*** Official Clevo PB5xExx(-G) Owner's Lounge ***

I think something like some little flip out feet under the back would work nice. Lay flat most of the time. Flip back feet down when extra cooling is Needed. Plus double as an ergonomic improvement. Really don't know why manufacturers haven't started doing this yet.

 

I put my old coolermaster notebook fan underneath. Drops temps in Witcher 3 so that the GPU is stable at 70C and CPU is maxing around 87-88 but average around 82-84, no throttling. I ticked up the overclock on the GPU to 150/100 and its stable, running at around a constant 1620mhz with 7100mhz memory clock. I will probably try to repaste with Kryonaut still and look for further improvement.

 

I'm doing Kryonaut and Fujipoly today, whenever the pads arrive. I've got an excel sheet made up for the stock, undervolt, and repasted temps for a few games. I'll post it up when I'm done.

 

This laptop should be drawing air through keyboard too - you can see large air intakes once you remove the keyboard. Or is it too restrictive for that?

 

How it works, I don't know . The laptop of my son also raises when you open the screen. I believe the top model Asus also raises (or the back opens up) when you open the screen.
An open notebook stand in that case. Mine is closed and only raises the laptop. Works for an ultrabook, not for a gaming machine.

 

I think that's the idea, but the bottom of the keyboard doesn't seem to have any ventilation, so I'm not sure how much it actually helps.

 

Then that is clearly a design flaw. Would be no need to raise laptop or use pads if it could also suck air through keyboard.

 

After a second look, there are some small holes in the underside of the keyboard, which I presume is intended to be for the airflow.

 

Hello, did you purchase the additional 16gb ram from Microcenter as well?

I am considering this unit as well as the Eluktronics Mech G2 or Acer Triton 500. This has the 2070 and is a little thicker. Are you happy with it?

Thank you.

Jim

 

I purchased my second memory module on amazon, Crucial 16GB, 260-pin SODIMM, DDR4 PC4-21300 for about $90, which was recognized without issue by the system. There was a noticeable improvement in frame rates in a few games I ran afterwards. Build quality, despite being primarily plastic is pretty good. I have noticed that when carrying around, the lid opens a tad, but it also isn't necessarily a major issue. I find it pretty portable, although I compare that to carrying around an alienware 17R3 that I used prior.

I've acclimated to the keyboard fairly quickly and it is quite comfortable to use, as is the touchpad and the left and right click buttons. Battery life is about 3 hours with battery manager and 25% brightness while watching youtube constantly. Its nice that the battery can easily be swapped out for a different pack if you happen to be carrying around an extra. The screen is quite nice, although compared to my surface, its not as bright and whites aren't quite as white. It has a 500GB Western digital black NVME which is super fast.

It feels rather compact and I can move it around comfortably with it in one hand from room to room with screen open and having it not flop around. Edging out around 17150-17250 consistently in Fire Strike now. The fans aren't particularly bothersome to me and if you so choose, you can play games without headphones on and still be able to comprehend in game dialogue, etc (although not as well).

I also considered those laptops, but I really wanted a SD card reader and preferred having a full-fledged RTX 2070 over a Max Q. I haven't had a chance to look at those models in person, so I wouldn't be able to make the comparison. Not having windows hello or a fingerprint really doesn't matter to me. The lack of thunderbolt 3 is a bit dissapointing, although I personally don't really need since I prefer to use my monitor with my desktop.

I'm pretty happy with it. I am a bit paranoid about hitting 90C in a laptop on the CPU (although I know the majority of thin and lights have that issue), which is why I'll re-paste the CPU and GPU. I would say it is definitely a good deal. The idea of being within about 30 to 40 miles of a store and be able to have it serviced if need be is appealing if that so happens to be your case as well.

 

Thanks, this is very helpful. I will be adding this to my MSI GE73 8RF (which is pasted) and will leave one in each city. Hoping it is smaller and easier to carry around than that one. Will definitely check it out in person at Microcenter before purchasing anything else.

