PCSpecialist Octane 3 Review (4k screen, i7-7700k, 1080 GTX, 32GB ram, 1TB m2 drive)

Hello everyone,

The title is a little misleading. This isn't a review just yet. I have only just ordered the laptop from
pcspecialist.co.uk. I will keep the thread updated with the progress of my order. Once I receive the laptop I will be able to run benchmarks and stress tests to let you guys know how well it performs and how hot it gets.

Specs:
Chassis & Display Octane Series: 17.3" Matte 4K IPS LED Widescreen (3840x2160)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache
Memory (RAM) 32GB Corsair VENGEANCE 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1, G-SYNC
1st Hard Disk 1TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 2.5" SSHD - UP TO 5X FASTER THAN HDD!
M.2 SSD Drive 1TB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3000MB/R, 1700MB/W)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Laptop Cooling Stands CoolerMaster U3 Plus Ultra-Quiet Laptop Cooler, upto 17.3 inch

The order (including delivery, silver warranty and a cooler mentioned above) came out at: £2,653.00

From the research I've done PCSpecialists seem to have a pretty decent reputation. Their price is also absolutely fantastic, I've looked through many Clevo re-sellers around Europe as well as the US, and PCSpecialists seem to have very good selection of components at the most competitive price around.

Will keep you guys updated.

I am also open to suggestions regarding the benchmarks and stress tests that I should run. I'm not that clued up about them, I only know Firestrike for gaming performance and Cinebench for CPU stressing.

I may also be up for delliding the CPU myself, we'll see how the laptop performs without it.

Update 1 (13/05/2017):

It's been 5 working days. The laptop status is saying that it is now built and is going to go through testing.

I have also been in touch with PCspecialist. I requested the test results as well as requested the laptop to be specifically tested with HTC Vive and other connected USB devices.

I got told that they can't provide me with screenshots of the tests as they are internal. I was also assured that the device will be thoroughly tested and I shouldn't worry.

Although those things would have been nice, I'm not too worried and am still confident they will do a good job on the laptop.

Update 2(18/05/2017):

It's the working day 9 after me placing the order. (placed it on Saturday the 6th of May).

The beast arrived today!

It took as long as I expected, as I chose the slowest and the cheapest build/delivery option. 9 working days is not too bad and to be honest I was ready to be waiting more then two weeks for this, so I am very happy with the turn around time!

Everything is in order. All the specs are just as I had ordered. My Cooler Master U3 Plus cooling pad was also there.

First impressions about the laptop (Keep in mind I've already had my hands on an Aorus X7 v6 DT before it died on me):

-It's very hefty, again as expected from a Clevo laptop.
-The 4K Screen looks gorgeous, I tested a few 4K nature videos on Youtube and they all look crystal clear. Anyone who says that an upgrade to a 4K screen is unnoticeable on a 17 inch laptop is either blind or is kidding themselves.
-I like the feel of the keyboard. It's not as nice as my QPAD MK-85 mechanical keyboard, but it feels better then the Aorus. The layout is more standard then the Aorus as well.
-The track pad could use a bit more sensitivity, but I'm sure it's nothing that a few Windows tweaks won't fix.
-The speakers sound pretty good, although aren't as loud as I'd expect. They're not audiophile quality but they definitely sound better then most laptop speakers.

Will bet playing about with it over the weekend, so will try to post some benchmark results.


Update 3:

Upon performing a fresh install of Windows 10 and installing all the drivers that came with the laptop, I've only managed to run the vanilla Firestrike. Getting just below 16k with both the CPU and the GPU on stock speeds.

Don't know if I should be disappointed as the Aorus was easily breaking 16k, although it did have the max overclock enabled on both the CPU and the GPU.



Also having trouble with launching the Control Center CPU OC feature. Here's what I see on the screen. Have tried reinstalling Control Center which doesn't help. Have contacted PCSpecialist about this.



Update 4:

I was getting quite worried today because of the lowish Firestrike score.

After a bit of research, I realised that I may need to turn off G-Sync in NVidia Control Center, as well as set the driver to Prefer Best Performance. After doing that, voila, I got the score that this city deserves, 17 051 on stock speeds:



PCSpecialist got back to me about the CPU OC application issue. They sent me a link to the latest version of Control Center. Downloading and reinstalling did indeed fix the problem.

