Evoc 16S 1060 (GS63VR 7RF barebone) Review

Alright review is complete!

Hello Everyone, I recently received this unit from HIDevolution and figured this unit deserves a review since its basically the gs63vr BUT with LM repasting and QC from HIDevolution.

TLR
If you are looking for slim/portable GAMING get this. If gaming is 2nd and productivity is mian Id say go for the AERO 15.

Pros
-Cooling, It is simply amazing. I have never seen my GPU above 84C.
-Fan noise, Unless you run AAA titles on ultra/high you barely hear them. No headphones needed for gaming.
-Design, It screams Business. NOTHING about this laptop says gamer. It is as clean a black chassi as you can get.
-Keyboard, Lovely keyboard. I just know what to say other than I have stopped mistyping.
-HIDEvolution tech support, Already called them three times to ask technical stuff.
-Bios undervolted by-75mV, This was done by the technician who assembled my system. Clearly there is room for more undervolting but they play it safe. Still its nice.
-Headroom for overclocking the 1060, I just downloaded MSI Afterburner and applied an overclock of +176/280 core clock/memory clock. Works like a charm.

Cons
-Power brick, It just takes away a big aspect of the portability. Which is one of the main reasons to get this one over say the 1080 version.
-Bezels, This one goes along with the previous one. It just takes away from the portability.


Neither a pro nor a con.
-Screen, Its nothing special. Not overclockable. Standard 1080p 60hz screen. I really believe that a better screen on this system would be a huge improvement in terms of sales.



Background:
So guys I have been on the hunt for a new laptop since pre-pascal. It has taken me alot of research and time waiting for a better system to come along before i pulled the trigger on this one. I seriously evaluated the Aorus x5 line. And if it werent for my profession that requires portability (working offshore frequently travelling by helicopters ) I would go for the 2.22 times thicker GT62 barebone (eurocom tornado f5 or evoc 1080).
But alas I need more portability and gaming in the same package. So here we are!

I will be using a similar layout and rating system as @Mobius 1 form team LHz used in his review just for the sake of comparison and the fact that this is my first review and I wish to keep some sort of order to it all.

Ok lets go!

Rating System (Overall for the category): ("0" Rubbish <-> "5" Average <-> "10" Excellent.)

Unboxing: 6
Nothing special here. But it came well packaged and with everything one could expect.

First box. Can of soda for reference.

Inside first box.

The actual laptop box

what is this box in a box!

And the inside

All the items

Build quality: 7

So the build quality is subjective. Similar to what Mobius 1 reported it is durable when on the desk. However it is obvious that the durability during travel/shipping is slightly less than optimal. The touchpad has some really high levels of flex. I can push down the bottom right side far enough to stick 2 credit cards between the touchpad and the actual side.

Also when I first booted it the left hand side USB/3.5mm jack didnt work. But after disassembling the laptop and reconnecting the cables on the mobo it seems to be working fine.


Difficult to see but this is a push down and still no physical "click" feedback.

Bottom panel not properly "snapped" in place before it was all screwed back.



Aesthetic Design 8.5

I actually give this LESS than mobius 1 does. However I am very picky on this part as the aesthetics are very important to me in this regard. What I disliked about the GS63VR was the subtle gamer-reds combined with the dragon logo. However the original GS63VR is more like an 8 to me. I really like the "cleanliness" of this system. However what I dislike is the fact that the barebone has just replaced the lid cover with a flat aluminum top. I was kind of hoping it would be the GS63VR lid with its subtle lines on the side. It is not. Still this is a MINOR thing. For some people that might be positive since it makes the laptop look even more "business".
Only thing keeping this from a solid10 score is less bezels coupled with unibody chassi.

Screen panel (**)
I am leaving this blank for now. Coming form a 720p TN panel from 2011 Anything will be an upgrade. I will try and get some help to get a hold of sRGB and Adobe RGB values and perhaps that will be of more use to someone.
Also I will try and overclock the Refresh rate.
It is the LG LP156WF6



Keyboard (9)

It is as most people say a different/weird layout. But it is still VERY easy to type on. And I am even coming from a swedish layout and this is the US version.
I am suprised how little I mistype on this keyboard. Aboslutely loving it.
The RGB lighting drags this one down however. It looks quite dull and even when i set it to full white there is still several keys esp around the bottom edge who gets some colorbleeding.

