[Review] Sager NP9873 / Clevo P870DM3 Quick Review by HTWingNut

waiting for the video

 

I partially agree, when i first got my system. With the default thermal paste (ICD i think) @ 4.5Ghz the processor reached a max of 85C with out any cooler under it.

Undervolting the 6700k is high recommended in these systems since the stock voltage has time and time again proven to be way higher than necessary. Some people have even hit 4.6Ghz at the stock voltage. Im running 4.6Ghz at a -70mV offset. and my max temps dont cross 75C. Though yes, i de-lidded my processor and using Kryonaut on the IHS with CLU on the die.

I somewhat agree with the compromises, but then again for someone who is going to shell out $4000 on a system of this caliber, should get a worry free experience dont you think ?

 

It's a fine line. There are only so many CPU's that Clevo (or any manufacturer) can choose from. So if Clevo only offer a lower TDP CPU like the i7-6700 that's 65W (compared with 91W of the i7-6700K) but you can't tune that CPU, so you're stuck with what Intel says you get both voltage and clock speeds. The i7-6700K you can adjust to i7-6700 levels if you want, or make it faster or slower or adjust voltage as you see fit. So pick your poison. Either get a CPU that runs cool but peaks at 3.8GHz and can't be configured in any way or get a CPU that you can configure how you want or to how your system can manage it.

I think people expect the world out of such a machine, despite it being $4000, you can't change physics. I think dual 1080's in such a small form factor is overly ambitious for certain, but it still knocks the socks off pretty much everything in the mobile market and even top end desktops, even if you do have to compromise a bit on performance. Maybe dual 1070's would be more appropriate, but even a slightly downclocked 1080 will beat the pants off a 1070.

 

"Beat the pants of" where does that saying come from lol ? DT 1070 and 1080 aren't too far apart, maybe up to 30%. The mobile 1070's in at least one of the MSI VBIOS have a 115W limit though which will dampen things a little. Still, good performance can be got at lower voltage clocks so probably shouldn't disappoint except for hardened overclockers.

 

When I get my laptop in at the end of the week I'll let you guys know how much delidding/CLU help things.

 

I would have preferred the GPU heatsinks didn't join the CPU's heatsink. It seems like a big compromise, perhaps a worthy one though.

 

whatever!! im going to order this laptop tomorrow cart total $4730
4k display btb

 

Are you making a video showing temps and OC with LM?

 

There is no OC to be had here, really. The CPU and GPU are at their thermal limits. I doubt that LM will help situation much.

By "beat the pants off" I mean just by tuning clocks a bit (no voltage adjustment without a mod it seems) it will still perform excellent, well above 1070 stock clocks.

 

It will run just fine stock and perform well, it's just as usual with a system of this caliber there is more room for tuning.

 

Fine tuning is great and always a fun part of a high end enthusiast machine. Generally you have head room for overclocking and fine tuning for greater performance. This particular model fine tuning will be to keep temps under control and from melting down. I guess that is fine tuning for performance also but not in the sense most people think about.

 

Clevo should have gone 18" chassis this time around maybe the LCD panels would have been a problem for them but they deserve a huge applaud for that Vapor chamber heatsink and the huge performance, absolutely a phenomenal innovative feat, A real DTR factor but for $3.5-4k+ imo Clevo really should have streamlined, Makes me feel that 870DM premature design idea is still in here with another point of interest, Those heatpipes and sharing heatsink could have been done by extending the chassis a bit and make individual vapor chamber HS.

Even the 1070SLI DM2, the slave heatsink has one of It's heatpipe come around the CPU heatsink's 2-screw down positions no idea on does it have any contact or not.

Thank you HTWingNut for the fantastic first hand impressions, Hope the hardcore enthusiasts can tame this much amount of power..

 

T0 be fair, there is not much wasted space inside the unit at all, it's about as compact as you can get it.

 

I mean the <red> marked heatpipe could be changed with one of the thicker pipes who go to the Cpu. Less stress for cpu heatsink, but with almost same cooling for the gpu.

 

It's a vapor chamber, the 4 heatpipes have already done the job of guiding the heat up it and the larger heatpipe is needed to be the primary heat carrier over if it's required.

You have think differently with vapor chambers

 

Is there any reason why the heat must be routed into shared heatsink and lower the cpu cooling? The middle Heatsink should manage the task quite brilliant(switched one of the thin heatpipes with the thicker one who goes against the CPU). But this is my opinion on this. I want more balanced cooling. I recommend testing without the thermal pad between the shared heatsink. This is to see how much the new shared solution affects the CPU temperature.

