Sager NP9370 / Clevo P370EM First Look and Review - WingNut Style! (LOTS OF IMAGES)

Thanks for the info. I still am probably going to go with the 7970M because of how much cheaper it is. I don't have a lot of money to throw around on a card that is almost identical, yet is $250 more. I'm already breaking the bank, so I think I can be patient and deal with the driver complaint or two while waiting for mature drivers for the Xfire setup.

As for the fans, I'm getting this system from Xotic PC. I asked them directly and am waiting for a response, but does anyone know if they might add the second fan upon request? And will talking with a support rep net you any deals? I'm really looking forward to getting my P370EM, but I don't want to rush anything.

 

So everyone???? I'm configuring one of these NP9370's and I'm really wondering if the 3920xm is really worth the several hundred dollar difference compared to the 3820qm? I'm not a programmer and I don't do video editing.. I just want a sweet laptop that can max out any game that I want to play.
I will at least get the 3720qm bare minimum for processor but to get the better processor is one of those things that I must decide now or never.

 

I am a Chinese Clevo fan and sorry for my poor English.
I heard that with 7970m crossfire FPS is high enough but the gaming experience is bad because sometimes frames are delayed. This does not happen in SLI mode.I like AMD but if this is true, it's a bit disappointing. Could you please not only do some fps tests but some tests about the frame delay in games? Thanks a lot~

 

The 3610QM will never hinder you in gaming, maybe slightly in Starcraft 2 and GTA.. other wise there almost no game out there that will use the full potential of the 3820QM, nor the 3920QM... or 3720QM

You can get the 3720QM for the sweet extra MHz and OC it will Intel's XTU but I would definitely not recommend any other CPU, good thing you posted here ^^ better off investing in a 680M and a good SSD + some RAM

 

Well guys.......... I PLACED AN ORDER AT REFLEXNOTEBOOK FOR SAGER NP9370 DUAL 680m 16GB and 3610qm (for now, found a 3920xm for $600 :}) and 256gb SSD RAID 0. Also 1103 Bigfoot network card.

 

Putting my order in tomorrow. Matte screen, 3610QM (not bothered about it), 128GB primary SSD (will arrive all ready to go), 750GB secondary drive, and my "splurge" on a single 680M (among other odds and ends). A lot of computer for $2100ish.

Now... the dreaded wait. I wish I was more patient.

 

HTWingNut, have the question about the audio... you've mentioned that the external speakers are little more loud and punchy compared to the one on P150EM/P170EM. But did you try to plug in some headphones/speakers, is the X-FI MB2 sound just a tuning utility or a real great build-in sound card? tnx

 

Someone is getting himself a P370EM? :hi2:

 

I provided CPU usage graphs in my review. You can see that it never exceeds 50% even in CPU heavy games like Battlefield 3.

I have used headphones. As noted in my review, the X-Fi MB2 is just a tuning utility/driver.

 

Was the sound quality from the headphones better/worse/the same compared to the p150/p170? I'm feeling like the quality and volume from my p180 is pretty lacking... It's not unbearable but it could be much better.

Thanks for the awesome review!

 

I'm not going to say it's great, but it's not awful. It's too bad there's no way to measure this. I'm probably the worse person to define audio quality because I barely listen to music any more, usually just movies and TV shows on the laptop with headphones.

 

If you were to crank the volume really up while watching said TV or movie.. would you say it could be loud enough to make you really want to turn it down?

Seems like a good way to describe what I'm looking for... Thanks again!

 

I would say depends. In a quiet room, yes. I have two little kids and had cranked up the volume all the way and at times kids were louder than the laptop, lol.

By the way, this review sample will be up for sale as soon as I'm done with the OC tests...

 

To add to that...the simple, quick audio test I did on youtube was ONLY the sound from the P370EM, and nothing else.

If you adjust the THX and Creative settings the right way, it does put out decent sound...IMHO...

--

 

Would you hold the same opinion with regards to a P170EM?

