Why KillerNotebooks.com is building a D901C for me

To Baziado: a lot of the tweaks out there are to reduce the amount of overhead caused by Vista's extra perks, along with speeding up boot time etc etc. So overall they /will/ have an effect on benchmarking, but probably nothing drastic. Then again, I'm using XP so I may be considered uninformed about this

 

worm what are your performace numbers vs someone wo purchased from a non mod reseller?

 

Sure you're getting that extra customization and stuff. But other then the heat sinks and physical modifications, its not that big of a deal. Personally the price jacking for these overclocks and stuff is almost as bad as AW's craptastic pricing for guady decorations. I was over on KN for a while looking through their info. It all seemed pretty good till I saw the lack of options, forced OS bundling, and the crazy price tag.

 

I'm sure they have their target buyers, I'm not sure what's with the negativity towards killernotebooks. It's like if someone mentions they bought a voodoo all the haters come out. It's happening with killernotebook, I understand that xoticpc and the others had great price discounts, but not everyone is looking for discounts.

 

I'm sure K|N builds a quality system and the extra customizations must be nice but the price tag says, "I cater to those with a disposable income."

With resellers, you are still getting a solid product and most importantly, excellent service and support. Slap that together with a economy-friendly price and you've got a sale.

 

I cannot say that I've ever heard of a bad customer experience with K|N.

But I do not know if that is just because he's a smaller, high end, outfit that focuses on customer service...or if the higher prices just mean less customers.

I can't say that I own a K|N, nor will I anytime soon (too much! ).

And no, while I am not a mod on this subforum...most of the mods have full modding rights on all subforums.

 

Lack of options? That's absurd. He gives plenty of options, albeit that they are top notched options and none of the low end stuff. For instance, look at the choices for the CPU in the D901C. K|N only offers the Quad Core Q9450, Q9550 and Q9650, whereas Sager and the others are offering the Core 2 Duo E8500, Quad Q6600, Q6700, and Q9550.

http://www.killernotebooks.com/odachi/odachi_order_page.html

Forced OS bundling? If you don't want an OS, call Mark up. You don't have to purchase an OS. I'm sure that he's flexible. However, have you look at K|N prices for the offered OS? It's very reasonable.

Vista Business 64 bit - Free
Vista Ultimate 64 bit - Free
Win XP - $5
Vista Business 32 bit - Minus $50
If you want a dual boot, he'll help with that too

HD options, nothing but those @ 7200 RPM. None of the 5400 RPM drives.

Like I said K|N gives you plenty of option, there all high end options, none of the low end fluff. Quality comes at a price. As to cooling mods and it's performance, I can't make a judgement, I don't own any K|N system. That overclocking Turbo boost button though looks very daggum cool.

 

Also, just a note, if you contact the owner of K|N directly, he can help you out with some options that might be listed on his site, including the lower end stuff which will still fit in the chassis, but again, it's something you have to talk to him about. Also, he includes a custom built notebook cooler in the pricing of the Executioner right now, so that's another 70-100 dollars of value there.

To afitzwater: Boutique companies such as Killer Notebooks, Voodoo and Falcon-NW are targetted towards people with disposable income, but that doesn't mean I have too much money to spare, hahah. I worked a year and a half through high school to afford this computer, I didn't just mooch money of parents. *laughs* Though I did splurge and pulled another 20 dollars for a sweet Branding on the back of my computer: ( http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t62/theworminator/Executioner.jpg) Which is pretty sweet in terms of customization, I must say.

To Baziado: As for performance, I managed to OC my T7400 to 2.45 Ghz (I've managed to push it higher since, but haven't benchmarked it yet). Specs of the benched rig:
CPU: T7400 OC'ed to 2.45 Ghz (FSB: 188 Mhz, 13X multiplier)
RAM: DDR2-667, OC'ed to 755mhz
GPU: Geforce Go 7950 GTX OC'ed to 605/770
HDD: 100Gb @ 7200RPM (haven't managed to OC this yet though. )

Running 3dMark06 at default settings gave me a score of 5795.

Looking around, I found a review by Frazac on NotebookDiscussions.com ( http://www.notebookdiscussions.com/showthread.php?p=5876), where he has a stock Sager 5760. He reports a score of 5305 on 3DMark06. There's also a difference in temps from a non-modded m570u to a modded one, but I might be straying into dangerous territory there.

