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

Oh definitely the second (370 series has no enduro so no driver issues with that) but swapping to the CPU to the 4800MQ.

 

Ah cheers for that mate, that had definitely cemented my choice (a little more). I think I would enjoy the fancy LEDs on the P177SM but after a while they would be turned off for most of the time.

Also the 4800MQ seems to be a general consensus, however I just wanna max it out for years to come hence why I wanna get the 4900MQ. Also I'll be adding a second GPU next year at some point so I just don't wanna be bottlenecked.


Sent from my baked potato

 

If you leave them at stock due to the TDP limits (47W) they will both end up at the same frequency. Same is true for overclocking as they both exceed the maximum frequency you can get at the max TDP they allow (around 3.9ghz).

Unless you have very special programs that are cache sensitive then it's 4800MQ or 4930MX.

The 4930MX has full TDP unlocks so it can go as far as your cooling.

 

Hmm... ok so the 2MB cache boost isnt worth it in the 4900MQ?

Also, sounds like you're saying I can get the 4800MQ to run as fast as the 4900MQ with just a little overclock? I aint too experienced with OC'ing laptop CPUs though.

 

Both are partially unlocked, the 4800 lets you add 400mhz to the 4 core turbo (3.5 -> 3.9), the 4900 lets you add 600mhz but the TDP means you cant really get more than 3.9ghz anyway.

 

Right ok, so having the 4900MQ is totally pointless??

 

There are a few edge cases and maybe you get a good chip and it does a little more but for the most part the 4800mq makes sense usually.

 

Wow ok so the 4800MQ is basically the sweet spot of the current CPUs right?

So I'll be doing the right thing getting it instead of the 4900MQ, and spending the cash on an HDD and mSATA?


Sent from my baked potato

 

For the vast majority of people that is true yes, a faster SSD (by virtue of being bigger) will give you a better user experience.

It's only the 4930MX that becomes a different beast with tweaking since everything is unlocked.

 

Okay, great!

I'll have to reduce my choice to the HD 8970M as well, if I'm to get the 1TB HDD and 256MB mSATA drive.

Lets hope it's a good trade off.

Sent from my baked potato

 

I'd recommend it only for the 9390/9380 over the 780M if it can be had within budget. With enduro on the 8970 I still think the 780M has value.

 

Spend money on the GPU first, then allocate what's left to the accessories. That means you take the 4700MQ if it means a faster GPU. Longevity comes from raw graphics power, not CPU speed or storage space.

 

Right.

Well I'll be going for the P370SM, and that has the Intel GPU disabled... So no Enduro!

As far as I can tell, the 8970M will be of good value, eat less power and produce less heat too.

I am, the GTX 780M just isn't worth it for me. I can get the 8970M and overclock it so it achieves results very close to the 780M. And I bet it will still run cooler.



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I wouldn't count too much on lower GPU temps. The AMD cards are pretty toasty especially if you're planning on overclocking. The Nvidia willy typically run cooler from what I've seen.

 

Hmm ok, well from what I've seen on the benchmarks 8970M seems to run at least 10C cooler than the GTX 780M. Which I guess is normal considering at stock clocks GTX 780M is faster and is rated to use more power.

Still, I'm pretty sure I'll be more than happy with 2 8970M Xfired (eventually). For now I'll only be getting one put in, I've seen that it can handle most demanding games pretty easily.

Maybe 8990M will be released at the beginning of next year as well, I'll just get 2 of those haha *wishful thinking*

 

Oh both will get super toasty with overclocking, the only reason the 780M does not get crazy hot later is a built in 90-93C throttle point.

 

You do know that the P170/177 can only handle one gpu, right?

 

Got my p170sm in today from xoticpc. I'm a little perplexed by the audio drivers. The soundblaster audio drivers consistently report that "no supported devices available".

Specs:
i7-4700MQ
gtx 780m
16gb ram
Samsung 840 120gb x2 (RAID 0).

3dMark11 score was 5309 without any overclocking. Does this seem accurate for the specs?

 

For the audio you have to install audio drivers first and then the soundblaster software on top. Install latest Nvidia/Intel VGA drivers and rerun 3dmark. You should get closer to 7500 points. Also, svl7 modded 780M vbios makes wonders to 780M card, no throttling and great OC potential)

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

Thanks for the advice Red Line. I am using the latest nvidia and intel drivers. Should I do the beta drivers from nvidia?

 

Do these models have the power supply limitation like the P150/P157 models do when you try to over clock?

 

NiXnCO, you can give it a shot! But i think it's better to run MSI afterburner in the background while you bench to see if there're any clock drops. And if they're present - your best bet would be to flash svl7 modded vbios to the card.

ajnindlo They have 230W PSU's unlike P150-57SM models with 180W PSU. It will be sufficient for all your needs, including heavy overclock!

