Why KillerNotebooks.com is building a D901C for me

With the understandable popularity of D901 sellers/resellers, I thought I would share a road less traveled when choosing a D901C, and why I cancelled two orders to go with a Builder over a Seller. If the primary factor in choosing a Clevo vendor is cost, then no reason to read further about choosing a custom builder.

SELECTION OF COMPONENTS
I was frustrated when selecting components from the sellers. Yes, they have reasonable selections, but limited. Two hard drive mfg choices? The latest Intel Q9650 not available? Before the Q9650 had been released I had already chosen that cpu, and for hard drives I knew I would go with Western Digital Scorpio BLACK LABEL drives that hit the market in June 08, arguably the fastest mechanical notebook drives in the world. Could not get them from sellers, but from a custom builder like KillerNotebooks, no problem. They would let me select any components on the market.

ASSEMBLERS & MASTER BUILDERS
I worked many years at Compaq, and know folks who worked the pc & notebook seed program assembly lanes. Nice people trained as assemblers to do repeatable tasks which they become good at. But that business model does not leave much room for creative thinking on the assembly lane or in the board room. Marginalizing costs to achieve a price point limits customer choices, and repeatable process during assembly means limiting variations in assembly configuration. Custom builders turn that business model upside down – customers are empowered to choose any technologies and components, and because a master builder is a fabricator instead of an assembler, they can go anywhere the customer chooses, limited only by feasibility.

CUSTOM FABRICATION
Have you seen the custom Clevo heat sink fabrications from Killer? Adding 10 inches of surface area to the cooling capability. The before and after pics are impressive on the Killer website. These mods included opening additional cooling slots on the bottom case, and I understand there will be a new KillerNotebook product in the custom lineup, a notebook cooler designed specifically for the D901C. For my order, I requested a custom cooling fabrication mod that they reviewed and fabricated, no problem.

UNIQUE TRADEMARK DESIGNS
The Killer customization web pages that show the branding and skin options available really fueled for me the distinction between sellers and builders. Only a builder who takes personal pride in each product built, would offer those creative skin options, so everyone would know that each laptop was built “for the select few”. Those aircraft aluminum shields with K & N letters in gold inlay and silver inlay for the Killer’s blade are sick

NOTEBOOKS IN A RUSH ?
Forget it. Killer won't take rush orders. Not an optimum way to make money, but a great way to make computers.

WARRANTY
For me there is value in knowing that if I have an issue, the buck stops with KillerNotebooks. Problems get solved when people take ownership of issues. I don’t want responsibility getting passed from a reseller order desk who’s only customization they performed on my laptop order was the extraction of funds from my bank account, to the re-badging vendor, and then to Clevo depending on the seriousness of the situation. I want the builder of my notebook, to maintain my notebook.



Yes, there is a premium for choosing a custom builder, but imo it is small when you consider that I chose my components from all available technology, not just from a couple of choices offered by a seller. My final order looks earily similar to what I understand is the unit KillerNotebooks has built for submission in the “World’s Fastest Notebook” shootout at Tom’s Hardware this month. Makes sense, because all of us, given the ability to choose from all available technology, will make powerful choices.

 

I liked that last sentence. xD

With great heatsink comes great responsibility.

 

nice post! rep for you

 

I heard the OCZ whitebook is coming to K|N?

 

Its glad to hear that you took time to figure out which seller you wanted to go with. K|N seems legit, although I don't think I would pay that price. But, you cant deny that he works to make his computers the fastest they can be and the price is worth it for many other people. I, however, am a cheapo lol.

Sidenote, whats the OCZ whitebook?

 

the second generation of AW m9750 with crossfire 3870. I am thinking of getting one.

 

Pros and cons vs the 5793 or the 9262?
And to keep this thread on track, what was the end price for your beast?

 

Great post

Let's hope it doesn't get deleted..

 

are you talking to me? my 5793 cost roughly $2300 w/o OS.

pros of the whitebook: 1.5" thick, dual GPU, dual HDD.

 

Yeah, why did KN get banned? I haven't been following too closely!

Petrov.

 

You better not asking or this thread will get close down.

 

I'm guessing he paid around $4500 about $1000 more than resellers are currently selling them for.
I also was interested in ordering from K|N but decided against because I am such a cheap *******!
Look consumers have the right to buy anywhere and decide what is best for themselves.
I personally don't think the mods are worth it.(l do admit they are very cool but if you get a nice laptop cooler you should have NO problems)

 

So it seems the whitebook is like a hybrid of the 9262 and 5796 then? Its not as powerful as the 9262 but is more powerful than the 5796 and thin like it? That may be off, but thats what I concluded from what you said.
I was actually asking the op what he paid for his config, but is there any price range so far for the whitebook? Also, I thought the ocz hard drives were causing trouble with laptops. Is that exclusive to Sager?