Sorry if it seems like I'm boasting guys...though nowadays those aren't numbers to boast about

 

Yeah, I see that you can get better CPUs, though they are basically the same as they have the same cores but slightly different clock speed. Its not that big of a deal if you know how to overclock. I agree that the heatsink is pretty nice, but thats basically all you're paying for. With a 1k difference, I don't think a few inches of metal is worth 1k unless it was solid gold or something.

The thing about not wanting an OS is that an OEM license costs atleast a hundred or so. I have my own OS licenses so it would be nice to not be redundant. the "0" price is obviously not 0 but is bundled in with the base system. Calling him and asking him to not add an os probably wouldn't lower the price (I don't know and am not interested in finding out).

the HD options are pretty much the same as any sager resellers, but with less options.

The overclock button is purely software overclock (he admitted that himself somewhere on this forum). The same exact function can be performed with many different overclock programs. The only difference would be that you click on a shortcut on your desktop instead of pushing something.

 

Sujinge9, he may not list all the possible options for a laptop on his website, just what he thinks a gaming laptop should be using (like for hard drive, none of the slower 5.4k RPM ones). The rest of the options you can get from talking to him, which is what I'd do when spending that much anyway .

Just another thing to note is that not everyone is willing to overclock their laptops (hahah. Hah. *looks at his own sig*) so they'd pay the extra to have it OC'ed for them, along with a warranty that covers that overclock. It's really a personal thing, whether you'd be willing to spend more on a laptop like this. It's your money after all, you can put it wherever you want.

 

If a company such as K|N is willing to warrant an OC'd CPU, then that by itself would explain a fairly sizeable portion of the premium one pays to K|N because, by doing so, K|N has agreed to cover what is no longer covered by the manufacturer's warranty (in this case the warranty that I am guessing Clevo extends to the OEMs/Customizers who purchase directly from Clevo - it should be noted that this warranty, as such, does not extend to end-users who purchase a Clevo-based system from that OEM/Customizer).

For example, right now, a Q9550 will run you about $570 from TigerDirect, or about $600 when shipping is factored in.

Assuming that there is a standard risk of a defect cropping up of 5%, and an additional risk of damage from the OC'ing of 25%, the total risk being assumed by a company such as K|N in that case is 30%, which gives a risk-weighted cost to that risk assumption of about $180. Add in $100 for the time and supplies that would be needed to replace a Q9550 which blows up because of OC'ing, and you're looking at a risk-weighted cost of $210. Thus, if K|N is charging a premium of approximately $1,000 over a similarly-equipped model from another company such as a Clevo/Sager reseller, then it's reasonable to make a first-order guess that about a fifth of that premium is, in effect, a premium paid for the warranty coverage.

Since a company such as K|N that is willing to put it's neck on the line by agreeing to warrant against these risks is still, after all, a business that is intended to operate at a profit, that business is not going to simply expose it's bottom line to those risks, but will in essence self-insure by charging a premium for the products it sells - in other words, folded into that pricing premium is an unstated amount that, economically, is allocated to covering potential warranty losses.

 

Thanks Shyster, the thoughts work in my head, but I can't pull numbers out like that.

Edit: I can't say I know much about this, but with a risk-weighted cost of $180 plus the 100$ of time/supplies, wouldn't that be $280 and so more like 1/3rd of the premium?

 

Yes, except that, because the labor and supplies cost wouldn't be incurred unless the CPU went bad, those expenses should be risk-weighted by the same factor used to risk-weight the replacement cost of the CPU.

 

Ah, makes sense. Once again foiled by the rules of commerce.

 

all good info....aside from killer are there other boutique shops that also do these sorts of things or is KN the only one?

 

There is also the fact that K|N kind of...rebuilds...the chassis and/or cooling system in some cases. At least I think they do.

So basically the entire laptop warranty is void from the get go, and K|N has to cover anything directly.

 

Baziado, from what I've seen, K|N is the only one that does cooling mods in house, but for a boutique gaming company, there are quite a few out there. Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, etc.

