Clevo W870CU

From the pictures I'm seeing, heating shouldn't be an issue. Especially not the notorious M860 HDD temperatures.

 

no way there will be overheating issues

 

Agreed. Neither of the systems will have any problems with heat. Both the W860CU and the W870CU use a stamped aluminium bracket that will help saturate heat off the HDD.

 

I hope so. The other issue is noise level. After seeing how loud a system can be (aka OCZ Whitebook) under load, noise is a major issue.

 

noise is a smaller issue then overheating ....

overheating > noise on my problem list

 

Noise can take a back seat in my book. I'm sure it won't be too bad.

 

Speaking of noise, do we have any info on a possible "silent mode" (like the feature on the M860TU) on both the W860CU and W870CU ?

 

I hope the "Silent Mode" isn't needed for the W860CU/W870CU.

 

The i7 should idle cool and quiet. Fan noise when gaming is another story, but since they are larger fans I don't think the CPU fan whine will be as distinguishable as in the past.

 

I prefer adequate cooling and acceptable noise levels while gaming.

For example, the M17x is loud under load/gaming. The M17 is a ear crusher while gaming. The MSI 1722 and W90Vp are insanely quiet while gaming.

 

When you game, normally you have speakers or headphones on, what computer can possibly be loud enough to be annoying? It's different when you're in a library and a laptop is so clogged with dust, that it runs with a constant whine.... now that's annoying.

The M570TU is pretty quiet. If you turn fans to max it whirs like a tornado on a centimeter scale, but auto does the job more than adequately and is far from noisy.

 

Many times I play with the sound muted and/or in the living/family room, so noise level is a factor for myself and those around me.

 

I might upgrade to one of these in a year or two. It won't be worth it to me until some new video cards come out though.

 

did anyone notice that eurocom is selling their w870cu with an ati 4870?

 

Yes they are but its only the GDDR3 version of the 4870..

 

ewww gddr3 suks

 

This new W870CU is sexy.. Cant wait to see some benchmarks with it..

 

I think I like this rig. Just waiting on a forum/user reviews which should be within a couple of weeks or so...right? Anyway was this review already posted? I didn't see it. CLEVO W870CU REVIEW

 

My next laptop: W870CU with the GT300. Wish nVidia would hurry up.

 

I've just checked the dimensions of the W870CU and this is thing is significantly bigger than my current M570TU. (.

Looks like I will be aiming for the W860CU in my future upgrade plan.

 

Look on the bright side: the W860CU is cheaper.

 

See what I mean.

 

Sadly, yes. I really liked the size of my laptop as it is now, it's been like this for 4 years. My former Dell had the same size... I guess I will just wait a while longer until I upgrade.

 

What has made it larger? Is it the new screen aspect ratio?

 

That too yes, it's wider by 1.5 cm , longer by 0.5 cm and is thicker by 1cm as well. But let's face it, the M570TU was already on the edge of portability. (the weight is the same for both laptops)
By comparison, the W860 is smaller by about 2.3 cm in width, 1.7 in length and is slightly thicker than the M570TU.

 

You count a few centimeters as significant differences? You had me expecting there to be inches added on to the chassis.

 

Hahah, I actually thought is was more as well cause I was looking at official measurements and measuring my laptop. But it turns out it's not that big and I am bad at using measuring tape.

But still, it may not seem that much bigger when you look just at numbers, but in reality you will notice the difference. And to be fair, I don't really want to carry everyday anything bigger than what I already have. But hei, this is just my personal preference.

 

Exactly why I'm going back to 15 inch notebooks.

 

Jesus, before you know it the 15-inchers are the new 17-inchers.

 

They somewhat are already, haha. However, in Clevo's case, it's for a good purpose: better cooling. Those that don't mind having the W870CU be as big as the D900F would go with that, and those that are fine with the M860TU and M570TU can go towards the W860CU, with the exception of Heathkidd because he thinks yellow spraypainted notebooks are pretty.

 

Rofl ) Good one.

 

Isn't the W870CU's weight just about the same as that of the M570TU's? Thats what I have been reading in most sites.

 

I'd say that Clevo has made the W860CU a suitable analog to the M570TU, in that you can now have the top mobile cpu + top single NVIDIA graphics card in a reasonably light/small chassis. With the M860, one could not make use of the unlocked multipliers of the QX9300 and the GTX 280M had to be purchased separately and was pushing the thermal/power limitations of the design.

