*** Official Clevo P870DM/Sager NP9870-G Owner's Lounge - Phoenix has arisen! ***

We are also forgetting the fickle nature of the silicon lottery. Believe it or not, [email protected] or less 6700K currently is going for over $500 on one website, and this is their highest, currently available, binning. That means the reviewer may have had a crap CPU. But yes, a little loving and undervolting goes a long way...

 

That is a LOT of commenting O_O

 

Just a suggestion for future threads as well.

Have a thread for those waiting for model.

Create a thread when folks actually own the model. Would be better than to wade through 60 or hundreds of pages of posts when no one owns the laptop. Just saying.

 

Anyway, what I want for a future 17" model that isn't as beastly from Clevo is the rear vents and back cover of this X9. Would love to have the mesh style aluminum venting and cooling rather than this plastic.

For me the above is what gives this X9 look of quality and performance. It's what I always liked about the previous AW models too.

 

Is that flat or with a notebook cooler?

 

I use a notebook cooler always for ergonomic reasons. It is on a Cooler Master X3, which is only a little better than worthless. It might make a 1°C to 3°C difference in temps. (Was basically a total waste of money, but I got it for like $15 after MIR so it wasn't a painful loss.) U3 with three high CFM 120MM desktop fans running on power from an AC adapter is a lot more effective.

 

OK, next part of the review is up.
https://biosmods.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/sky-x9/3/

 

liking that adrenaline benchmark link, have to check that out
otherwise amazing performance results, that machine beats my max overclocked config already at stock *lol* not by a large margin, but still...wont see the light of day when the oc results come in, i bet

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

I think wprime 1024 is one of the best stress tests you can use. Cinebench 11.5/15 and physics in 3Dmark11 is also OK but they are to short. Wprime 1024 run normally over 2.5 minutes on all 4 core processors so this test is a perfect match for stress testing of BGA crap also.

 

One thing I don't get though, remember me complaining about my Ice Storm score on my previous 980 Ti in SLI mode the score was very low? Now the score you posted is also low, how come my Alienware 18's 780M GTX get 154K in Ice Storm using driver 350.12 for example and this beast gets north of 10K, seems like Ice Storm doesn't play well with the 980 GPUs.

I know it's not the best way to represent the performance of high end systems, but it baffles me why the 780M GTX SLI gets a much higher score in Ice Storm

GeForce GTX 780M SLI (350.12) [W8]

 

I debated with myself whether to even bother running it. Ice Storm is a smartphone and tablet benchmark. There are some benchmarks that Fermi does better than Kepler or Maxwell, so don't lose any sleep over it. If it was 3DMark Vantage, Fire Strike or 3DMark 11 it would matter.

 

My 980m SLI seems to do ok in Ice Storm - 184190, maybe it's a problem with the 980ti?

I think the new 980's are still being tuned, I am sure the numbers will go up over time.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8170934



http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/10169847



http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/5319314



There are higher scoring GT80's that use Prema's vbios for the 980m's.

 

Out of anything else in terms of benchmarks, Ice Storm is probably the most irrelevant product that exists for PC owners. It is also overly driver-sensitive, and it runs on Android and iOS for Pete's sake... that alone qualifies it for joke status. So, cannot expect it to be something useful in the grand scheme of things. Unless you're big on "phone racing" LOL. I think I'll be skipping that one for the overclocked part of the review. Just a distraction from what matters.

 

You could try this Ice storm question in Futuremark support. Only Sky Diver test in the 3Dmark suite is useful. The rest is junk. Why bother with that test ?

 

Yes, Sky Diver is definitely useful. It's better than Fire Strike also, because you can have a horrible piece of trash CPU and still get a nice fluffy "feel good" score if you have a good GPU setup. The physics score itself is OK for measuring CPU performance, but the issue is the benchmark mostly sets it aside and it does not count for much in the overall score. That is very misleading if you don't know any better and makes a crappy system with a good GPU seem better than it really is.

 

A very popular bench test for those who have BGA junk. You see this in treads with lots of this disgusting modern hardware. Everyone run this benchmark test. Not 3Dmark11/Sky Diver/3Dmark Vantage. Modern times now.

 

Yes, and that proves the point. They are not going to run benchmarks that expose their weakness and reflect poorly on their notebook's overall performance capacity. They'll get beaten by powerful machines that were built 4 or 5 years ago and only had a GPU upgrade at a fraction of the cost of their new but broken BGA mess.