 

I will second what Larry said, my system sounds much cleaner than my desktop. I find it sounds bad on my headphones but really good on my external speakers.

 

I'm looking at buying a laptop to replace my desktop. Clevo seems to be the stand-out choice, but I'm not sure between the NP9370 and the NP9170. Dual GTX 680's sounds good, but the price-tag is a little steep (were benchmarks for the NP9370 OCed ever shown?). So currently I'm leaning towards a basic model with a single GTX 680...is there any real difference between the two Clevo models?

I also hear that buying a second card down the road (foro SLI) isn't a great move since priced tend to stay stable.

Also, what kind of connectivity do these models have? I'd like to set it up with my entertainment system (HDTV and audio receiver). HDMI, obviously, but does it have optical out?

thanks

 

I'm interested in the laptop, pm me and let me know how much as soon as possible, before I buy from xoticpc. thank you!

 

I probably should not have said anything before it was ready. But the laptop will be going up at NBR For Sale section soon, I don't want to disclose sale price or anything until then, just so I can make it clear what's being offered and under what terms before having to respond to a half dozen or more PM's with the same information and risk sending inaccurate information.

Thanks for understanding.

 

Could you please consider trying The Witcher 2 with SuperSampling on? That's the only game and setting that dropped my single 680M to its knees.

 

The Witcher 2 is a game that requires power.. don't be overwhelmed by that , the 680M is strong, but not strong enough to Ultra all games

 

Would a system with dual 680's be able to run it smoothly on Ultra? Or a single OCed 680?

 

This laptop is now listed for sale here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...0em-like-new-gtx-670m-sli-w-2yr-warranty.html

 

and where did you place an overclocked GPU runs? can't find it

 

Ran it, compiling it... sorry, over the last two weeks myself and my two kids got strep throat and been working like a dog otherwise at work, so free time for any of this has been at a premium.

edit: there, all benchmark graphs updated with overclock results.

 

HTWingNut tnx! so is it a driver related thing that you can't overclock the GPU's higher than 800/2300? Seen some impressive 1174/2600 runs for 680M sli m18x users..

offtopic: any news about 7990M? seems like after 12.9 whql driver rolls out in a couple of week, this CF NP9370 config should be a bad@ss performer)

 

I had to use the nVidiaInspector command line method to overclock. I'm certain a BIOS flash with a slight voltage bump would help immensely. And again, it's the luck of the draw with the GPU's too. I can't say for certain if it's the GPU that's limiting it or just running at P2 state (instead of P0) to overclock.

 

HTWingNut , oh i see) i guess the upcoming GTX675MX in SLI could be a great choice for those starving for dual gpu overclock in such a laptop

 

Haven't heard about the MX... looking it up now.

 

Released today for NP9150/NP9170 but not for NP9370(( For the price of 680M you could get 20% bump in performance and probably great Kepler OC potential. All is "IF" GTX675MX is available for NP9370...

 

Hmm, 670m and 675m using Kepler architecture. From the benchmarks it seems its marginally faster than the 675m but I'm sure temps are a lot less and likely power draw too.

 

Thanks HTWingnut, I've gotten a lot of good info from many of your posts.

I was thinking of stretching for the 9370 in hopes of getting better sound and being able to stey current longer, but I also plan to keep the pc for home purposes after it becomes obsolete, and wil lwant to keep temps down and battery up by reverting to onborad graphics after it stops playing games (I'm not a big gamer but want to get back into it a bit).

But the sound improvement seems small and the lack of graphic switching is bad for my purposes. But I have a couple questions:

Can the software on the 9370 be downloaded for the 9170 to see if it helps? Also, is the graphic switching bad for casual gamers? I see complaints about it but for my purposes it I like it as I will be using battery in hotels by pool etc.

 

AMD Enduro has all sorts of issues, but nVidia Optimus is pretty decent.

 

I am very interested by where and how you fitted the piece of paper. I just ordered a unit with a single 7970m though it won't get to me for a couple of weeks. if you were able to take a picture It could be very helpful.

