Sager NP8358F2-S (Clevo PB51DF2) mini review: RTX 2070 super, Intel 8 core....

I took advantage of gentech pc's great pricing, no sales tax, and free thermal upgrades!

https://www.gentechpc.com/product-p/sager-np8358f2-s.htm

Overall, I have been very impressed with this machine. Prime 95 26.6 will hit mid 80's pulling 112 watts with 4.2 ghz on all 8 cores. This is with an underovlt of -70mv on the core and -120mv on the cache. Fire strike results:

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/47361464?

I have also included some pics comparing the internals on my powerspec 1520 with this - the chassis is similar but the heatpipe design has changed. The new design is on on the left side.

 

How does the mux switch work? Is it available in the BIOS as a menu option? What about in Windows? Does it rely on Clevo Control Center software to operate, or is there a button or switch to flip from PEG to iGFX with no software installed?

 

Awesome, how much of an overclock do you have on the 2070 super? Are you undervolting the CPU in the BIOS? I think they are locked down in the OS right?

Is it just me or does the new design look like less & smaller heat pipes?

 

The GPU mux switch is controlled via the BIOS - the same as the previous version of this laptop.

 

I was able to undervolt it using throttlestop. The CPU is not locked down like other laptops due to plundervolt. I can confirm the undervolt stuck via HWINFO in addition to better thermals and benchmarks. I was able to do +175 on the core and +800 on the mem. I have not pushed it further.

 

Some options in the BIOS including GPU selection:

 

What were the firestrike results? You posted a link, but it doesn't load for me.

 

3DMark Score 19,531
Graphics Score 24,000
Physics Score 21,758

 

Here is another run - +180core, +825mem. HWINFO screenshots also included.

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/47366297?

 

Disable SGX (Software Guard Extensions) shown in your BIOS menu. The chances are if you disable that cancer cell you won't ever have to worry about Plundervolt mitigation crap in the future. Some of the turdbooks out there do not have that BIOS option and those folks will be up the creek with no paddle.

 

Thanks for the tip. Will do.

 

Hmm, fair bit better than the scores notebookcheck posted. About 10% higher in fact.

 

Notebookcheck does not show overclocked results as far as I know, so that is very typical to be able to get 10-15% above after tweaking, undervolting, overclocking etc.

 

Well, my laptop seems to have pretty bad coil whine when certain f keys are kit. Made a quick video of it and also sent it to gentech pc.

 

Ask an electrical engineer to model coil whine for an entire system over all the values you can get and you can watch the blood drain out of their face.

 

I heard it for the first time in my life recently, I think it was on a 2080ti I had either in an eGPU case or in an old system at the time. Wasn't bad, didn't bother me at all, but I did hear it and wonder what it was until I put 2 and 2 together and got coil whine. Unless i could hear it from sitting position it would never bother me. Granted I never work in a totally quest room, I always have some background noises, music, fans, headphones etc. I totally understand how different things bother us all differently though.

 

It's always there but it depends on the frequency and the person.

 

So you are saying what I hear when I press certain keys is acceptable?

 

Have you tried seeing if it does the same while the GPU or CPU are under load?

 

Nope. It only occurs on start up and when I press certain f-keys that control a hardware feature (i.e. volume, mute, screen brightness etc) as shown in the video. Under load (3dmark testing etc) no coil whine can be heard.

 

I would not be worried about it then.

 

This is great. I just saw these today. Recomend upgrading from the PB51EF-G?

Also I'm curious about the new heatpipe design. The old design looks far more robust. How are the temps?

 

I would not upgrade from that, the in game performance would be almost the same, best case would be maybe 10% more FPS if it cools good enough. I also think the older cooling design looks better, but hope that there is more to it than just what we see.

 

Broke 25k in firestrike grpahics:

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/47421293?

 

The new heatpipe design is better - fewer shared pipes....

 

Thats great, within 10% of my best graphics score with a 2080 in a GE75!

 

The 2070 super gets pretty close.

 

I just ordered the same laptop. Got it with the 2 TB WD Blue, and 32 GB DDR4 @ 3200. How long did it take for it to arrive when you ordered yours?

 

Where did you order from?

 

GenTech

 

I ordered mine from GenTechPC on May 23rd and the order is still "Processing". Seems like it definitely takes them a while to get the laptop built.