 

Disappointing that PowerSpec 1520 owners are reporting no TB3 and single 16gb RAM. The PowerSpec website lists 2x8gb RAM and TB3 port... http://www.powerspec.com/systems/system_components.phtml?component=2779&selection=1520 . Anyone check the brightness and color space specs on their display yet?

 

Stopped by Microcenter to look at this today and the build quality is pretty poor - pretty much all plastic. The screen is nice though. When I talked to the sales rep, he mentioned they already had some returns due to bad thermals.

 

Plastic huh? Very interesting. The Clevo site says metal build and the one from HID feels aluminum to me.

Thermally the issue with these is the rear feet take up way to much intake space leaving the smallest area to breathe.

I’ll show evidence of this in the review once it’s approved.

After propping the machine, undervolting the CPU, dialing in The GPU and of course LM from HID, temps are outstanding!

GPU in the lower 70’s and CPU in the lower 80’s. Pulling 55w on the CPU and 110w on the 2070.

 

I imagine the thermals can be addressed with a re-paste and propping up/laptop cooler. Coming from the tongfang chassis though this was a huge disappointment.

 

Maybe its due to the powerspec being based on the PB50EF-G rather than the PB51EF-G.

 

It did when I checked this morning, but now it doesn't.

 

For the 17", I keep an inactive laptop cooler under the laptop because I generally use my laptop on the couch. Occasionally I'll plug it in and turn it's fans super low so they aren't even audible. Max CPU temp I've seen is 87 but it's generally lower than that. GPU doesn't go above 70.

 

Are you sure? I haven't seen any laptop besides the y740 that has better thermals. I mean you have to undervolt but that's the case with any 8750h. I would guess that anyone who returned didn't undervolt.

 

You're right. They definitely removed the TB3 and 2x8 RAM references on the site since this morning. At least that removes any lingering confusion about those specs.

 

Whose approval are you waiting for? YouTube?

 

Applied Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut to the CPU and GPU and the CPU temps have dropped quite a bit. I'm barely hitting 80C in Witcher 3 (which is the program which has seemed to heat up the cpu the most) even without my laptop cooler now. GPU maxing out at 70C. When I popped the heat sinks off to replace the paste, I noticed that the CPU had a small area (maybe 5-10% of the cpu surface area) that was perfectly shiny, likely a culprit in the higher temps.

 

These are great results. I wish more reviewers would actually try doing that instead of relying on stock job by reseller (even if it was supposedly done with LM).

 

My unit is a little weird. The CPU so far is around 70 to 75, rarely hit 80C (3.9ghz turbo). GPU, on the other hand, is running quite hot at 80+ and it throttle at 83C

I have LM applied with CPU undervolt -125mv, and max fan at around 4200rpm. I have not popped the machine though.

 

That's the die, normally covered up by a heatspreader in desktop CPUs.

I did the Kryonaut and Fujipoly today. I was surprised to find that I was actually able to get everything with just one 50x60mm pad. The CPU was good, but my thermal pads were too thick and preventing the heatsink from making proper contact with the GPU, so it's temps were getting up to 86 in pretty much everything. Slapped the stock pads back on for now. Also ran out of paste (wasted quite a bit troubleshooting the pad issue, and pasted my friends SCAR as well), so I'm making due with spreading what I had on already and sitting at pretty much my pre-paste temps until I get another tube.

 

That mechanism is part of the reason it costs so much more when a pair of bottle caps will do the job just as well

Yes you are right, those pesky transistors are the cause for the temperatures

 

Am I sure about what? That it is plastic or what the rep told me?

 

Overheating he means.

 

I was there yesterday just to see how the PB50 looked compared to the PB51. I actually kind of like the orange accents, but the gunmetal grey paint on the palmrest and lid make it look kind of older and cheap. The flat-black 51's are the way to go imo, they look way nicer, albiet at the cost of fingerprints. Regardless of what the rep said, the only plastic is the bottom panel, and the temps are good for 8750h standards.

