Goodbye Mac, Hello HP Elitebook 8770w

EEFAS

As both speed & mobility are key for my work, I've relied on hopped up MacBook Pros for years. Have had a Mac since 1986 and always loved putting whatever high end parts in them as needed. Was an Apple Specialist - mainly built crazy towers for movie editing. Would have never considered anything else.

Now, as it's upgrade time - Mac did not stand up against other machines. HD Vid takes serious space & processor power. I wanted a machine w/ the Nvidia K5000, SSD and some other add ons. After a ton of looking, testing, reading etc. I ordered this.....it arrives Thursday and goes right into Production.

HP EliteBook 8770w Mobile Workstation with Mobile Intel® QM77 Express Chipset, and Intel Quad Core Processor
Windows® 7 Professional 32
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3820QM Processor, 2.70GHz (Turbo up to 3.70GHz), 1600 MHz, 8MB L3 Cache
Mobile Intel® QM77 Express Chipset
17.3 inch LED FHD WVA Anti-Glare (1920x1080)
NVIDIA Quadro K5000M graphics with 4GB dedicated GDDR5 video memory
32GB 1600 MHz DDR3 4DM Memory
256GB Solid-State Drive (SSD) SED SATA III
750GB 7200RPM 2nd Hard Drive
500GB 7200RPM 2nd Hard Drive Upgrade Bay
Dualpoint (Touchpad and Pointstick) Backlit Keyboard
HP Integrated Module with Bluetooth® 4.0 Wireless Technology
Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300
Integrated Fingerprint Reader
200W Hardware Kit
HP Long Life 8-Cell 75 Wh Li-lon Battery (3 year warranty)
1 Express Card/54
1 Smart Card Reader
1 SD/MMC

The SSD runs the OS & feeds the twin internal drives (one render, one source). The war with Adobe is what really cost Apple my loyalty. Fully 100% of my work for years has come out of CS(insert version here) and is now CS6. Even tricked out - Macs cannot take full advantage of the Vid GPU or the Adobe software. Would have liked to stay with Mac - but am really looking forward to the speed & performance of the new Windows machine. Thanks to HP for stuffing the K-5000 GPU into this system!!! HP had a kickin deal that ended Oct 31st......

geralds34

Isnt Windows® 7 Professional 32 limited to 4GB RAM

EEFAS

Yep - they would not build it w/ 7/64 installed, only 7/32. Weird huh? No biggie - I'll be doing a custom install myself to run 7/64.

ziggy53

With 1536 CUDA cores in that video card, complex rendering/transitions should be zippity quick.

Are you planning on doing any 4k video?

babowc

Oh my god..
32GB RAM?
If you don't mind answering, how much did this laptop set you back?! The RAM alone is upwards of $700-800

I feel like you'll be needing some SERIOUS cooling for that beast!

EEFAS

4k Vid is part of the plan, Time Lapses are currently done in 4K & 5K and take time to process. Moving up to a Red Scarlett in 2012 and wanted to be prepared. The 1500+ cuda cores are going to be very zippy! Looking forward to real speed w/ HD & whatnot. I have heard these do not run as hot as the earlier models. The Vid GPU may change that a bit..........lol. The Vid GPU alone needs 100W to run. Not expecting much outta the battery. Heading into several 22 min HD projects now and a well booked 2013. This laptop was badly needed & will save hours & hours of time each week. I run stripped machines - CS6 and a browser - otherwise no other apps get loaded except plug ins & drivers. Good fun!

HP had a serious deal going thru Oct 31st. There was a 20% off coupon code + another 10% from the good folks @ the HP Small & Medium Business Office. I got a full 30% off this machine - which was not cheap. About $6500 before discounts. On a lease, thus it's a write off. I would have been ok w/ the Nvidia K4000, but the 30% off allowed me to max it out w/ the Nvidia K5000 which I really wanted/need.

ziggy53

"Very" cool project. Please keep us in the loop on your progress.

Newsy

That screen is the wide gamut RG+B-LED back IPS type LCD display, right?

And 10bit colour depth with 12 bit LUT if I recall correctly.

.

Demian

Oh maaaan, I want that thing Although I'd have to swap out the Quadro for something better suited to gaming...

How does the turbo boost work? Mainly I'm wondering if both the video card and the cpu are chugging away, can it maintain 3.7GHz indefinitely?

EEFAS

A week later and we are up to speed - and then some...........

This has been an interesting experience - not fun, but the end result is more than worth it.

While editing the cuda_supported_cards file in Adobe will make PPCS6 pick up the nVidia GPU - it will not run. ANY changes to sequence presets - like selecting DSLR 1080p, or changing the default - crashed out PP every time. Whether from the start screens, or from inside the sequence - no changes could be made.

So, we reloaded CS6 for the 8th or 9th time. restart
Editied the cuda_supported_cards. text. restart
Ran an app to hack the nVidia k5ooom. restart
Launched PP CS6 and WOW! It all works perfectly.

