Best Clevo/Sager for 2500?

Hey guys i'm in the market for a new powerful gaming laptop that can also double for audio production use.

What model of Clevo/Sager would you guys recommend? I am kind of new to this brand so I have no idea.

My budget is 2500 and I was just wondering what is the best top of the line Clevo/Sager I can get for that price range.

I do have a few questions

1) Is having an SSD actually worth it?

I am mainly going to be using an SSD for a boot drive and possibly for use with Fraps because of its faster write speeds. If so what size SSD should I get? I still want an actual hardrive of at least 750gb 7500RPM just for storage of files and games.

2) What is the best GPU available?

I was leaning towards the GTX 680M but I have heard that the 7790M is equally as good for 2-300 dollars cheaper. I can also have dual GTX 680's but would this really be necessary? I think my battery life would drain so fast.

3) Are all the extra bells and whistles that you can add on worth it?

I am speaking about the upgraded Cooling Compound, Copper Cooling, wireless cards, Sound Cards, Tv Tuners, The Screen tuning?

4) What exactly is OS Redline Boost? and Xotic PC Redline Boost?

5) Should I get any type of Warranty?

Such as the no dead pixel warranty or the actually parts warranties?

6) Is an upgraded processor really worth the extra cost?

Should I upgrade from the baseline
Sager - 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3630QM?

Thats about it I may have left out some things but I can add on later.

 

yes ssd is worth it, i would recommend a 128gb one and put a 7200RPM drive into the optical slot. i recommend buying the ssd yourself and installing it after you get the laptop, cheaper that way

if you budget is that high, try looking at the p370em with two 7970m in crossfire. according to prostar, this would cost a bit over $2100 (price comes with a 500gb 7200rpm drive). GTX 680m in SLI wold probably stretch your budget a bit since it would go a bit above $2500

i dont think the copper cooling does anything at all, probably even messes up your system. cooling compound cheaper to do it yourself. wireless card i would say stock is fine unless you have a router that would need otherwise. screen tuning i dont think its needed

redline boost just overclock your GPU and CPU, you can do that yourself as well.

warranty is really up to you. pixel warranty, i personally didnt get one and got lucky with a screen with 0 dead pixels. if the screen has more than 5 dead pixel on arrive, they will exchange it, under 5, you are on your own

i7 3630qm is only like $30 more, so why not? but its same as 3610qm but with 100mhz more clock

hope that helped

edit: for gaming, 3610qm is more than enough

 

I responded in bold.

 

Thanks for the help

Sager NP9370 / Clevo P370EM Is that a good one?

Sager NP9370 / Clevo P370EM - XOTIC PC - 17.3" Custom Gaming Laptop

I was actually looking at xotic PC's Website as well and for the configuration I have so far is

128GB Crucial M4 mSATA SSD - Preconfigured as an OS Drive ( Operating System – Drive C: ) ( Can I also use this for storage?)
nVidia GeForce GTX 680M 4,096MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 [User Upgradeable]
16GB - DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS) (SKU - S4S822AP)

With all that im only up to 2100 So I can spare another 400 what else should I get on top of that? Maybe another Hardrive or an SSD for storage?

 

i would really recommend getting the SSD at a local store, if something is wrong with it, its easier to exchange/return. also locally, it might be $20~30 cheaper than whats on xoticpc. for the extra money, you could consider another 680m to make it SLI, then this laptop would be future proof long into the future

 

Thanks for answering all the questions in depth Tyranids, If I got the SLI P370EM and only had a single gtx680m could I upgrade it in the future to duel? Also, If I did just order it with dual GTX680ms do you think it would be an overkill? Batter life wise? I want a laptop that I can just throw extra things into it as needed. I noticed that the P150EM/P170EM is far cheaper but it doesn't seem as upgradeable.

 

Is this laptop user upgradeable? Like its possible just to buy parts for it take it home and put them in? I have built tons of custom desktop PCs but I am not experienced with laptops at all. So your recommendation would just to be to get 1 750gb hard rive then upgrade later?

 

p150/170 are also very, upgradeable, i have one myself, just 4 screws and you get access to everything. P370em is bigger (less portable) and has extra fan and slot for 2nd GPU, but apart from that i dont see too much of a difference. yes i would think you can upgrade it later on, though keep in mind if you only buy 1 GPU, then you end up with only 1 fan (missing one fan for the extra slot), which may effect cooling of the CPU. one 680m alone could run pretty much everything you throw at it on maximum settings at 1080p (apart from maybe witcher 2).
battery wise, the p370em has a 89Wh battery while the p150em has 76Wh, so i guess the increased capacity makes up for the battery drain

 

for me, i got a 128gb vertex 4 before i even ordered my p150em and used it in my old laptop. after i got the p150em, i just threw it in (took about 2 minutes) and installed windows on it. took the 500gb 7200RPM HDD and put it in the optical drive caddy. in total, its 2 screws

 

I really want dual GPUs but the only thing im worried about is the battery life drain it will have one the laptop. I'm going to be using it for college stuff, like taking it in between classes and I don't want it to die in the middle of class on me. Is there a way to buy a bigger battery for it somewhere online?Also, are the hardrives just strait forward plug into the motherboard or does it take some special cord or something? I want to make this laptop as future proof as possible. When I'm dropping this much money into it I have to

 

dont think you can buy a larger capcaity battery online, but you can get a 2nd battery, so when one dies you can replace it. replacing hard drive is just plug it in, kinda like USB drives. no strings attached (no puns intended). 680m SLI will be future proof for sure

 

haha yeah definately I have heard that a single 680 is powerful but duel will be able to max just about any game out there for the next few years XD

Is there a special size of things that I have to buy to install or is it normal? I'm assuming that a laptop cant hold a desktop's hardrive, and is there any special place that you can buy laptop parts? I looked at newegg and they didn't hardly sell anything just laptop specific.