 

Yep, hence why I'm actually talking about the P370SM.

Sent from my baked potato

 

Well, just thought since this was the p170/p177 thread...

Thanks Red Line

 

I know!

To be honest I'm still a little bit on the fence about which one to go for. The P177SM got the fancy lighting and slightly more appealing design, P370SM got better cooling and dual GPUs.

I've got one more week to decide, and I dont wanna mess this up since it will be my main gaming laptop for a few years. :/

 

What are the actual temperature differences between the two under the same load?

The P15x has optimus/enduro for lower power usage. This appeals to me, since it saves on the electric bill, and gives better battery life. I am not a big fan of sli/xfire because of issues. If you later wanted to add a second card it will cost a lot. I think the 780M is $600 or more, not sure exact price. And I have heard price stays high from Sager. If you get it from elsewhere, you may have to flash it to make it Sager compatible.

The P370 has the possiblility of 3D & 120hz, and later upgrading to sli.

There are initial cost differences as well.

I am also kind of, on the fence, between the P157, P177, and P370 (3D)...

 

Well, to be honest I personally dont care about the battery life. I'm buying the P370SM for desktop replacement purposes and thus not interested in how portable it is.

I think I will be going for the P370SM with 2x Radeon HD 8970M to get the max gaming performance and so I dont have to mess about with GPUs. Other things like RAM, SSD, HDD I can upgrade later.

Here is my preliminary config (will be finalized at the end of next week):

XMG P723 17.3" Pro Gaming Notebook

Display
1 x 17.3" (43.9cm) Full-HD 1920x1080 Matte - Without XMG logo £0.00
Graphics Card
1 x 2x AMD Radeon HD 8970M 4096MB GDDR5 CrossfireX £262.50
Processor
1 x Intel Core i7-4800MQ Quad Core - 2.70 - 3.70GHz 6MB 47W £110.83
Thermal Compound
1 x Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound £0.00
Memory
1 x 8GB (2x4096) SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM 1600MHz Crucial Ballistix Sport £44.17
Hard Drive
1 x 320GB SATA-II 5400rpm Seagate Momentus (ST320LM001) £0.00
Optical Drive
1 x DVD-RW £0.00
WIFI Card
1 x Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 (with Bluetooth) £17.50
Keyboard
1 x Backlit Keyboard UK English £0.00
Warranty
1 x Standard Warranty : 24 Month Collect & Return (inc parts, labour, support, shipping) £0.00
Operating System
1 x No Operating System £0.00
Office Software
1 x Microsoft Office 365 30-day trial version (only when Windows 7 or 8 is ordered) £0.00
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Cable £0.00

TOTAL = £1,545

 

That's a slow hard drive, I would seriously consider instantly replacing that.

 

I cant. £1,500 is the arial on the roof of my budget for now.

I will eventually buy an SSD/mSATA + 1TB HDD.

 

It will seriously hold back your general experience until you do so it has got to be first on the list!

 

I know man, it's one of the easiest things to upgrade. Hence I'm leaving it till later. I wanna get the most powerful CPU + GPU setup on initial purchase.


Sent from my baked potato

 

I say at least spend the extra 14 and get a 7200rpm drive to start...

 

I will get the Hitachi 1TB 7200 HDD later.

For now I'll have to put in my current HDD.


Sent from my baked potato

 

I was going to ask what you had at the moment.

I understand the situation you are in, you seem aware of what you are getting so all is good really.

I ran a radeon 8500 card with a pII 400Mhz back in the day lol, I did phased upgrades.

 

Yeah I've been researching the components for over a month now, I've come to another conclusion recently. Not sure if its a good one...

I changed the CPU to the 4700MQ, so I can get the 1TB Travelstar HDD + the Blu-Ray drive. Do you think its a good idea?

Will the 4700MQ be enough not to bottleneck the 2x 8970M cards? Can it still OC enough to be as powerful as the 4800MQ, or is that locked down because its a Haswell entry version?

 

Today is a happy, happy day! No, not because the XboxOne got released, but because I ordered my P170SM!

Display: Matte
CPU: Core i7 4700MQ
GPU: GeForce GTX780m
RAM: 16gb Corsair Vengeance
mSATA SSD: 128gb Plextor
HDD 1: 1TB Hitachi Travelstar
HDD 2: 1TB Hitachi Travelstar
Optical Drive: Samsung Blu-Ray & DVD Writer
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit

So looking forward to getting it and throwing some games at it. Especially looking forward to being able to use it on my lap (with cooling mat, obviously) without having my legs crushed like with my current x7200. Only problem is I ordered it through the family business which is based in Wales, but I live in England so I can't just pop over and pick it up when it gets delivered, but luckily enough we're going to spend christmas with my family this year (as we spent last year's with the wife's family) so it won't be too long before I get my hands on it haha.

