[Review] Sager NP8652 / Clevo P650SG with 980m Initial Impressions and Review by HTWingNut

Sager NP8652 / Clevo P650SG with GTX 980m Review

INTRODUCTION

SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

APPEARANCE AND STYLING
- Exterior
- Keyboard
- Ports
- Inside the Laptop

COMPONENTS
- LCD
- RAM
- Wireless Adapter
- Speakers and Audio
- Storage
- Software
- CPU i7-4720HQ
- GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 980m

ARTIFICIAL AND GAMING BENCHMARKS

POWER AND COOLING
- Power Consumption
- System Temperature and Noise
- Surface Temperatures
- Battery Life

CONCLUSION


intro INTRODUCTION

Sager is making a shift in their product lineup, adding laptops that are much thinner and lighter than their predecessors, although at the expense of integrating the CPU and GPU as part of the motherboard. This means no user upgradability for those components. However, they have retained the ease of user accessibility and replacement of other components like RAM, storage drives, and wireless adapters. The NP8652 based on the Clevo P650SG is one of these several new laptops in their lineup, and it contains the new i7-4720HQ CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 980m GPU based on the Maxwell architecture. LPC-Digital has provided the NP8652 laptop used for this review.

I recently reviewed the Sager NP8651 which is really the same line of laptops and share a lot of the same components with the NP8652 so I will reference that review where applicable. However the critical components that differ are the CPU and GPU with some minor component differences. If interested, the review for the NP8651 with i7-4610HQ and GTX 970m can be found here:


specs SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

System specifications of the laptop being reviewed:

Sager NP8652 based on Clevo P650SG
15.6" 4k (3840 x 2160) Samsung IPS LCD
Intel i7-4720HQ
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980m with 4GB GDDR5
512GB Crucial MX100 2.5" SSD
2x8GB Kingston RAM
Intel 7265 802.11AC wireless adapter
Windows 8.1 64-bit

Measured Dimensions:
Laptop: 15.5x10.75x1.0 in / 394x275x25.0 mm / 5lbs 10.5oz

Power Adapter (19v x 9.5A = 180W):6.75x3.5x1.5in / 170x215x35mm / 2lbs 3oz


appearance APPEARANCE AND STYLING

Exterior
The NP8652 has a mostly metal black chassis with a brushed aluminum lid with a chrome "Sager" logo placed nicely on the center of the lid. I say mostly metal because there are a couple plastic trim parts on it, predominantly the top/front edge of the LCD lid, but also the bezel surrounding the LCD, and bottom panel. The LCD lid dimensions are quite thin as well.

Opening the lid you are presented with a full keyboard with separate numberpad. The keyboard has a white backlight with adjustable two levels of brightness or toggled off completely. Lettering is white and easy to see even without backlighting. Typing pressure exhibits no flex or missed keystrokes, with keys that are very silent when typing. An aggressive finger load on the keyboard tends to flex the full chassis, however, but there is a full metal backplate under the keyboard to minimize flex. Typical function keys are available like touchpad toggle on/off, volume controls, screen brightness, camera on/off, etc but most welcome is the switch of the sleep key at F4 that resided between the volume down and mute key, now moved to the F12 key, and keyboard brightness now sits at F4. This is a benefit for previous Clevo owners that accidentally would sleep their laptop when trying to adjust volume.

Brushed aluminum also adorns the palm rest with a more matte black metal bezel surrounding the keyboard. Onkyo stereo speakers sit above the keyboard under a metal bezel. The touchpad is of substantial size and has two separate mouse buttons with a fingerprint reader nestled between them. The rectangular power button rests on the upper right corner which requires about a two second hold to power on the laptop.

The bottom panel is black plastic with a matte/grained appearance and offers ample slotted vent holes for the dual GPU fans, CPU fan, CPU itself, and SSD. Two screws are labeled with a keyboard icon which when removed allow removal of the keyboard by pushing a screwdriver through another hole indicating its removal. 14 screws in total secure the bottom panel, so it can be a mundane event when accessing the guts of the laptop, but once removed, there is easy access to all the system components.





Ports
Around the laptop on the left side at the back is the vent for the CPU expelling air out the side, with an HDMI port, USB 3.0 port, and two mDP ports towards the front. Ports on the right side include a lock slot, ethernet jack, two USB 3.0 ports, a SIM slot for mobile wireless (great addition), memory card reader and microphone, headphone, and digital audio ports all 3.5mm jacks. On the back side is the power plug and eSATA/USB combo port. The front edge of the laptop has status indicator lights: dGPU active, scroll lock, caps lock, num lock, airplane mode, hard drive, battery, and power.