Greg, he does rebuild the heatsinks for the cooling system, yeah. For the case itself, he makes mods to the bottom plate (the big base piece that comes off). I'm not sure if this voids Clevo's initial warranty... anybody have a document describing Clevo's warranty? I can't seem to find it on their site.

 

The OEM/Customizers do not purchase directly from Clevo. In North America there are only 3 companies that purchase directly from Clevo and they are Sager, Pro-Star and Eurocom. The barebones shell for every other private labeled Clevo notebook sold in North America is purchased from one of those three companies.

However you are correct in that once the laptop has been modded with motherboard, thermal system, or case modifications the buyer has to look solely to the private labeler for warranty coverage because there is no major company standing behind that warranty.

Therefore anyone buying from any of these private labelers should do a little research into the company or person they are buying from and be satisfied when paying a premium for the Clevo based laptop that they will be there to honor that warranty. A warranty is only as good as the company or person that stands behind it.

 

There are few members with KN notebooks,and you can read reviews on the net, they`re quite impressive.

Cool score, but my 5791 with T7500 2.2 and stock 7950GTX got me 5599
OCed at 2.5 and 600/750 got me close to 6 k.

He builds them , so he knows all the parts first hand. Which can`t be said about most of the big companies like Dell, HP , and so on.
I`m just glad my laptops are safe for now

 

Nice, almost 6k? Basically the only difference we'd have is that you're on the Santa Rosa chipset and I'm not. And maybe you optimized your system first or something because I think I accidentally left Avast running... . Hahah, nice numbers though. I should try to push my GPU further to see what happens.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041
You know there has been a price drop right?

I hope no one buys this CPU from a reseller that doesn't have prices reflecting the new market price.

 

Sorry about that double posted!Opps
Read below

 

Sounds good to me - the cheaper the better - however, the actual price is irrelevant to the basic point, at least so long as CPUs cost something more than $0.

 

Whats with all the haters out their for K|N?
Look K|N does do some great mods of their own, but some people just can't justify or afford them.Like their website says "these are for people with a disposable income" and that's definetly not me!
I am sure that they do get better performance than a the same specced stock Clevo, but a stock Clevo will be able to handle everything you through at it.
Mark from K|N caters to a different crowd that has that extra $$ to put in their systems.
While the extra large heat sink that he customizes sure seem to really help keep it running cool, but that's only if you OC it and I don't think that I am.The stock fans that do come with the system keep it nice and cool and thats good enough for me.
I did end up ordering from PowerNotebooks only because they had the best price.
But I was very close to oredring from K|N and I am sure I will in some point in time( maybe after 2-3 years) but for right now I simply cannot afford it.
Mark was really helpful and answered all my questions and E-mails, but IMO I can't justify spending the extra grand in mods(I was really tempted) right now.
I have to give Mark credit the work and passion he puts into his laptops are really awesome but out of my budget.It already took me about a year just to save extra $$ for my gaming laptop and that's working 2 jobs and between 60-70 hours a week.
So basically it comes down to what each person wants and needs, Hey if you want more performance and really want the Ultimate laptop order from K|N, it's up to each person to decide what is the best for themselves.Me I can live with a stock Clevo.
I still need to eat and be able to pay my bills.

 

yes, you can do w/e you want with your money. But the point of having reviews and forums like these is to help guide other people by giving opinions on a said product.

Its cool that since he's the builder he can throw w/e he wants into the system, but it would be great if he could let us know what is possible and what is not.

I think most people who spend 3k are atleast some what computer savy. If not, it would be like giving a porche to a 16 year old with a permit.

 

That's true. Though it's probably because he wants to primarily build notebooks that are high end gaming, so "lower end" notebooks (they still wouldn't be low end) would take a backseat. You can get them, but you'd have to ask.

 

With all due respect, that's not an entirely fair criticism of Mark or K|N; certainly Clevo and Sager don't publicly disclose everything that's possible with their systems - largely because they seem, as far as I can tell, to have a fairly conservative sense of what constitutes an acceptable risk of failure - so I wouldn't expect Mark to know what's possible until/unless he happens to find what works and what doesn't through his own efforts.

 

i'm just trying to say that there are a lack of options on his site, and even if you can call him up and get him to stick stuff in there thats not an option on the site, he should give some sort of hint what other stuff is avaliable.