 

i think all the SSDs out there are 2.5 inch, which would fit in the p370em no problem. when i got my vertex 4 for my laptop, it even came with a desktop bracket. just make sure its 2.5inch, as long as its 2.5 inch there would be no problem

 

Ok thanks alot, The only concern I have about the whole build is heat and noise. Do you think duel 680s would be loud? I am going to be doing some audio recording and I don't want to have the whizzing of fans in the background as I'm playing games or anything. I'm thinking of buying a cooler with it as well.

 

ah its actually rather loud if you are recording sound in the room, then it might become a problem. dual 680m has dual fans right? so should be same as the p150/170. my 150 with 675m is quite loud at load, but i dont mind

 

But, Load and just running games are two diffrent things. When its loading up it makes the fans run at max speed just to test them then they quiet down. I think with a good enough mic it will be able to tone it out anyway right? Im still debating on only getting the 750gb now and then getting a 256gb SSD later on or just getting a 125GB SSD with the 750gb now and just putting the OS on it then getting a 250gb SSD strictly for fraps and other programs later on.

 

i am not sure what you mean by load and running games, but the fan speed is temperature dependent. the hard drive thing you would have to figure out yourself. Also, consider a MSATA SSD drive, its a tiny SSD drive that can be used just for OS

 

Hmm ok thanks for all your help! I think im just going to get the laptop with the dual 680s and bare bones everything else and then upgrade it when it gets here.

 

I don't know the first thing about audio production but P150em and P170em are known to have a crappy sound card. I don't know if that will effect your audio production but it might be somthing to look into. Check out the notebook check website, they have the decibel levels (under load, idle etc.) for these laptops and more.

Edit: notebook check

 

Battery life is actually not very bad for normal tasks, the cards clock down pretty well (7970m is not downclocking VRAM correctly right now though, maybe new drivers will fix). Eurocom Scorpius (Clevo P370EM) Review Check this review to get an idea of the battery life. It's not going to be long at all if you run both nvidia or amd cards at full utilization, but normal tasks could last theoretically for 2-3 hours with low screen brightness. Funny thing is, sleep mode and powered off will probably last as long as the battery's natural discharge time.

 

I would suggest the p170em, p150em or the p370em. All upgradeable and for audio, you can always purchase better audio on usb sticks. The battery life will not be great so if you are doing audio production these are basically desktops that are portable. There are ways to improve the sound such as razer sound products etc for the notebooks. So do not think that the audio is out but for audio production people use good speakers so they can hear sounds that you might not normally hear on a conventional speaker system.

For workstation purposes most people opt for a p150em/p170em build or a p370em for the raw computing power. Audio definitely consumes cpu so these babies will run your software like a charm (ableton live, cubase etc)

I cannot suggest where to buy the laptop or whom to buy it from but if you ever have any questions let me know. I have a buddy who is on a record label who produces dubstep and techno sound tracks so if you have any questions i can ask him and relay the message to you.

 

1) Having an SSD is totally worth it. Whether or not you want to purchase it when you order or pick one up down the road is your choice. These laptops are VERY easy to work on as long as you have some experience with building a computer or are handy with a screw driver and know how to practice static safety.

2) Best GPU? Well, it depends on who you ask but it is going to be between the 7970M or the 680M and that also depends on which system you get. Single card 7970M laptops at this time do have some utilization issues due to the Enduro switching graphics so the 680M would win in this category. For dual GPU configurations, such as the 9370EM you are considering, it would be something of a toss up as the 9370EM is not hindered with the switching graphics so the 7970M may shine better here.

3) If you are comfortable performing the thermal paste upgrade yourself, then give it a shot. But if you are inexperienced with applying the thermal compound, please leave it to the professionals. Copper cooling is useless, unless there is a way to transfer the heat off of those and out of the laptop. You are better off with a laptop cooler pad.

Wireless cards? Well, that depends on where you live, how often you will use the wifi, what speeds your access point and ISP offer, and how far away from the access point you are. If you need speeds greater than 150Mbps for transferring large files over the network or otherwise, or if you are going to have a lot of obstacles or distance between you and the access point then a 3-antenna card such as the 1103 or 6300 would suit your needs.

If you are an audiophile and you are in music production, an external sound card upgrade may be something for you to consider.

I can not answer anything on either performance boost, that would be a question for the reseller.

As far as warranty, I like to recommend the best warranty you can get for your money. Murphy's law is still in effect and Murphy was a horrible person.

The odds of getting any dead pixels on your display are very slim, but it can happen. The questions you must ask are 1) how many can you tolerate? Sager warranty will only cover dead pixels if there are 5 or more on your LCD display or one right in the middle of the display. So if you have 2-3 on your LCD, and none in the middle can you deal with that? 2) Will I be paying attention more the the laptop screen or will I be working with an external display? this can be rolled into question 1 really.

As far as the CPU goes, the 3630QM is enough for most people, it depends on what applications you are running and how CPU intensive those apps are. If you are doing graphic design, or program coding you may want to consider upgrading the CPU. Music studio apps may also require an upgraded CPU but I wouldn't go beyond the 3840QM.

 

The only real question I would have would be does he prefer Mac or PC?

The only reason I would want a Mac is for OSX because I know the best audio production software on the market is exclusive to the Mac, but if I can get a better PC for the price and still find some good programs to go into audio production I would rather go down that road.

 

I would not recommend the P370EM if you plan on toting it around a lot. It's massive, and so is the power brick. Expect about 2.5 hours useful battery life with wi-fi.

I can't recommend SSD enough. Crucial has great SSD's for cheap, 256GB for about $180 usually. Best investment you can make.