Inside the laptop
Once the bottom panel is removed most of the components can be easily seen and readily accessed for replacement if needed. Everything looks very well engineered and organized. The battery is internal but easily removed with the turn of four screws. A single 2.5" SSD slot and two M.2 slots offer storage expansion options. The M.2 slots are adjustable for various length M.2 cards, supporting 42, 60, and 80mm versions. The Wi-Fi card is also M.2, and this particular laptop comes with the Intel 7265.

The cooling system is phenomenal for such a thin laptop, and includes two fans specifically to cool the GPU. One fan cools the embedded CPU. Three heatpipes run off the GTX 980m GPU and video RAM with three passing over the first fan and two continuing on across the second fan. Two heat pipes offer cooling for the CPU. In traditional Sager fashion, the CPU and GPU heatsinks are easily removable for accessing the silicon for a repaste if desired. It probably takes longer to remove the bottom panel than it would to repaste the CPU and GPU. One noted difference with the NP8652 over the NP8651 is that the GPU heatsink is permanently attached to the dual fans, so those need to be removed with the heatsink for a repaste should one care to do so.





Two of four RAM slots are located in the main compartment as well, with the remaining two underneath the keyboard. If one would like to access the RAM modules, removing the keyboard is actually quite easy. There are two screws underneath the laptop with a keyboard logo next to them that need to be removed (which also help securing the bottom panel), and a separate hole to push a screwdriver through to pop off the keyboard which is otherwise held down by clips. A separate metal plate covers the two RAM chips under the keybaord, secured by four screws. But just remove that panel and you have easy access to the other two RAM slots.


components COMPONENTS

LCD
4K LCD's have been added to this lineup of laptops. There are a couple options to choose from if you order from Sager, and the Samsung 4k Glossy IPS LCD was offered with this NP8652. It has a native resolution of 3840x2160 at 60Hz. The brightness is very good, and at max brightness, there is no noticeable glare with interior lighting. Granted on a dark screen, there is the potenital for reflection, just the nature of the beast. I was unable to locate the exact specs for this screen but the model is FL156FL02-P01.

Some users are haunted by the stories of Samsung pentile screens, but honestly, I see zero issues or concerns with this screen, and it is unknown if it is even a pentile screen at all. In any case, any user except the most meticulous would be hard pressed to tell the difference between this LCD and an IGZO. Thankfully the LCD is also 60Hz where many 4k LCD's run at a maximum 48Hz.

The clarity, brightness, contrast, and viewing angles are all phenomenal and when running at 4k is completely stunning. Albeit dealing with Windows scaling has its own set of issues, but that's not the fault of the LCD. Setting Windows 8.1 to use 200% scaling seems to set everything up so it is easily readable.

4k with 200% Windows scaling:


Samsung 4K LCD Viewing angles


Despite having the 4k screen, gaming was best run at 1080p resolution however, for best performance and ability to maximize all the details. While 1080p gaming looked near perfect without any anti-aliasing applied, A conservative 2xMSAA cleaned up any hint of jaggies that even a videophile might pick up on, resulting in only a modest hit to performance. There was no ghosting or anomalies noticed due to the LCD either. It is an LCD users can gladly game on without issue.


RAM
Kingston HyperX 1.35V DDR3L-1600 2x8GB RAM modules were supplied with this laptop. They are high quality modules with low CAS (9) and generally no issue RAM.

Accessing top RAM - Remove keyboard and remove plate





Wireless Adapter
The Intel 7260 802.11AC wireless card has been available for some time in the mPCI-e form factor, but the NP8651 went all M.2 with this build. So the wireless card featured here is based off the 7260, but dubbed the 7265 and is configured for an M.2 port. General performance is good with 40-50MB/sec sequential transfer speeds about 25 feet unobstructed from the router running at 5GHz. Game performance is still somewhat plagued by occasional ping spikes, although not nearly as prevalent as the original drivers had with the 7260. By ping spikes I am talking about two or three times an hour jumping from 15-20ms to 100-150ms for a few second periods. Otherwise it is a solid card and a lot faster than any 11g card out there. There is a possible fix/workaround for this however, and you can read about it here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...651-np8652-owner-s-lounge-49.html#post9862399

Speakers and Audio
Clevo laptops have been notorious for average to substandard audio quality. This time it appears the NP8651 has improved on the speakers a bit. Still sporting Onkyo speakers, they are a lot more rich and loud than previous Clevo laptops I've trialed. Unfortunately I only have the W230SS at the moment to bench against to validate that claim. But I can state with certainty they are better than the W230SS. Placement of the speakers may have something to do with it also, since the W230SS speakers are located at the sides and underneath the laptop, where the NP8651 offers them front and center. Sound Blaster Cinema 3 app is pre-loaded with this configuration which also does help improve overall audio quality and volume even if tuned properly.