Also, I dont see why it would get deleted just because k|n is gone and we are still talking about his company. I mean, theres no saying he isnt a legitimate seller of clevo products.

From what I understand, k|n mods are primarily the better heatsink and performance tweaks. I guess you could say a notebook cooler would take away the heatsink mod, but the performance mods are still there. In certain cases, the performance mods along with the heatsink are worth the extra money. Maybe not for me or IKAS, but for the op it is worth it and I am sure many more would also would opt his product.

 

it's 1.5" compare to 5796 1.8"

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/laptopgamingdominator.asp

It's ok to talk about his company, but NOT ok to talk why he got banned. It's the business between him and mods.

 

That's actually cheaper than what I expected. It also isnt as powerful as I thought, but its still a really nice laptop overall. I guess the gpu choice just kind of bummed me out.
Pursuvant: Do you plan on posting any benchmarks when you receive your laptop? I'm excited to see how much better the performance will be and how much cooler the heatsink will make it.

 

You think DigitalStorm is cheap!
Just today I ordered a NP 9262 from PowerNotebooks today for a little over $3500 tax and delivery included.
Some specs:
Q 9550
9800 M GT in SLI
3x200 HD's
Vista 64
4 GB's of RAM
1900x1200 screen
Believe me I have looked everywhere for a laptop with the same specs. and they beat them all buy about $100-$200
The only thing I was a little dissapointed about is them not offering the Q9650 but I don't think you get that much of a performance boost over the Q9550 considering you only get an extra .20 GHZ in speed.
I could very much live happily with the Q 9550for now and upgrade in the future if needed.

 

Pursuvant

any chance you can post the config you ordered now?

 

im hoping killernotebooks will start selling the ocz whitebook... cause they ship to australia. i extremely doubt xoticpc would sell the whitebook.

crossfire 3870s (even better now nvidia's cards are mostly defects)! backlit keyboard! 1.5 in thick! omfg awesome

killernotebooks carbon fibre mod looks sweet

 

I'm on the road and asked KillerNotebooks not to ship until Aug 30. I suspect the killer shoot-out box has highly guarded mods that I am waiting to be fully disclosed after Tom's Hardware thrashes the box, that will become available to me as well. I may push the box a little harder with some of them, in de-tuned configuration for indestructability. My choice.

I know who the supplier of cf is, used by KillerNotebooks. I have seen it on equipment at a Philips plant and it looks like a polished mirror over perfect 3 dimensional fiber pattern, not the cheap import stuff

Sad state of affairs - a balanced respect between consumers and vendors needs maintained by the ops, but ....

 

Well I would like to see his review when he does receive...the mods I have seen on their website for the d901c was for their 7950gtx.

Please post a review with pics when you do get it.

 

You seem to have confused speaking one's opinion with worrying over a private matter between a banned member and the mods that is no-one else's business; the former will not get a thread closed (unless said opinion happens to be otherwise abusive), the latter will because it results in a pointless waste of resources.

Also, playing with sock-puppets isn't particularly respectable, and may be grounds for getting a temporary suspension itself.

 

Seeing as this topic has been continued, I might jump in with my own pointless waste of resources.

I think it's not surprising for users to want to understand why a respected (I won't go as far as to say "widely") and value-added contributor has been banned (despite being rough around the edges), particularly if it suggests a bias which one may think exists (I personally don't, but it's a fair question to ask).

My guess is that he was banned because the mods believed he broke the forum rules, particularly those pertaining to vendors. In any case, speculation is unproductive (although reproductive) and the mods certainly have no obligation to shed any light on this, but they may wish to to assuage some people's fears, as previously mentioned.

Final point - it's not entirely clear to me which of the forum rules are broken by speculating on this topic Shyster - as it appears to be a matter of some import to users - heck, even you replied!

Petrov.

 

Very good guess. Second, it's not a matter of such speculation violating the rules, so much as the discussion not contributing anything of value to the forum. I think that if you read the rules, you'll find that the mods have sufficient discretion to close any thread that they don't believe is contributing to the forum, and speculating on the private matters between a banned member and the mods certainly fits within that category.

Lastly, the mere fact that "even" I replied on a thread is certainly no guarantee of that thread's worthiness or relevance - sometimes it's exactly the opposite.

 

The pinch is complete, when users feel the need to police the thoughts of other members as well...

 

So, was that you who posted that, or someone else posing as you? Now that you've let the cat out of the bag, how can you be trusted?

