Review: d901c after 6 months

Hi all,

I’m here to post my impressions of my Clevo d901c as stated in my signature. This after around six months of around 10 hours daily use.

I will avoid stating what others have stated in their reviews around their favorable first impressions (Quality of the case, 3DMark06 scores, FPS averages in games), etc. I subscribe all of them considering the time.

What is the difference of this one to other reviews? Well it is after the hype and excitement about getting a new "toy".

This post is about my experience while others mileage may vary. I also leave in Portugal, Europe so any reference to pricing must been seen in this context.

The Good

Work & Productivity

My d901c is the fastest PC I ever got period. For work, it is a dream machine. It does not stop for anything I throw at it, and I throw quite a lot From Microsoft Outlook (always running) SQL Servers instances, Web Server, several Visual Studio instances of Microsoft Visual Studio, Word Documents, Virtual Machines you name it. All running at the same time it does not stutter for a second .

Granted sometimes get’s slower but still very responsive. It is weird but a reboot solves the problem

This with Vista x64, it is awsome! Better then some business servers I can't imagine a better complement then this one for work.

Gaming

This laptop is generally fast in games at resolution above 1400x1050. In some way or another I can play almost any game from medium to high settings and still have a smooth experience. This is good but not unexpected.

Usually I play First Person Shooters such as COD4, COD2 and F.E.A.R. and performance is above average for a PC.

The LCD is very good, and play all resolutions as clear as I've seen in the best LCD in the market if not better.

Hardware

This laptop does not run hot at all and is silent enough to be in the living room or the office without bothering anyone including myself.

Yes it is heavy for a laptop, but I can commute by train and sub from home to work without any hurdles.

It has been running for 6 months without an hardware failure. I can't imagine a better complement then this one in terms of robustness.

Support

The support given by my supplier as been prompt and professional

Community

The online comunity around this technology is awsome. It has been a rewarding experience to meet people such as Justin, Paladin, Gophn, Wu Jen, Shyster, Dexgo, AlanP Akilae Hunter, Kozi and so many others.

The Bad

Gaming

This laptop has not met my expectations, especially after experiencing another d901c but with 2xGo7950GTX.

Both in COD4 and Assassins Creed (couldn’t resist and try the first game scenes) I have to disable SLi in order to play smoothly. Indeed, in terms of gaming quality settings I still have not notice the advantage of SLi in the games that I play.

For instance in Assassins Creed, with SLi I have to overclock the cards to get the same smooth experience that I get with SLi disabled. In COD4 I need to disable SLi have an 100% smooth experience without any stuttering.

More often then not I "enjoy" the same experience offered by a laptop with a single card and a mobile CPU (M570RU) but a lot cheaper due to the above . This is very bad, since most of the money went for precisely this feature (the ability to run games at higher resolutions and quality settings). SLi in the desktop world have some issues too, but not to the point where by disabling SLi you get better experience.

Don't confuse better quality experience with performance, aka number of frames per second that is usually touted around. With SLI enabled I do get higher FPS, 3dMark06 scores (10500 OCed SLI against 6000 OCed non SLi), but the game play is not smooth. Stuttering, tearing and other problems are visibibily there in the games that I play when SLi is enabled. In fast paced precision games like First Person Shooters it is a deadly annoyance.

Hardware

I faced three hardware problems in the first days of use.

1. The LCD ribbon was damaged from factory. After week of use the LCD started mildly flickering, showing pixelation issues and ghosting. The ribbon was replaced and problem was sorted.
2. The VGA cards came from factory without the correct BIOS, so basically Vista would not detect that I had two cards at all. So I had to flash the BIOS into my video cards
3. The memory that came with the lappy could not survive the Mem86 test. So they had to be replaced

The first problem seams to be a common. I think this is not a good sign of enduring quality but rest assured I'll post a review in the following years

The Ugly

These are problems that exist across the Clevo ecosystem rather than particular to my supplier.

The drivers that come with the CD are not the newest. We spend a lot of time updating drivers to solve problems such as the ones stated above. This could be solved by going online to the Clevo site, but the driver list is not update frequently. Some drivers are almost a year old.

The policy appears to be, if the drivers work with a given configuration and give a good 3D mark there is no need to update. Well in my case the drivers don’t work with the given configuration (have to disable SLi) but they do give a good 3D Mark which is good only for reviews. This is hugly.

There is basically no evolving support regarding drivers. bios upon the basic fixing and so on. This is hugly for a Gaming PC of this price. Some problems although explicable are beyong understanding for the price.

Finally don’t put any weight on the fact that this laptop is video card upgradable because in practice it is not!

Concluding

I have mixed feelings about this lappy were I shouldn't considering this is the creme de la creme (or was six months ago). For work, it is awesome. For gaming I expected more for the price and often I get frustrated (I payed more then $4500).

Probably it is my desire to justify my investment, but I always get the feeling that the technical hurdles due to drivers/software could be sorted out if some professional effort was put towards it.

