Laptop screen questions

I own a 5-year old Clevo 170HM3 and it's showing early signs of future collapse so I'm in the market for the new Pascal-powered Clevos (particularly the SLI 1080 model).

Unfortunately for me I've not been keeping up with developments in the laptop screen sector so a lot of the new terminology is beyond me. Hopefully the experts on this forum can help me, the complete neophyte here.

1. Nvidia G-Sync. I've searched the forum and read the marketing blurb. But what does this feature actually do and is it worth insisting a new laptop screen has this feature on an Nvidia system? My current screen is a bog-standard 17.3 inch with 60 Hz refresh rate released well before G-Sync came into general circulation.

2. 4K resolution. Again I'm out of the loop here since 1080p was the pinnacle for laptop screens when I bought my system. I'm aware 4k is a convenient name for the high-definition (?) resolution (Something ridiculous 3xxx by 1xxx) but aside from the better-looking visuals (and tiny default icon and font size) is it worth shelling out extra money for? I'm quite used to gaming at 1080p or downscaling to lower resolutions with the same aspect ratio but am also aware that even a 1080 SLI system can't sustain native resolution gaming for more than 2 years maximum.

The system will generally be for gaming, but I'm buying a Blu-Ray drive as an extra for the occasional movie.

3. Refresh rate. I only learnt 120Hz monitors existed a few weeks ago. Been gaming between 30-60Hz all this while so is there really such a huge difference in maximum refresh rate? I think this is supposed to work together with the G-Sync feature but am not sure how exactly. Looking at the Clevo forums, there has been a lot of talk about how 120Hz G-Sync certified laptop screens are not yet an option for retailers and am not sure what the fuss is all about.

 

1. G-Sync forces the screen to adapt to the graphics card's output. Since running CoD at 1000 fps on a 60 hz panel is overkill, Gsync will allow you to set say 58 fps cap and the graphics card will output exactly 58 fps and the panel will run at 58 hz. Makes for smoother gameplay at lower fps. Also works well for fps dips. So a dip to 40 fps is matched by the monitor dropping to 40 hz so there is less noticeable stuttering.

2. and 3. Personal choice here. Many people say 4k is dumb on laptop sized screens but I personally love the crispness that 4k delivers. Even a single 1080 running a 4k with G-sync will be buttery smooth on med-high to ultra settings depending on the game (~50 - 60 fps with a 60 hz screen is perfect). So SLI will be fine for many years to come. Now if you are more into the 120-144 hz arena then stick with 1440p or 1080p. You really need to judge for yourself if 4k + 60hz or 1440p/1080p + 120/144 hz is right for you. Unfortunately it's really tough to get your hands on these things to do that. Some swear by the fps, some swear by the crispness. (I'm a crispy follower)

My advice for you, 1080 SLI is overkill for 1080p. Go with 1440p if you can find one at 120 or 144hz. If not go with 4k. You can always downscale a 4k to 1440p and it will look sliiiiiightly worse than native 1440p would, but not enough to notice during games (and still better than native 1080p). Honestly I doubt you'd even need to downscale for another year or two or three.

Sager only offers 1080p ??hz and 4k 60 hz at the moment.

Just be careful with thermals of the dual 1080's. Shouldn't be much hotter than 980's but any throttling would defeat the purpose so find some reviews first.

Hope this helps! Good luck.

 

Considering the 4k UHD resolution only premiered a few years ago, is it true that some of the older games don't support it and most of the time the highest resolution presented will be 1080p? Most of the newer AAA games are fine with 4k but I have quite a few games from the 2000 era which I fear will be unplayable if they can't be downscaled.

 

That shouldn't be a problem. You'd just set your screen resolution to 1080p prior to opening the game.

 

Thanks. I think I'll go for the 4K screen and hope the option eventually offers G-Sync and 120Hz.

 

Yeah I think currently the best you'll find are 4K and 75 hz but not sure who has them. You might just have to ask the seller. But 4K 60 hz is going to be fantastic for you in my opinion.

P.S. You will have to do some fiddling to get some games to work on the 4K screen. If you want an easy life where everything just works then stick with 1080p and save the money by going with a single gtx 1080. For me I'm willing to deal with the hassle of Windows scaling issues and changing resolutions but that's not for everyone

 

Some of the US Clevo retailers have 4k 120hz screens but the retailer I'm looking at is in Europe and doesn't offer the option. They might in a few weeks time, but I'm doing my research early so that I don't have any regrets later.

I suppose some of the older games (the one I'm concerned about) can have their resolution problems solved by switching the desktop resolution to 1080p and then running the game from there. Most of the older games I have possess setup configs to mess around with the in-game resolution.

I would like to try out an SLI system at least once in my lifetime so I'm willing to pay for the luxury. The Clevo I'm currently using is a single-end 580m which WAS top of the range when it was released so I'm looking to go one step further this time round.

 

Hahaha I feel you. I was in the same boat looking at laptops for the last 1.5 years and I just recently bought one.

The SLI thing is really tough. If you want to give it a try then God speed and best of luck! I've never tried it myself but all the reviews come up with mixed results and no one recommends it because the added cost and heat don't make up for the added fps. So yea if you are dying for SLI then at least get the 4K and put that horsepower to good use! Also I'm jealous of you for even considering the SLI, if I had the money to give it a try I would! I just don't want you to be disappointed. Having the 4K screen is going to be a little bit of a hassle by itself, throw in SLI issues and you will have a lot of tinkering to do, but hey, that's what PC gaming is all about

 

And notice he used ULTRA quality in 4K. A lot of reviewers use Medium or Medium high settings when giving 4K benchmarks. So his numbers are going to be worse case scenario and even turning off 'Hairworks' in the Witcher 3 and lowering Anti-Aliasing options will bump up these numbers. Anti-Aliasing is almost completely unnecessary at 4K because the sheer number of pixels smooths out the jaggies that AA tries to eliminate.

 

Thanks for the review, although the system I'm aiming for is a Clevo with a 330W power supply. I can order two PSUs and hopefully there'll be some kind of device that hooks them both to the laptop to ensure maximum power for the dual cards (the docking gizmo Asus uses is also a power-supply unit in itself but it's really bulky and not at all portable).

The good news is that the system with another juice can handle the current system-killer games at max settings even on 4k resolution. If I'm lucky I'll only need to downscale the resolution for future games in 3 years although I expect the timeframe to be 2 years.

 

Which one have 4k 120hz? What is the panel type/model? Clevo dont offer 4k 120hz, only 4k 60hz g-sync.

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My mistake, the 120Hz screen they were referring to is 1080p.