Clevo barebones vs MSI barebones. Which one is better ?

藍天Clevo

MSI Notebook Product Specifications


Which one is better ? and which has the best cooling system ? ? I've read that even trough the clevo notebook is dual cooler, the msi barebone is better at keepin the system cool

 

In my book, both are equally good.

 

Hi. I havent popped in here on the forums for months. But today I did. Saw this thread. Here's what I think on the topic (having owned 2 Clevos and 1 MSI with the same barebone as the one you are showing).

Clevo Pro's:
- cheaper;
- generally sturdy built;
- looks overall professional and low-profile (optional, you can go with the more flashy clevo models if you want);
- components are a bit more easy to access;
- they come with more powerful PSU's (especially the 17" models);

MSI Pro's:
- quieter (a LOT quieter in idle, fan tables are good);
- single-fan design is a big plus for me (less cleaning, quieter operation thanks to its bigger size, needing lower RPM to cool efficiently);
- very nice aluminum finish (keeps the palmrest cool and pleasant to the touch, has a premium look);
- sound....SOUND. The SOUND. There is no comparison. MSI just blows every other laptop out of the water with REALLY good sound coming out of the speakers;
- very sturdy chassis (I dare to say, its better than both clevo models i've owned, the P150HM and W370ET);
- sound output jacks are metal, gold-plated, way better than the plastic ones in the clevos;
- mousepad is better, keyboard too (but this is a matter of personal preference, opinions will differ);
- driver support for MSI is generally better, including the system control apps (for changing the keyboard colors, energy profiles, etc.)
- upgradability is BETTER with MSI, due to the BIOS and EC, which accept other branded video cards!

These are MY PERSONAL takes on the matter. Take it as it is - just my opinion, nothing really general. For the sound, however, everyone will tell you its lightyears better in the MSI - the clevo's is (and always has been) very unimpressing by comparison. The sound output from the jacks is also way better in the MSI - the frequency response, especially the bass is really coming trough. I had a tough time while I used my P150HM listening with headphones plugged into the built-in soundcard - there was just NO BASS whatsoever, no matter how i changed the settings. In my W370ET, the bass was there, but the sound card was just stereo 2.0 channels.

I'd take the MSI. Currently, Im rocking a MSI GT70 with gtx880m in it, and i got to tell you - with the right settings, I cannot hear the fan at all! Even at medium loads, its quiet as hell! The chassis is very pleasant to the touch and looks amazing. The lid is firm, yet easy to open and close, which just feels right. In both my clevos, i had to hold down the keyboard in order to open the lid, because it was very stiff. Now I dont have to do that anymore. Sound is too good, really. The only "bad" thing is, it comes with 180W adapter and it really needs a 220W one (just so I can crank up the video card while recharging the battery). But hell, I will find myself a bigger adapter at some point, no problem. Currently I even use a 150W universal Fortron adapter for my office work (which still powers the system for light gaming, having limited the FPS from the game settings to 50 and it works flawlessly).
Its overall more expensive. But in my mind, its worth every penny. I just love it and hope it lasts 1-2 years without a hitch (and i feel it definetely will).

I hope you find that wall of text helpful. Be sure to read other people's reviews aswell!

 

thank you for giving us your review, as an owner of both products.

I agree that a bigger PSU would be better. And how about the cooling system ?

 

The sager/clevo systems tend to be a bit slimmer and lighter, cooling I would say is fairly equal, I'd give the edge to the 17 inch sager which uses a copper cooling black.

 

thank you guys

 

I generally agree with what you said on the speaker sound quality for clevo systems however Clevo took a step forward in the audio quality from the jack with the W230SS that I bought since they use the Creative amplifier it helps significantly. What's hilarious to me is that my wife's Dell Venue 11 Pro speakers (2-in-1 tablet) kick the pants off my W230SS. That's sad.

WIth that said, it doesn't make sense to get a laptop for sound performance from the speakers. Subwoofers in a laptop is one of the dumbest gimmicks I've ever heard of. As far as I'm concerned a notebook manufacturer should but reasonable speakers in and really good digital jacks or HDMI pass through so people can hook up easily to their Surround systems for the really good sound.

 

I just wish to point out that the barebones MSI you're looking at won't accept the 900M GPUs as far as its spec sheet goes; it likely will need a different motherboard or new BIOS for them. The clevo WILL accept 900M without issues, amazingly enough. Haven't seen Clevo do that in years.

As far as the 15" goes, the P157SM-A cooling won't be all that amazing compared to the MSI. The 17"ers will edge out better, especially with haswell CPUs. My friend in AUS (similar temps, though not humidity or airflow) to me with a propped up GT70 versus my P370SM3 can't get as-cool a CPU as I can (both of us -50mV undervolt, 4800MQ & 4810MQ respectively). And the P370SM3's CPU cooling isn't even as good as it potentially could be.

