*** Official Clevo P177SM-P170SM / Sager NP8290-8270 Owner's Lounge ***

Hi guys, in the review of hardware heaven the P177SM hinges where sturdy, but the case is not the same as P170SM. When i had my experience last year with P170EM the hinges could be better, is that thing solved in the P170SM ? (I don't like bling ). Another thing that people aren't talking about is DDR3L. When i went to Intel ARK looking for specs of the 4800MQ it appeared compatible memory is DDR3L (DDR3 low voltage, up to 1.35) and not DDR3 at 1.5v.

 

solved

second slot msata is usable.... single or raid 0 ...locatioin are:
one slot msata are across cpu , and second below the primary 2.5 slot
http://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/Notebooks/Schenker/XMG_P703/innen3.jpg
http://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/Notebooks/Schenker/XMG_P703/innen8.jpg

 

Ivy Bridge was also DDR3L but 1.5V worked. I will go for the low voltage DDR3L when I buy. Mythlogic advertises "low voltage" in their options. I haven't seen it advertised on Sager reseller sites but I suspect it's available for asking.

 

How do you know that both mSATA ports are now working?

 

Will you please announce it here when this issue is fixed?

 

Ivy and haswell both support ddr3 and ddr3l. Bios support for switching down to 1.35v varies.

 

i have a clevo p170sm ..
I ordered two msata intel 525 120GB, i try 'to mount

 

Please tell me if the lid doesnt shake (if the hinges arr strong to keep it in place while moving around a few meters for example).

 

FYI, the NP8270 is up on Sager and its resellers. Non-bling edition is a go.

The whole point of the hybrid drives is to be used as boot drives, as smaller apps are stored in the NAND to help with faster loading. As a storage drive, none of its advantages are really being used. You're better off saving some dollars on a standard 7200rpm bulk drive.

As far as screens, glossy has just gotten on my nerves, because of the reflections. I actually have the 90% gamut AUO in my NP8170, and it's seriously one of the most beautiful things about my laptop, but I still find myself wishing I had an anti-glare panel. My next laptop will have the matte option, and it'll make me a lot happier.

You aren't making a bad choice with the screen, far from it. It's an incredible view. I just wish I couldn't see myself in it. Finally, matte displays have no effect on gaming.

 

Just added to our post at the top some shots of our BIOS, with all sorts of options for your tweaking pleasure..

 

Holy makerel! Look at all the options!

 

There are more there if you get a fully unlocked one ofc.

 

the p170sm arrived , i've change order for the msata sdd , from intel 525 sandforce :-( ---> to plextor m5m , --marvell...
for try first i'm mount the 840 pro samsung , ( for raid 0 of msata quite 5gg)

 

Intel overrides the sandforce brand IMO, they use their own firmware that went through their own validation.

 

Should I get the y510p SLI, GT70-2OC, or Sager NP8290 to play Crysis 3, BF3, and Far Cry 3 on high settings? Or any other recommended laptop under 1400$ to play these. Thanks

 

Hi all,
I am a prospective 8270 owner. I have been doing my research, and I have yet to find something that beats this for what I am looking for (gaming, 17", under 1500, OS included). Before i pull the trigger, i had a few final questions:
- price. It seems that lpc digital and powernotebooks have the lowest (and exact same) price. Any ideas on where else to look to get a better deal?
- screen upgrade. I hate glossy, but there is an option for 72% NTSC matte. Is this worth it? has anyone seen both that can opine on the difference?
- this comes with 16 GB ram, a 770, a 750GB 7200, a 6x bluray reader, free upgraded thermal compound, and an upgrated wifi card. Any obvious other things to upgrade that I am overlooking?
- any other war stories people have that I can learn from?

 

Thinking about getting this build:

Sager NP170SM

- i7-4800MQ
- GTX780M
- 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
- Seagate 750GB 7200rpm + 8GB SSD Hybrid HDD/SSD Combo (Or should I go for (cheaper) stock 750GB 7200rpm HDD?)
- 256GB Crucial mSATA SSD
- Win 8

 

Stop thinking and do it!

No need to use a hybrid drive if you'll be using it for storage which I assume is what you plan on doing with the larger SSD you got in there. Save yourself some bucks and go with the non hybrid drive.

 

Well, I was thinking about installing Windows and other crap (Browsers, Office etc.) on the SSD, and my games on the (Hybrid) HDD. I would love to install Steam on a 500GB SSD, but that SSD is expensive as hell. So I gues I will install Steam on a hybrid drive, cus 256GB SSD isn't enough.

I mean, what's the difference between an normal HDD, and a Hybrid HDD? When I will install my games on a HDD, will it be worth getting the Hybrid? Cus a Hybrid HDD is faster than a normal HDD right?