Storage
This laptop can house up to four HDD/SSD's in total between 2.5" and M.2 form factor combinations. There is a 2.5" drive bracket which can house one 7mm or 9.5mm drive along with a 7mm drive below it, unlike the NP8651 which can only house one 9.5mm or two 7mm height drives. This is thanks to the slightly thicker lower panel of the NP8652 to accommodate that added thickness. Two 42, 60, or 80mm M.2 SATA SSD's or one M.2 PCI-e drive (x4) can be installed as well. M.2 drives are supposed to be much faster and move the upper performance limit over SATA III, but at this point in time unfortunately very fast M.2 SSD's are hard to come by and the one's available are also expensive compared with mSATA drives. Although there are more budget level M.2 SSD's like the Crucial M550 that can compare with the mSATA counterparts in performance but are still generally a bit more expensive.





This particular laptop for review has been fitted with the 2.5" Crucial MX100 512GB SSD. The performance of this SATA III drive is commendable and you can see it in relation to other SSD's compared by using CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD benchmarks below. LPC-Digital also provided a Samsung XP941 256GB M.2 SSD for evaluation and it is remarkable how much faster the SSD sequential speeds can be once you remove the SATA III limitations, although 4k speeds seem to suffer a bit compared to other mSATA and SATA drives. See restuls below.



Software
One of the advantages of a Sager notebook is that they come with literally no bloatware. The only thing that they provide are utilities like their Hotkey utility which offers tip of the finger functions like enabling and disabling of the windows key, touchpad and webcam, switching system performance power profile, and provides status metrics like sound volume, screen brightness. But two items of note are the fan profile and macro key programmer.

The CPU fan has a basic configurable profile program allowing the user to set temperature that the CPU fan turns on and what temperature it turns off. The fan profile ramps up slowly and does not burst on like it has on previous Clevo notebooks.

A Macro key editor allows you to quickly and easily program macros for use in games, to launch apps, or send express text messages.

CPU: Intel i7-4720HQ
It's inevitable that with a thin and light form factor, some compromises had to be made. One of them is implementation of a soldered CPU and GPU. The Intel i7-4720HQ is a quad core CPU with hyperthreading, Intel 4600 iGPU, and 6MB cache, running at 2.6-3.6GHz in a 47W TDP envelope. The i7-4720HQ is a new product that as of this writing hasn't even made it into Intel's databas yet. It is basically just a 100MHz speed increase over the i7-4710HQ. It has a base speed of 2.6GHz with peak single core speed of 3.6GHz, two cores at 3.5GHz, and three and four cores at 3.4GHz. Although four core speeds tended to be in the 3.2-3.3MHz range when taxed.

There currently is no option for an upgradable CPU in the NP8652 other than the i7-4720HQ but for gaming and general computing purposes and even light video editing is more than sufficient.

Intel XTU allows the user to increase the clock speeds by 200MHz up to 3.8/3.7/3.6/3.6 GHz, so a little bit more performance can be eeked out of the CPU if desired. The laptop was benchmarked against an i7-4810MQ in a Clevo W230SS and the i7-4710HQ in the NP8652. The performance difference between the three CPU's is marginal, but measurable.

Cinebench 11.5


wPrime 2.10


x264 5.0


980m GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980m 4GB
nVIdia has raised the bar with mobile graphics with Maxwell. The 980m staged in the NP8652 is a soldered GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 5000MHz vRAM. It is based on the same GM204 architecture as the desktop GTX 970 and GTX 980 cards, granted with reduced memory speed but carries a 256-bit bus witdth. It also has fewer CUDA cores, but it still benefits from the speed improvements over Kepler but even more importantly for laptops, the thermal output is significantly less.