Would I buy it again with the current config? Well no. The major part of the investment went for the gaming and SLi and considering the issues I have for the games I play it has not paid back. The experience has been far from smooth within the context of gaming after the initial wow and expectations (better drivers etc). Also the ability to upgrade has disappeared in the midst of possibilities and price at least for now. So I'm stuck with it unless I spend then $1000 around a single 8800M GTX and new motherboard and expect that the stuttering is solved etc etc.

I would probably buy it again without SLi thought (with just one card 8800M GTX), or go simply go for another lappy such as Clevo M570RU-U or the DELL XPS 1730. Most probably the later. You seam to get more for the price in those systems, particularly in Europe.

Stay cool,

Trance

 

nice job.thx!

 

nice review, just curious why did you get dual 8700's instead of a single 8800? was it due to money, as in 2 x 8700 is less then 1 x 8800?

 

The lappy came to me in the end of October begining of November. So the 8800M GTX was not available at that time.

Trance

 

Nice Review Trance

 

Nice review It is nice to see a review, after people have had their machine for some time, as flaws and other defects, there might be, tends to be found through extensive use

Also, it gives a more insight in how the machine actually serves its owner.

Anyway ill be with you in the conclusion, that sometimes if you catch a good deal, the _Dell puters make more bang for the bucks here in Europe. Clevo puters are just too expensive 2 weeks after buying mine, I saw a M1730 with a T9300, 2gb ram, 2x160 gb hd and the SLI 8800 for 200$ more than I gave for the one in my sig

 

Wow man, you probably said exactly what i was thinking about this. Myself, Ive had it since august, spent UNDER 3k for what you see in my profile, and i play COD4 maxed out on 1680x? i forget. Anyway, I had the same flickering problem, scares me to death somtimes. I use it this thing everyday, for at least 10 hours as well, for work,research,gaming, etc... yey college.
Yahh to the conclusion as well. For gaming, CPU rele doesnt matter a WHOLE bunch, so the 7950 is still rapage for me. I havent met a game EXCEPT crysis of course that i cant run. Crysis still runs mind you, just... a lil low resolution! wat i dont get is the price. The q6600 was the standard as was the E6600 wen i bought mine. Since i paid less i feel like it was worth the money. I def. dont think it was worth 4500 tho. Which makes me wonder who u bought that from? and always negotiate over the fone of course.

 

So I take it you had 2x 7950GTX and switched to 8700M GTs ?

 

me or trance? i always had and still only have one 7950. sory if not directed at me.

 

Thats prolly why is cost Trance a whole lot more than it did for you.

And good job Trance... too bad your not as happy as you would like to be with your system...

 

yes Trance originally had 7950's with his Blue d900c

then he had probs and sent it away and ended up getting a d901c quad core and 8700's..

at first people figured 8700's were awesome and better than 7950's because of the higher number and newer tech dx10. etc. but this was not the case.

they at one point were backordered and were more money upfront than dual 7950's

that sure changed fast...

 

well... the 8700s were a slightly less powerful 7950 with DX10!! OMG DX10 HOW AMAZING!!!...
so wen a card thats more powerful than 7950 with dx10 came out... 8700... poor obselete card swept up in the whirl of technology. I'm prolly getting Sli 8800 later this year after a mobo upgrade. even then im screwed cuz 9800 will be out lol...
im curious, im hearing a LOT of issues with this SLI8800 thing... ppl saying a single one is better? why so many kinks? SLI has been around in laptops long enuf for it to be fairly stable the way technology moves.

 

i still don't understand why trance wen't for the 8700 cards when clevo / sager themselves stated that the 7950 cards were much stronger even before the 8700 were released from clevo.

i think the 8700 score higher in 3dmark (compared to 7950 cards) but perform worse in actual gameplay. didn't we see this pattern before? i believe nvida did the same thing with the 5 series cards where it catered towards 3dmark scores but were lousy in actual gameplay...or was it ATI that pulled this stunt?

 

3dmark means nothing but MARKS.. thats all.

it is very unrealistic in terms of real-world performance...

Its just for marks thats all. it came out like 3 years ago too.

when 3dmark comes out it always uses very shader intensive cpu intensive benchmarking and maybe shows performance within the first year of being out... maybe..

 

Hi, I went for the 8700M GT in SLi simply becouse of this:

I tested it in Vista and got 10500k OC'd. This considering that I was getting 9800 OCd with the Go 7950 GTX my inexperience led me to conclude that with good driver the 8700M GT were slightly better if overclocked. The drivers for DirectX were just coming out back then so really imature. Heck I get better scores OCd in SLi then dexgo get with is 8800M GTX default clocks by 600.

The drivers in time they haven't got really that better. So basically the cards either revealed systemic problems or simply effort was not put towards driver optimization. I'm more inclined to believe the later.