 

The Hybrid HDD is only faster when it comes to caching smaller apps in that 8GB of NAND, helping an OS installed on the drive to boot faster and load apps more quickly. It's totally wasted as a bulk game storage drive.

Get a standard HDD.

 

What the hybrid does is cache your most commonly used files automatically to be accessed faster. You will have zero control over what it caches, nor will you have access to that SSD portion of the drive, done entirely on the hardware side. So it will speed up file load times for games you play all the time, but not for everything. So for example if you play BF3 a lot and you tend to play certain maps more than others, the drive will "learn" that you access those files more often and will load them faster than they normally would. Now if you play a game you haven't played in months, that will load at the same 7200 RPM HDD speeds you're used to.

If you have ~200gb+ of games install at once I'd venture a guess that you don't play all of them regularly, so I normally suggest just doing some maintenance on your side and manage the games installed to the ones you actually play. If you happen to want to play a game you haven't touched in a while, redownload/install and restore your data file back up so you have access to your saves, settings, and unlocks.

 

Allright thanks. I am still considering the 500GB Samsung 840 SSD. It's big and fast, but boy it's expensive!

Allright man, thanks for the help! Much appreciated. A bit too much hassle for me, I will go with a standerd HDD than.

 

Anytime! It seems like a lot of hassle but once you break it down to what you actually play and unlikely to play again you'd be surprised how easy it is to manage. Steam is a great program for managing your games and makes stuff like this easy.

 

Yeah, Steam is indeed very great. I still don't know if I should go for the standard Seagate HDD (750GBB, 7200rpm), or a 500GB Samsung 840 SSD (+€350). If I will buy the SSD, my price will go way up to €2,5K. Not dollars, but euros. That's like $3,3K. In Europe prices are ridiculous. I would love to buy from the USA, but taxes, shipping etc. will probably make it just as expensive as buying this build in the Netherlands.

 

Could always buy the machine with just the 750gb in it then purchase the SSD yourself and install it. Price will likely be a little better.

 

You are right. I found the exact same Samsung 840 SSD (500GB) for ~€100 less.

 

Hi guys. I will likely be purchasing the 8270 (170SM) likely soon. Can anyone who has purchased it comment on the trackpad and speakers? I'm reading not so good reviews about it on the 150SM thread and I fear it's going to be the same on the 17inch cousins. Also, can anyone do a quick video overview of the 170SM? There are several videos of the 177SM, but none for the 170SM.

I'm wavering between the MSI GT70 and this, and personally, the better speakers and keyboard on the MSI GT70 look very tempting. But with temps going into the 90C range has me worried about the long-term longevity of the machine, thus am looking at the 170SM.

Any help would be greatly appreciate it, thanks!

 

Any idea when those 8970m's are set to arrive?

 

Sager resellers should be just about any time now. ETA of Late June was given and seeing as how June is close to being over we should be seeing them in the next week or so. System builders should be getting them right around the same time.

 

Excellent! Thanks for the response. I have a pre-order system waiting on these to arrive

 

Awesome, your wait should be drawing to a close as long as AMD follows through on their ETA projection.

 

How is the cooling on these with a 780m? Does the cpu run o good temps when gaming? Should be ordering mine shortly

 

The 780M in recent tests has run cooler than the last gen 680M is benchmarks and gaming. The WHOLE experience is cooler than before...

 

Really? I thought almost all of HTWingNut's results showed the 780m running 5-10 degrees higher than the 680m? Critically, almost always bumping temps over the 80 mark.

I've been hanging out for the 8970m temp results.

 

Over 80C is not bad doing EXTREME stuff. Look at the VERY bottom of his review in the CONCLUSION where it said.....


CONCLUSION

"The GTX 780m has proven to be no slouch with performance, and offers considerable improvement in cooling as well......a bit of a disappointment though that the power supply won't be able to provide enough juice for a software overclock that this machine had no troubles managing heat-wise."

 

If you look at the temperatures, you can't compare 680m with 780m stock because of the performance difference. In reality you have to look at the overclocked 680m at 1000/2400 (~ +38% core / +33% vRAM) vs 780m at stock where performance is about equivalent and the temperatures are cooler by 5-10C on the 780m, in some cases 15C+ cooler.

 

Ah yes, understood.

I suppose I'm still desperately trying to look at it from a fan noise perspective. I haven't used one before, but was fairly certain I'd read that the fans really start to go hard when temps reach above 80 degrees. The stock 680m managed to stay under that number for the most part.

For me, the power reduction is worth it for less fan noise. While the 780m sure is a powerful beast, video's like this: Clevo P150SM Game Benchmarks - YouTube , scare me a bit. I'm confident that the stock 680m is more than enough power for me.