 

Wow, pretty good specs there mate! Congrats.

I wouldn't count on using it on your lap, its still pretty heavy! Over 4kg easy with 2 HDDs.

On another note I'll be putting in an order for my P370SM on Monday morning!

Should be with me by the end of next week, hopefully! Since I'll be paying for quick build. xD

 

I did the opposite moving to the P570WM but enjoy the new machine, lots of storage space there

 

Haha don't worry I know it's not going to be exactly light, but having coped with using one that's well over 6.5kg on my lap for almost 3 years, 4kg will feel like an ultrabook to me

 

Hahah, wow 6kg?? Thats immense lol

I guess your legs are reminiscent a Tour De France cyclist now

 

Haha not quite. I didn't think it was too bad when I first got it but these days it is a bit much, especially when gaming for a couple of hours. It did keep me quite fit when I used to walk 20 minutes to work with it strapped to my back each day, though. Glad I don't have to do that anymore now I work from home haha. It's a hell of a machine but hell of a weight and size.

 

Hey guys. I just bought a P170SM from XoticPc and I just want to know something...

1 x HDMI output Port (with HDCP)

The HDMI port is said to be HDCP. I want to use my PS3/WiiU HDMI recorder with the laptop for long livestream sessions and recording. Yeah I know the laptop is great enough for this task but the HDMI recorder can do the job instead of spending cpu usage.

Did anyone had any trouble with that port ?

 

Does anyone know if you can over clock the display to increase from 60Hz to something higher? Or is this not possible because of Optimus?

 

Hahah yeah sounds like a monster!! I thought my current Acer 7720G was massive lol

Some advice mate, sit at a table when you're gaming properly. Oh and invest in a Notepal U3 cooler, its amazing

Yes you can according to Meaker.

I suggest you PM him and ask how you can do it.

 

Any system without optimus or enduro (or that can turn them off) can overclock the display.

 

I am going to order a 170SM in the next week, (still deciding between lpc-digital an Xotic), and I'd asked Larry at LPC this question. He didn't know the answer, and suggested this forum.

If I add the Soundblaster X-Fi, does the sound come through the laptop speakers, and is it a lot better (in games)? Also, does the X-Fi surround encoded audio and Radeon Video get sent through the hdmi interface if I hook it to a surround A/V system? This is how I would want to play games on this.

Thanks everyone!

 

The HDMI audio, any added sound card and the built in are all separate audio devices.

Only the built in chip can use the internal speakers.

If you use the XFi usb while watching something then you will need to hook it up to headphones/speakers or the TV though like I say the HDMI audio is separate and digital.

 

As far as I know there is no way to turn off Optimus on the NP8275, so that's that.

 

I haven't tried, but what about sending the usb sound cards output to the Audio in port of the built in sound card?

 

I am checking the performance of the controller intel channels mSATA raid 0 , after replacing the system board and bios updated by clevo , I find strange values ​​in the benchmark , much more ' lower than normal , almost equal to half the speed of a plextor ssd
Plextor M5M 128GB mSATA SSD Review - Legit ReviewsPlextor Joins The mSATA Crowd

before you replace the mobo bios and I had a great using benchmarks but the raid was very unstable because of hardware bugs on the mSATA , had average values ​​of 800 -900 on the crystal disk mark on raid 0
now here's the raid 0
-------------------------------------------------- ---------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 ( C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-------------------------------------------------- ---------------------
* MB / s = 1,000,000 byte / s [ SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte / s]

Sequential Read: 481 314 MB / s
Sequential Write: 482 579 MB / s
Random Read 512KB : 501 894 MB / s
Random Write 512KB : 448 841 MB / s
Random Read 4KB (QD = 1): 29 209 MB / s [ 7131.2 IOPS ]
Random Write 4KB (QD = 1): 74 299 MB / s [ 18139.4 IOPS ]
Random Read 4KB (QD = 32) : 235 334 MB / s [ 57454.7 IOPS ]
Random Write 4KB (QD = 32) : 340 594 MB / s [ 83152.8 IOPS ]

Test: 100 MB [ C: 22.0 % ( 25.8/117.2 GB )] ( x2)
Date: 24/11/2013 12:16:48
Windows 8 Professional SP1 [ 6.2 Build 9200 ] (x64)

I have checked the settings of the raid , I do not think I have anything wrong ( you also give me the info on this)
Holders of the new M-series , if you have the mSATA raid 0 , do a benchmark ..
I would not, carry an American post , which to remedy the instability ' channels mSATA in raid 0 , we castrated performance via hw or sw .
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sage...er-np8230.html