The powerspec is a great deal though, but I'd probably still spend the extra $200 and get one from Gentech, Prostar, or LPC.

 

The only piece that might have been metal was the lid. The deck and the base were plastic on the Microcenter version.

 

Even though the chassis is plastic it doesn't flex and is pretty thick on the top half. Bottom cover is different though. I feel if I keep removing the bottom, I'm likely going to warp the fittings on the sides. Bonus to the plastic bottom is that I can have it on my lap relatively comfortably.

 

One additional thing that irritates me is the fact that the lid lifts open about 5 degrees when held upside down which is enough to cause it come to inadvertently come out of sleep mode while its in my bag.

 

OK, I bit the bullet and bought the 1520 at Microcenter. Took it home, put it on a laptop stand with plenty of space for airflow underneath, overclocked the GPU and undervolted the CPU as everyone recommends, and finally started up HWmonitor and Forza Horizon 4.

Not longer after, the CPU read 100C. Wow! I like this laptop, but I don't want to have to repaste it. I guess that means it has to go back.

 

Yes, undervolting will never help if the stock paste job is bad or heatsink has poor contact with CPU. Return it.

 

Yeah the temp should never get up to 100C even with stock voltage, especially if propped up. FH4 doesn't even run that hot. I'll have to check but I think my temps after undervolt were around 75-80. There's definitely something wrong with your unit. Do you hear the fans come on at all?

 

Yes, the fans are running, pretty loud actually.

 

Getting it from a reseller and having them repaste if you dont want to touch it is always an option.

 

To those interested

 

Do you have any ide

Do you have any idea what thickness pads they used? I've been having a hell of a time trying to figure this out. 1mm Gelids are thinner then the stock ones, 1.5mm Fujipolys were preventing proper seating of the heatsink.

Has there been any testing on how much difference just the thermal pads alone make? If it's only a degree or two I'll probably just redo the Kryonaut and stick with the stock pads.

 

Thanks @B0B ! Very helpful and well crafted video. Crazy that such a glaring issue regarding the feet affecting air intake wasn't corrected early in the chassis design phase. I'm still tempted by these but might see what happens over the next month with the coming CPU and GPU refresh.

 

This laptop is a sick beast guys! IF I truly poured my personal opinion on this in the video i'd be called a "shill" and "HID slave".

First, I believe in this company. I've been here WAY longer than my status reflects and HID is legit head to toe. I put my own credibility on the line for that.

One of my ultimate goals is to have an audience large enough to effect change for the consumer but it HAS to start with the manufacturer. As a business owner myself far from Youtube I can confidently tell you, there is a method to my madness.

"Trust takes time" is something that I have always said.

 

9th gen CPU's offer higher clocks, but it won't matter if the chassis can't handle it. It's just going to make more work for me to test and tune these to perform close to their theoretical performance in most cases.

 

It has the same TDP as far as we know.
It looks like the base clocks are higher (2.6GHz) and that should be capable no problem. The single core boost is 4,5GHz and that is very nice, all core boost is not that much higher (3.9 vs 4.0 GHz) and probably the difference for gaming will not be that high.
It looks like it will have 12Mb cache instead of 9Mb, but cash generates a lot of heat .
If the price bumps the same way as with the refresh from GTX1XXX to RTX2XXX, you can better buy now .

The big step up will be when intel goes to 10Nm CPU's for laptops, but that will take at least another year.

@Bob, I came across your reviews as I'm looking to buy a clevo and they are generally awesome. Extra sub from Belgium .

 

I am surprised Clevo didn't test airflow properly. They could've added more intake holes above the fans. Oh well, not all people will bump into this problem, especially the ones who will place it on their laps or on something soft which can let air through.