Also, your comment is substantively completely off the mark; my comment when to your actions, not your thoughts, of which you are, to my mind, completely free to have as many as you want, or are capable of. Also, as I've no power other than that of persuasion, I most certainly do not have anything that could even colourably be characterized as police power, ergo, I cannot be said to be policing your actions, let alone your thoughts.

 

Now we really are off-topic - so perhaps this will get moved to the "Off Topic" forum? Nonetheless, I'm curious, so I'll continue...

If I read the forum rules, I see:

"Please refrain from posting meaningless threads, one word (or short) nonsense posts, or the such."

And, later...

"Also while these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way."

While recognising that these forums are a private enterprise, so we have no "rights" per se, within the forum's own rules I dont actually see any overarching "discretion" (let alone a discretion focused on a crtierion as subjective as "not contributing").

Petrov.

 

I agree with the OP that if you have the money, and are willing to, a custom build is always the wiser choice.

I must say I partly agree with you. I've noticed a great deal of uprising in the last few days over this, but I believe that the banning of a member who's status is a Reseller should not be kept in the shadows. Imho, it is not good (PR-wise) for either (NBR or the Reseller). Then again, this is my opinion.

 

Lets stay on topic and leave the thought police issues behind.

This thread is where I will post additional info about the KillerNotebooks submission into the "World's Fastest Notebook" shootout at Tom's Hardware, until it closes, and the changes I made to my order as the configuration of that box is disclosed

 

Seems interesting:
http://www.guruofgaming.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1238

 

I'm thinking hard about it too. It's based on the the Flextronic/Arima W840-DI chassis, as you probably already know. My only concern is about the ATI Crossfire 3870. How does it compare with NVIDIA 8800 or 9800 series? I've been reading mixed reports/reviews. Aside from the GPU and lack of quad core, it's a pretty powerful notebook. Dual HD's, Dual GPU, WUXGA, HDMI, eSATA, Montevina. I just wish Clevo had a dual HD notebook.

 

Does anyone have a link to this Tomshardware competition - seems a bit unfair if they are classing it as World's Fastest if there are only American companies in it

 

It's like World Series Baseball.

 

Hmmmm.....?


I was so impressed by the mods he has done and still doing that I was so tempted to have my notebook sent in for the heat sink mod after I had a few days to tinker with it.


I think I’m already not liked, so I better shut my mouth.

 

I wasn't around then, but just do a quick search and you'll get the general idea.

 

That's the spirit Neil - would love to see you guys on the charts at Tomshardware!!

As an aside, is "Greg" a mod on this sub-forum?

Petrov.

 

Yes. So is Chaz. And Kdawgca

 

I've got an eye on this latest one that's about to be offered by K|N:

http://www.guruofgaming.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2202

Still doing my homework on the ATI Crossfire HD3870.

 

the best thing is I might able to get a deal on his review unit.

 

Im interested to see which is the fastest notebook in the world aswell. Anyone have the details and rules to this competition?

KillerNotebooks said Dell, Alienware & Voodoo are participating but when i asked Voodoo directly, they said they arent participating in such a competition. It must be some sort of unofficial competition.

 

not sure if I should start as a new thread or add here so ill add here for now.

Does anyone actually own a KN Notebook? if yes, how does it compare performance wise vs non tweaked version of same rig?

 

fastest in the world really doesn't interest me because I know I don't have the money right now to buy it, and when I do have the money there is going to be a different laptop ...

 

Thats quite unproffesional for a company to do. No wonder he got banned....

 

can we try and stay on point here.............I am really curious about how his machines perform vs stock. anyone out there own one? if yes can you provide performance stats?

 

we have been told over and over it is none of our business it is between nbr and KN. if we even talk about it the thread will get closed so not worth getting into(it can even earn you negative rep points from admins or mods just for asking..trust me I am living proof)............


I really dont want this thread closed till I at least get the answer I am looking for above.

 

Yes sorry, i was just quite shocked at that link Rambo posted.

Back to the semi-topic. Which is the fastest notebook? (i think we need a new thread for this since its not related to the OP)

 

good idea. should be fastest version because I think we all know the 901C is the fastest (or so I think) but there are companies out there that tweak them from what I am learning. I am curious if any of those tweaks actually increase performance in any meaningful way. I was planning on using the guides on this site and others to help with vista tweaks when i get my 9262 w q9650 from xotic to test some of the suggestions.

 

You might wanna opt for XP if you want pure performance out of your notebook.

 

I do have a K|N notebook but it's the older Clevo m570u chassis, not the newest one. That and it's overclocked out of the box, so I can't draw a direct comparison to a stock model. If you still want the numbers I can provide them though.

 

problem with xp now is that lots of new laptops do not have drivers for xp,

also there are some new devices coming out that do not have drivers for xp.

 

that sux maybe I will get 32bit Vista then just to be safe from both extremes...