Short Test P177SM-A with GTX 870m

Hello,

since the P170HM used by a friend of mine is dead , I bought a new "toy" so that we can play some games - to tell the truth, I couldn´t wait to get a laptop of the newer generation in my hands, because I still use my X7200 and it´s not that kind of new .

As always, that friend can´t do anything but gaming, so I ordered and configured the laptop, and now finally testing it a little bit before it goes over to him .

I ordered the "One K73-4N2" which is the Clevo P177SM-A ( One.de Gaming notebooks). I didn´t saw it anywhere cheaper!
Since we could use the RAM and SSD from the P170HM, we could save some money.
So the specs are: GTX 870m, 8 GB RAM (Samsung), Sandisk 128 GB (slow compared to others, but it does it´s job!), 500 GB HD (7200pm), CPU: 4700mq (I overclocked it already with Intel´s Extreme Tuning Utility, but not much, just that it can go to 3.6 GHz instead of 3.4), Windows 8.1 prof. 64 Bit.

GPU-Z:



What seemed good to me was that One.de removed the silly touchpad-LED! It´s standard to ship without...

Everything was fine, only thing that bothered me was that
a) they said it would ship at some date and it didn´t, and
b) first, they didn´t inform me about the delay.
After complaining they said sorry, the Barebones didn´t arrive and it would take another week or so. After that, the communication was very good and now it´s here . And in Top condition! Nothing to complain!
I already bought my GTX 680m´s for my X7200 at one.de and wasn´t disappointed - highly recommended!

Here are some shots, some together with my X7200:






The keyboard is good - not the "best", but good, and better than they keyboard of my X7200.
It´s good to finally see some lights on the keyboard . They are very colorful. Only the "blue" color always seems to be more purple than blue .

Then the first point I really don´t like:
There is the volume LED bar - which does a nice job when you are listening to music. But if you are playing games, it can disturb you - and I can´t disable it.
I read that you can disable it on the P177SM on SAGER Bios with "FN + -", but this doesn´t work here! It´s a "Vanilla" Clevo Bios with the "Style" logo.
Any help on that would be appreciated - maybe someone can tell me if with SAGER BIOS it still works to turn the volume LED bar off? Maybe someone has a solution, thank!

I didn´t install all that will be there yet, but it won´t take too long .

Nvidia Optimus is working, only a few problems with older games (where it doesn´t even matter of if the Intel 4600 takes it or GTX 870m) like Command and Conquer 3 -> GTX 870m doesn´t take over, although it´s the standard in the nVidia control panel.

Here are some tests/ benches I did for now (HWMonitor doesn´t know the GTX 870m yet, so the temp is the one where you can´t read any device ):

3DMark 11 (stock clocks):

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3DMark Icestorm:

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3DMark Cloudgate:

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3DMark Firestrike:

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3DMark Vantage:

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3DMark 06 (for those who can still remember ):

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Catzilla 1080p (TIGER):

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Unigine Heaven Basic:

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Unigine Heaven Extreme:

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Unigine Valley Basic:

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Unigine Valley Extreme:

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Cinebench R15:

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PCMark 8 (didn´t do any test before, don´t know how good oder bad the result is):

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One game for now: GRID 2 - highest settings with the highest AA:

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Finally, a little overclocking!
I am very surprised that I didn´t need to use an unlocked vBios, just installed nVidia inspecteur and can overclock. I just did a quick one, will do more testing soon:

3DMark 11 overclocked:

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3DMark Firestrike overclocked:

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As I said, some more tests will follow.

Overall: Very satisfied, as my friend will be. Till now any game runs at the highest settings! And the temps are very well - CPU doesn´t go higher than 80°C and the GPU doesn´t reach 80°C.

Only help I need: A BIOS/ tool where I can disable the volume LED bar...

 

Yeah clevo are moving away from those leds.

 

Congrats Tirenz, nice to see you around again...

It is Fn+keypad “-“ key to control volume bar LED on/off function! Try that...also make sure you have the latest hotkey app installed as well as the BIOS and EC1 updated (P177SM-A stock versions are on my page)

(To get the "disable the volume bar" feature you will need to update EC2, which is part of the P177SM stock and Mod BIOS on my page...)

Mind that the EC2 update is for P177SM and not P177SM-A...

 

Well done, thanks for running those benchmarks. Now if only there was a modded vBIOS so we could unleash the full potential of this 870M.

 

Hi Prema,

thanks! I never was "away", I was just reading, not writing much . Good to read you again!

I tried EVERY key and PAD - + FN, and I use the latest Hotkey driver - I can´t disable that damn LED bar. I looked into the manual which came with the new notebook, no words about disabling the bar, too .

I looked at your page, I have the latest EC/ BIOS - a little bit strange, because I thought the P177SM-A would be the same as P177SM, but it seems it is NOT? How come? The MB should be the same?

 

Well, I don´t think it will be a problem - I can go higher with voltage and clocks, will do that the next days. The Bios/ vBios seems very open to me.

 

The SM-A boards have an additional audio DSP among minor changes...

I know the non keyboard "lightshow" is controlled by EC2, so either you have big balls and croshflash ONLY that or wait until we can dig up one for SM-A that contains that feature.

 

Thanks for the info!
I think I will wait then - strange that Clevo didn´t put the controlling of the light bar in the new machines .

 

Just cover it up with some electrical tape in the meantime.

 

Thanks for this. Nice review!

 

I wonder if there is a way to disconnect it from the power switch and power.

 

I wonder how would gtx 870M SLI would perform compared to 780M SLI, 680M SLI, 7970MCF (and their twins)
13K in 3D Mark 11 or 10K in firestrike isn't impossible

 

It will always bench 15-20% lower than a tweaked 780m/880m.

 

The 870M is basically a 192-bit 680M with higher core+mem clocks. But a tweaked 680M will still quickly outpace an overclocked 870M, so it won't quite reach 780M level performance.

 

hemm... but if stock vs stock, It should be third after 880M SLI and 780M SLI imho. gaming is always nicer when using stock clocks
no overheat worries or time limited. keeping the graphic card healthy

 

Depends on the game, since the 680M will have more ROP performance but the 880M's higher mem clocks gives it a slight bandwidth edge even with the slimmer bus.

 

you call that "overclocking"? This is how you overclock a 870m my friend

and my firestrike score NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4810MQ Processor,Notebook P17SM-A lol...

 

Nice score!

Well, this was back in April when no unlocked vBios was available .
Will see what I can do with actual driver and unlocked vBios.

Thinking about upgrading the Notebook to 970m/ 980m... should be possible, from what I´ve read?

 

Yes, upgrading to 900M series is not a problem.

 

Thanks!

 

Ok, here we go:
3DMark11: 3DMark 11 P177 SM-A with GTX 870m/ i7 4700mq -> Better Overall
3DMark Firestrike: 3DMark Firestrike P177 SM-A with GTX 870m/ i7 4700mq -> Better Graphics Score (1 point lol)