I'm almost considering installing an extra blower fan to take advantage of the room the absence of the 2nd card left.

 

Hey,

First off. Thanks so much for your hard, often monotonous and tedious work here in this thread. Helped me decide to get this lovely laptop that is here in my hands now.

Second. I am just curious about overclocking. I am definitely a noob in that category and want to be extremely careful with this computer and still maximize my performance.

I went with MSI Afterburner and overclocked the full +135 on the GPU and +500 on the VRAM. My temperatures seem well below 80C and I only managed to get 81C/84C (GPU1/GPU2) while benchmarking.

Am I okay to stay with these overclocks and enjoy my 39,400 vantage score?

I will do another run of Crysis 2 MP without already reaching those 81C/84C max temps just before which masked my max gaming temps just so I know.

Thanks again, very, very much,
A.

 

What drivers are you using? I wasn't able to overclock using any drivers with Afterburner or any other method except the the nVidiaInspector command line.

 

Version 306.97

I should only be worried about temperatures or is there other factors. I love the OC scores but I don't want to shoot myself in the foot.

Thanks.

 

40k on a laptop. Well hello there... I sense a lot of desktop users crying haha

 

Any desktop user who uses a GTX 680 and runs the PhysX test on his GPU will hit 40k too.

Can't get around that one really... however hitting 40k GPU in Vantage with any two laptop GPUs is NUTZ. x_x

 

Yeah GTX 680... not many people have that strong a GPU, most people stick with their older generation... and that surely does not beat our notebook power now

 

How about 50k GPU without Physx? Here you go, scroll down to Riri-Fifi's posts

 

That link only brings us to this page atleast this is where it brings me when I look it up from my phone.

 

Here you go:

 

What the hell is this?????? Wow!!

And I thought 42k with overclock and PhysX was awesome... Do tell??

Here's mine

 

I see that your browser battery life test lasted for 2 hours 42 minutes, would the battery last longer if you were running just a single 7970m?

 

This is just directly insane, LUDICROUS such power laptops have now a days...

 

It was done on a M18x with unlocked BIOS and custom vBIOS for the cards. The tests are run without Physx. From what I see, an OC'ed M18x with [email protected]+, 2x7970M's/680m's OC'ed, is faster than a stock desktop system with 3970X + 2x680's. It is insane, no doubt about. But it's not even finished for the year, the GTX 680MX (based on desktop GTX 680) and Radeon 7990M unconfirmed (based on desktop 7950) are about to get launched in a month or so. The projected performance is said to be 15-20% above the current top, which is incredible for a minor bump within the same gen.


And just when I thought the current top scores are all settled, here comes the BIG surprise - check this out! 20k GPU score in 3Dmark11!!! ...no more comments........

 

No, a 3970x is going to score WAY higher in the CPU tests and why it would pull ahead, are you sure you are not comparing to old drivers?

 

Check my last link. The 3920XM is OC'ed to 5ghz and at those clocks is gonna annihilate the stock 3970x in almost all cases except for apps taking full advantage of all 12 threads. And for the record, a 29x0XM/[email protected] would also have an edge in most cases. Remember, Sandy-E is paired with an older chipset/mobo. Mobile Ivy and Sandy can take full advantage of faster memory all the way up to 2133MHz and maybe even higher (2133mhz is the max I've seen so far). I've brushed through a bunch of overclockers' forums and there seems to be a general consensus, that mainstream Ivy is slightly more efficient clocks for clocks compared to Sandy-E, which means that the 2 extra cores of the 3970x don't offer a linear performance increase. So, if you look at its stock benches like Wprime/Cinebench/etc and compare the scores to the ones found here at the bottom of the page, you'll get surprised at how close the scores are . Sure, if you could OC' the 3970x, the situation would change immediately. But the problem is, the stock cooling in the only laptop capable of supporting that CPU (P570) isn't sufficient to provide any overclock. I even think it won't be able to keep stock clocks if stressed 100%.