Timing my buy

Hey guys,

A couple of weeks ago I decided to buy a P670 but then I realized Pascal is right around the corner. I am in need of a new laptop to replace mine and I can afford to wait some months. This is is not another of those "should I buy now or wait for [insert upcoming innovation]" threads!

What I would like to ask those of you who have been following Clevo news for years is:
1. On average, how long does Clevo take to update their models after Nvidia releases new GPUs?
2. Do Clevo laptops sell for a cheaper price at resellers a couple of months after their release or do prices remain stable since launch? (I am in Europe; don't know if resellers here behave much differently than they do elsewhere..)

Thank you for your input!

 

Not long at all. They're typically at the forefront of adopting new hardware.

I can't speak for European sellers, but here in the states, the prices remain fairly consistent from launch. There might be sales and promos, but not exactly much for price "drops."

 

All good news, then!!
Thanks

 

As @Prostar Computer said, usually new GPUs are available very early and in line with other manufacturers. The stock may be more limited to start with, which is why it's worth being a bit careful to look out for very early pre-order offers (i.e. the almost NDA breaking offers) that could be more expensive than the wider market price.

What you will generally see if the price of the outgoing models decrease, this can make the new ones look more expensive than they are in comparison.

 

Any time - and happy hunting!

 

As Prostar and XMG guys said, Clevo launches their new line up of laptops fairly fast compare to other competitors - especially compare to GIGABYTE and AORUS. Also, excluding some premium resellers, such as Origin PC, most of Clevo resellers sell their laptop at some what low price from the start, which means that there is no space for them to lower the price. The only time resellers going to lower the price is the promotion seasons, and when the new line up of the laptop are launched, but they still have the old barebone that they bought from Clevo.

 

I believe there was a little bit of a discount on models as they were phasing out from 4th gen to 6th gen CPU models. Nothing that was incredible, but still a little incentive to buy at those times before they went end of life. But this will always vary by reseller though.

 

Eurocom's still selling the last gen P6xxSx and P7xxZMs today, not sure if prices have dropped yet...

 

Also, if you are a student, you can get 10% discount.

 

Thanks for the input guys! With your help, I've decided to delay the purchase: the original plan was to order the laptop in July but since Pascal should be out by August/September I will wait until then to buy the hypothetical p670 refresh since the price should be inline with the current prices

 

Check back when things are a little clearer and you will be pointed in the right direction

 

They also sell older generation laptops as well, they have all kinds of old parts - it's amazing how many old parts they have.

 

If I'm not mistaken, Nvidia doesn't usually release their flagship mobile GPUs for sometimes 3-4 months after Radeon's hit the market. I dont expect we'll see flagship Pascal GPUs in laptops until Q1 2017. Then again, they may have desktop class GPUs in laptops in Q4.

 

Actually the releases in the last 1-3 years have been closer than that and there's no real trend for AMD to come first - but then again you had a different scenario in 2013/2014 because the major mobile card launches were just rebranding rather than "new" GPUs or cores.

I wouldn't base Nvidia's launch schedule on what AMd does or doesn't do ;-)

 

With the new trend of putting a desktop class GPU in a laptop, hopefully we see the last of those awful refreshes for awhile. All those poor guys who bought in to an 880M, glad I got my 780ms just before the release of the 880m.

 

It's true a lot of release trends have got changed around by the process issues and stagnation of the new manufacturing processes.

 

Next launch will be the second in a row that's not a refresh, nothing amazing in itself but the trend already started ;-)

 

Hmm I was working under the assumption the new gen would be released after july.. did I assume wrong? :O

 

I don't believe he specified a date...

 

Ya I dont think Pascal desktop MXM versions will be out for a while.
The 980 desktop MXM card came a while after the 980M cards. So I could guess holidays or even Q1 2017.

 

Nvidia typically comes out with a good amount at cards at once, and then follow up with other cards afterwards. Big and little cards, look at like the 950 for desktops, and even the more entry level mobile ones that weren't available at launch time. So, like always, just have to wait and see.

 

Hmm.. I'm looking for something a little bit less powerful.. Maybe a 1060m or 1070m (or whatever they'll be called); whichever has a better performance/price ratio..