It's still better than Dell G7 or Alienware m15 models in this regard ;-)

 

Ok, I tested the temperatures on the Powerspec 1520 again after applying the GPU tips recommended in the video (1500 MHz / 800 mV), underclocking the CPU by 125 mV (formerly 100) and propping it up (I use this one, which also brings the screen to eye level: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FC7DW4Y).

And max CPU temps are generally better. Now they are mostly in the high 80s, although they did spike to 95 once for reasons I can't explain (maybe I was obstructing the air flow). I was afraid that limiting the GPU to 1500 MHz would hurt performance, but 3DMark scores are as good or better.

So thanks for the tip! Now I'm reconsidering whether to return it.

 

Honestly I would still exchange it for another one. Something isn't right if it's hitting high 90s and 100C with an undervolt, whether it's propped up or not. With just my undervolt the very highest temp I got on the CPU was 85C. In FH4 I was at 74C. Worst case is you exchange it and the new one has similar temps, in which case your not missing out anything.

Another thing to consider is whether or not your in Balanced or High/Best Performance power plan. I get noticeably higher temps, up to 96 depending on the game, when in High Performance. Firestrike scores a bit better like that, but in-game performance is never more than about 10fps higher so it's not really worth the extra heat if that's what's going on. I have comparisons of Balanced vs High Performance temps that I was waiting till after I repasted the Kryonaut to post here, for a full breakdown of how much an improvement each factor is, but I'll share my pre-paste results so you can see where your temps should be around. Note in High Performance mode, the temps are often in the high 90s, and even hit 100C at times, but these are the averages over about 10 minutes each, after getting 'up to temp'.

 

Thank you for sharing a sneak preview regarding temps, this is very interesting!

Sure enough, as soon as I unboxed the laptop I pushed all the settings I could find into max performance. It's interesting that of all the games you tested, FH4 actually showed the biggest temperature leap when switching to max performance. It makes me think that somehow I chose a worst-case scenario for this laptop. What setting did you use in the control center app (Performance/Quiet/Power Saving/Entertainment)?

Also, the 95C-100C temps I reported were the max temps in HWmonitor over 20-30 minute sessions, so who knows how long they stayed there. I don't believe I ever caught the current temp at 100C. If I understand correctly, it's possible your pre-paste temps were the same as mine (since you maxed at 95-100C too).

Since the laptop is only a few days old, I think I will take a few days to record some average temperatures (instead of max) and see how close they are to yours. I'm slightly reluctant to return it because I will need to pop the case and remove a 2.5" SSD, and I always worry I'll break something and make it impossible to return. But if you really have better pre-paste average temps, then I guess it's the right thing to do. May I ask what utility you used to record temps, so I have a good apples-to-apples comparison?

Thanks again!

 

As mentioned in the video, performance mode pulls 55w from the CPU vs 45w using Entertainment mode.

That’s a large difference as a percentage and most definitely will bring a substantial bump thermally.

 

FH4 only had the biggest leap in temp because it initially had the lowest running temp. The only reason they are all at 96c in the High Performance power plan is due to thermal throttling, otherwise the other games would have been much hotter than it.

I used HWinfo for the temps. Had graphs open for temps, voltages, clocks, etc. Keeps track of the min/max and average values for each sensor. I also reset the averages before each test.

All of this was with the 'Performance' mode set in the control center. To be clear, by 'High Performance' in my previous post and in my graph, I'm referring to the power plan set in the battery icon slider (Best Performance), or in the power plan settings window, by right clicking the battery icon and going to 'power options' (High Performance). The latter is usually only available if you restore it, since Microsoft has the Battery/Performance plans hidden now in order to get you to use the battery slider. I'm not sure exactly what difference (if any) there is between the slider BP and the actual HP power plan, but they both heat the machine up the same way. Switch back to "Better Performance" on the slider or "Balanced" in the power plan window if you are using either of those. Unless you're just running a quick benchmark or something, the slight increase in framerate isn't worth the extra heat output.

 

The 1520 and 1720 are Metal/Plastic/Metal/Plastic for the A/B/C/D surfaces respectively.