[Review] Sager NP9870-G / Clevo P870DM-G Review by HTWingNut

Sager NP9870-G / Clevo P870DM-G Review

INTRODUCTION

Mobile computing has been making great strides in performance per watt over the last several yaers, so much so that it's possible to fit desktop performance parts in a laptop chassis. Sager has done just that with their new NP9870-G laptop based on the Clevo P870DM-G. It packs a desktop Intel Core i7-6700K CPU as well as a "desktop class" Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 GPU. Notice it is not a 980m, but a full fledged 980. They use the same silicon as on the desktop GTX 980, including 7000MHz vRAM, adapted to fit on a modified MXM 3.0b PCB. They even include dual Killer Gigabit ethernet ports and support for two M.2 NVMe and two 2.5" 9.5mm height drives, as well as four RAM slots for up to 64GB of fast DDR4 RAM (2400MHz). Coupled with the fact that the NP9870 is a G-Sync compatible system, which the accompanying 75Hz 17.3" IPS 1080p LCD supports. This is one monsterous gaming and mobile workstation.

The Sager NP9870-G laptop used for this review was provided by LPC-Digital, a reputable reseller of Sager notebooks.

You can see a full video review of this laptop on YouTube here:



I corrected some mistakes from that video in this review, so if in doubt, refer to this written review for clarification.


SPECIFICATIONS

Before we get into further details I thought I'd share the system specifications:

17.3” 1920x1080 LG IPS Matte LCD @ 75 Hz (overclockable to 100Hz)
Intel Core i7-6700K Skylake *DESKTOP* CPU 95W TDP
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 *DESKTOP* Class Mobile GPU with 8GB GDDR5 7000MHz vRAM
4 x 8GB (32GB) DDR4 2400MHz Kingston HyperX CL14 1.2V RAM (Supports 16GB RAM chips for 64GB max)
Samsung 950 Pro 512GB NVMe PCIe M.2 V-NAND based SSD (supports two M.2 and two 2.5” 9.5mm drives)
Killer Dual Band 1535 802.11AC wireless card
1TB 7200RPM Hard Drive
Windows 10 64-bit
330W four pin power supply

All this power of course comes at the sacrifice of size and weight. The behemoth weighs in at a little over 11 lbs. as configured and about 43mm at it's thickest point not including the rubber feet, which add another 5mm to the height.


EXTERNAL OVERVIEW

Typically Sager laptops have a very conventional no nonsense appearance with nothing that screams it's a gaming machine. With the NP9870-G Sager decides to liven up the appearance a little bit. The smooth black plastic lid has faceted features with user adjustable backlighting giving it a little bit of personality. Even turning on the laptop there are LED's that race along above the keyboard indicating it has powered on, a nice touch. The same black plastic material carries over to the palm rest and keyboard surround. A single hinge supports the 17.3" display and feels robust with little to no wobble during use, and can easiy be opened and closed with a single hand. A speaker sits on each side of the hinge at the rear of the laptop, with a subwoofer underneath. Air vents are plentiful underneath and at front and rear of the laptop with a small hexagonal hole pattern.





There are plenty of ports around the laptop to support whatever acccessories or peripherals you might need to attach. There's a total of five USB 3.0 ports, one Thunderbolt 3 / USB 3.1 Type C port, two mini DisplayPort connections, a single HDMI connector, as well as an SD card slot and lock slot. Four 1/8" or 3.5mm jacks offer audio in and out support, and not only one, but two Killer gigabit ethernet jacks are available for your networking needs.



The keyboard is the standard Clevo backlit keyboard common on the higher end 15.6" and 17.3" laptops. It has a full numberpad nestled right next to the full keyboard. Key travel is about medium, and are quiet, but most importantly solid with no missed keystrokes. The three zone backlighting can be user configured using the Clevo FlexiKey application, which also offers a powerful Macro editor and also allows the lid ligthing to be adjusted. Each of the three zones of backlighting can be adjusted independtly as far as color, and the zones can pulse according to a number of pre-configured options.



A reasonable sized 105mm x 60mm multi-touch Synaptics touchpad with independent tactile mouse buttons sits below the spacebar, with a fingerprint reader centered between the mouse buttons. It tracks well and with the limited use I have put it through, it hasn't done any odd random skipping or highlighting of text.