Also, remember vSync has a huge effect on how cool stuff runs. If you're gonna use vSync to 60Hz, then either system should cool just about exactly the same as far as you are concerned. At that point, it's more about your preferences, and b0b1man did give a nice breakdown of the system, though he forgot something: The Clevo has more hard drive slots and better storage options (2 x mSATA + 2 x HDD caddies + 1 x ODD caddy) and the MSI has 2 x HDD + 1 x ODD.

The MSI on the other hand can get the steelseries keyboard for it, which many have said is better than the default keyboard for either system.

 

Maybe this will help. I got a Sager NP-8268S in September. I agonized between the MSI and the Sager. I am sorry I got the Sager, and I likely never will again. I have the NVIDIA GTX 870M, and I play the most basic and dumbest of games from Big Fish Games. Even with the basic nature of my games, the screen tears terribly during any motion, no matter what settings I apply to the GPU. That is likely more a function of the screen than anything, but I am not happy with my purchase and for more than just this reason.

 

If you only needed basic games, the 870M was perhaps over kill. Though tearing can be solved with v-sync.

 

I did not buy the laptop with the intention of ONLY ever playing basic games on it. Those are just what are currently installed so far. I have a whole Steam library that I was going to eventually load. And, of course, I tried V-Sync before posting here. It makes no difference at all. I believe it is because I got the standard display, and that appears to be as low-grade in quality as the RAM in the unit. Interestingly, I went and downloaded the drivers that match my Sager/Clevo unit from the Clevo site tonight. Many of their drivers are slightly more updated than those at the Sager site for some reason. After installing these video drivers, the video definitely seems better. Far less tearing than on the Sager supplied drivers, and even without adjusting any settings.

Like I said, unless you pay for every upgrade, which then blows up the price significantly, this is not necessarily the way to get a good value on a laptop at all. Just my humble opinion based on my experience. And despite being a gal, I am an advanced user and system builder, so don't let the nickname fool you into thinking I would post my opinion without extensively testing and troubleshooting all available settings, etc.

 

I do agree; the latest system drivers are good to get. I will state however that I haven't heard anyone but you get such bad tearing all over, so I don't know why that's happening. But I'm glad some updated drivers helped your machine greatly.

 

A display itself won't cause tearing. Make sure you set in game vsync where possible and try using a custom profile in the nvidia drivers for the program itself.

 

any insight on the MSI barebone used in the cyberpower pc fangbook evo hx7? (MS-1763) which seems to be the same as the GT60/GT70. It has only 1 shared GPU/CPU cooler and that raises some flags in the cooling department.

 

I would head over to the msi section, look at the owners lounges (the gt series share the same cooling) and ask people there.

 

I know this post if super old but I couldn't help but chime in here. I see these types of posts all over the place with people discussing their laptops and game performance. I've been gaming on laptops since about 2003. You can imagine the troubles games had back then working on laptop tech. I've spent countless hours getting games working on laptops and with crossfire and optimus when they first were released, that was a nightmare.

I suspect your problem is that these games are using the integrated video card. I always see this problem on my laptops with "indie" games or smaller niche games. You have to go into the NVidia control panel and force it to use the NVidia graphics card. Often times it is grayed out and you can't change it. I then use a problem called NVidia inspector. This allows me to delete the profile for the given game and then I am able to force it to use the NVidia card instead of the integrated Intel video. Be careful with the inspector though as you can mess things up if you are not certain what you are doing.

I buy a new game laptop about every 1 to 1.5 years and have done so since 2003. I have had a TON of issues with games on my laptops and have not experienced what you are seeing. If it isn't what I mentioned above, it is most likely a config issue and not a hardware issue.

 

I would say get the Clevo. I had an MSI laptop that I repasted several times and even with repasting the CPU and GPU temps got WAY too high. Plus, Clevo has custom BIOSes and vBIOSes, which is just amazing, Clevo's are generally more upgradeable/easier to upgrade, etc. To me, it's a no brainer - I would get a Clevo over an MSI or any other laptop, every single time. It's not that the MSI isn't good, it's just that the Clevo would be better.

 

I found it simpler back then, my old X600M setup was pretty simple, give it a 40-50% overclock, get the pentium M from 2 to 2.3ghz and watch the games fly

 

The heating is okay on a model like that, generally a little higher than a lot of the Clevo models that might be similar in specs. While temps might be higher than ideal, there are still models out there that run hotter.

Also, to consider with an MSI barebones, they are slightly different than an actual MSI branded system. Might not have the same MSI warranty (2 years warranty, with 1 year accidental damage), just depending on where you buy it though. The panels used on the frame are different (no MSI branding, maybe made of plastic instead of brushed aluminum in some cases), and you generally won't get the RGB backlit keyboard. But for performance and upgrade options, they will be the same and usually at a better deal compared to the actual MSI models.