Clevo W870CU Review With ATI 5870m

Is this laptop really this good? Has no one found anything to complain about?

After waiting two months for a G73JH-A1 (it's supposed to ship out either today (Monday) or tomorrow), now at the last second you guys come up with what sounds to be a near perfect laptop. Is there really nothing major wrong? Now you guys have me leaning towards changing my order to this for a few extra hundred more (especially with more and more people having problems with their G73JHs every day).

So is switching to this Clevo (Sager) a safe bet?

And two other quick questions. Is 4 GB of RAM enough to play most (if not all) current games? And lastly (for now), if I get the 500 GB HD as my primary hard drive, will it be easy to move that primary HD to the secondary drive and add a SSD as my primary drive in the future?

Thank you,

NightBandit

 

What kind of problems? I hope those aren't HD5870's fault.

 

And two other quick questions. Is 4 GB of RAM enough to play most (if not all) current games? And lastly (for now), if I get the 500 GB HD as my primary hard drive, will it be easy to move that primary HD to the secondary drive and add a SSD as my primary drive in the future?

Thank you,

NightBandit[/QUOTE]
NightBandit, great minds think alike, I just got this back from Ken Lee when I asked about adding a 2nd HD
' RAID settings it's as simple as go to BIOS and change SATA to RAID but you need to have two exact same HD same size and same speed to setup RAID.
Yes the laptop comes will all the screws and bracket for everything you need to assemble.'
Bandit, Are you looking at this link to configure your G73 alternative upgrade machine?
http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=W870CU
I am jumping off the G73 ship today, I just have to decide on the configuration I want.

 

Josea - 4gb is fine. I had ordered 8gb thinking Win7 would benefit from it greatly while gaming but it simply is not the case. After posting on here about it and reading about 3 hrs worth of articles and benchmarks, the difference is maybe 1fps at a given time. If you are doing VM work or video editing then yes. I changed my 8gb order to 4gb and with the saved money picked up a SSD.

And yes to the second question given you have a program to make an image of your system and put it on the new drive.

Quad - I have the Lite On PS as well and plan on trying it out so I don't have to buy another power adapter. I will let you know if it frys the laptop

 

4GB is enough to play the latest games. Yes, it is easy to remove the HDD and put it in the other bay.

Technically you do not need identical drives for RAID. I can put an SSD and a HDD in RAID if I wanted to. The ideal here is to have identical drives though.

Having four SODIMM slots (two sticks per channel) may not be as beneficial as you think. You're going to get the best efficiency and latency by just having one module per channel for dual channel. Having two sticks per channel is too much for the MCH to juggle. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5941655&postcount=457

So if you somehow need more than 4GB in the future, or when the price of 4GB sticks falls to affordable prices later this year, then you can easily upgrade to an 8GB kit. I'm going to rant on this later today when I get back from classes.

 

It will work, trust me. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5988449&postcount=173

 

PSU isn't strong enough

 

Doesn't hurt to carry an extra one LINK.

 

Is that one more powerful than the one provided ? Wont it be bad news bears for your notebook if you apply too much power.

 

You mean you're not reading every single post?

Read two posts above mine.

 

The notebook isn't going to draw more than it can handle. It's exactly like desktop PSU's. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5937103&postcount=1264

 

wrong amperage...

My laptop would croak

 

The Moo, did you find a way to Overclock the cpu ? That's the only thing that keep me from switching to clevo right now. I'm still waiting for my g73jh aka "forever back order" laptop.

 

It's the same one others are saying would work. Wrong amperage for the G73 also but it is regulated and it works just fine.

 

Great thread!
would the differences between gaming vary much if i went for the 15inch version but had the i7 720 with the 5870?

 

which CPU?

Only the 920 can be overclocked.... I have the PLL and can put out a cash bounty for who ever adds it to the SetFSB program

The 920 can be overclocked in the W870CU

 

its only like 2 correct?

Quad had both and one of those he said it was a decent difference.... I would have no problem trying but @ this point i am done with benching ...I wanted 10k and i got it

 

Dont think so, same spec different chassis right ? So games would run the same.

 

What screen do you have ? 900p isnt it? stupid question but would this have an outcome on benchmarking scores. I.e at 1080p you going to get worse scores than at 900p right?

 

I guess I'll just have to beat your score then.

 

You break 11k and I will personally send you a prize ! Im saying it cant be done.

 

11K overall no problem.