ACCESSIBLE COMPONENTS INSIDE THE LAPTOP

The system battery is enclosed in the laptop, and the bottom panel requires removal of nine philips head screws. The bottom panel can be a bear to remove, but firmly lifting up at the rear vents will dislodge it and offer access to most of the laptop components. With the bottom panel removed, users can access two of four RAM slots, two 2.5" drive bays nestled under the master GPU, GPU, CPU, subwoofer and 89 WHr system battery. The Sager NP9870 supports SLI with its dual MXM 3.0b slots if you opt for a lower TDP card like the 980m or 970m, but this system has a single GTX 980 desktop GPU. The 980 can only be used in a single card configuration because it is wider and its high TDP dictates both cooling fans are utilized that would typically split the cooling, one for each SLI card. CPU and GPU heatsinks can be easily accessed and removed for a repaste or swapping of components.





Both the CPU and GPU heatsinks are easily removed by unscrewing four screws on each and lifting up on the heatsink pull tab. The GTX 980 card itself is secured by a couple additional screws if you should choose to remove it.

Additional system components are located underneath the keyboard and can be accessed by removing a single screw in the bottom compartment bay and pushing a thin blunt object like a philips head screwdrive through an access port by the CPU to pop open the keyboard which is secured by the one screw and a host of magnets. Components under the keyboard are the other two of four DDR4 RAM slots, PCIe wireless card slot, CMOS battery, and the two M.2 PCIe slots.




LCD
Typically 17" laptops have not received a lot of love when it comes to quality LCD's. But this LCD is actually quite good. It is an LG LP173WF4-SPF1 which is a 1080p matte IPS that is factory rated at 60Hz, but comes factory overclocked at 75Hz and is G-sync licensed. This particular panel was even able to overclock to 100Hz without issue. Details on this panel can be found at Panelook: http://www.panelook.com/LP173WF4-SPF1_LG Display_17.3_LCM_overview_21056.html

Spoiler: viewing angles

A Spyder5Pro was used to calibrate and measure characteristics of this machine and results were very good. 93% of sRGB and 72% of Adobe RGB with 320 cd/m^2 at 100% brightness and 850:1 contrast ratio. OEM specs indicate it is a 300 brightness and 700:1 contrast, so this is a welcome improvement. Viewing angles of course are great, and rated at 80 degrees all around, and has a 25ms response time which did not manifest any issues during gaming sessions at 80-100 FPS.

While this machine can suport three external displays (two DP and one HDMI) in addition to the internal one, if you have Thunderbolt enabled, that will sacrifice the use of on of the DisplayPorts.

Spoiler: other lcd specs

NETWORKING
Dual gigabit ethernet ports and 802.11AC Killer 1535 wireless card provide ample networking speed. The included Killer app offers packet prioritization and double shot pro allows for simultaneous use of two networking and internet connections and prioritizes high speed packets through the best line (like gaming) before other packets that aren't as ping sensitive (like web browsing, torrents, and general app updates).

RAM
The Sager NP9870-G suports four slots of DDR4 So-DIMM modules up to 16GB in capacity each, for 64GB total. This review machine came populated with 4x8GB for 32GB total of Kingston HyperX DDR4 2400MHz CAS14 RAM. The Z170 chipset supports dual channel RAM, quad core is not supported, but this really shouldn't be an issue for anyone with the components this machine houses.

CPU-Z info on the RAM is shown here:


STORAGE
Two M.2 2280 PCIe (or SATA) SSD's and two 2.5" 9.5mm height drives are supported in this laptop. RAID 0 and RAID 1 is supported independently between the two M.2 drives and the 2.5" drives, but it apparently does support dual M.2 PCIe x4 drives, although I did not have two drives to test this. The review unit contains one of the newer Samsung 950 M.2 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD's with a 2.5" 1TB 7200RPM HGST hard drive.

The Samsung 950 M.2 has phenomenal performance overall, and simply blows away what any SATA drive could offer even in RAID configuration with over 1500MB/sec read and write speeds of sequential data and even 4k data has a solid boost with over 40MB/sec 4k read and 170MB/sec 4k write. There is no readable temperature sensor on this SSD however, whether because it is an NVMe drive or Samsung opted not to provide a readable sensor, I am not sure, so it is difficult to tell how warm this SSD runs during sustained reading or writing. M.2 drives typcially run very warm, like 80C at which temp most Samsung drives would throttle. The only evidence shown for this SSD is with an ATTO disk benchmark run that showed performance dropped slightly after being stressed through the benchmark, where performance should have been a bit higher. That being said it ran from 1500 MB/sec to about 1200MB/sec so not a significant drop but it was there.