Let's take a look at the details of the 980m first before we delve into the performance metrics:

1038MHz Base clock speed with 1129MHz Boost
Maxwell 28nm TSMC Architecture
1536 Shader ALU's (CUDA)
96 TMU's
256-bit GDDR5 5000MHz
Support for DirectX 12
TDP ~ 95W

The 980m was run in two configurations:
(1) Stock clocks of 1038MHz with boost to 1129MHz, vRAM at 5000MHz
(2) Overclock of GPU limited by vBIOS to +125MHz to 1163MHz with boost to 1254MHz, vRAM at 5600MHz

This was compared with the following other configurations from previous reviews:

(3) MSI GT72 980m Stock
(4) NP8651 at stock: 924MHz with boost to 1059MHz, vRAM at 5000MHz
(5) NP8651 at overclock: +135MHz to 1059MHz with boost to 1194MHz, vRAM at 6000MHz

Drivers were the latest WHQL at the time of testing 344.60. The performance and temperature results are based on CPU and GPU with a self applied IC diamond repaste. The CPU temperatures were running to high as pasted from the factory that it required a repaste.

Benchmarks were taken running at each game's "ultra" or highest settings at both 1080p and 4k resolutions. There was no way I could tell to run at 3K resolution since the LCD did not support it and Intel's custom resoluitons would not allow the change to take place. It would be good to see the results at 3k since I feel the 980m would be a great fit for that resolution, since 4k burdens the 980m too much at highest details. Although several games were also run at 4k with medium details and any anti-aliasing removed to see if 4k was still a realistic gaming option for some of these newer titles.

A couple newer games were added to the benchmark list, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Far Cry 4. These are tough games to benchmark because it is hard to come up with any repeatable sections in the game due to their open environments. Dragon Age: Inquisition does have a built-in benchmark, but it's very quick and not sure it necessarily represents the actual gaming performance. Also, actual full screen mode does not work with DA:I with Optimus machines so it had to be run at full borderless window mode which is known to hinder overall performance. The results from the benchmark are provided for reference but take them with a grain of salt until the game is patched to work properly, and also temps and power were not taken because the benchmark is really too quick to make it useful.

Far Cry 4 is about a 60-70 second auto-drive from one place to the next. Due to the open nature of the game, and the way the auto drive tends to have a mind of its own, it's not 100% repeatable but close enough to give one a sense of general gaming peroformance.

benchmarks GPU BENCHMARKS

ARTIFICIAL GAMING BENCHMARKS

A new benchmark was added, the Blender test. Special thanks to user mgi (blog is here: http://blog.render.st/) for providing me with a repeatable and reliable benchmark for testing rendering performance of the system, using the GPU (980m) as the CUDA rendering device. It's more of an application performance metric than a gaming one, but more or less tests the system, but more importantly, the GPU CUDA performance. CUDA 5.2 was used for this benchmark.

Blender 2.72b Pavillon Barcelone Cycles


3DMark 11





3DMark Fire Strike







Catzilla


Unigine Heaven



GAMING BENCHMARKS

Bioshock Infinite - Ultra + DDOF


Crysis 3 - Very High


Dragon Age Inquisition - Ultra


Far Cry 4 - Ultra


Final Fantasy XIV - High (Desktop)




Grid 2 - Ultra


Metro Last Light - Very High, Tesselation Normal


Resident Evil 6 - High


Sleeping Dogs - Extreme


Thief - Very High


Tomb Raider - Ultra



powercooling POWER AND COOLING

Power Consumption
Power consumption measurements were taken at the wall so keep in mind that there is some level of efficiency lost through the power supply, so actual power draw will be some amount less than shown (~ 10%). The included 180W power supply leaves little room for overclocking with the 980m, since you can see the mild overclock resulted in power draw in the 170-180W range for most games. Although the power supply was more than sufficient for any stock speed gaming.






System Temperatures and Fan Noise
Temperature measurements were taken during testing for the CPU and GPU and results are displayed below. While the NP8652 ran the GPU about 4-8C higher than the NP8652, they were still reasonable running under 70C for the most part. Overclocking resulted in a minor increase in temperatures, however with a sacrifice in added fan noise.

Fans can also be set to full speed in traditional Sager fashion by using the Fn+1 combo key. With an overclock, the max fan speed setting did help drop the temps a few degrees C, so that could be used for future overclocking if temps become a concern.