 

Sky Diver should be the main benchmark test in the 3Dmark suite. Or Futuremark should adopted the heavier power demand from Sky Diver to Fire Strike. Fire Strike need a full makeover.

 

I think the problem is with the desktop 980s since Mr. Fox is getting the same low score I got on my 980 Ti desktop GPUs as well but you get a high score since you're running the 980M

 

It's not a problem unless a guy gets hung up on it. Don't let it get under your skin because Ice Storm is a piece of junk. I won't be testing and posting results with it any more because Ice Storm is not relevant in our world. It's a phone/tablet racer benchmark only for anemic devices.

 

Most GPU benchmarks start to go wonky with machines far more powerful than their intended range or feature set. 3dmark 2000 results are not really looked at any more for instance

 

That's a really good example. AquaMark3 is another.

 

@Matrix Leader @Mr. Fox @Meaker @hmscott
Look at these Icestorm benchmark results from Notebook Check. Eg Gtx970 Sli vs Gtx970. You can easily see that this benchmark test sucks.

 

250k+ is a pretty far off flier data point... I wonder what causes the variances? It would be nice to see if the wonkiness is in the CPU or the GPU scaling... that's why I try to post the individual scores as well as the total.

Sometimes Futuremark misses the mark, and bugs out, that's what it looks like.

Maybe it's a Cray and a 2 x 970m SLI console, with the CPU score astronomical and throwing off the totals?

 

Can only say; Junk ala BGA. LOL
Bubble gum kids enjoy this test and the best one "Fire Strike". In short; The whole 3DMark suite. Trained as they are on Android / Ios. LOL

 

English version of the review of the XMG model has been posted - http://www.notebookcheck.net/Schenker-XMG-U726-Clevo-P870DM-Notebook-Review.153136.0.html

 

I find google translate does a fairly good job usually on the german versions these days.

 

I'll just leave this right here...

[parsehtml]<iframe width="853" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gwj3LkSX3sc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/parsehtml] @Matrix Leader - here are some photos taken after the teardown video. A little bit of a "deeper dive" into the chassis. Pulling the motherboard in the SKY X9 is not for the faint of heart. About 35 screws, give or take a few. Fortunately, most of them are the same size. (Take note of where the odd ones belong if you venture this deep.) Palm rest lifts off the frame assembly with the motherboard and display attached to the frame. If you thought the ribbon cables on the Alienware 18 were tedious, you ain't seen nothing yet, LOL. It's very well made (love it), but the simple stuff ends where the video left off.

[parsehtml]<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="750" frameborder="0" src="//imgur.com/a/kAhhE/embed"></iframe>[/parsehtml]

 

Love the tear downs

 

Be careful not to drool on it

 

I really wish you would make a continuation video where we left off video 1 with step by step details on how to continue the full teardown. Pics will do me no good at this complex stage.

I really wish you do it as I would like to have the video saved on my local drives in case I ever needed to service the laptop at least I have an idea where to start from.

Whatever happened to "this is the easiest laptop to teardown" you were saying the other day?

 

It is... this sucker is super easy to work on. Maintenance and upgrades are a breeze, but motherboard R&R, not so much. Hopefully, there will seldom be a need for that, and if it's under warranty, they'll want to have it sent in for something a serious as the motherboard anyhow. You don't need to go past where the video ends to do anything such as drives, memory, accessing CMOS battery, etc. You would only need to pull the palm rest for motherboard or LCD replacement. It's very cool that the motherboard sets into the frame assembly. I really like that. But, tons of screws and ribbon cables scare some people... and it has lots of both.

 

You do have easy access for everything you need for most upgrades and maintenance though. It's only the crazier people like myself and Mr. fox who are not intimidated by a few screws and cables anyway that would care too much

 

The best thing I like about this beast is now I no longer feel intimidated to open it up and upgrade the RAM. As easy as it sounds to you pros, tearing down the Alienware 18 for me just to upgrade the 2 RAM sticks under the keybaord was a living nightmare. Even after undoing all the screws and removing the ribbon cables from the card reader, the bloody frame is hard as a rock I was afraid that pushing too much I would break my expensive toy! thank the lord it's gone now and from what I've seen in the video, it made my heart beat like a little child wanting to play with it.