 

The 1080s will perform faster and faster the more cooling you give them. The 2nd fan is already doing what you say due to the vapor chamber (which runs all the way up to the fins). Swapping the heatpipe as you said would make the cooling worse for the GPUs.

 

Probably, but cpu suffers guaranteed by this. No one can guarantee that Clevo've tried what I say. Less Overclock on processor duo higher heat isn't either a preferred solution.

 

@Papusan The only option to improve cooling would be to go thicker, up to the P570WM levels. Many designs were tried, this heatsink was not just slapped in without testing

 

It's such a shame. The 870D hosed away heat on the CPU so efficiently.

@Meaker@Sager... Got your delidder prepped?

 

I am fully aware of this . But engineers have made mistakes before

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's more that 1 review where the CPU is hitting 100 degrees right?
If so the chances of it being a gimped HS decrease and it pointing more towards a compromised design.

 

That as using a not so high transfer thermal pad between the 2 heat sinks (GPU/CPU). Im sure better thermal pads will help with a 2-3C drop.

 

Would the GPU still not continue to dump heat onto the CPU heatsink though..? I'm assuming that's what's happening here since the isolated HS on the previous model was enough to curb CPU temps.

 

We need more tests with full Oc on the processor. But even with the new application of ICD and stock processor speed, I think the processor is in the hottest level
A low power thermal pads should lower the cpu temp a little notch. But whether this is enough is another matter. Liquid metal above and below IHS will contribute to lowering the CPU max temp with a nice 10C

 

True, but the CPU heatsink will be able to dump heat much faster as well over a much larger mass.

 

OC is out of the question right now. Get the temps to sub 80C, is the main thing. Maybe after that we might be able to add another 200Mhz to the clocks.

 

I swapped GPU's and the master GPU still hits 91C, while the slave GPU runs peak in low 70C. So either there is not good/uneven contact wtih the die, or the two heat pipes on the master GPU are not sufficient for cooling, or it's defective (I don't think that though). Curious if others find similar results to this. The master GPU does a little more work but not enough to justify a 20C+ temp difference IMHO.

 

i think we have to get used to Pascal turbo mode. the gpus wont stay at the same stock frequency and get cooler once u improve the cooling, but they will just use the additional headroom to boost clocks even higher! so the peak temps will stay the same on the gpus, no way around that (unless u lock down their turbo´s so that they stick to a specific clock). in turn, the cpu will have to deal with that excessive heat, no matter what. unless u put an isolator between the cpu and gpu heatsinks.... crazy thought, but i wonder what that would do to the cpu temps just slab a thin ceramic sheet between the two and see what happens!

 

On my unit the temps under load are in the high 80s but heat is distributed evenly in contrary to the original P870DM whrere the card in the middle got about 10c hotter. Maybe your heatsink is warped?

By the way: which is the mastercard on P870DM3, the one in the center of the chassis?

Gesendet von meinem SM-G928F mit Tapatalk

 

Underclock the CPU, disable HT, disable Turbo...that way you will know if it's the CPU heat causing the higher temps on the Slave card (center card).

EDIT: Oh just saw that the Master (left card) is running hotter, well no idea then if swapping cards didn't change it then it maybe a contact thing. That little screw (on the left) that attaches the heatsink to the frame may lift it a bit too high...

 

According to the @HTWingNut video, the master GPU is the one on the outside (or left side when the bottom is removed and the cards are facing 'up')

[Edit] - Ninja'ed by @Prema w/ the post on the following page.

 

The master card and slave cards on my system are about 5 degrees apart when running unigine heaven

 

I'll have a look myself as well.

 

Yes we hope this margin can be lessened.
Sager has said that the NP9377 with the SLI 980M's had this type of difference in temps many times with no real concerns or issues.
Of course we would like the gap to be little closer for the master and slave GPU.

 

You are buying the ultimately tunable laptop, with the highest performance possible with the right combination of parts and settings. You can spec it out to the seller as best as you can, and they can build it the best as they can, but they are *all* one off custom builds, with many many many variables.

It would take the builder many days of testing and tuning and tweaking and swapping of parts to get everything tested and perfected.

I takes a lot of time trying many different pastes and shims and pads that match up the GPU(s)/CPU to the cooling plates, and then tune the GPU(s)/CPU with their individual characteristics. Tuning the OS along the way, installing lots of benchmark apps, monitoring apps, tuning apps, etc etc.

Think of all the time Mr. Fox, Prema, Phoenix, to name a few of those dozens that have opened up their process for viewing here - over weeks and weeks of improvements and changes.