I'd have pulled the trigger on a p157sm / p177sm a month ago if I felt more confident about its noise emissions.

 

You can always UNDERCLOCK and UNDERVOLT your 780m to 680m performance and temperatures will be very low and fan noise nearly non-existant. They will likely rarely ever exceed 70C.

 

I'd need a custom BIOS to undervolt though wouldn't I?

 

Sorry if this has already been asked heaps, but with a $30 difference is there any particular reason to choose the P177SM over the P170SM?

 

Well my P170SM just arrived, just finished installing drivers, windows 8 made some "dos test", and my 780m just hit 95ºC, yes and i'm using AC at 20ºC ambient temp. The only thing i changed was cpu thermal paste, i guess tomorrow will be the gpu. The temp was monitored with HWMonitor x64

 

looking at buying the new 8270, how are the keyboards on them?

EDIT: How is the sound nowadays too.

 

Well i'm going to tell you what i think, but keep in mind that i'm going to tell you next. My previous laptop was a Asus N53SV, and pretty much, the sound is a little bit better, but not awesome, it sounds nice, it does it work, but it's a laptop. If you want good sound connect your headphone jack. The keyboard for me is ok. The FN key on the right side is weird, the feeling type is ok, some keys i think they are just to small (i'm used to the big enter key and not a small one), but there are others. No keyboard flexing or at least almost none. The hinges of the laptop are ok, but not great (it shakes a little while carrying it around), my last asus had a sturdy ones.

 

Well i'm going to tell you what i think, but keep in mind that i'm going to tell you next is based purely on my experience. My previous laptop was a Asus N53SV, and pretty much, the sound is a little bit better, but not awesome, it sounds nice, does it's work, but it's a laptop. If you want good sound connect your headphone jack. The keyboard for me is ok. The FN key on the right side is weird, the feeling type is very nice, some keys i think they are just to small (i'm used to the big enter key and not a small one), but there are others. No keyboard flexing or at least almost none. The hinges of the laptop are ok, but not great (it shakes a little while carrying it around), my last asus had a sturdy ones.

 

Keyboards are relatively the same as they ended up being with the last gen. No complaints have been heard from out customers that I've heard so they must be doing pretty well. Audio is the same sound controller as the previous gen as well. So no professional/audiophile quality audio but it's about average for a laptop.

 

Are the temperatures on these more reasonable than some of the other notebooks in its range? I was looking at the MSI gt70 but am wary on its temps,

 

What do you consider reasonable? You won't be able to make bacon on it, but the same can be said for the other models in the range as well. All the offerings are going to have safe temps for what's in it, nobody wants to deal with RMA issues because their laptop turned out to be a portable heater instead, beyond that it's going to depend on what temps you're personally looking for. To get an idea you can check out WingNuts P157 review where he reports lower temps (by 10c if I remember) than an equally specced 9150. They fixed the heatskink gap issue that people reported with the previous gen and the components themselves also run cooler.

 

Hello,

I am about to purchase a laptop; however, I have a question which is going to determine my choice. This is regarding whether the P170sm or its predecessor the P170EM can output 1920x1080 at 120hz on an external monitor via displayport. Note, 3D is not important for me, I am only looking for the 120hz at 1920x1080.

Relevant specs and ports for both laptops:

170SM: mini- and normal displayport 1.2 with Intel HD4600
170EM: normal displayport 1.1a with Intel HD4000 (either 7970m with enduro or 680gt with optimus)

Some people say that it is not possible because 120hz is being limited by the intel gpu through optimus or enduro, but they cannot tell for sure.

I really hope that someone can provide me with an answer so that I can go and pick one of these bad boys already

Thanks!

 

Wow. Yes - please - someone answer this!

I just ordered a p157sm, assuming I could grab a 3D monitor and get down with the third dimension.
Might have to make a last second correction and grab a p375sm instead!

 

After literally months of painful research, I just ordered this!

P170SM
Optical drive: Blu-ray Reader/DVD burner combo drive
Wireless WiFi: Intel Advanced-N 6235 WiFi and Bluetooth v4.0
Operating system: Windows 8 - 64-bit with DVD and drivers (A$99.00)
Screen type: 17.3" FHD 1920x1080 LED/LCD 72% Colour Gamut Matte
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M 2GB GDDR5 graphics
Processor: i7-4700MQ Quad Core CPU 2.4GHz up to 3.4GHz
RAM memory: 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM (4 x 4GB)
mSATA mini SSD: 128GB Plextor M5M mSATA - 540/320MBs (A$99.00)
Primary drive: 750GB 7200 rpm primary hard drive

Nervously excited!