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Samsung slip reveals new Ivy Bridge, Nvidia mobile parts

Published on 13th February 2012 by Gareth Halfacree

Samsung's upcoming NP700G7C gaming laptop boasts a quad-core Ivy Bridge chip and Nvidia's as-yet unannounced GeForce GTX 675M 2GB chip.

The first Ivy Bridge gaming laptop has broken cover thanks to a website developer's slip-up, and it's an impressively meaty Samsung model dubbed the NP700G7C.

According to details accidentally posted to Samsung's US website late last week and then rapidly removed, the company is looking to target gamers with its first confirmed Ivy Bridge product. Based around a 17.3in 1080p LED-lit display, the desktop-replacement luggable boasts up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, two 1TB hard drives, a slot-loading Blu-ray drive, and a Mac-style backlit island-style keyboard.

It's the internals that are of most interest, of course. The chip is an Intel Ivy Bridge-based Core i7-3610QM featuring four physical processing cores, HyperThreading support and running at 2.3GHz stock and 3.3GHz when Turbo Boost is enabled. Details on cache and TDP were, sadly, not included in the posting.

Although Ivy Bridge promises to bring significantly improved performance to the integrated Intel HD graphics technology, Samsung's not relying entirely on Intel. Instead, the laptop boasts an as-yet unannounced Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M 2GB DDR5 graphics chip, the flagship of Nvidia's upcoming GTX 600M series of mobile-centric GPUs. Sadly, Samsung has yet again kept quiet on full specifications for the part.

Additional features for Samsung's laptop include integral USB 3.0 support, Intel's WiDi wireless display technology, Bluetooth 4.0, gigabit Ethernet and 802.11a/b/g/n dual-frequency Wi-Fi connectivity. The usual webcam is also included at the top of the screen, although its two-megapixel sensor is a welcome change from the usual VGA fare of many laptops.

UK pricing and availability has yet to be confirmed by Samsung, with the original page suggesting a US retail price of $1,699 (around £1,076 before taxes.) A launch date is not yet available, but with Ivy Bridge expected to launch in the next couple of months it's likely Samsung has a similar schedule in mind for the NP700G7C.

18 Comments

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Paradigm Shifter 13th February 2012, 13:09

So... at $1700, if it makes it to the UK (often the best offerings don't seem to) then it'll be anything from £1500-2000. Probably at the higher end of that scale.

/pessimism

Bauul 13th February 2012, 13:11

I've always pretty much failed to see the point of hardware-heavy desktop-replacement gaming laptops with all their problems of price, weight, size and battery life. Unless you do a serious amount of LAN play (but you're not so serious as to carry a desktop), what's the point?

But I guess there must be a market because companies keep on rolling them out. What next, a 15Kg Quad-Core nVidia powered 19" tablet?

r3loaded 13th February 2012, 13:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bauul
I've always pretty much failed to see the point of hardware-heavy desktop-replacement gaming laptops with all their problems of price, weight, size and battery life. Unless you do a serious amount of LAN play (but you're not so serious as to carry a desktop), what's the point?

If you're a student or are in some way absolutely prevented from having a desktop. But yeah, desktop + tablet is the way forward.

mclean007 13th February 2012, 14:03

More of a "luggable" than a true "portable" but yes it might be a smart move for a student who needs to bring the whole lot back and forth every term. Wouldn't fancy carting it to lectures mind!

Zurechial 13th February 2012, 14:27

A 17" desktop-replacement machine just wouldn't fit into my lifestyle, but my 15" with i7-Quad, 8GB Ram and GTX570M handles Battlefield 3 rather nicely during lunch at work. :P

I can definitely see the sense in the high-end laptop market for certain usage cases, but the oversized ones just don't make much sense to me.

Mechh69 13th February 2012, 14:52

As I am in the military and I travel a good bit I can see the use in this as I am restricted on how much stuff i can carry with me. I can't carry my full size tower with dual monitors to a school that is 3 to 6 months long it's just not possible. So if I had this I could easily carry it with me and still be able to game. It all depends on your life style and where and how often you travel. I for one would love to have it as i do not really care about battery life as I am yet to see a gaming laptop/desktop replacement that had ANY.

sWW 13th February 2012, 20:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by r3loaded
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bauul
I've always pretty much failed to see the point of hardware-heavy desktop-replacement gaming laptops with all their problems of price, weight, size and battery life. Unless you do a serious amount of LAN play (but you're not so serious as to carry a desktop), what's the point?
If you're a student or are in some way absolutely prevented from having a desktop. But yeah, desktop + tablet is the way forward.

I'm a student and I have never owned a laptop. If I need to carry out work on campus I can just use one of the several desktops available there.

