HP EliteBook 8760w: Color, So Dreamy
by Dustin Sklavos on August 25, 2011 2:30 AM ESTBattery, Noise, and Heat
Unfortunately, one place where the HP EliteBook 8760w falls majorly short is battery life. The NVIDIA Quadro 5010M is fast, but it also sucks down a lot of power and HP doesn't support Optimus switching technology with this particular unit. That means you're on the dedicated GPU all of the time, and the Quadro 5010M appears to use around 15 to 20W minimum—about double the rest of the notebook!
Between the bigger battery and Sandy Bridge's improved power consumption, the 8760w is at least able to put in a decent showing compared to its predecessor, but it absolutely languishes behind the other notebooks tested, with only the X7200 and its 300 watts worth of CPU and GPU horsepower performing worse. HP is probably betting most users aren't liable to run the 8760w off the mains, but even a muxed graphics switching system wouldn't go unappreciated.
Thermals and noise on the EliteBook 8760w aren't great, but they aren't terrible either. Temperature-wise, the Quadro 5010M actually remains remarkably cool under load, but the i7-2820QM creeps over 90C, suggesting the potential for turbo to throttle the cores somewhat due to heat.
Under heavy load you'll definitely hear the fan spin up, though. It's a low whoosh as opposed to a high whine, but the high performance components of the 8760w definitely make their presence known when the system is being stressed.
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gigagiga - Saturday, September 10, 2011 - link
Just got one for my work with i7-2360QM 2GHz 8GB RAM 64 bit, AMD Firepro M5950 Mobility Pro graphicsIt was a quick order, because I was told it had the specs I needed for engineering software I use that is a CPU hog. But so far, I'm not exactly thrilled with it.
Its definitely better than what I had to work with before, ie it dramatically speeds up processing time on a program that runs wireless network predictions that used to take several hours---this laptop has cut processing time down dramatically.
But out of the box, the touchpad mouse didnt work. No big deal, but really annoying. Had to do a BIOs update, unistalled the driver. Driver actually seemed to make it work worse. On the plus side, I think the fan is relatively quiet. Surprisingly so. Heavy computer, which is to be expected
Color is strange on this laptop. It apparently has HP Dreamcolor, which must mean "bright garish color". The red is almost blinding, and on the program I use most, the green shades blend, whereas on my old HP laptop, no problems. Have tried to figure out how to calibrate color, but it doesnt seem to make much difference. Most trouble Ive had with a computer out of the box since getting one with Vista.
That said, I guess I should have looked more closely and gotten something with more powerful processor? The main program I run still maxes out this CPU for most of the time its running my predictions (which can be hours at a time), and just doesnt give me the lighnting fast processing that I was hoping for.
But I know enough to be dangerous about processors--- maybe its a really good one and this is the best I could expect for under $3K? Any suggestions appreciated.
EdShift - Thursday, September 22, 2011 - link
If you absolutely must have a portable it's the best available but if not something with dual high-end Xeons is probably going to more likely to provide the grunt you need for high end engineering type apps like FEA software etc. I've moved today from an older generation workstation with dual Xeons (HP XW8400) to one of these laptops and it's definitely faster except on disk I/O performance but I moved because I needed a portable.I've no doubt that the new Workstations I see under the desks of the FEA guys are an order of magnitude faster for these tasks.
Timp74 - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
I bought a 8760w(exact model is ) about 4 months ago. The motherboard failed after 2 days.Was sent for repair but came back with a problem with the fan. Was sent for repair again. Came back unfixed but with a dead pixel. HP sent an engineer to replace the screen. Engineer arrive with a mother board for a completely different laptop. 2nd engineer came and fix the screen. Hurrah!, but still problem with the fan always running. HP took laptop to be 'analysed' 3 weeks ago. Have heard nothing since. Despite asking a few times HP support has been unable to even give a status update. Don't know what's going to happen next but I DON'T RECOMMEND THIS LAPTOP and I THINK HP's 'Total Care' IS A JOKE!! Buy a Dell, Lenovo or Mac instead.
It's frustrating enough that the laptop has problems. That HP seem unable to fix it has left me feeling I've been completely ripped off. Don't expect anything special from HP for buying their top of the line model. Clearly to their support operators it is more important that they tick boxes that try and help the customer.