CPU INTEL CORE i7-6700K
With Intel moving all mobile CPU's to soldered, it is good to see Sager continue to support desktop CPU's in a mobile package. The Core i7-6700k is based on the new Skylake 14nm architecture and with it comes support for DDR4 RAM and Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 compatability. Physically, the i7-6700k is a socket 1151 CPU, and as seen from earlier images, the CPU itself is easily accessible for removing and replacing or repasting should one decide to do so. It uses the traditional desktop type CPU retainer, so is quick and easy to remove and familiar for desktop DIY'ers.

Stock clocks for this machine are 4.2GHz for a single core and two, three, and four cores are at 4.0GHz. Stock voltage resulted in temperatures running in the mid to upper 90C's, and at times even thermally throttled. Don't let that scare you away, however, because the stock voltage seems to be too high for this chip and i7-6700K in general. Using Intel XTU it was possible to undervolt by 150mV using the offset voltage slider and that resulted in peak temperatures under 75C in the heaviest cases, and usually under 70C.






CPU BENCHMARKS

Several CPU benchmarks were run comparing multiple CPU's performance. All of them

The benchmarks run were:

- Cinebench R15
- wPrime 2.10 1024M 8 threads
- x264 v5.0

The CPU's compared were:

- Sager NP9870-G with i7-6700k Skylake Desktop 95W TDP
- Sager NP9758-G with i7-6700k Skylake Desktop 95W TDP
- Sager NP9773 with i7-4790K Haswell Desktop 88W TDP
- Sager NP8651 with i7-4710HQ Haswell Mobile 47W TDP (@ 3.5GHz)
- Desktop with i7-5820k Haswell-E Hexacore 140W TDP

All CPU's were run at 4GHz on all cores with the exception of the i7-4710HQ which ran at 3.5GHz on all four cores. The NP9870-G CPU was undervolted by 150mV and the
NP9758-G CPU was not undervolted at all.

Results are as follows:

Cinebench R15


wPrime 2.10 1024M 8 threads


x264 v5.0



From these results the i7-6700K is about 7-10% faster than Haswell i7-4790k, at the same 4GHz clock speed, and clearly blows away anything the mobile CPU can offer.



GPU NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 MOBILE DESKTOP

Nvidia likes to confuse us with their card lineups frequently, sometimes naming a card the same as another even though they are a different architecture (like the GTX 860 Maxwell and Kepler) or offering different clock speeds (like the upcoming 965m that is same as the current 965m just with a higher boost clock). In any case Nvidia decides to throw the GTX 980 desktop nomenclature at us for a laptop PCB. Why they couldn't just call it GTX 980m Ti or GTX 990m who knows, but I digress, it is what it is.

Speaking of the PCB, the GTX 980 is basically a modified MXM 3.0b card, with the most noticeable difference physically is it is wider than a typical MXM 3.0b card. This precludes it from running in SLI on typical SLI laptops because it will overlap the second slot. However at a supposed 200W TDP, the heat and power required to drive such a beast in SLI would require at least a 400W power supply and more significant cooling than what most laptops could provide. This single card alone requires two fans where one would typically cool a typical MXM 3.0b mobile GPU.

Reviewing the specifications of the card, it shows it is for all intents and purposes a GTX 980 desktop in a mobile package:

GPU Clock: 1190MHz boost to 1227MHz
Number of ROPs: 32
Number of Shaders: 2048
vRAM: 8GB GDDR5 at 7000MHz
Bus Width: 256-Bit
Bandwidth: 224 GB/sec
DirectX 12 and G-Sync compatible

And here's GPU-z details:


Unfortuantely clock speeds aren't reported properly in GPU-z, however when your stress the GPU you can clearly see the clock speeds:



GTX 980 vs 980m MXM 3.0b Dimensions





G-SYNC
Yes, this system does support G-sync as noted earlier. It is quickly becoming almost a necessity once you've used it, especially if you're OCD about texture tearing. That's about all there is to say.