Keyboard layout with ALL rgb zones set to white. (Esp note the left ctrl)


Zoom in of numpad area. Lighting set to yellow. Every 2nd key gets a green tint.








Trackpad (6)
Dont know if HIDevolution did anything special with this. I do notice however that the red border from MSI has been changed out with a chrome version. NICE.
It actually feels ok. Nothing special but not really bad either.




Grease Magnet / Surface durability (8)
Its not a supermagnet for fingerprints. I think its pretty normal. However the fact that is is so clean in its design and minimalist makes it super easy to clean off.



Speakers (6)

They can be used for watching movies/youtube but i would not call it enjoyable. Its more like "i want friends to hear this aswell" so you remove the headphones. I dont mind however. But dont get this laptop for its speakers


I/O (9)
Amount of ports is really nice. Its just the placement I wouldve preferred to be slightly different. Powercable on the right side for example annoys me a little since I keep my mouse there.



Fan noise (8) (in a good way 8)
I did manage to get my fans to max. But it was HARD! Oh boy it is silent. Even on max its not annoying and I did not have any issues with coil whine. Definately library-friendly unless fans are on max.

Cooling system. (9)
I am blown away. It took me a whole week of testing but this is insane how well it cools. While limiting my frames to 70 FPS and playing overwatch on 1080p/low settings (I play on low regardless of graphics card due to less clutter on screen) The fans do NOT run continuously.
I reach a GPU temp of 61 in about 15 mins of gaming and that starts the fans. They quickly reduce it to 55 which then drops the fans. The auto profile in bios (I do not run ANY software to control the fans) keeps the fans at a barely audible hum and stabilize the GPU temp at 61-62C.
After 4 hours of overwatch on low I managed to peak 63 degrees a short period.
The Witcher 3 gave me approx 83 after an hour. All settings ultra, hairworks off.


CPU temps (**)
This CPU is nice. Its undervolted to a stable 0.91V. In my final Time Spy run I managed to get the temps to 81 degrees on 1 core.
Confirmed with HIDEvolution technical support. It is infact undervolted by HIDEvolution in bios by -75mV on my system. However I am able to push it slightly further down with Intel XTU.

However I wont put a grading value here because I am simply not experienced enough to compare.
Also i havent seen the CPU running below 3.3GHZ yet. 3.4 seems to be the minimum what its running according to HWINFO. For example now while everything is off except one tab in chrome and typing this HWINFO shows 3.5 GHz. Could be that HIDEvolution actually did something in bios here? I am not sure.

HWinfo screen showing idle CPU 3.4 ghz




GPU temps (**)
First initial run of Unigine Valley for 30 mins showed max 81 degrees on GPU, Fire strike gave me a 9927 score with a 76 degree temp

After that I managed to tweak the system a bit more and get this:


Portability (7)
So Portability takes a big hit with this system. The Bezels annoy me a little. It is just 1cm too wide to fit into a leather sleeve for 14-15"laptops. If you would cut 1.5cm you would also fit it neatly on your economy class tray on Lufthansa. So close yet so far away.
But it fits perfectly in most business bags cases/compartments designed for 15.6".
The biggest downer however is the power brick. It really takes away from the slimness and portability of the system. Even thinner/short cables would be a benefit. This one here leaves a big room for improvement. And I am quite positive I am going to atleast get a new shorter cable but also maybe look for a smaller adapter that may fit.



Battery life (6)
Not much to say. 20% dimmed lights, power saver options. Undervolted iGPU by -100mV and CPU by a total of -130 mV. Keyboard Backlight OFF and just typing in word/one tab in chrome.
I got 4 hours 56 mins..
With Same settings watching a movie I have 4 hrs 10 mins.



Performance (9)
Well out of the box its performing about 5% better than the notebookreview GS63VR 7RF.
With noob level tweaking (Mind you I am a first timer on this) I am positive I can reach 11 000 fire strike score and 13000 graphics score.