 

Fair enough; still, I don't know if an orderly, comprehensive menu of available options fits with the style of Mark's customization techniques - more likely, the limited set of options stated on the website might simply constitute the base, or foundation, from which individual systems are built on a per-buyer basis. Without having my remark taken as criticism of anyone, going to a tailor is a lot different than buying from the ready-to-wear racks at Brooks Brothers.

 

I wanted to go back to this post by Donald. I am not sure the difference between this or an extended warranty I would buy from PowerNotebooks. Bottom line with any big purchase you need a warranty. Seems like all these folks offer warranties so as long as the company has been in business for a while it is probably safe to assume they honor those agreements. I am sure if they did not we would all hear about it. Seems from your post like you are trying to make the warranties seem different or one safer then the next but I am not sure that they are. In the end I dont care who exactly does the work as long as it gets done. I also would do the same research if I were buying from KN, PN or Xotic, Alienware, Dell etc. no difference to me

 

lol 2 true.

 

Here we go again, warranties, always the fear that some other reseller besides sager might not fulfull their obligations over this

I counted more then 30 shops only in the US (read gophn list). Some tried to come here to inform and promote their service (like some do), but left one way or another. I wonder why. Some misconceptions:

CPU, RAM, VIDEO CARDS, MOTHERBOARDS can always be RMA. Unless you modified them in anyway. So basically if the guy is basically changing the CHASSIS (cooling system) I don't know why couldn't other components couldn't be sent back due to malfunction. Happens all the time with custom build desktops!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trance

 

MilestonePC,
Flawless Computers,
Awesome Laptops,
ISTNC,
Hybridgear,
FutureTop,
Ardent Extended Warranties

These are some of the companies that had great warranties that are no longer in business.

My comments are made to help remember them, and just to caution that when you are making decisions about the value of a warranty, that the warranty is only as good as the company or person standing behind them.

Thrash me if you will, but the facts speak for themselves.

 

The facts speak for themselves ^^

 

Right, so those people who want to remove their motherboard and then send it in to...now, who is it that they are going to send it in to that will just ship them out a new motherboard at no charge, or even ship them a motherboard at all? Sager will not ship a motherboard to an end user, and if your private labeler is gone...who you gonna call?

...and even if they could find a source for the motherboard, they would then wait for a replacement and reinstall it themselves and they will be just fine.

Same for the CPU, video card or even the RAM. Who are they going to RMA them to, and why should they have to do the labor, and pay for the shipping?

The point is that warranties are supposed to cover parts, and labor, and many also cover shipping.

Now I realize some people here are quite competent to do this work, but really only a very few, and if those people are willing to self warrant their laptop by doing their own labor and pay for the shipping and the parts if they have been modded, particularly after paying a premium for their laptop and warranty, they are certainly entitled to do that...after all it is their time and money.

 

I didn't factor in the fact that the manufactor's warrenties are voided due to modding. Since the case was heavily modded, I'm guessing the mobo and internal components might also have their warrenty voided since improper modding might mess up the heat management. So if you factor in the fact all the warrenties is going to come out of KN's pocket instead of the manufacture as it typically is the case, I suppose thats where the 1k extra mostly goes to. All in all, it seems pretty pointless to me that most of the money you're spending is to a warranty that you wouldn't need if you just went stock.

 

Did I miss something and the Odachi/d901c from killernotebooks is now has a mod also? If not, aren't you guys getting way off topic for this thread?

 

Yes please keep on-topic. Thanks.

 

yes BW KN notebooks have a mod and Donald posted as a means to try and scare people from purchasing from anyone except him. He could not help himself. I have a machine on order from xotic myself but as far as I can tell KN has been around a while so it would seem that he backs his warranty just as well as anyone else. not much different then the way alienware, voodoo or falcon back theirs. KN is more like those guys while Donald is more like a reseller.

 

as another note....I just went to xotic and config'd the 9262 loaded and it came to 5180. In my estimation xotic is the cheapest of the pure resellers. then i went to KN and maxed out and it came to 5889. KN includes the 9650 vs the 9550 at xotic (they dont have the 9650 on the site yet) so it is not quite 1K more as suggested above. still obviously a premium but thought we should have the right numbers. I would guess with the 9650 5180 would be closer to 5300?