Overclocking
Sager provides a new overclocking application with this NP9870-G laptop which allows for adjusting clock speed of the GPU core and GPU video RAM. It appears the GTX 980 has a completely unlocked core and video RAM can be adjusted up to 300MHz over stock (effective 600MHz more for 7600MHz max). It is simple to use and can be accessed through the Clevo Control Center. Unfortunately I was not able to get much overclocking out of this card, either due to driver issues or vBIOS or other, but was only able to achieve an extra 80MHz stable across all benchmarks. The video RAM ran nicely at the max 7600MHz but made little difference in performance at 1080p since it likely is not much of a bottleneck for the GTX 980 core when running at 7000MHz. Therefore I did not include any overclock results in my benchmarking because it was clear this is likely not representative of its actual potential.




GPU BENCHMARKS
This card was benchmarked with artifical and regular gaming benchmarks and compared with two other GPU's:

- NP9870-G with GTX 980 and i7-6700k
- NP9773 with GTX 980m and i7-4790k
- Desktop with GTX 980 Ti and i7-5820k

All systems ran the CPU at 4GHz on all cores and stock clocks and voltage, except the review unit which undervolted the CPU by 150mV.

ARTIFICIAL BENCHARK RESULTS:

3DMark 11 "P"


3DMark 11 "X"


3DMark Fire Strike


Unigine Heaven (1080p Ultra Full screen)



GAME BENCHMARK RESULTS:

Everything was run at 1080p and at or near maximum detail. Blue represents the Sager NP9773 with GTX 980m, green the review unit Sager NP9870-G with GTX 980, and red the desktop with GTX 980 Ti. Dark color represents minimum FPS, lighter color the average FPS. Percent improvement over 980m is shown as the red % value.





You can clearly see that the GTX 980 is a solid 35-40% faster than the 980m, and the desktop 980 Ti is roughly same amount faster than the 980. This is quite impressive considering you basically have a desktop system in a compact chassis.



POWER AND COOLING

Power
The NP9870-G comes equipped with a 330W power supply. Considering it's cooling a nearly 100W CPU and 200W GPU along with everything else this is a good thing. Power draw is actually considerably less than I would have expected, running at a peak 250-260W in the most demanding games. The power supply also never got warm to the touch, and surface temp was never in excess of 35C.

Power draw results were tracked through the CPU benchmarking as well as game benchmarking. Note that this is power draw from the wall.

CPU Benchmarks


GPU Artificial Benchmarks


GPU Game Benchmarks



Cooling
The NP9870-G offers three fans for cooling, two for the GPU and one for the CPU. This sytem of course came equipped with the desktop GTX 980 GPU and it consumes both GPU fans, but seems to do a more than adequate job of keeping it cool. If you opted for an SLI setup, each GPU would get a single fan, but they would also be a much lower TDP. In general the GPU tended to stay below 70C, except in a couple cases of Metro Last Light Redux and FFXIV where it rocketed up to the mid 70C's peak but averaged around 70C for the bulk of the benchmark.

The CPU cooling also seems sufficient especially when it is undervolted, keeping below 70C for the most part with a few exceptions like with wPrime, Crysis 3, and Batman Arkham Knight that ran up to 77C peak.

For cooling the stock fan profile seems to do OK, although it can act a bit flaky at times. If you stress the system immediately from an idle state, like running wPrime after the system has been sitting idle for a while, the fans will take a good 5-10 seconds to start ramping up, causing the temperatures to spike higher than they should. Also there are odd times when the fans will burst to near full speed even though temps are under 60C. But for the most part it keeps the system cool and the thick fan profile also keeps the noise at a lower pitch whoosh than a high pitched hum.

There is some adjustability to the CPU fan speeds through Clevo Control Center, allowing a user to set start fan temp and stop fan temp as well as what % you want maximum fan speed to be, limited to maximum of 80%. The GPU fans also have some adjustability through the new Clevo overclocking app setting the fan speed offset by up to 100%. That being said, a user also has the option of cranking the fans up to maximum manually by hitting Fn+1 on the keyboard or in the Clevo Control Center app.



In any case cooling results below are shown for the CPU and GPU benchmarks comparing with other system configurations.

i7-6700K Temperatures

CPU Benchmarks


Artificial Game Benchmarks


Game Benchmarks


GTX 980 Temperatures

Artificial Game Benchmarks


Game Benchamrks


Battery Life
Despite the NP9870-G housing desktop class components, it is still a laptop and comes with a massive 90WHr battery. So I ran it through two battery drain scenarios, one running in airplane mode, so no wireless data, with LCD at 50% brightness and power saver mode and backlit keyboard off and looped a 1080p movie and it ran an astonishing 2hrs and 58minutes long.