Meanwhile, the W870CU seems to be bridging the gap between the D900F and the M570TU, in that if you want 17"+ and hardware RAID, but do not require SLI or a desktop processor (and it's greater cooling requirements), there is now a suitable option. Overall, I think it's a good thing, as the D900's and the M980 are simply too large to appeal to some potential customers.

 

But why no OC for the W860CU.... why ? .

 

W870CU has superior cooling, mainly because of a larger chassis...

 

The larger chassis is a minor factor in it's cooling ability since they both have the same cooling system. The real reason Clevo did not allow overclocking on the 920XM for the W860CU is to protect W870CU sales. Clevo has historically been repeating the same marketing ploy, and I have to say it is a very smart decision.

 

If we could just hack the BIOS of the W860CU... what joy would that be!

 

I was thinking about that. My original thought was to flash the W870CU system BIOS onto the W860CU since their motherboards are near identical. But part of me is debating whether this will conflict with the mini PCI-E slot features and southbridge issues with the HDD. Because users cannot force flash a system BIOS if it screws up, I am strongly against attempting it.

 

Are the chips on-board, or are they swappable? Never messed around with laptop bios, but last I worked on them in desktop realm some were pretty easy to replace.

 

This must be the other side, assume the clevo 870 is the NP 8760

 

Finally we are starting to get somewhere...

Soviet, isn't there a BIOS recovery option ? Most desktop motherboards that I know have a way of flashing a BIOS on to them in case something goes terribly wrong.

 

The CMOS containing the BIOS is soldered on all of my notebooks and all the other notebooks I have worked on in the past, so I'm going to assume it is also soldered on the W870CU as well. Most desktops have a backup BIOS that kicks in the user screws up their BIOS. This can be done by pulling the CMOS battery. I don't know if mobile motherboards have them though. I will need to look into it.

 

All chips are swappable, but it's up to how far the user wants to go in swapping it. Those who are handy with a solder can proceed while those that like building their machines like Lego's are stuck. Even if replacing the CMOS was easy, I would still advise against it simply because this there are too many unknown factors to consider.

 

Well, technically we could just do it once, and replace it with a socket for easy work in the future, but you're right.. it's a comfort level thing. If I wasn't paying out of pocket for these laptops I'd be all over it..

 

It's not a comfort level thing for me, rather it is a complexity thing. I've soldered BIOS chips off two identical desktop boards before without hesitation, but that was because I knew what the risks were and that there were safety nets in place. In this case, I may be wrong about the two motherboards being near identical as I do not have either notebook, both have subtly different features, they do not have immediate BIOS backups, and so on. I just don't have the knowledge on two different notebook motherboards. The risk is too great, even for me.

 

does anybody knows where to order this laptop in UK?

 

The CMOS battery on the 860 is under the panel above the keyboard. Probably the same on the the 870.

 

The Clevo guide sticky lists UK retailers. A quick look through them reveals that Rock does not seem to sell the W870CU (although you might try calling), Kobalt (highly recommended) sells it as the G870, and Novatech sells it as the X80.

 

I'll second Kobalt. I've communicated with Neil a few times, and from others experiences' here with them, they're definitely a quality reseller. They also have their own forums for support and discussion.

 

Forgive my ambiguity in my grammar. I was talking about the backup BIOS chips.

Blacky. On a typical notebook motherboard, there are two chips: the BIOS chip and the CMOS chip. The BIOS chip contains the system BIOS and is read-only. The data on the BIOS chip cannot be changed unless the BIOS is flashed. The CMOS contains all of the changes made to the system BIOS, like system time, and is both read and write, thus requiring a battery to keep it powered so the data isn't lost and everything is reverted back to the original BIOS settings. The problem that I stated a few posts above is with having a safe backup if swapping the BIOS chip from the W860CU and W870CU fails. The notebook is dead without the BIOS and cannot use the data stored in the CMOS as it only contains changed data. However, after flashing the 1.00.05 BIOS onto my notebook, I am beginning to have that optimistic feeling again that both the W860CU and W870CU BIOS are identical and indeed compatible, and can be cross-flashed. Don't take my word for it though. I still see subtle differences in the checksums.