 

Clevo has now released a new BIOS that remedies the issue with the Q9650 and the E8600, so those will begin shipping in the Sager NP9262 on Monday.

Sager will be releasing pricing by Monday as well. The upgrade will probably be at least $225.

To make price comparisons it is helpful to specify the configuration that you are comparing, including the warranty terms, and whether it also comes with Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Customer Service

 

I don't see anything on killernotebooks site advertising a mod for the odachi.

 

Hey paladin44 do you mean the NP 9262?
I just placed a order for one on monday with a Q9550 can I upgrade if I want.? Off topic bwhxeon you excited about the "Watchmen" movie?

 

Yes, I did mean the NP9262...thanks for pointing out the error which I have now corrected.

Yes, you will be able to upgrade sometime between now and Monday when we get the new Sager pricing.

Send me an email and I will flag your order, and email you back as soon as it becomes available.

 

I don't mean to keep picking on you Sujinge9, but that would be consistent with paying a higher premium to insure your hotrod than to insure your plain-vanilla Ford; obviously, you pay less in insurance premium if you go with the stock Ford, but if you want to go for the hotrod because it offers better performance (again, I'm not taking sides on the issue of whose version of the Clevo barebones is better, just illustrating) then it would stand to reason that you would also be signing on for a higher insurance premium.

 

my point is basically that by buying from KN, the most important part you're paying for is the modifications. However, the modifications in itself is neither really hard to do nor costly. In the end, the huge (in my frugal opinion) price difference is mainly due to the warranty which seems to decrease the bang for buck ratio dramatically.

I agree that due to the mods the insurance/warranty costs will increase as I said in my previous post. Its just that I think the premium you're paying for is not really for the mods but for the warranty which makes its "not worth it".

 

Hm...I'd have to argue about the point that the mods aren't costly, because it's something out of the range of any user, considering you'd need a block of copper and a C&C milling machine to do. I can see it getting costly to have it done yourself, at the rate that some machine shops charge. See for picture: http://www.guruofgaming.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=165

It's the aluminum one about a third of the way down, above the graphs. True, you are paying for the modifications, but they're not simple things that any user could do, so it again depends on what the customer's priorities are: cost or thermal performance. On a somewhat similar analogy, some customers will pay an insane premium for the top of the line CPUs, which may only perform 5% better than the one right under it, but if they're interested in ultimate performance, it's what they'd want.

My apologies to Chaz if this is off the main topic, just following the flow of the thread at the moment.

 

You've got a good point there - I mainly focused on the other aspects that might go into the premium 'cause I know those better; however, just out of curiousity, I googled on the terms " custom metal milling" and got a link to an outfit called e-MachineShop.com which will machine metal parts for you based on a design you make using the company's own d/l-able software, that is then sent back to the company via internet. On their pricing page, they state as follows:

Now, I don't know how complicated the mods in question are to fabricate, nor do I know how many are likely to have been sold so far; however, under very conservative estimates, I would guess that just the fabrication alone probably represents a material portion of the premium being paid ("material" being used in the general accounting sense of 5% or more, so, on a premium of $1,000, that would equal $50 or more).

On top of that, however, you have to figure in something to amortize the imputed cost of the time that was devoted to making the design in the first place. Since K|N did the design themselves, it's not likely that they actually paid out cash to someone else to do the design; however, doing the design would have taken up time that could have been devoted to other income-producing activities, and thus the opportunity-cost of the time spent in design must be taken into account as well. Even with today's fancy-pants CAD/CAM programs, I'm sure that it takes at least a bit more time than 5 or 10 minutes to produce a design that can be fabricated (no sarcasm here, I don't know in any detail since I haven't touched a CAD program since 1990, but I'd still be willing to bet decent money that it's not a trivial affair).

 

I got a few CNC machines at school, plus four 3d printers and two 4'x8' laser cutters - maybe i should use my facilities to my advantage and start a little 'side business'

plus all the cad programs needed too just about make anything possible...

 

Heheh, yeah, same here, but I don't think I'd be able to design something like that yet. However, I am studying Mechanical Engineering, so maybe for my fourth year project....