*** Official Clevo X170SM-G/Sager NP9670M Owner's Lounge ***

Prema does not support Alienware, and even if he wanted to it is not possible because of the locks Dell has put into place. Dell began actively taking steps to block firmware mods as early as the M18xR2 when @svl7 was doing firmware mods. There was a conference call that I was a part of where they appeared to be working with us to make a better product and they took the information shared and began blocking things. Now the tools available to do that are more robust and the Area 51m cannot even have the firmware modded with an SPI programmer. It is locked down at the hardware level.

 

Dell is their own enemy. I learned the hard way. So basically X170 and sucessors will remain untouchable if prema keeps up.

 

Pretty much. Prema is the man!

Clevo's DTRs have been the best in the market for quite a while because of Prema. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 

I wished there was a way for Prema, or one of his people, to do Bios mods for those of us purchasing a Sager from non- approved Prema partners. He could charge a bit more, but help us have better laptops.
I was told those buying from Prema partners would get their bios installed by their techs later on.
Maybe Prema can also set another business doing this.

 

Has anyone seen this review?



It looks powerful but the build quality is disappointing (as shown around 7:42). I wish Clevo used more premium materials for such a high end desktop replacement.

 

Yeah, it was posted quite a while back, actually.

And agreed, the build quality does leave a bit to be desired.

 

This is too overblown of a non issue,, it could be better but since you dont look at the bottom 24/7 its actually quite good, top parts are all metal

 

I think the AMD processor feedback he made in the end is more important.

 

You have a point. I wasn’t too hot on the trackpad and the physical buttons, but a broken trackpad is definitely a non-issue compared to other things breaking.

 

As it is a dtr you most likely will be using a keyboard and/or mouse anyway

 

I don’t have a lot of desk space, so for better or worse, I’ll be using the laptop keyboard. I do have a trackball to use instead of the trackpad.

 

It was a so-so "review", since he didn't really know what to compare x170 to, ie. R2. previous gen etc or a gaming Bugbook. Hopefully this is something that will change for the future.

 

How it will change? Just curious.

His comparison to Clevo Apex 15 was valid though. XMG 17 seems to be a compromise between size, weight, price and performance, when I would have wanted XMG 17 to outperform Apex 15 in performance by a large margin in multi-core tasks, since it's a gimped AMD inside Apex 15.

At least to have the same CPU as an option in the 17 inch, would be interesting to see.

 

The fans make me go nuts and everyone around me as well, if you use quiet mode it's very gimped and might as well get a cheap notebook that will perform same, every other mode is too crazy, how do people live with that? Does everyone and their family wear NC Headphones?

 

I don't know about subjective standards but my machine is dead quiet whenever I'm light browsing , youtube or studying, then again, I use a custom profile all the time. When gaming, fans do kick but it ain't a jet engine, just air being moved fast, but get real noisy only when they have to kick down that pain in the side of a cpu, as the gpu never gets close to high temps. Also I almost never use headphones, speakers do "outnoise" fans by a large margin.

 

You tried some kind of cpu intensive game? I.e. arma ones

I can always hear the cpu fan since it idles at 25%

Btw can you show your fan profile? Thank you in advance

 

Come on..
You bought a DTR, with a desktop CPU know to use over 150W under load with a 200W GPU, did you expect to not really ear the fans working on such a laptop?

 

You would expect it to run quiet on 5yr+ old games

 

From XMG’s testing... 50db is below what you see from other similar gamingbooks.

 

Im hearing 55db at 80degrees cpu 68 gpu, thats not max fans btw

 

Not sure what tool or procedure you use for measuring noise. This is from XMG’s own testing...

 

I ordered one of these from HIDEvolution and as soon as the payment was received (11 days ago) they have not been answering emails or chats. As in, I was in position 1 in the chat queue for 4 hours yesterday - they finally disconnected the chat so I never got to speak to anyone - and I have been in chat queue position 1 for 2.5 hours so far today. Are they known for being bad about this kind of thing?? I'm getting nervous about them. I just want to know why the build has not started yet. Not even to complain, I simply want to be updated.

 

im trying to reach them too
they have a live chat? how do you chat with them?

 

Click the Chat button, though as I said it is not currently working for me. Not that it doesn't take me to the chat, but that nobody answers.

 

I ordered mine early this month, and until roughly a couple weeks ago, they were pretty responsive...but I too am seeing this sudden slowdown in communication.

FWIW, there is a HID rep ( @Spartan@HIDevolution) here who is pretty responsive so I’m not burning bridges yet. Not to sound as an apologist but it could as well be a byproduct of COVID.

Absolute worst case scenario, I could just cancel my order and not deal with monetary issues because their payment hold has been revoked and my credit is back in my card.