I also ran it through a light wireless load test with LCD at 50% brightness, power saver mode, backlit keyboard off, and achieved 3hrs and 11mins of battery life. So despite it's beefy components it can also run quite some time while on battery.


CONCLUSION

If you want a no compromise gaming laptop, the Sager NP9870-G with GTX 980 is a no brainer. We have finally come to a point where we can truly have a desktop in a laptop chassis. Granted the Sager NP9870-G is thicker and heavier than most, but it's clearly more portable than any traditional or even SFF desktop and contains a regular socketed 1151 CPU and same silicon as a desktop GTX 980. While we all wait for Pascal to drop sometime next year, the GTX 980 is sure to hold gamers over well into next year if not further, with it besting the 980m by a solid 40% and on par with any desktop 980. Having the flexibility of upgrading the GPU and CPU also adds to the desire for such a laptop and fully upgradeable as one sees fit.

Cooling is more than sufficient to keep these beastly components running cool, although the CPU does need a little undervolt to keep temperatures within reason. The chassis of the Sager NP9870-G is a diversion from traditional Sager design, however it is still subdued enough to use in a business environment, and is feels very robust despite it's all plastic exterior. It has a great overall set of features. The LCD has superb qualities for both desktop work and gaming, including G-sync capability to keep your visuals running smooth. Other items like dual gigabit ethernet, Killer 802.11AC 1535 wireless, three external display support, dual M.2 PCIe and two 2.5" drives, as well as Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 round out the package nicely.[/I][/B]

 

good job as always wingnut always marvel at how u find the time to take care of all these reviews *lol*

btw, unfair comparison of cpu temps and performance with the batman! -150mV UV on the phoenix and 4790k downclocked to 4ghz, not cool! (u surely understand where im coming from, haha )

 

I don't have the time, really, but I like doing them, so ...

 

It always amuses me to watch clevo/sager take the time and effort to try and keep everything standard, even in a machine like this.

Then you get Asus doing the exact opposite and trying to break the standard. *sigh*

The 200W 980 really does make the 980M look tiny

Note how the biggest expansion goes to the ram, if you look at how much extra space is taken by the VRM compared to the the extra space taken by the higher speed GDDR5 (and ground planes).

It really shows the biggest enemy you start facing is signaling issues (assuming you have the cooling to cope).

 

Thank you for taking the time to do another review. Very thorough, and it is always appreciated. Now I just need to get that white stripes song out of my head

 

The only reason this video is monetized is because of that song and it is by them, not me. I don't monetize anything on YouTube. Not enough traffic to bother, and best to avoid as many advertising annoyances as possible. Granted, with all the adblockers out there, I'd hope most people wouldn't deal with them anyhow.

 

Another great review! Gotta love those 950 pro speeds!

 

I think the battery life is a surprising strength of the machine considering the power, the 980 mobile can be pretty frugal however.

 

Especially the bigger 200w version in this beast. Might even be able to get a little longer if you could dim the screen farther and still see it

 

Yes it will provide better battery life than the SLI setup, nvidia really need to get a full zero core like AMD on the second GPU.

 

Thank you so much for the review! I have been looking for a new gaming laptop, and I am pretty much down to either the NP8658-S or this NP9870-S. There is a wealth of information and replies on the NP8658-S official thread supporting that the laptop shows no signs of throttling under load and lengthy gaming sessions.

Can you comment on the NP9870-S in this regard? Did you see any signs of overheating or throttling during extended gaming use? Did you run any tests that lasted longer than an hour or more?

 

The 8658 is a great PC, but the 9870 is even better. you shouldn't see any throttling on this machine and it'll run solid for long periods of time. Very good cooling system on it to keep the heat down while you are playing. You can almost think of the 8658 like the mustang, and the 9870 like the mustang roush edition. The size of the 9870 could be a person preference as it is much larger than the 8658 (or 8678 if you wanted the 17.3" version). If the 9870 matches your budget and the size is not an issue, pull the trigger, you won't regret it.

 

Thanks for the feedback! I have actually been eyeing both on your website recently I really do wish I could actually see/carry them in person before I order. I'm buying something to keep me entertained in the hotels on business trips, so size is certainly a consideration. Being able to compare the smaller, lighter 15" with the huge 17" might shed some light on what would suit my purposes better...