With gaming, the CPU ran well within reasonable temperatures under 75C for the most part. However with CPU specific benchmarks, the CPU temps skyrocketed to the upper 90's. The i7-4710HQ in the NP8651 ran much cooler. I am not sure the reason for the very high temperatures since gaming temps they seemed to be in check. Fan speeds were also higher than when running games and much higher than compared with the NP8651.

CPU Temperatures - CPU Benchmarks


CPU Temperatures - Artificial Game Benchmarks


CPU Temperatures - Game Benchmarks


GPU Temperatures - Artificial Game Benchmarks


GPU Temperatures - Game Benchmarks



Fan Noise
Fan noise was generally higher than its sister NP8651 laptop, but non existant during regular desktop work sessions. Plus with the introduction of CPU fan control in the Clevo Control Center, users have some control on when the fan kicks in and have never expereienced random bursts or loud fan noise in a quiet environment. Even while gaming, the low CPU temperatures kept the fans from barely spinning up too much. The fans did not exhibit any annoying high pitched hums or ticks while operating either, just a steady whoosh.


Surface Temperatures
Since the system temperatures were so low, this also translated into a cool to the touch surface on the laptop even when highly taxed for extended periods of gaming. There were no hot spots noted, and a surface temperature map can be seen in the image below after a 30 minute gaming session of BF4.






Battery life
The NP8651 comes with a 4-cell battery, but more importantly it has a 60WHr rating which with Optimus should translate into at least 3-4 hours of usable battery life, which was tested for movie and wireless browsing. Nvidia GeForce Experience also allows for gaming on battery by limiting the FPS to greatly reduce power consumption, this was also tested. Games like BF4 tended to stutter periodically even while limiting the FPS, likely because the GPU was running at only 800MHz and GPU at 1600MHz, but other games like Tomb Raider, Minecraft, Half-Life 2, etc worked fine on battery.

The three battery life tests that were completed:

(1) Movie loop Avengers 1080p in VLC media player, power saver mode, 50% screen brightness, keyboard backlight turned off, wireless off
(2) Light wi-fi surfing, power saver mode, 40% screen brightness, keyboard backlight off, wireless on
(3) Nvidia BatteryBoost @ 35FPS, Battlefield 4 high settings, balanced mode, 80% brightness, wireless on

Results are as follows:



I attribute the less battery life of the NP8652 vs the NP8651 due to the 4K LCD They apparently draw quite a bit more power, and with a 60WHr battery, 2-3W more can make a significant impact on battery life. The NP8651 would draw 13-14W with light load, where the NP8652 would draw 15-17W.


#conclusion CONCLUSION

The Sager NP8652 has a lot of value for the dollar for a portable gaming machine. It has plenty of user expansion for storage and RAM, a quad core Intel CPU, top of the line GTX 980m mobile GPU with excellent cooling, and a great 4k LCD, all in a package thinner and lighter than competing 15.6" notebooks. Even as a thin and light laptop, Sager managed great cooling and easy access to internal components, granted after removing the bottom 14 or so screws securing the bottom panel.

Gaming performance is exceptional at 1080p and keeps cool thanks to both Nvidia's Maxwell architecture and the dual fan setup. Scaling games at 1080p on the 4k screen also is not an issue. The 980m can handle older games just fine at the native 4k resolution, and even newer games with reduced detail and turning off anti-aliasing, which really isn't necessary with that high resolution on a 15" screen. Performance of the 980m is also a solid 25-30% faster than the 970m model. Users can also be happy with the overall construction and build quality. General computing and movies were pleasant with the solid keyboard and high quality LCD and speakers which are actually quite decent compared to previous generation of Clevo laptops.

Battery life could be a bit better, but it can still manage through a movie followed by some office work or light browsing if need be. The power supply is sufficient for stock speed gaming, but borderline for any overclocking a user might attempt. Otherwise the package as a whole is a solid design, performance, and build quality that is sure to please even the most peculiar mobile gaming enthusiast.

 

PREVIEW BELOW!

I will be using this thread for my review of the Sager NP8652 / P650SG that was just provided to me by LPC-Digital. I will first start with some initial impressions and the follow up with the full review at a later time.

Since they are quite similar, you can see my full review of it's sister laptop, the NP8651 / P650SE here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...clevo-p650se-gtx-970m-htwingnut-s-review.html
But I will provide a full review specific to this NP8652 with possibly throwing some additional information here in the meantime.