 

Yeah, I was wondering if there was possibly some COVID stuff going on too. I will try again next week.

 

Nothing related to COVID. Just a very high demand for laptops so people are calling all the time or wanting to chat. I will PM you.

 

Do you guys think there will be an updated model with RTX 3000 series? I wonder how long it will take before 3000 series will propagate to all popular laptops after release.

 

oh yes, heavy games, benchmarks and all that

 

COVID-related WFH is a given...Is it also because of back-to-school? Or some other factor?

 

Any news what you exactly tweaked? Thank you!

 

If you are running those said games at ultra settings and at 120/144Hz refresh rates you can bet your CPU and GPU will still get a nice workload.

 

I expect we will see bigger difference in results on top once we see @Prema's magic...

https://www.3dmark.com/search


https://www.3dmark.com/search

 

Question to those of you who already got your laptop.

1. Which parts on the keyboard and palm rest feel the warmest after extended usage? Do you find it uncomfortable to the touch?

2. How firm is the AC adapter connection? I intend to remove the battery once I get mine.

 

I can answer the latter, as for the former I use a separate keyboard: the adapter connections are sturdy, they do not come off unless manually done

 

1) Around the keypad seems the worst, but it's not uncomfortable. It's just... there. It also gets pretty warm towards the top around the f4.f5.f6 keys. Again, not bad, it's just kinda there.

2) Pretty firm.

 

Not uncomfortable at all. What is annoying are the jet fans. But, seriously, if you have a desktop processor and have intensive Computing programs, you need those fans circulating air. Don’t I wish they were quieter? Sure. But, unless your room is at 68 F or less, it’s something you have to live with. They don’t come on all the time. Maybe once every 5-10 minutes; for about 1-2 minutes.

 

Appreciate your responses! It seems I won’t need another keyboard for some time then.

 

ANZ buyers, here are ur choices!
https://www.metabox.com.au/store/Gaming-Laptops/Prime-X-Range/Buy

 

It seems that this laptop is also affected by the manufacturing defect which affected many laptops in the past (but most people did not believe me until ASUS came out with a laptop where the issue was so bad that even a blind person could see it): inverse ghosting with the 240 Hz panel

The issue is probably firmware level and will never be fixed just like it was never fixed with the Clevo P775DM3-G and 75 Hz panel and many Clevo laptops.
I do not remember seeing this issue with the Clevo P775TM1-G and 144 Hz panel.

The issue is not ground breaking an a lot of times it is only detectable if you look for it, however it is definitely there.

G-Sync also seems to have an issue wit hthe 240 Hz panel and some games like The Division is experiencing unexplained microstuttering. The game was not perfect with the P775Tm1-G+RTX 2080+9900KS+144Hz screen either, however it was definitely smoother.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is better but except for 1 scene it was better on the 775.

I am writing my review now.

 

Literally what i wrote in my review, skyrim has bad ghosting right at the beginning as well. It can be fixed by alt tab from game to desktop to game tho

 

I do not have time to write a detailed review however I write my summary why I do not recommend this laptop:

1) As previous Clevo laptops the performance is all over the place. For example same laptop,same config, same driver for me it gives 26400 graphics points in Fire Strike while for another forum member it gives 27600. Why? Voltage and GPU core clock is jumping all around between 1780-1860 Mhz. The avarage voltage where it calms downafter some time is around 1800 Mhz.
As of now the RTX2 080Super with 200W TDP vBIOS is giving about the same performance in games and benchmarks as a normal RTX2080 with 200W TDP.

2) heavely nuded BIOS. Previous Clevo laptops had BIOS option to enable XMP and set CPU core/voltage. Clevo disabled these and now the CPU core/voltage can only be set in Clevo Control Center (settings are stored in the BIOS even after you uninstall CCC). XMP can not be set. Because of this 3200 Mhz CL16 XMP rams will run at 2667 Mhz CL19. Only way to run ram at 3200 Mhz is to buy 3200 Mhz CL22 JEDEC ram.

3) Using 1 adapter (for example just for work and webrowsing ) is not possible. You can charge with 1, however if you turn the laptop on the EC will disable the input if it detects that only 1 is used and the main source will be the battery.

4) unexplainable stuttering. Some games are fine however in many games many scenes are actually worse with the X170+RTX2080S+240Hz then a P775+2080+144Hz. I found many scenes in Fire Strike and The Division to be smoother with the older Clevo. They stuttered like if GSync was not even active (but it was).