 

LOL With the same spec ?? Im nervous about my statement now

 

Okay thanks i just wanted to check.
is there a difference in the amount of RAM that they can use?
they both have 2 slots, right? so would the limit be 8gb for both?

just trying to decide if the extra cost of getting the 17inch screen would be worth it if there are no other differences in performance or possible upgrade potential in the future

 

I was told by Joseph at Xotic that they both can hold 8GB RAM so I would say yes. And by use do you mean accept / hold ? Im guessing that's what you meant.
Dont think there would be any significant performance increase in getting the W870 unless cooling comes into play which I dont think it will since the 8690 can make a penguin feel cold.

 

I can break 11k in one hour .... i just need a 920

With a decent PSU i could break 12k overall

 

Lol told him he has to use the same spec as you his Extreme CPU is ridiculous

 

Ain't happening then....

The GPU could not handle any more... I barely made it through the test 10.1 @ the max with 10.3 drivers. Maybe 10.4 will help but i hit the max of my card.

If you will let me Overclock my 720 then i can hit 11k

 

As FluffyUK mentioned, both laptops perform practically identically in terms of performance and they both support the same CPU, RAM, GPUs and so on. Screen and cooling are bigger/slightly better in the 870 but apart from that the 870 is just like a larger twin of the 860 (with a second HDD bay of course)

 

By use i meant accept and make use of it, no point having the extra ram if it isnt being used. Thanks for the Info, i think i will go with the 15inch model as its a biut cheaper upto £200 cheaper going with Kobalt for it so should be okay and heard that they might be adding a caddy to remove the Disc drive and adding a second HDD drive which is a real plus and would save me money as i was condering getting a BluRay drive but think that if i might go with the caddy option later then theres no point

 

Thanks for just verifying that Neil ! appreciate it.

And yes the 860 can accept the same RAM as the 870 and use it to the same potential. Like Neil said slightly better cooling and extra screen size are the only pluses. You seem to have you mind made up anyway The 8690 will be a great choice.

 

15K CPU, 10K GPU = ?Vantage?

I know there's a 3DMark06 calculator, is there one for Vantage?

 

Okay thanks, i just wanted to check
the 17inch version that Moo has seems very good
of course i wouldnt go crazy and benchmark it to hell - wouldnt want to risk frying it
Yeah i think its settled, gone from wanting the m17x, to the Envy but i think i will be very happy with the G860 From Kobalt

 

10.1 on GPU 16k on CPU

That is more like it

 

16K would be hard with that system. What did Quad get?

Edit: Here it is, LINK.
The M17x can achieve 16K because of the 5% bclk increase.

 

Did you monitor each core to see if the multi was being achieved?

 

If the screen turned off i think all 4 were sucking the PSU dry

 

I know that it's been stated that an 820 is not that much of a benefit over a 720, but it's only an extra $130 to move from a 720 to an 820. Would I just be waisting my money or would there be enough of a boost (maybe in the future) to validate spending the extra $130?

Also (and please excuse my ignorance), what's the difference between the 32 and 64 bit Windows 7?

And still no problems to be afraid of with this laptop?

NightBandit

 

no save your money for later when you get a 920.

Also 32 bt only lets you use 3 gigs of ram while 64 bit lets you use 8976908587598 GB.

No issues on my end check my pros and cons

 

I agree with Moo save you money and get the 920 or even the new Extreme CPU when it comes out. (Q3 if im to believe what is written in other threads).

Here is a Microsoft dentition on 32Bit and 64Bit differences:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946765

 

Yep, save our cash for a REAL CPU upgrade

 

Can you tell me how OC this beast ? Wish application

 

@sleey0

Aside from benches, how much do you gain in FPS (not factoring the GPU) when going from 720 to 920?

 

Probably not much.

Most games these days are much more GPU dependant, except certain RPG's

 

Emulated games thrive off of raw CPU horsepower.

 

Very nice work Moo, never thought we'd see a single mobile GPU core reach those numbers this early in 2010. BTW, how's the voltage looking like? You could probably run maybe 800-850 mhz stable for gaming.

 

Wow, now should i wait for my G73jh or get this one ???

 

All up to you, Baron

Me, I´jumped from the G73 to the MSI GX740, to this one (which I have now ordered).

 

910 on the core 1125 on the memory

That is stable in all my games so far

 

Yeah well I need something that will replace my Alienware m17x. I need good graphics performance and i want to be able to update it later.