Acer TimelineX 3830/4830/5830 T/G

[mavo82]

@KevanB: I'm getting my 3830TG back tommorow or the day after tommorow. Then I can tell you if they resolved the problem.

It cannot be fixed by a bios-update or anything like that. And I guess it's more like a PERMANENT problem. The only way to play on it, is to use ThrottleStop with the CPU @ 1800mhz (with advanced settings you can get around 2100mhz).

If you can get your hands on a 3820TG (the predecessor) it might be the best choice. It's running stable even with overclocking and has therefore around 30% more cpu-power than the 3830TG.

[KevanB]

I was eyeing up the 3820TG, but I need more battery life than it offers.

If the throttle issue doesn't get worked out, I'll probably stick to the SA. The performance of a throttled (w/ throttle stop) 3830TG is probably comparable to an un-throttled Vaio SA. I got a pretty good deal on the SA and I don't mind spending the extra $ for it, it's really only the graphics of the 3830 that appealed to me.

I was also considering a U36SD, but that's been delayed (again! ). It's too bad about this throttling issue, otherwise I'd be dead set on a 3830.

I'm interested to hear your results.

[Sxooter]

The 6630 GPU in the SA is no match for the GT540 in the 3830TG. Even if you underclocked the GT540M to about half it's stock clock speed it will still be faster than the 6630. OTOH, if what you're doing is more CPU intensive then the Sony SA is likely a better choice. note that a LOT of Sandybridge CPU based machines are throttling, some worse than others but it's a very common problem. The 3830TG seems to have it far worse than most tho.

[R3d]

The 6630 GPU in the SA is no match for the GT540 in the 3830TG. Even if you underclocked the GT540M to about half it's stock clock speed it will still be faster than the 6630. OTOH, if what you're doing is more CPU intensive then the Sony SA is likely a better choice. note that a LOT of Sandybridge CPU based machines are throttling, some worse than others but it's a very common problem. The 3830TG seems to have it far worse than most tho.

Is the 6630m in the SA underclocked? I was under the impression that the amd 6630m was pretty much as good as the nvidia 540m.

[downloads]

The 6630 GPU in the SA is no match for the GT540 in the 3830TG. Even if you underclocked the GT540M to about half it's stock clock speed it will still be faster than the 6630. OTOH, if what you're doing is more CPU intensive then the Sony SA is likely a better choice. note that a LOT of Sandybridge CPU based machines are throttling, some worse than others but it's a very common problem. The 3830TG seems to have it far worse than most tho.

There must be some misunderstanding here- unless 6630 is in fact underclocked in SA that is. HD6630 is on average 2-3fps slower than GT540M regardless of a game you choose to compare (DIRT3, Crysis 2, CoD BO, BF BC2 etc.) Given that these games run at some 50fps (with the exception of Crysis 2 which is closer to 30fps) it's not a big difference at all.

On top of that 6630 should OC like hell- it's sold @485MHz and it's the same core that is used in 6650, 6730 and 6770 meaning it can get up to 725MHz (with higher voltage no doubt).

[Sxooter]

Good point.

Most references I've seen say the 6630 in the Sony is not underclocked. That said, I wouldn't expect a Sony to be very overclockable. Say what you want about Acer and Asus, but they do make some pretty overclockable laptops, but Sony's are known for not running much faster than stock.

The difference depends a lot on the game and / or the benchmark. The GT540M is about 10 to 15% faster at most older stuff. More modern games they seem pretty evenly matched. I think I'd go for the 6630 even if it was slower for some games because it uses a lot less power, hence should run cooler.

[mavo82]

The Vaio SA has a 1600x900 display, that's around 40% more pixels than the 3830TG has. Therefore, the graphics seem to be much slower.

Battery life between 3820TG and 3830TG is not that much difference. In theory it should be an hour (8 vs 9). When I used my 3830TG on battery, it ran a bit more than 6 hours.

[Zapperpower]

Battery life between 3820TG and 3830TG is not that much difference. In theory it should be an hour (8 vs 9). When I used my 3830TG on battery, it ran a bit more than 6 hours.

I got on my 3820tg

6 hours on word, wifi off
5 hours of movie, wifi off
4 hours of surfing, wifi on (duh!)

i thought it would be better than that...

3830tg seems to have nearly twice the battery life...

[KevanB]

The Vaio SA has a 1600x900 display, that's around 40% more pixels than the 3830TG has. Therefore, the graphics seem to be much slower.

Not necessarily true, if you look at what FPS each laptop gets in comparable games they are very close as stated before (within 2-5 fps for most new games). I’ll run some benchmarks to see what FPS the Vaio SA gets at 1600x900, if someone else can run the same test on the 3830TG (at native resolution with same settings)? Not sure what qualifies as a “good” benchmark tool or game for current comparison, I don’t much like comparing 3DMark scores.

Also you have to take into account the decrease in FPS based on the throttling in the 3830TG. It would be interesting to see what results of testing with and without throttle stop. Certainly the results will vary depending on the game, whether it is more CPU or GPU dependent. Regardless of the game there will be some noticeable decrease in performance with the throttling.

[mavo82]

12 hours, are you kidding? You should read the reviews first. In idle mode it has around 10.5 hours, when working on it with wifi enabled you'll get 6-7 hours. Acer is talking of "8 hours of pure performance".

The battery life is much longer, meaning that you won't have to buy a new one after a year or two, but only after 5 or 6 years. This doesn't work as intended, as many people on this board here are reporting of terrible wear levels after some weeks of use. You don't need to be an engineer to conclude that the massive heat could be responsible for that, but maybe it's just the cells.