I've been reading about Polaris though and it also looks pretty promising. Let's hope jumping on the Nvidia bandwagon doesn't prove to be a bad move considering Vulkan, DX12, etc..

 

We will have to see how each side do feature/game wise. There will be value versions of the new chips at some point but of course any dates are still NDA.

 

Usually most of the information about leaks on new cards seem to all be about the top-end card as well, as everyone seems more interested in the big advancements. Don't see a lot of rumors about lower/mid range cards and specs, until usually closer to launch.

 

Yeah, which is kind of strange: the 960 and 970m must make a large portion of the current gen's sales..

@Meaker@Sager , you mentioned NDAs.. Any word on when those will be lifted?

 

NDA dates are part of the NDA itself, so if we said when an NDA would end that in itself would be breaking the NDA !!! Some NDAs have a set date from the start or don't have a date, rather they are regarding information which doesn't relate to a particular product or release date. With regards to unlaunched component NDAs, the date that the NDA is lifted co-incides with the official launch dates, this far away from launch there usually aren't specific dates set. For example, if a company launches a new component there may be parts of the NDA which relate to 1/ when you can talk about it with the press or advertise/market it 2/ when you can sell it to customers i.e. when you can offer it online and start taking orders 3/ when you can start shipping products with the new compoment. All these three points are different, being able to market something doesn't mean you can sell it and selling it doesn't mean you are necessarily allowed to ship it!

With the upcomming announcements you just need to keep an eye on the rumour mill. Something is happening on Friday as is being discussed freely on other threads, but what this is and what it means you'll just have to wait and see ;-) But you won't suddenly find out on Friday that you can order a next gen GPU laptop in 2 weeks!

 

Im in the same problem....wait for the next gen or choose from these 3 option msi gt80s sli or sager np9870 or origin 15x

 

Well put

Saying when an NDA finishes would defeat the point.

 

Not sure how relevant this will be, but I am hearing some interesting things about the GTX 1080 benchmarks; something along the lines of it outperforming a GTX 980 by 30%.

I hope this is true on the mobile side too

 

I am waiting for clevo to make kaby lake laptops.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk

 

Origin EON15-X = Clevo P750DM/Sager NP9758. All good systems.

 

Origin EON15-X = Clevo P750DM

Correction Origin EON15-X = Overpriced Clevo P750DM

 

We all hope for increases like that from generation to generation, but it is rumors and unofficial leaks. I would wait until final products start shipping and people have real world results.

One leak could be saying that the new cards might be XX% more powerful, when it might only be one specific aspect, and not the overall performance. You could use an 860m Maxwell and Kepler for example. Someone could have said "the Maxwell 860m has almost twice the clock speed of the Kepler version, so it must be twice as powerful, right?" When in reality they are very similar because the Kepler version had more CUDA cores than Maxwell, and the performance was pretty similar.

 

Well put, clock speed isn't everything (especially in laptops where performance per watt may be a bigger concern)

 

It's a number of factors that decide final performance, architecture, core layout (number of ROPS and other backend processing), memory technology and width along with power targets.

 

Right, that was the point I was going for. Just because one aspect of a graphics card shows it might be so much bigger than the previous generation, doesn't mean it will be an overall gain in performance as a total package.

 

And therefore... Just wait for the actual user benchmarks before deciding?

 

Yes. Pre-release info is not always accurate. It could be based off of quality control samples which may or may not exactly be the final product.

 

So the msi titan gt80s is out of question?

 

It's a good system. None of them are out of the question.

 

Right. All of those systems are powerful, it just depends on which one best suits your needs.

 

Wooo.. that's a lot of information! Why do they release information (behind NDAs) if they want to keep it so private? I mean, in this particular context? Is it to allow resellers to plan ahead, etc?

Did NVidia set a date for Pascal mobile line last friday? It seamed to be a desktop only announcement..

 

That's exactly why they do it Hardware partners need to know what is happening so we can plan ahead, place orders in advance of the public launch, help with R&D and pre-production design, plan for marketing, receive samples to prepare for press at launch and so on.

Friday was only desktop models, the mobile cards haven't been announced yet as they are on a different timescale!

 

The mobile side is usually a bit behind the desktop side. It takes a bit more care and validation compared to the desktop parts.