The laptop I have received for review has the following specs:
Sager NP8652 / Clevo P650SG

15.6" 4K Wide Viewing Angle QFHD SAMSUNG Display Super Clear Gloss type (3840x2160)
Guaranteed no dead or partially-lit pixels for first 30 days of purchasing
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4720HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.60 GHz)
NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 980M with 4GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® Maxwell™
HyperX 16B Dual Channel DDR3L 1600MHz CL9 1.35V - 2 X 8GB
Crucial® MX100 512GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD
Standard Thermal Compound
Genuine Microsoft Windows® 8.1 64-Bit Edition
Sager Branding
Non-RAID Storage
Intel® Dual Band - AC 7265 M.2 Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Module 4.0


The NP8651 and NP8652 are built off the same chassis and components with a few notable exceptions, including specifics for the review machine NP8652:

Component	NP8651/P650SE	NP8652/P650SG
CPU	i7-4710HQ 2.5-3.5GHz	i7-4720HQ 2.6-3.6GHz
GPU	GTX 970m 3GB GDDR5	GTX 980m 4GB GDDR5
Dimensions	Thickness: 25mm (30mm w/bumpers) 5lbs 10.0oz	28mm (33mm w/bumpers) 5lbs 10.5oz
Materials	all metal alloy	all metal alloy, bottom panel plastic
Cooling	GPU heatsink removes independently	GPU heatsink attached to fans

Otherwise they are alike in all other respects from storage to network to layout of all the mainboard components.

Note that the CPU is actually an i7-4720HQ which is basically a slight bump, 100MHz, in performance compared to the i7-4710HQ in the P650SE. This likely won't translate into much, but it's the latest and greatest if that means anything to you.

LCD in the P650SG is the Samsung 4k glossy and is simply stellar. Any reservations one might have can go out the window because I don't see why anyone would not like this display unless they are a complete videophile. It is 60Hz at 3840x2160 and brightness, contrast, colors are all great. There is slight backlight bleed but nothing horrible, and typical of any kind of IPS type tech. No ghosting or image retention or anything detrimental. No noticeable dead or stuck pixels but with 4k it's likely hard to notice anyhow. Only concern is with how some legacy apps scale. And initially games run at 1080p would run as full screen, but end up as not scaled to the full size of the LCD. This was easily remedied by going into Intel control panel, setting desktop resolution to 1920x1080, changing the scaling to centered (apply) and back to fist aspect (apply) and everything runs full screen. I normally don't care for glossy screens either, but the brightness seems to offset any indoor reflections.

Fan speeds would run a notch louder than the NP8651 during load, but nothing horrible, and still room to spare before reaching full speed.

Benchmarks / Cooling:
Initial results are quite positive with respect to temperature. Here's a few examples of temperatures and power draw during some benchmark and gaming sessions:
3DMark Fire Strike: CPU 80C / GPU 61C / 164W ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz,Notebook P65_P67SG)
Grid 2: CPU 73C / GPU 62C / 160W
Metro LL: CPU 74C / GPU 69C / 163W



MORE DETAILS TO COME SOON!

You can see some comparison images here:

Click image to zoom, browser back to come back to review



Another notable aspect with respect to the bottom panel is that the vent holes are different and line up centered with the GPU fans which do not quite line up with one of them on the P650SG bottom cover. The vent openings next to the CPU fan is also different. The added height comes solely from the bottom panel too.

Click image to zoom, browser back to come back to review



HEIGHT COMPARISON:

Click image to zoom, browser back to come back to review


Click image to zoom, browser back to come back to review


Click image to zoom, browser back to come back to review


BOTTOM PANEL ONLY:



INTERNAL COMPONENTS:

Click image to zoom, browser back to come back to review




WEIGHTS:
The weight is basically identical, the only difference between the two machines is the NP8651 has an M.2 SSD in it in addition to the 2.5" Crucial M500 960GB. But more or less they weigh the same, which is pretty remarkable and shows that they cooling system is essentially the same. The added weight could likely come from the plastic vs the metal too. But it's splitting hairs regardless.

 

I have ordered this laptop. From xotic PC, they seem to have the lowest price around. I can't freaking wait. I do wonder though I ordered the Super Clear Matte Type Sager IPS Screen instead of the 4K one. Hope it doesn't look lousy.

Waiting for your Game benchmarks. Particularly curious how it will perform against an 8GB 980m card with a similar processor.

I always wonder about the Onkyo speakers, I am moving from an MSI GT60, those DynAudio babies were beautifully loud and had bass. I feel skeptical these will be better :|

Oh by the way, this is the first review of this laptop model around. Big thanks.

