if I had turned off or lowered some of the settings, perhaps the frames wouldn’t have dropped so drastically.

But really, a workstation graphics card, or a mobile workstation notebook for that matter, should NOT be used if you plan on doing some serious gaming. It’s fine if you’re doing some casual gaming (in my book, that means you don’t smash your head on your keyboard if you die because of choppy frame rates when someone calls in an airstrike) to unwind after a day of rendering Shrek 4 scenes. You could use the Elitebook 8730w at several LAN parties with friends, but you probably shouldn’t use it in gaming tournaments where the different between life-and-death matters…