 

Always the tough part about buying online, but no where to really go to checkout sagers/clevo's that i know of.

Just as an idea, you might go to best buy and checkout a G752, the 752 is a little lighter (9.5lbs vs 10.5lbs) and a little smaller on almost all dimensions, but within a few 10th's of an inch, so it might at least give you a decent idea for the size. For the 8658 maybe a GL552 (i'm not sure if i saw these the last time i was there) but again about the same, the sager is actually slightly slimmer but same weight. Not a perfect solution but at least something?

Feel free to email me if you have any XPC questions! Hope you're liking our site!

 

Great review HT! Thanks for posting.

Curious, since you've spent time with both, would you go with the Phoenix or the Batman 2.0? I love portability, but reality is these sit on my desk most of the time and the Surface Pro is my mobile daily machine. Plus, I've gotten back into flight sims (P3D mainly), which devours CPU's like Peyton w/ Budweiser ha, so looking hard at the desktop CPU Sager's.

Another random question, I know you reviewed a GS60 a while back, would these Sagers be quieter or louder when gaming?

I would just build a desktop, but I do like being able to move around the house as needed, as well as the occasional trip.

Thanks for any insight! Additionally, and I know impossible to say, being it's now halfway through February, is now a terrible time to buy? Yes, I know it's always the right time and bad time ha, but you know what I'm saying....

 

If your computer is failing, or you know you need to upgrade for something coming up, then maybe that puts a little more pressure on buying right now. February might not be a huge month for sales going on, but check around to different resellers to see what they might have.

Do you think you will want to go with SLI or desktop 980? Those would be the biggest reasons to go with a Pheonix over a Batman. If you don't do it up front when you buy the system, you would still have that option down the road to upgrade those in the P870, that wouldn't be there in the P750/770.

 

Hi @ all,

just a quick question. As I am from Germany I have to get my P870DM-G from a german reseller.

Now I talked to one and he told me : if I take the GTX980 (desktop) I will not be able to use G-Sync with the FHD LCD
as the GTX980 will not support G-Sync?

Is that true? Does Clevo deliver different GTX980 variants with and without G-Sync?

Thanks a lot

 

There is a P870DM-G and P870DM that Clevo offers. You would want to check to see which version they are offering. The -G version is capable of G-Sync on the screen. It also just might depend on what screen panel they are using in the computer. Different Clevo sellers can use different screens, and they might be offering a screen that doesn't have GSync.

 

You might end up with an MXM module that does not support it too in a non -G machine.

 

Just checked with the sales guy and had a longer talk.
So the point is Nvidia sells the GTX980 with and without G-Sync.
The company offers the GTX980 with the 4K (which has no G-Sync) that why they only have the GTX980 without G-Sync.
On the other hand they offer the GTX980m as SLI with the G-Sync FHD panel!

Now I need some advice GTX980m - SLI G-Sync vs GTX980 non G-Sync.
My guess is that the performance (additional 20%) is not really worth the extra money (500Euro extra).
But what about G-Sync, is it really that good?

 

980M SLI is more than 20% ahead of a single 980 in games that support SLI.

1080P is the ideal resolution for pure gaming compared to 4k and a G-Sync panel is the icing on the cake.

 

Does the screen wobble/shake while typing?

 

No it does not.

 

Ok so i just received my p870dm-g.

I have to strongly disagree.

The laptop is very sturdy except for the screen. It is very sensitve to vibrations. Unlike my alienware 17 or the precision 7710 this is very similar to the msi gt72s.

Don't get me wrong, i like it but I'm very annoyed by the screen sturdiness.

 

Does this happen at all angles? Can you take a video?

 

Sure, let me setup my stuff.

However, nobody with a straight face can tell me the screen is sturdy. The palm rest plastic is stiff and doesn't flex. On the other hand, the screen is made of cheap plastic and it does "vibrate" easily. For example, when you place your hands on the palm rest.

I am a programmer, i type all day long.

 

That is rather common with a lot of Clevo models, unfortunately. Worse is when you use the closed lid as a tray and carry some stuff on it or tuck it into a bag with other stuff; if it flexes too much then it'll squash the lcd against the keyboard and/or palmrest, resulting in permanent backlight bleed. That'd be a terrible shame, especially with the 100% Adobe RGB panel ...

