Purchased a M590K for a side-by-side with M570U :)

Hi everyone,

I found a M590K for $1800 and it should be arriving within the week.
It's not the 20" monster M590KE, it's the lesser-of-a-monster 19" that's pretty much the same as the Alienware mALX.

The comparison will be a sizable overclocked configured M570U that currently gets 3dMark06 scores of 6110.

The M570U is configured as follows:
17" WXGA+ 1440x900 (3dMark06 defaults to 1280x854)
Core 2 Duo 1.83 T5600 @ 2.14GHz
GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512 @ 620 CORE / 790 MEM
LaptopVideo2Go's Nvidia 165.01 series drivers on WinXP set for performance.
80GB 7200RPM drive, I'm *not* using my mod for the BIOS to enable AHCI Native SATA
2GB DDR2 667 Mushkin 5-5-5-15 (can be tweaked but not the CAS due to the M570U's i945PM that limits changing CAS in software! M570U users should find some of the CAS4 DDR2 667 out now)

The M590K is configured from my knowledge as follows:
19" WSXGA+
ML-44 2.4GHz AMD Turion 64 (the price to pay for a Nforce motherboard on the cheap!)
2x SLI'd (in WinXP) 7900 GTX's (I truly hope they're 512MB's and can overclock a bit!)
2GB RAM (if the supplied RAM sucks for timing, it will be replaced with DDR 400+ that can handle CAS 3)
100GB 7200RPM drive

If you're still reading, the M570U specs kick the M590K's ass on paper, except for the SLI part mostly. I really am interested in the M590K's performance with SLI and low memory timings, and some good ole overclocking. I really like tweaking performance, and the M590K gives me more room for that with the NForce 4 SLI motherboard over the M570U's Intel made i945PM.

My questions:
- Anyone interested in a decent benchmark comparison? Enough to help me out choosing how to perform the benchmarks?
- Was $1800 too much for a M590K? If it is, I could always sell it as a "Just like an Alienware mALX" and probably make a few bucks. ;P

nTune here I come!

 

Thats a pretty hot deal for a SLI gaming notebook.

The Clevo Guide has 3 links for reviews on this notebook, which shows some benchmarks.

I had a friend that got this notebook as well, he is a serious gamer, he does not feel that the CPU is a bottleneck at all when hes gaming on it.

 

Gophn, you win the award for fastest response time.
Thanks for making me feel more secure with the purchase. I got lucky with an auction who listed it poorly. I got enough information from the seller who doesn't know much about notebooks (except their condition and if it works as well as a refund policy ) to find out the specs. The only mystery I have is how often you find 7900 GTX's with 256MB. I've mostly seen the M590K with 512MB's so I'm hoping that's what I find. Either way from what I can gather, I lucked out on this one.

I'm checking the guide now for reviews. They look good so far. I think the main problem most have with this model is the pricing (two 79x0 GTX's 512 are $900+) and most are scared away from the AMD CPU's. As you've stated, and I agree with, the CPU in terms of gaming only goes so far. And for most general Windows tasks, a low CAS timing on RAM helps considerably. Watching WinXP boot with CAS 2 compared to CAS 3/4 is always a god example to show people for a general idea.

I hope there's plans to lower the price on the M590KE once the D900C comes out in full effect.

 

Up to about 6 months ago, the 7900GTX 256mb was VERY common. In fact, it was launched with the Clevo M570U (Sager 5760) originally, that is why you should find a good number of these notebooks with that particular card. The difference in performance [between 256mb and 512mb versions] was very marginal, at best.

I believe there was a good Thread in this forum about that.

UPDATE - Found them:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=61175
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=95052

 

Thanks Gophn, informative as usual.

And depending on how SLI manages memory, even if it was 256MB, it might combine to 512MB. Though my understanding of SLI's internal workings is low.

While I have your attention Gophn, I notice you might get notebooks for review, and you stick with the D900K. Any particular reason?

Part of the reason I want to test the M590K is to get some benches to compare to the D900C. The D900C should smash it in the CPU benches, but I am still wondering about the x16 / x4 potential issue that nobody who might actually know will chime in on. Looks to be great regardless though. I'm awaiting your review.

 

Back in March 2006, this was the most powerful notebook on the market, as well as the first dual-core notebook.

It has served me well, but after a year, so many cooler notebooks came out [SLI, Core (2) Duo, etc...], I feel a bit jealous sometimes.

 

Yeah I do too sometimes. But I'd still choose this onver the 5760 cause it has raid and can have dual hdd and optical simultaneously.

Man, it's almost been a year for me and i remember i paid over 3200 on my notebook.. Amazing what i can get less than a year later for the same price.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about that too, I had RAID-1 on this thing for so long I forgot. Its a good piece of mind to know that I wont lose my data if 1 drive fails.

And the dual optical drives are very useful to me... especially when I can get a HD-DVD drive and a Blu-Ray drive to be swapped in it.

 

One of the features I like to have in a notebook is fan control. From what I'm guessing by the M series of Clevo's, there's no luck with using the Clevo GetThermal utility on the M590K(E). I wouldnt be suprised if GetThermal works on the D900K too.
Though the nForce chipset might help me get to the fan speed control.

For me the whole buy a notebook and watch it devalue happened too. Bought a M570U right before the $300 rebate from Sager. I could upgrade this model for cheaper now.