There is literally no way that a builder can deliver the perfectly built and tuned laptop to you as a Rush Build - Gotta Have it Now - 24 over night delivery. Even Mythlogic only takes a week or two.

So, no you really can expect perfection, no matter how much you spend given the typical build.

You could pay another $5k-10k per model, and then another $2-3k per unit to get someone to build up a tuning profile for a laptop specification, and then build to that spec a 10 t0 couple of hundred units tuned to that spec, and that would be when you could something close to perfection.

Gunsmiths' also take a long time for perfection

 

*giggle*
*more giggling*
How'd you think i run my GPU at those clocks 24/7 and the processor


I dont mean this in an offensive way, i get what you are trying to say and can relate to it. But in most cases temps are never this drastic at stock.

 

I was answering your question should you expect perfection for $4000, not the heat issue.

The heat issue is likely not going away, even with Prema tuning, it's happening in other laptops too. The Pascal CPU's run up high temps under heavy load.

The way around it is to pull back on load when it's spilling over your refresh rate - why allow games to run at 200+ fps when your screen is 60hz, or even 120hz, that's a big % of load that can be reduced and still meet the need.

If your workload, like rendering takes the GPU's into the Red Zone, you'll need to tune the workload down a bit to get the GPU's to run cool.

Prema's tweaks and tools can help with that, when they arrive.

 

Jesus dude touchy much? Didnt even mean any of that in an offensive way, but whatever. You are going on about putting in effort to tweak things, have you even looked at my GPU Heat sink mod with the shims ? Do you even know if you processor is lapped? Do you know that i use CLU with shims on my processor IHS as well ?
You are going ahead and assuming things, and cant even take a light hearted reply in return, and then calling me an ass.
Oh and go ahead and play a few highly competitive fast paced FPS's and then maybe comment on the whole fps over refresh rate business.
You are not trying to have an intellectual decision, you are trying to defend a flawed design (IMHO).

Cant even remember why i stopped ignoring you, must have been someone who convinced me that you are not someone who just preaches than actually practice.
Ignore list it is.


@HTWingNut Will it be possible to compare the finger print scanner to the one in the P870DM-G? It doesn't seem like it is the same old slide the finger types and seems to be larger.

 

Yes, I will look at the fingerprint scanner for sure.

It's hard to be upset at the performance this laptop brings even if it needs some tuning and slight compromises. Does it run hot? Sure. Does it annihilate pretty much every laptop on the market? Absolutely yes.

 

True, best there is out there, at the moment.

 

@HTWingNut Have you looked at how paste is spread after a new application on cpu, gpu? This will tell a lot if heatsink is uneven / warped.

 

Yep. I just looked at that, and it doesn't seem like it's making good contact. I removed all the thermal pads to see if I could get the paste to spread if those were causing it to stand off a little too much (just setting heatsink on it, didn't run it without pads), but it didn't change the pattern at all. It seems the card needs to be shimmed up somehow. Was considering using some real thin cardboard underneath the card screw stanchions, but then it might angle it too much that it won't make contact on the other side. But I need something really heat resistant.

 

Yeah, seems like the left one has a pretty nice gap. @Meaker@Sager 's system seems to have way better temperatures. \
Do you think the heat sink is warped a bit and is lifted up towards the left.

 

Be VERY careful of thermal pad placement, they will need to be spot on.

 

Yep. I took photos and replaced exactly. I also checked for impressions to make sure they were properly positioned.

 

Ok and thanks for your reply. Clevo have to go through their QC again. + All resellers must step up and test the machine properly before shipping to its customers. Not many have this machine in hands and can show us temperature numbers, but this doesn't look promising... Hope we can see a lot more tests... So Clevo can have a reference on how big the problem is.

 

The problem with using one monolithic heatsink is that everything has to be PERFECTLY aligned. With a dual heatsink design, there's at least a little bit of leeway because the two GPUs don't need to be flush with each other.

Still wondering about the ESS Sabre DAC though. Does it show up under device manager?

 

Always best to apply termal pads directly on the GPU components that need them rather than sticking them to the heat sink and hoping everything lines up. Placing the pads on the GPU removes any guesswork about alignment.

I agree 100%... unified heat sinks in general are not a good approach. Laptops are not manufactured with enough precision for that. As a consequence, the thermal management is frequently hit or miss due to sloppy fit.

 

If this is a big problem(a lot have heat problems)... Clevo need to make changes... And I have always said unified heatsink will be - and is a problem. + that big boy heatsink has to be perfectly fit if the results shall be good enough. Make a thread especially for temperature tests for that machine!! <If> several have Temperature problems and can publish, it's easier to do something with the problem. Without numbers, nothing will be done!!