AVADirect Clevo D900F First Look

You'll get no argument from me! It's obvious with only one graphics card, the target market is not hardcore gamers!

 

For someone complaining about the Clevo fans putting down AW, all your recent posts have been about putting the D900F down. No need to continue the pointless cycle there.

 

Oh, I applauded Clevo for incorporating an i7 in their "new" rig.

When someone points out a 14,000 3DMark06 score, I thought it only fair to let them know NBR only conducts that test at 1280x800 to put the score into perspective.

As far as saying it's not targeted at hardcore gamers is hardly a put down. It obviously was never the intention of Clevo to appeal to the hardcore gaming community or they would have built a rig with a higher performing dual GPU configuration.

I'm sorry you feel I'm putting down Clevo, but forums are a place to exchange thought, ideas and opinions. Thankfully we don't all have the same thoughts, ideas and opinions as there would be no point in having a forum.

No need to continue the pointless cycle there.

 

I find it easy to believe the processor alone can add 1200 points to an 06 score. Even you stating how useless 06 is these days should understand how CPU bottlenecking works, and why the CPU has such a profound effect on the 06 score.

But nope, no way a decent gpu with the fastest cpu on the planet can add 1200 points in 06. No freaking way...

And they have built their sli gaming rig and we've known about this for months. Anybody's who taken a little time to understand the specification of the D900F would know why it can't have sli.

 

Exactly right anothergeek!

3DMark06 is outdated because it is weighted too heavily on the CPU. Not really what one wants when testing 3D performance and why 3DMark Vantage in now the defacto program for testing 3D performance.

I'd be surprised if the i7 didn't provide more than a 1200 point boost.

In any CPU test, the Clevo laptop will no doubt reign supreme.

 

So would you act surprised if I said it got 14,000 at 1280 x 1024?

Either way, it doesn't matter. It wouldn't make much of a difference in vantage, crysis, etc. the i7 will show it's muscle in CPU dependent games, but for the most part it's overkill. Fantastic for professionals with demanding software though.

 

No, not at all surprised. Just wanted to point out that NBR tests at 1280x800.

It's definately a Swiss Army Knife, able to perform many different tasks well. And where a powerful processor is required, very well.

Gotta admit, it's strongest point is the i7 processor.

 

And there's been numerous times they haven't

 

Can't wait till the FX3800M comes out for this.

And as far as the 3dmark06 goes for it, I've seen 13.5k stock at 1280x1024 with a i7 965. So 14k is quite possible for this system with a single GTX280M and considering this model in particular is using the faster i7 975.

 

What would be the difference? Higher clocks and 55nm?

Not to derail, but mainstream 40nm mobile chips are around the corner. Wonder if they'll have something like a quadro 4600M soon.

 

I think the FX3800M might be 40nm based, or it may be renamed to a FX 4000 series. Either way, I can't wait to see nVidia's 40nm stuff. I hear they're going to go DX 10.1 with the pre-GT300 40nm chips, which is a good sign.

 

Rob's right about the default NBR 3dmark06 resolution. Keep in mind that NBR also reviews a number of basic consumer models, which usually have WXGA running. For the 1366 x 768 screens, that means the 3dmark06 numbers are skewed even further. They do offer other resolutions on some occasions, but they usually also acknowledge the change.

As for the comments about the desktop CPU being unnecessary, that's not quite true. That really differs on the individual's use. The D900F is designed to prove some gaming performance, while it truly shines in the area of the processor. The D900F wasn't designed to provide the best gaming performance available, as is instantly obvious with the fact that it's a single card machine. It offers excellent performance GPU wise, but best? Hardly. If gaming is your niche, you would probably be better off with the older D900C, as compared to the D900F. Or M17X, as some would prefer. Or M98NU, as others would prefer. Or W90Vp, and so on and so forth.

As for the comments Rob, I wasn't referring to the particular gaming comment alone.

If you want the ultimate gaming machine, go buy something else. If you want something that's meant for CPU-intensive purposes, while retaining excellent gaming performance, and don't mind the size/weight/design, check the D900F out by all means.

 

For the life of me I cannot understand such a contraption.
It's a 14 pound laptop? lol...

If you need that much power, then please, get yourself a desktop, all the while getting a more powerful system for less money.

As far as space is concerned, well, a mini-tower really doesn't take up that much space, heck not even a full-tower since it's just taller, and the days of CRTs are long gone. LCDs would take up less desk space than a laptop anyway.

The only possible use for such a machine would be if you're crazy about LAN parties.... I dunno.

 

....or how about the multiple developers and designers that work away from home 70% or the week? I fall into that catagory.

 

Again going back, is this laptop targeting gamers? yes but not entirely. There are people out there who actually do some real "work" on these workhorse with the powerful i7 processors. To be honest I did not care if it was a 260 or a 280 but it sure is nice to know it has a good graphics card when I need it. Desktop is not a viable option when you are constantly traveling to places and I got tired of stuck with underpowered low resolution notebooks.

 

I'm not entirely sure if the question I'm about to ask is even a worry anymore, but I'm just curious.

Does the NP9280 have a SATA bandwidth cap, that would damper the SSD speed?

 

I don't know if people answered you yet, but the pair of SSDs jacked up the price a bit too.

 

It's got an i7 975, $1000. 500GB 7200.4, $150. 2 30GB Vertex, $300. DDR 1333 RAM, more moolah. And topping it off with a relatively pointless BD-ROM, another ~$150. You can get one of these with the 920 for about $2200 I think.

 

yea they sent out a 90% maxed out system

a base i7 should be more then enough CPU

they start @ like 2200-2400 (can't remember)

 

Definitely an impressive of a rig.

 

unless there going @ 3.0 GB per second no