Indeed I believe that the single 8700M GT is a good card. It simply doesn't work as well in SLi due to tge issues I pointed out. Not that I care much for 1900x1200 but it is extremly frustrating having to disable SLi to get smoother play at 1400x1050 in XP (COD4). Honestly I only found this out by chance,I simply thought - "This is ridiculous but let's just try disable SLi", and bang.

I was influenced by a person that had a single 8700M GT, I guess I was lacking in confidence. The decision was made in a split second to go for the new cards, indeed I hesitated for 30 seconds (In my mind a bell was ringing -"The scores don't make sense in normal conditions").

Actually the Go 7950 GTX were slightly more expensive back then.

My lesson regarding drivers is that always assume that in terms of performance drivers will not get better. Usually initial bugs are fixed, usually related to gittery, system support and crashes.

Anyway live and learn.

As for the price being high, well I have two cards and bought in Europe.

Hope that people really learn from my experience when buying an SLi cards. I will never go for the latest generation until significant user data/experience is out in the Internet.

Early adopters either get burned or glorified There is no middle ground.

Trance
PS: Also I don't attribute everything to the cards. It might be also the interface with the cards, or IRQs or something particular to the d901c internal architecture. We just don't know.

 

One last note and I'll end my winning as this was supposed to be a balanced review snift

At the moment I'm doing damage control. My only real hope is that the d901c will support the 9000 series with some motherboard upgrade. The case should be big enough to hold the new cards asthe MXMIV sets the size for the compartments holding the (unless NVIDIA deviates from the standard in terms of size).

If this happens, means that the d901c barebone in the end is the most robust barebone in history of laptops, and the Clevo approach to the high end gaming is extremely adaptive to change. This would be A NOVELTY in the market and definitely an edge over the competition. One barebone, three generations of video cards with motherboard revisions would be good. Something that would set it apart from the M570RU models.

There are multiple ways to score.

Trance

 

Hi Trance,

I will write in my and Trance's home language... Sorry to everyone about this... I'm sick and my brain is shuting off.

Pá sinto-me um pouco culpado pela tua situação, o meu intuito nunca foi enganar ninguem...

Eu na minha máquina nunca tive tais problemas.

Se te influenciei nesse sentido peço desculpas.

Recentemente vim a descobrir graves problemas na VBios da 8700M gt, e na grande falta de suporte dada pela Clevo. O problema já foi resolvido a muito pela nVidia, mas a Clevo teima em usar a primeira versão datada de Junho de 2007.

Aqui se nota o suporte dado por exemplo pela Dell, que recentemente actualizou as VBios das 8700M gt, corrigindo muitos bugs, incluindo certamente os problemas de sttutering.

Quando curar esta maldita gripe irei me debruçar sobre o assunto.

Abraço

 

maybe trance could translate it?

 

Audigy, English, man!

 

Here is a translation that's fairly accurate:


Pal, I feel a bit guilty for your situation, my intent never was to mislead anyone.
I, in my machine never had these problems,
If I influenced you in yhis sense, I am sorry,
Recently I came to discover grave problems in the Vbios of the 8700GT, and in the great lack of support offered by Clevo.
The problem has already been largely resolved by NVidia but Clevo feared using the first version dated June 2007.
Here I note the support given for example by Dell, who recently updated the Vbios for the 87oo GT, correcting many bugs,
vertainly including the stuttering problems.

When I get over this damned cold, I'll give more thoughts to the topic.

 

Don't feel guilty, mate. That would be silly. You amongst other argue their points to the best of your knowledge, that is all we can ask for in an intelligent conversation. We can only learn from that

I argued mine, guess I was not that sure. What made me decide was really the 3dMark06 scores in SLi when OCed, that are rubish as a decision making tool !!!. So my fault entirely.

Audigy:
"Recently I came to discover grave problems in the Vbios of the 8700GT, and in the great lack of support offered by Clevo.

The problem has already been largely resolved by NVidia but Clevo feared using the first version dated June 2007."

So basically according your source the problem has already been largely resolved by NVidia but Clevo has not changed the VBIOS yet since date June 2007.

Hope Clevo & Co do something about it. If by solving those problems also solve the ones I describe, that would be awesome since I bet other have what I describe too, but are not that vocal about it.

Until then this review is accurate. That is, if my system is a sample, SLI with 8700M GT is not working for the games I mentioned. Tried Crysis Demo once again, well the game is unplayable at medium settings 1280x900 in SLi. Without SLi is ok. Indeed just the first scene showing the Carrier flying amongst the clouds I can almost count the frames just by looking at it (even with the latest drivers)

So now we have not working in practice with the 8700M GT in SLi:

* COD4

* Crysis Demo (most driver issues and speculations are long gone but the situation has not improved for SLI & the 8700M GT).

* Soon to be released Assassins Creed.

All games for the 8000 Series and above.

Stay Cool

Trance
PS: Audigy, can you give us some more info regarding those problems fixed by NVIDIA? Get well soon mate