5) Inverse Ghosting. I have found a ghosting issue years ago with the Clevo P775DM3-G and 75 Hz LG panel but barely anyone believed me. Years later ASUS released a laptop where the issue was so bad that not just me but anyone else was able to finally see it.
A forum post was even made to summarize laptops and panels that are affected:
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthre...e)-display-panels-affected-by-inverse-ghostin

The X170SM-G+240 Hz is also affected by this issue. However on the edges instead of black ghosting people can see faint white ghosting.
I have tried to make photos of the issue, hopefully youcan see it (much more visible in reallife):

White ghosting on the edge of the pillar when moving:


White ghosting on the pillar when moving:


No white ghosting when standing still:


As you can see there is a white line on the edges.
No such ghostly line with 144Hz panel on the P775TM+RTX2080.

The issue is caused by G-Sync. If I disable G-Sync the issue is gone (and replaced by microstuttering caused by the absence of G-Sync).

By my experience through the years this issue will never be fixed and Clevo will never acknowledge it.

People who are waiting from PremaBIOS...no,PremaBIOS will have this issue as well. At least when I had P775DM3-G and 75Hz LG panel both ClevoBIOS/vBIOS and PremaBIOS/vBIOS had this ghosting issue.

The 144 Hz panel has the same response time so the reason why the 144 Hz panel in the P775 does not have this is not because it is "faster".

In summary:
The X170SM has good built quality, brand new higher quality fans with dust removal, HOWEVER on the software side it is a half finished, buggy beta machine with many limitations and issues that will never be acknowledged and fixed.

If you want a laptop without ghosting bug and if you dont want an RTX 2080 Super that only performs as an RTX 2080 and a machine that is actually less smooth then the previus flagship then avoid then X170SM-G!

Sorry for typos, I had very little time with a very bad keyboard.

I planned to open the BIOS of this machine however Ihad to put this project asidebecause I sent mine back for RMA, however I will probably ask for a refund because of the ghosting issue. All laptops are affected by this issue because it is a manufacturing defect and changing screen panel VGA can not solve this.

Oh and no, changing OS or driver does not help.

I am very disappointed by Clevo. Locking BIOS, badly optimizing vBIOS and causing core clock to jump all around and most importantly, bringing back a ghosting issue which was fixed years ago (and will probably only be fixed in the next laptop) is a huge deal breaker.

 

It’s cool to see that MXM is still going in these laptops, and that it isn’t soldered in or anything. It seems every year someone says “this is probably the last one.” But they keep coming. Are upgradable options slowly starting to come back, or are they still vanishing slowly?

I would love one of these, and I’m sure it would last years on end, but I’m afraid of how long MXM would last. Has there been anything recently that gives MXM and smaller similar remove-able GPUs a reason to exist?
(Like those compact small desktops)

 

What would you recommend as an alternative with close to identical specs?

 

Agreed with Bios - Ram - phenomenal control center , though I have found no problems with Gsync, 144hz here. Yes Hopefully Clevo will take care of the software side of things but, and I may be wrong about this, the vBios is Nvidia's alone, and is not touchable by vendors, sold as a closed box so it might be nvidia's fault, that is unless that performance drop isn't due to something else.

 

how did you get that high of a score on firesrike ? and how did you overclock it to 5.3 ghz is that with the prema bios?
and delidded ? whats the temps ?:

 

From my post "I expect we will see bigger difference in results on top once we see @Prema's magic..." XMG doesn't offer @Prema mod firmware.


The results is taken from 3DMark leaderboard.

Regarding 5.3GHz... Futuremark software read max clock speed (doesn't mean it have to be all core boost). See... The results is most likely done with stock clocks. You can clearly see it from the 3DM FS physics score.

 

So you are saying that you can not see stuttering and ghosting with your panel ?
Can you please write down your panel type ? Is it AUO B173HAN03.1 ?

The B173HAN5.0 when released last year with a Gigabyte laptop did not have Gsync certification.
Maybe Clevo messed up something at the certification ?
Clevo quality control regarding software was pretty bad with this laptop... I am guessing it was rushed and the testers were engineers who only checked if it's working or not and did not really quality check during gaming . And if those Chinese engineers were like the Chinese guy Dave Nup who made the videos of this laptop then I would not be surprised if they missed something.

I have a 144 hz b173han03.1 at hand but I can not test it since I don't know if this is the one used and the panel and hedge is glued with adhesive to the plastic case so changing panel is harder then with p775 and I don't want to break the small plastic cover when I remove it right before an RMA.

 

that is indeed what I am saying, stuttering moreover, you find it in each game or in some instances.

is this enough info for you btw? let me know

 

Darn so the alternative is a panel with same response time which was also Gsync certified for this laptop meaning that it also may have ghosting due to qc issue.

Are you sure you can't see some light ghosting like which I described and/or stuttering ?