Buying from China cheaper?

Hey guys,

I've been following the developments on these machines and am considering getting a Clevo 870DM or 775DM2/3 sometime in the next few months. I may be spending some months in China later this year and then in summer next year.

I don't know much about the market in China, though googling suggests that high end laptops are cheapest in the US. But it wouldn't hurt to ask the experts in this forum. So guys, any place I can pick up these Clevo's in China? (I will be spending time mostly in Beijing and Shanghai, but given enough incentive

 

A high end laptop and "cheaper" don't go together. I'd pay more from a reputed reseller like LPC Digital or HIDevolution to get great quality control, customer service, awesome warranty and most of all, if you don't buy it from a Prema Partner such as HIDevolution the laptop would be limited in terms of options in BIOS, overclocking, customization, etc.

See:
HIDevolution - The Best Company I ever dealt with

Benefits of Prema BIOS:

• The ability to disable other drives connected to your system without physically removing them from your laptop, this comes in handy when installing Windows as you never want to have more than one drive connected at the time you are installing Windows otherwise the Windows setup will place the boot files on the 2nd drive it sees which hurts performance and makes it a headache when creating system images or restoring since the boot files are not on the main drive.
• The ability to overclock, increase Turbo Power Limits and System IA/Core Current Limits
• The ability to enable Intel Speed Shift Technology (it is disabled in the stock BIOS)
• The ability to run RAM with speeds higher than the standard 2133 MHz. I am not talking about overclocking here, I am talking about actual RAM sticks that are rated to run at 2800 MHz for example like the G.Skill 64GB 2800 MHz kit I have. With the stock BIOS, they will not run above 2400 MHz. In the case of the P870DM3, the stock BIOS now supports up to 2666 MHz. I believe but not more, so the Prema BIOS is a must again
• The ability to enable CSM for those who want to install other OSes like Windows 7
• The ability to undervolt the CPU as the stock voltage is way too high which causes the CPU to overheat much quicker and thus throttle under load.
• The ability to enable or disable CPU AES instructions or Virtualization
• The ability to disable hibernation from the BIOS

Benefits of Prema VBIOS:

• Power throttle disabled
• Over-voltage slider enabled and adjusted (up to a maximum of 1.2v)
• Activated and adjusted thermal slider (to keep it cooler if desired)
• Core overclock slider limit raised
• Power consumption meter activated
• Fixed 3D voltage base-line in order to stabilize OCs and voltage-match both cards in SLI systems (based on average ASIC)
• Thermal protection @ 92c (once*91c are breached the system throttles volts and clocks in order to protect it)
• Protection against Furmark and Kombustor GPU burnout (AVOID those software even with stock vBIOS)!

 

Besides that, fellow brother Phoenix, comes that Chinese resellers exploit the price insensitiveness of affluent Chinese who are enthusiastic about mobile gaming. TerransForce for example still charges over 2200€ for an old 970M based Clevo notebook, LOL. I haven't found a competitively priced Chinese reseller as of yet.

 

Try search on Hasee, they have cheaper laptops than TerransForce.

Many "competitively priced" Chinese Clevo reseller sells genetic brand "Style-note" Clevo notebooks, without a very reliable warranty service. Some even use Engineering Sample CPU to further reduce the price.
Search the exact model on taobao.com should return some results.

 

Honestly even Hasee laptops arent priced very well compared to stateside.. but 1070 units (around $1800 USD) and 1060 units ($1500) can be found here for pricing idea

 

I can only speak for Taiwan, so its a different then China, but it was actually more expensive in Taiwan. As some people have mentioned it would preferable to get one through a U.S. shops. I am sure you might be able to find a cheaper Clevo there, but you are also a foreigner with no connections in China so the chance of them trying to take a little advantage of you is higher too. Good luck though!

 

Thanks for your helpful advice. I will not be buying immediately, as I would like to get familiar with the area first. I think it would be better to have a friendly local PC gamer help me get a good deal.

The US definitely has the best prices but since the laptops just came out and I will be quite busy initially, I may even delay buying till a couple of months later, dec 2016/jan 2017.

I was hoping that I might be able to get some good deals from some local resellers who have direct connections to the factories.

How are the prices of desktop components over there?