 

I had the opportunity to review a GT72 and GS60 and the DynAudio were great. The Onkyo have been known to be pretty lackluster, but in the P65x models they are remarkably better than the other Onkyo speakers. I don't know if they made an improvement or just placement or what, bu they are noticeably louder with a wider range. The bass is still a bit lacking, but it actually exists. I still think the DynAudio is still much better though.

 

Glad to hear that Samsung panel is actually decent after all the concern we had about it on these forums!

Mine is only a couple of days away now, so excited! Seems I'll be the first one to be giving impressions of the Sharp 4K panel.

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

where is the second HD located? is one HD stacked over the other?

 

Yes, see here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...x-970m-htwingnut-s-review-33.html#post9856444



And here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...50se-gtx-970m-htwingnut-s-review.html#storage

EDIT: Note that it is different in the NP8652. It can accommodate one 9.5mm drive and one 7mm drive.

 

Yes the NP8652 can fit a 9.5mm and a 7mm HDD/SSD stacked on each other.
HTWingnut the only reason I got into Sagers is from initially reading some of your reviews,
a month later I buy an NP8652 cuz of you hah, glad to see a review for it coming up, excited
for mine.

 

thanks, both of u...
yeah, thanks for your hard work on the reviews, HTWingnut

 

Is that the Samsung 4K panel with the 48 Hz refresh rate?

 

Has 60Hz refresh.

HWInfo64 indicates it as: SAMSUNG LƒFL156FL02-P01

Panelook has only one Samsung listed: LTN152FL02-L01 http://www.panelook.com/LTN156FL02-L01_SAMSUNG_15.6_LCM_overview_23360.html

Not sure if they're the same but this one is great.

Scaling games at 1080p is really not even noticeable and even a simple 2xMSAA takes care of any hit of jaggies that there might be. So far temps are phenomenal, and power draw from the wall under 170W. Yes this means limited OC potential, but it should handle a good +135MHz on the GPU and up to +1000MHz on the vRAM.

 

wonder if thats the same screen as in the y50 or a newer samsung model with different specs...

 

Thanks HT, even your first intitial hand on impressions tell us more than most full reviews.
Glad to see the Samsung display is very good.

 

HT now that you have your hands on both what one will you stick with?

 

Good question... Cost is the key. I am happy with my NP8651 though for what I use it for. Cool, quiet, quality 1080p LCD. Even without a modded vBIOS the +135MHz GPU OC limit with +1000MHz comes within 10% of a stock 980m, but so far it seems at the expense of higher temps than the 980m in the NP8652. Both the 980m and 4k LCD add cost that I'm not sure is worth the upgrade for me personally.

 

Will u do over clock benchmarks on 980 for us?

 

When cost is the only deciding factor, you know they've done a good job with these models.

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

Yes at 1080p and 4k. But like everything else is limited to +135MHz on the GPU clock (I hope they either raise this limit or remove it altogether). I will also check to see if the PSU limits performance as well. I will use a 230W PSU to check some of the highest wattage benchmarks if it increases performance or not. Either way, 180W is pushing the limits as it is. I believe they would need to change the connector though to technically offer anything higher than 180W.

 

Hey All,

Right now, I am deciding whether to buy the np8651 or the np8652. Whichever one I would buy, I would get it with 16 GB of ram and a 128 GB M.2 SSD. The difference is a little bit over $300. I have enough money (barely) to buy either laptop. I plan to play mainstream games like COD, Battlefield, Far Cry 4, all of those at 1080p and capped at 60 fps. My question is which one should I buy? Is the 980m really worth it?

Thanks.

EDIT: I expect it to last 2 years. And would the np8651 be enough to run games at maybe not 100% maxed out settings but very close? (for example like 1080p Ultra no AA)

 

Considering you won't be able to upgrade gpu performance down the road since it's a soldered chip ... Yes it is worth it in my opinion

 

Honestly, if I do end up keeping the NP8652, I will likely sell the 4k screen or offer it with the NP8651 and keep my 1080p Samsung IPS. 4k doesn't do much for me.

 

You mean future games, right?

30fps? Probably yes. 60fps? No, except for the less visually demanding titles.

Blasphemy!

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

So does that mean you would have to switch the cables around? Are we able to buy the required cables to upgrade to 4k in future. I still plan to use the Samsung 1080 ips screen I bought but would be cool to upgrade to 4k in future.