CowBlazed 13th February 2012, 21:00

With a 17" 1080p Samsung LCD you might actually get a decent screen to boot, if only notebooks in the $1k category could offer something like that.

trig 13th February 2012, 21:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by CowBlazed
With a 17" 1080p Samsung LCD you might actually get a decent screen to boot, if only notebooks in the $1k category could offer something like that.

it may...to a point...from my understanding, a mid-range ivybridge laptop, or budget ivybridge with a bigger screen/ram package should be in that price range and offer performance on par with the gaming laptops from last generation...defo shouldn't have problems running the majority of games...

mi1ez 13th February 2012, 22:00

DDR5 or GDDR5?

3lusive 13th February 2012, 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zurechial
A 17" desktop-replacement machine just wouldn't fit into my lifestyle, but my 15" with i7-Quad, 8GB Ram and GTX570M handles Battlefield 3 rather nicely during lunch at work. :P

I can definitely see the sense in the high-end laptop market for certain usage cases, but the oversized ones just don't make much sense to me.

Hmm, I don't feel your vibe at all. I'd easily rather have 1080p at 17" than 15" - cant imagine how small text is on the latter. I also don't feel like 17" is large, but maybe that's because I use two 24" displays for my desktop. On smaller laptop screens I just constantly feel like Im looking through a letter box and want a larger display, and 15" just feels tiny nowadays.

Redbeaver 14th February 2012, 02:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bauul
I've always pretty much failed to see the point of hardware-heavy desktop-replacement gaming laptops with all their problems of price, weight, size and battery life. Unless you do a serious amount of LAN play (but you're not so serious as to carry a desktop), what's the point?

But I guess there must be a market because companies keep on rolling them out. What next, a 15Kg Quad-Core nVidia powered 19" tablet?

limited space in your home.

as heavy as it is, its still more portable and take much less space than a full-size desktop with its own monitor, keyboard, and speakers.

Bindibadgi 14th February 2012, 03:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bauul
I've always pretty much failed to see the point of hardware-heavy desktop-replacement gaming laptops with all their problems of price, weight, size and battery life. Unless you do a serious amount of LAN play (but you're not so serious as to carry a desktop), what's the point?

But I guess there must be a market because companies keep on rolling them out. What next, a 15Kg Quad-Core nVidia powered 19" tablet?

There's a big market for DTRs, but it varies very much by country.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CowBlazed
With a 17" 1080p Samsung LCD you might actually get a decent screen to boot, if only notebooks in the $1k category could offer something like that.

With mobile parts costing what they do? No chance, I'm afraid.

Zurechial 14th February 2012, 08:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3lusive
Hmm, I don't feel your vibe at all. I'd easily rather have 1080p at 17" than 15" - cant imagine how small text is on the latter. I also don't feel like 17" is large, but maybe that's because I use two 24" displays for my desktop. On smaller laptop screens I just constantly feel like Im looking through a letter box and want a larger display, and 15" just feels tiny nowadays.

1080p at 15" results in a very fine pixel pitch, so it makes for a very crisp-looking display; but more importantly it combines the better portability of 15" (fits into a backpack much more easily for lugging into work/uni every day) with a larger desktop to work in.
The extra virtual workspace within the same form factor as my previous 15" laptop was a huge upgrade for me, given the work I do (programming, music production & research).

17" isn't large as screens go, but it is as portable computers go; and of course gaming on a 15" screen can't compare to playing on my 24" at home; but that's what my desktop machine is for. For me, 17" just sacrifices too much of the mobility advantage of a laptop for the sake of extra physical screen size that realistically doesn't give much benefit in usage.

Then again, I'm fortunate enough to have strong eyesight, so smaller text and things like that don't bother me, I'd much rather a balanced compromise of portability and power; and I have the space for my main desktop machine at home.

kenco_uk 14th February 2012, 13:56

I'd hope for £1399.

Quote:

Intel's WiDi wireless display technology

Wait... what?!?!

A quick search later...

Ah, basically a media extender/streamer that works on Core series chips.

Mr_Armageddon 14th February 2012, 16:24

That picture had me a bit worried, as one of the main reasons I go with 17in laptops is the built in numerical 10key. I work in the finance industry and travel a lot, so for me its a necessity. A quick stroll over to the Samsung product page confirms that this model will also include a 10key, unlike the picture used in the article (which is a Series 5 Ultra).

http://m.samsung.com/us/computer/laptops/NP700G7C-S01US#gallery

The battery on my HP is toast, and this looks like a worthy upgrade.

RichCreedy 14th February 2012, 17:13

flippin eck 200w power supply, even my 17.3" q9000 lappy only has a120w power supply

r3loaded 14th February 2012, 20:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by sWW
I'm a student and I have never owned a laptop. If I need to carry out work on campus I can just use one of the several desktops available there.

I used to own a DTR, the reason for this being that moving a desktop between home and halls would have been too difficult (all my stuff barely fitted in the car). That said, I do have friends who've somehow managed to ship their desktops into their halls.