Im also positive I can reach 4k on time spy.


The witcher 3 Runs at max 84C. This is after 1 hour of gameplay and just riding around the starting area. All settings ULTRA and hairworks off. Dont know about the FPS since I cant seem to get it to display.... But its smooth. Also GPU is overclocked at 150/240.
Gameplay is rlly smooth.

Summary:
I like it. Alot.
I was considering the Aorus X5v6 and then waiting for the x5v7 or even the Alienware 13 OLED. In the end I went with this one because of the design of the system combined with cooling/qc from HIDEvolution.
I was considering skipping it and holding off for a max-q version. But when i configure them similarly the max-q is about 500 USD more. BUT Im not yet sure about the whole max-q thing. What I would like the most in that system is actually the screen. But I decided to keep this one instead.

Out of the box there were some issues (after like 20 minutes the laptop died and didnt power back on, but a disassembly and CMOS battery reset fixed that). I phoned HIDevolution tech support and @Zoltan@HIDevolution Spent like an hour and a half with me walking through various troubleshootings and the disassembly/cmos Reset. I have never even opened a laptop before so that service and patience he displayed was awesome.
The system was pricey for me to order via HIDevolution since there is a +20% VAT in addition to shipping to europe. However the Lifetime avialability of zoltan on speeddial is simply worth it.
Also HIDevolution upgraded me to a win10 PRO instead of home which is really kind of them!

 

2nd post reserved for benchmarking scores. Please let me know if you have any other benchmarks or games you wish me to run.

Fire strike Score:

Time Spy :

 

Images are not working for me, either. Try using imgur as your image host?

Either way, I'm greatly looking forward to this review! Thanks for taking the time to do this.

 

I did use imgur... Hmm odd?
right click and select öpen in new window"actually shows them. Could it be some setting I have to not show images in my posts?

 

Oh, hmm, I always thought imgur was the safest bet for an image host.

I don't know why it's not showing for me, though I do use HTTPSEverywhere plugin, and perhaps that could be part of the issue?

Edit: All I see is an actual IMG tag in square brackets, and no option to select the item contained within to open in a new window.

 

Not even if you right click the actual image box?
Its the same for me... with the exception that I can right click the images.

 

image is broken for me @Buffle

 

httpseverywhere user here also, when I deactivate, still no images...?

 

So just to double check when you upload images. You click the image button and then you just add the IMGUR url that is supplied by imgur when uploading the image?

 

make sure your url ends in .jpg or .png

alternatively you can just download this extension and right click to get the code automatically


https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/forum-tags-plus-image-tags/

Code:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/7DxOnrT.png[/img]

 

That last post of yours did it. I copied the url obviously. And not the actual image adress. So thats why it wasnt working. But now its up.

Currently undervolted to -60 mV and seems to be stable. Temps from benchmarking seem ok so Im going to run one Unigine Heaven session and then hit the gaming.
Overwatch/The Witcher 3 is what ill be testing.

 

Drill down into your Control Panel>Sound to find Enhancements and check the Equalization box(es). You will notice MUCH better audio.

 

Curious to get your feedback about the BIOS in this unit, is it basically the same as the MSI version or is it more open etc? Just wondering if there is a benefit into looking into using the bios from this unit for the MSI model.

 

The BIOS will be either the same, or very similar. If you do a bit of searching, you will find where a forum member posted the keystrokes to unlock the MSI BIOS. I am not allowed to give it out, but it is here. Of course doing so is at your own risk.

 

Afaik it is the same for the end user. However HIDEvolution did apply a -75mv undervolting in the bios already. So I am currently playing with intel XTU to see how much further I can safely push it over time and then I intend to contact them and see if they can remotely put it in the bios for me.
Im going away over the weekend so I will get a proper testing of its portability/battery.

 

That is what I am mainly after, I currently undervolt my GS673VR via Throttlestop and it starts when windows does and applies a -160mv undervolt and it is very stable so far. Would love to have access to put that in the bios so I dont need to run a piece of software. That plus other tweaks etc. I think I found the thread in question and I will try the method when I have access to the computer. Anyway I have hijacked this enough thanks.