Have reinforced the display lid using a metal sheet, distributing the load to the sides. There's no more flex and it remains 'solid' even when closing/opening with one hand to the side, rather than at the centre. Due to the weird, angled shape this will take a trapezoid sheet and, as it'll be too long for a hacksaw, a dremel or angle grinder when cutting to size. Doesn't even have to look ugly or out-of-place; SolarEklipze did a splendid job with aluminium and carbon wrap.

If you still have warranty then ask your reseller if they're ok with that mod. Even though it doesn't require disassembly of any sort, it'd obviously void the warranty for the plastic display lid. Then again, it's a pretty useless part as it is now.

 

Interesting about the metal sheet.

But now I've got a couple of stuck white pixels on my 4k, so it's going back. Paid for the 45 days perfect lcd warranty.

Besides the screen problems this is an great piece of hardware.

 

@HTWingNut do you by chance have the screen calibration profile? Your test model is actually en route to me so I figure it'd be nice to have

 

No, sorry, don't have that profile.

 

Maybe ask Phoenix to see if he has a screen calibration, but it depends on what screen you have. I think he might have one, or know somewhere to get one.

 

HTWingNut, I have an issue with M.2 ssd installation. I installed a Samsung 950 PRO in SS01 and after a few weeks, the machines gave me constant beeps, fan went to maximum, then it would shut down. I called Eurocom and they told me to clean things out and try again. I did that to no avail. But, I decided to move the drive from SS01 to SS02. Seems to work now, but I noticed that in both slots, the drive had a slight up and down play. The screw wasnt making contact with the SSD board. This was the case in both slots. Did you experience this? Also,l the drives aren't showing in BIOS at all either. That doesn't sound right to me, but I wanted to get your take. Eurocom couldn't say without sending the laptop back to them. I'd like to avoid that if possible, but if it exhibits the same behavior, I'm thinking it's going to get an RMA. Anyway, I'm hoping you can shed some light.

Thanks

 

Thanks, I will give him a shot!

 

Give me your screen model. Use AIDA64 to find out the exact screen model:

 

make that a tequila please

 

Hey buddy, it's actually enroute still, just wanted to get prepared. It's the exact laptop that HTWingnut used in this review, not sure if it'll show you, but it will arrive in the next day or two

 

Have you inspected the first slot at all? Any chance of a picture of the pins?

 

So the screen back of P870DM-G is actually plastic?

The guys at notebookcheck said that it is pretty good for a screen cover, and that it would not cause any problems, they meant that lid is made of smooth aluminium, if I read their review of it correctly.

I am a bit confused about this.

Also, that alu back mod would mean destroying the actual cover and replacing it?

 

No no, the lid (the cover) is actually not bad. It's not amazingly sturdy but it's acceptable. The problem is the wobbliness of the screen frame.

Using it on your lap for example is insane, the screen "vibrates" easily. Also, my desk at work is not sturdy, so while typing or just placing my hands on the palm rest, the screen "shakes" a bit.

Seriously, Clevo could do better, check out the Alienware build.

 

Is it possible to make it sturdier in any way?

EDIT::: Like, can the screws be tightened? I don't know, it seems like a rather problem for the longevity of the product, but I guess that the Lid itself weights about 1KG alone, and it is kind of normal (The panel alone is 500grams, from their spec sheet)

 

does anyone know if there will be support for newer mxm gpus in this model? MSI guaranteed support for 2 gpu gens, but is there anything like that for this model?

 

I don't believe Clevo companies usually put a guarantee out on that. But typically most models seem to typically have support for 1 or 2 generations, yes. And there are often systems you can use some custom made changes to get newer cards to work, if they aren't officially supported.

 

The machines are using a standard MXM based firmware and monitoring scheme now, so really it depends on if the new cards make changes to that.

 

Don't @Prema is always there

 

saw the video review of this and it's nice that the disassembly is so easy.

 

??

 

Exactly, easy to upgrade and service and effort is put in to make it that way rather than fighting to keep everything hidden.

 

got a 950 pro and it's not visible in the BIOS/UEFI.

 

Sadly these things are not as simple as they used to be :/

 

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I really want to know how to see the exact panel model used in my P870DM, I got it repaired due to dead pixels from our re seller but I can't verify if it has the same panel model or an old one. Please help me. Thanks in advance!