Adobe has no clue, HP has no clue, NVidia has no clue. I would not have thought the double hack would work - but we figured we would try it for S & G's........nothing else to lose @ that point.

Testing. Threw full HD & 4K aerial footage into a sequence - the 8770w laughed & ran it realtime with no stuttering, no waiting. Threw a disgusting, mean, ugly file @ it - equiv of 5K. It laughed again & ran it realtime. WARPed files - no problem.
Exporting is stupid fast too. We exported the 4K tests as .MOVs w/ a high bit rate (our normal fare). It horked up a full res 800G .MOV file in under 7 minutes. Yikes!

Through all testing, we saw 22G - 24G of RAM being used, the CPU was running @ 98% and I have NEVER seen a machine run this fast - ever. Especially a laptop...... Today's tests - over clocking!
This 8770w will take HOURS off each film/tv production and is truly amazing. 110% Worth the hassles!

Sadly, the screen is not what I ordered. It is not a DreamColor. That & a couple other issues led HP to replace the whole Machine with one configured as I actually ordered....... This will take till early January. For the moment, I'll work on this screen.

ziggy53

^^^^^^^^^
What a machine! What a saga! It does sound like when you finally do get your properly configured machine it will be a dream-come-true. barb

EEFAS

3 machines later..........
Ok, first & foremost - this is an incredible machine. It's way faster than expected, the Dreamcolor screen is stunning. Had a bit of a ride getting here.

1st machine was ordered @ the worst time poss for HP 3'd week of Oct, 2012. They were changing up order menus and that's how I got the non- Dreamcolor on machine #1. It took until mid-Jan of 2013 to get machine #2 delivered. Why? Who knows - the list of excuses is too long & too ridiculous to even post.

2nd Machine arrived with a dent in the screen case and distortion on the top of the display itself. HP knows about the "bad" screens - and I got one. It was ok for editing, but playback sucked as the distortion showed. HP said they would immediately replace it.........

3'd machine - that I am typing on now. Arrived last Friday - a few weeks after #2. Same shoe box packaging, pretty crushed but fully intact! They said a delay was matching the drives by Manu - something I had requested with #1. Turns out - they did not do it after all.

Thankfully, the machine has ALL that I originally ordered 14+ weeks ago. Setup this time was quick! Raid the 2 SATA drives, get the Quadro K5000M on the list in CS6 - done. Normally, I'd have been pretty pissed off months ago. Why is HP so screwed up? Who knows - but they make a crazy fast editing machine. Worth the wait, BS & whatnot? Yes. I needed this months ago, need it even more now. The pure speed of a Quadro K5000M, the RAM and the triple drives is fun!!

If you order one of these - make sure they go over all with a fine tooth comb. I was told the HP Small & Med Business unit was being shut down @ the end of January - machines only avail via resellers going forward.

ziggy53

EEFAS wrote: »

... Thankfully, the machine has ALL that I originally ordered 14+ weeks ago. ... The pure speed of a Quadro K5000M, the RAM and the triple drives is fun!! ...

Congratulations on the machine. thumb

EEFAS

ongoing notes on the HP 8770w
As we beat on this machine - I'll keep up with the notes here. The speed is fantastic. Tried creating a time lapse in AE w/ 5k RAW files. 10:07 runtime - rendered out in less than 10 minutes. True realtime speed.

Thankfully I raided the twin SATA drives - one failed, no data was lost. Have not heard from HP bout this yet - will not expect much.

Software wise - this machine is stripped. Ps, Pr, Ae, Br & Id, Firefox and nothing else. If you do not let the thing fully start up before touching the trackpad - it freezes. Tested it before & after the software loads - happens with or wthout. The extra couple second wait - no biggie as it then performs flawlessly. This is the only thing I have seen that crashes/freezes it up - methinks it's a BIOS issue from HP.

Had a few interesting screen flashes while the Quadro K5000M was flying along - no problems. The downside of a Dreamcolor screen is now everything else looks like crap!

As HP would NOT sell me twin 750G SATAs' and could not even match up the twin 500G SATAs - one failed.....I'm leaning towards ripping out both SATA's and going with a larger matched (by manu) set.

Fun & games but it's soooooo fast. All worthwhile.

symbolphoto

So i just found this thread searching on the 8770w. There is still a 20% coupon going. So i picked one up. It's coming from Shanghai. It should be here tomorrow. I went a slightly different route, i bought a base model (With the Dreamcolor screen) and plan to mod it through NewEgg.

Very excited for this. Did you get the screen calibrated? If so, what did you use?

D3Sshooter

Sounds all good and well. I stay with my I-MAC and Eizo Coloredge... Does the job for me with ADB. I will upgrade to the new MAC Pro server when it comes out by the end of the year. That one has plenty of horsepower. Did you look at that ?