30% of my brain's nervous system is now damaged due to the long wait as I don't even have an idea when HIDevolution would get my machine let along set it up and ship it. By the time my unit arrives at their headquarter, I probably would have 90% of my brain damaged from the waiting. My biggest flaw in my character is lack of patience, and this is like stabbing me in the heart! LOL

 

I know, it's very tempting after seeing all the photos and videos

 

When are PowerNotebooks receiving the P870DM? That may give me an idea about when HIDevolution may get it

 

We are a sager reseller, so when they do

 

There is still not date, as far as I know, on when the Sager version might be launching.

 

And, this is all torture, I'm sure. Patience is a very inconvenient virtue. I never pray for patience, LOL... dangerous thing to ask for.

But, if it helps knowing, rest assured the wait will be worth it. Good things come to those that wait. I cannot afford to buy one. It's going to be like losing a limb when my time is up and I have to send the X9 back home. I think that will be worse than waiting because I will know what I am missing. I don't even want to look at my own machines any more.

 

Bro, you have many spare parts and machines lying around! I know you have like an Alienware store of the AW18 / M18X if you really like this machine, maybe you could sell your old machines and come up with a good sum of money for a system that will last you at least 2 years

PS: Shame on Eurocom not gifting you this machine for all your hard work! You're like doing free advertisement for them

 

At least 2 years? only! ? edit this quickly before Mr.Fox spite you. Your'e comparing his beauty/beast to BGA,may not take it very kindly

Yes a Eurocom petition sounds like affirmative

 

Thanks for the teardown video Mr. Fox it was very informative and its cool to see it will be an easier task to upgrade this machine. This machine is impressive for sure but looking at benchmarks and chipset I still like my Eurocom Panther 5 better than this machine because of my 4960X CPU and build quality. This machine is definitely what the Alienware 18 should have been and it kills the DeLL Alienware in that aspect. At the sametime upgrading to this machine from the Alienware 18 should be a no brainer unless Dell/Alienware can have similar results with their configuration when they update the Alienware 18 with DUAL 980M/Desktop GtX 980.

 

There is only so much Dell can do with a now very old chassis design. They can't match the feature sets.

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=699489383515529&substory_index=0&id=158349674296172

Aftershock is going to announce the P870DM in Singapore on the 3rd of November. Nice. @darkarn, this might interest you.

 

That's right. It will continue to be "nice" but there's no way to make it function on the level of the Sky X9. It's missing way too much. Same goes for everything else from Alienware, past or present. Their new stuff is garbage BGA filth and a huge disappointment like most of the crippled mainstream "gaming notebook" junk that most vendors are selling now. The awesome EOL products are not supported and trapped in time by inferior Legacy components that cannot be upgraded (chipset, sockets, drive controllers... everything). Very nice old stuff for sure, still better than almost everything else you can buy today, but frozen in time and completely displaced by something the caliber of this beast.

 

I think I am going to nickname the Sky X9 Predator because, in the end, the Alien always gets killed by the Predator.

 

Mr.Fox i love the idea however, i believe Acer has already ruined it for us with their Acer predator BGA counterpart.Less we take care of them as well.Can't have some BGAware riding of the Sky's rep

 

They are imposters! Real predators are judged by the wake of devastation they leave behind. Once in a while a predator does get killed by an alien, so we will let Acer use that excuse to save face. Here's what happens when a real Predator shows up.

Release the Kraken!

 

The Panther has no match. It is on an island, isolated in a class by itself. The CPU is clearly superior, but there's a lot the Sky X9 has that was not even available when the Panther was born. What would be ideal is a slightly larger variation of the X9 with X99 and 5960X. In every measurement EXCEPT the CPU, the X9 has it beat. RAM speed, drive controller speed, Thunderbolt 3, dual DP, 5 USB 3.0 ports, IPS 75Hz G-SYNC display, etc. Those won't help in CPU dependent 3DMark scores, but they do help in other ways. And, if looks could kill, the X9 would have the Panther hamstrung.

My Panther isn't going taking a back seat yet. I still love it. It is da bomb!

 

No, I have never needed to do that yet on the Panther. Pulling motherboards on a laptop is never a lot of fun, even on a machine where doing so is easy. No need to be scared by that, even on a laptop that is a pain to work on... just a bunch of screws and wires to futz with... but, I can think of a lot of things I had rather do with my time. But, if I have a reason to, I will make a teardown video of it, especially for you my good friend.