A minor complaint is that, the driver isn't available to me through my orders technical downloads page on the PCSpecialist website (most other drivers for this laptop are not available either). I guess it's a technical issue with their website, and I hope that they fix it soon, now that I've notified them about it.

Update 5:

I have run some stress tests to check how hot this thing gets. The results are not very promising. I'm not sure how to proceed with this. What do you guys think of these temperatures? Quite high, right? I don't want my laptop dying on me after a few months of intense use.

Used Prime95 for CPU testing and Furmark for the GPU. Had tested with and without the CoolerMaster U3 cooler stand.

CPU Temps:
No cooler - 98 degrees and rising
Cooler - 88 degrees.

GPU Temps:
No cooler - 90 degrees.
Cooler - 88 degrees.

 

Do ask PCS guys to provide you with a benchmark/stress test report before shipping the laptop. @madeinholt had dealt with them in past and might be able to shed more light on their testing procedure. If I remember correctly, Octane is the P775 chassis and they are a bit of pain in the neck to keep cool. Delidd is almost compulsory to keep them under 90C. My P775 (from Scan UK but they have the same supplier as PCSpecialist) would go over 90C even when playing witcher 3. I will most definitely ask them to run AIDA stress test for CPU and send you a temperature profile. It is unlikely that you will encounter any software which will stress you CPU to the degree that AIDA will do but it gives you a good idea of machine's cooling competence. One of the major reason I ended up with Obsidian is most of UK resellers' failure to provide adequate cooling. If you look at the attached picture, I was able to dial up clocks to 4.8 on my KM1 without any trouble at all.

Good luck with your purchase.

 

Thanks for the heads up! Will get in touch with PCSpecialist and ask them to send me the results before actually sending me the laptop.

Obsidian was my second choice. However a similar spec from them would set me back another £300 so I decided to go with PCSpecialist and deal with any temp issues myself.

 

Really? Well that does sound a bit excessive. Well if I were you, I probably would have compromised by getting a 500gb ssd and FHD scree and gone with Obsidian anyway because of peace of mind with regards to cooling and wonderful customer service. You can always add storage later. Regardless, good luck with your machine.

 

Update 1:

It's been 5 working days. The laptop status is saying that it is now built and is going to go through testing.

I have also been in touch with PCspecialist. I requested the test results as well as requested the laptop to be specifically tested with HTC Vive and other connected USB devices.

I got told that they can't provide me with screenshots of the tests as they are internal. I was also assured that the device will be thoroughly tested and I shouldn't worry.

Although those things would have been nice, I'm not too worried and am still confident they will do a good job on the laptop.

 

As to the comment about Scan and PC specialist having the same supplier, no real surprise as they both buy direct from Clevo.

I find it strange they say they can't provide screenshots of the testing as there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to.

 

I believe Fortune is the distributor for Clevo in UK, and they are owned by the same company that controls PCS. They distribute to Scan and other UK resellers like Dino PC etc.

The other big player is @XMG but it appears they have their own exclusive deal with Clevo since they operate at about the same scale as Sager. Neil can correct me there if I am wrong.

And yes, saying they can't provide screen shots is bizarre at best.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Scan get theirs direct from Clevo unless they run out then they buy in from Fortune.

PCSpecialist bought the Fortune name when Fortune folded a few years ago. They then took on the distribution of Clevo laptops

 

I see. I had no idea, thanks for clearing that up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Update 2:

It's the working day 9 after me placing the order. (placed it on Saturday the 6th of May).

The beast arrived today!

It took as long as I expected, as I chose the slowest and the cheapest build/delivery option. 9 working days is not too bad and to be honest I was ready to be waiting more then two weeks for this, so I am very happy with the turn around time!

Everything is in order. All the specs are just as I had ordered. My Cooler Master U3 Plus cooling pad was also there.