 

I ordered from Sager 5/27 and it shipped 5/29 and had a delivery date of today 6/5. However it just left the home city a week later, supposed to arrive Monday 6/8 now.

 

Times can be a bit wonky at the moment.

 

Hi! I hope it's okay to ask you this here. I have the same laptop from the OP. I've noticed my GPU temps doesn't go above 70-72C at maximum load but I've read reports where some people's GPU has gone all the way up to 83c with the same intense graphical settings for the same game. In fact for most games at most it goes up to the same max temperatures as well. This makes me wonder if perhaps my laptop is being throttled by a setting I'm not aware of. It's the same temperatures with the "entertainment" and "performance" mode from control center 3.0. The GPU driver is updated to the latest driver by Nvidia. Windows is also set to best performance as well. The fan speed is set to automatic. Please let me know if there's anything I can do and if this is normal behavior or not. Thanks

 

Every chip is different but GPU-Z on the monitoring tab will tell you the current limiting reason and clocks.

Remember boost will keep going to a very high ceiling so there is usually some reason like TDP stopping it going full bore in all situations.

 

Does anyone know if this model supports Windows Hello with the camera? Not a big deal but just curious.

 

Don't think it does off the top my head but search the manual for windows hello and if you get no hits or you do is your answer.

 

I just ordered this laptop from GenTech.
I will report back once I receive it and let you guys know if it came in one piece with the thermal upgrades. Will also report back with temps.
I ended up canceling my order of the Eluktronics RP-17 that had a 4800h and RTX 2060 refresh in favor for the Sager NP8358F2-S.
The Sager was only 300 USD more. I couldn't pass up the much better GPU with 2GB more vRAM even if the screen is only 15.6" unlike the 17.3" of the RP-17.

Hopefully it doesn't take forever to deliver. I live in the same state as GenTech but I don't know where they ship from.

 

I canceled and replaced my order as well. I originally ordered the 15.6" model, but canceled it for the 17.3" model.

17.3" is pricier, but has per-key RGB, G-Sync, a fingerprint reader, and a thunderbolt port.

 

I could not justify spending 400 USD more for the larger screen model and I don't care for the other features.

 

It wasn't that much more for the larger screen when all other features were the same though. It also has double the RAM, and a larger SSD as per its default specs.

I paid $1,989 for the 17.3", to spec the 15.6 the same would cost $1,764.

It's $225 basically that I am paying for a larger screen, G-Synch, fingerprint reader, per-key RGB, and thunderbolt.

That is still a decent price hike though.

It is a bigger price difference though if you stayed with 16 GB RAM, I had wanted 32 GB regardless of version though, so the 17.3" defaulting with the best RAM config mitigated the added cost of altering the 15.6" model.

 

16GB of RAM is fine for just gaming. I've seen people run even demanding games on 8GB granted they are hitting the limit there.
I doubt 32GB of RAM will be needed in the years to come.

The 17.3" version is 2025 USD after tax while the 15.6" is 1614 USD.
If it only cost 100 more for the 17.3" I would have gone for it. I can live with the 15.6" version though.

 

32 GB isn't needed for gaming, but it can impact gaming performance if streaming or simultaneously having other work done in the background. I agree though that it is far from necessary. That said I find those prices a bit confusing.

Those prices look to be wrong though, as GenTech doesn't charge tax of any kind.

 

GenTech charges tax for me. I live in California so that may be why.

 

Huh, must be. I didn't pay any tax, they charge my checking account earlier today and it was the exact amount as the purchase price w/o tax. I didn't expect that'd change state to state.

 

Unfortunately California is a very tax heavy state...on top of housing and rent being outrageous.
What state are you in?

 

Michigan

 

Sager had a sale and didn't charge tax to Nebraska, which is why I went with this particular model. Smaller is generally more desirable for me, especially if it holds the same drives, same cpu and gpu etc.

 

I also tried Sager but they charge tax and are more expensive to begin with.
Have yet to find a place that doesn't charge tax for California...at least the weather is good here...

 

Not had the 15.6" and 17.3" models side by side to compare, but at least the way Sager advertises it sounds like the 17.3" display model is basically still a 15.6" size chassis, but with smaller bezels.