 

Plus I like matte.

I may end up with the Batman in a couple months anyhow.

 

I will have an extra 1080p IPS display on hand since my order comes with one now. And I purchased one before hand thinking only the TN would be available.

 

Fair enough. I've had matte for the past few laptops, so switching back to glossy again will be a big change for me. Hopefully the reflections won't be too distracting. Will be very nice to have non-grainy whites though, that is my main gripe with matte displays.

We need a nickname for this model too.

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

'Robin'

This glossy Samsung really is not that bad. With the high brightness it's not so bad.

 

Any reason why I shouldn't get a PCIE SSD over the M.2?

 

Thank's for the review HT, looking forward to the full review.

 

which is the PCIE slot ? And are you staying with the Intel 7265; I want to see the killer 1525 with this, which do you think is better

 

I just received a Killer 1525, will install and check for performance in the Sager. Works great with the MSI laptops.

 

where did you get the 1525 from?

 

does having a plastic bottom panel impact the build quality of the system vs the metal bottom panel in the np8651?

i look forward to your full review

 

Not really.

 

While in its limit of +135MHz on GPU clock, is the 180W PSU sufficient especially in the long run? Say 3-5 years?

I'm still considering what to buy but I observed that the P650SG is quite good at maintaining moderate temperatures, at least below the 80's. My country's temperature averages around 30 Celsius in the afternoon. I thought of the P150SM before since it is thicker but this P650SG seems okay.

I was also skeptical about futureproofing with this rig since this uses the soldered GTX980M with 4GB VRAM. I plan to game only in 1080p with 1 monitor though. But I'm just afraid VRAM requirements get higher as the years go by.

So, I'm a very amateur overclocker, would this rig be good enough for me?
Kindly advice

 

It doesn't matter what you buy. Any rig won't last 4-5 years with gaming the most recent titles without significant compromise to resolution and details. PSU should last easily 3-4 years as long as you don't game 24/7 and not only that a genuine replacement costs all of about $80-100, knock-offs probably half that. Heck I bought the Dell PA-19 230W power supply and adapter to work with the Clevo notebooks for less than $60.

Plus overclocking really isn't worth it unless you get a decent overclock, which would require a modified vBIOS. With limited overclock it will improve FPS by about 15%. So something running at 40FPS might run at 43-45FPS. It will keep you going a bit longer but not that much longer.

 

I see.. It's good to know that a Dell PSU can support Clevo models. Then a 4GB VRAM would suffice? Well, I wasn't expecting to play all maximum graphical settings after few years, that's understandable. I just hope I don't regret buying a 4GB VRAM over a 8GB VRAM which is why I'm hesitating between the P150SM or P650SG.

 

The hard drives (SSD's) seem stuck together in a bracket.. does that come with the laptop?
I just got my P670SG in and it doesn't have a bracket...

 

I'm interested in where you got a killer n1525.

 

oh nice, are the 17 inchers shipping already?

 

Through "inside channels"... I don't want to say because I don't know if they can/want to sell just the Killer cards.

 

haha wingnut is well-connected indeed

 

Is guess now I can feel some relief that the Sager Samsung 4K panel is different from 48hz panels used on the Y50.

Y50 has 4K Samsung FL LTN156FL02-L01 : 48hz complaints from users, could be hardware limitation or something else
Sager has 4K Samsung LƒFL156FL02-P01 : thanks to HTWingNut confirming the model, I guess than P01 is the fix or updated model due 48hz issue on the previous one. I'm just assuming and hoping so.

I hope HTWingNut can check the detailed info of the Samsung 4K panel. Maybe AIDA64 can have more detailed info on it. A screenshot maybe 4K reso @ 60hz to help others have peace of mind on Samsungs 4k @ 60hz?

 

still pentile vs. the sharp/panasonic stripe though but definitely way better than being stuck at 48hz...

 

Yeah true, Sharp is way more better due to features.

Why Sharp 4K IGZO is better than Samsung 4K panel



It's TN 1080p is Good, Samsung 4K PLS is Very Good but Shark 4K IGZO IPS is Great, way more greater -.-.
Not in terms of performance gaming though as not all games support 4K as it needs more gpu power to render at maxout quality on 4K.

 

Best laptop EVER .

 

...until ZM series comes out

 

I respectfully disagree

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

lets agree to disagree

 

Here it is (click on it to expand):