First impressions about the laptop (Keep in mind I've already had my hands on an Aorus X7 v6 DT before it died on me):

-It's very hefty, again as expected from a Clevo laptop.
-The 4K Screen looks gorgeous, I tested a few 4K nature videos on Youtube and they all look crystal clear. Anyone who says that an upgrade to a 4K screen is unnoticeable on a 17 inch laptop is either blind or is kidding themselves.
-I like the feel of the keyboard. It's not as nice as my QPAD MK-85 mechanical keyboard, but it feels better then the Aorus. The layout is more standard then the Aorus as well.
-The track pad could use a bit more sensitivity, but I'm sure it's nothing that a few Windows tweaks won't fix.
-The speakers sound pretty good, although aren't as loud as I'd expect. They're not audiophile quality but they definitely sound better then most laptop speakers.

Will bet playing about with it over the weekend, so will try to post some benchmark results.

 

Try plugging in a decent set of headphones and get that sabre DAC experience

 

Update 3:

Upon performing a fresh install of Windows 10 and installing all the drivers that came with the laptop, I've only managed to run the vanilla Firestrike. Getting just below 16k with both the CPU and the GPU on stock speeds.

Don't know if I should be disappointed as the Aorus was easily breaking 16k, although it did have the max overclock enabled on both the CPU and the GPU.



Also having trouble with launching the Control Center CPU OC feature. Here's what I see on the screen. Have tried reinstalling Control Center which doesn't help. Have contacted PCSpecialist about this.

 

You could see if there is a later version on our download pages.

 

Update 4:

I was getting quite worried today because of the lowish Firestrike score.

After a bit of research, I realised that I may need to turn off G-Sync in NVidia Control Center, as well as set the driver to Prefer Best Performance. After doing that, voila, I got the score that this city deserves, 17 051 on stock speeds:



PCSpecialist got back to me about the CPU OC application issue. They sent me a link to the latest version of Control Center. Downloading and reinstalling did indeed fix the problem.

A minor complaint is that, the driver isn't available to me through my orders technical downloads page on the PCSpecialist website (most other drivers for this laptop are not available either). I guess it's a technical issue with their website, and I hope that they fix it soon, now that I've notified them about it.

 

Just use the @John@OBSIDIAN-PC utility for all your drivers. It works regardless of your reseller.

 

Once you are up and running properly it's just really the GPU drivers that need to be updated.

 

What do you mean? I downloaded the latest drivers from NVidia. Are there special Clevo GPU drivers?

 

No, but of all the drivers on the system they are the only ones you would bother to regularly update.

 

Ah fair enough. Yep, agree, that's why I used NVidia's website and not the drivers included with the laptop

As a side note. I'm planning on testing the temperatures on this thing today and tomorrow. From what I've been able to read around so far, Prime95 and Furmark seem to be the programs I may want to use. I'm planning on running both at the same time and seeing if I can fry an egg.

Good idea? Any other advice on testing the temps? Not sure what to use for monitoring the temps yet.

 

Update 5:

I have run some stress tests to check how hot this thing gets. The results are not very promising. I'm not sure how to proceed with this. What do you guys think of these temperatures? Quite high, right? I don't want my laptop dying on me after a few months of intense use.

Used Prime95 for CPU testing and Furmark for the GPU. Had tested with and without the CoolerMaster U3 cooler stand.

CPU Temps:
No cooler - 98 degrees and rising
Cooler - 88 degrees.

GPU Temps:
No cooler - 90 degrees.
Cooler - 88 degrees.

 

What kind of temps could I expect from an Obsidian laptop, for GPU in particular?

 

Without delid and undervolt of the 7700K you can expect temps of 85-90 degrees for both the CPU and GPU (AUTO fan). Your screen does support G-Sync?

 

With Auto fan speeds even after a good repaste, it seems to me that you'd be lucky if your max cpu temps stayed in that range. GPU, yes, that's pretty much what you'll be getting.
CPU for less intensive cpu tasks may stay in those temps if you use a laptop cooler and an OC fan profile (e.g. Firestrike Ultra on loop may well be able to stay at those temps.)

And yes, the 4k screen does seem to support G-Sync

 

I bought my clevo p150hm from pcspecialist years back. Had similar issues with heat. The thing always throttled couldn't play anything to demanding. If the reseller does not add the extra service of fixing the machines shortcomings you end up with these problems, have you done a repast or anything?

I don't see a point in buying clevo if the reseller is average. End up with a throttled machine.