*** Official Clevo P970Ex Owner's Lounge ***

4.6 vs 5.5 lbs for 15 vs 17.

 

I just received the 970 today. Here are my first impressions.
Display is nice and bright. Viewing angles are good. Backlight bleed is present as per usual, however it is more than I would have expected given the $100 premium I paid to xotic to have them pick one with "minimal backlight bleed". Not sure if I actually got a better panel than most and the others are really really bad or what. I think I'm going to see if xotic will refund me this $100. Seems no better quality than "luck of the draw"
Speakers sound great and have good volume, however, they have absolutely no bass whatsoever.
Keyboard feels good to type on, but I'm still getting used to it. Backlight has 4 levels of brightness and comes with a configuration application to change colors and effects.
Trackpad is amazingly smooth and accurate. I've only trained the fingerprint reader to my right index finger twice and it still misses every now and then. I suspect a few more trainings and it'll be pretty accurate. Buttons seem good, however mine are defective and the left button clicks a lot harder than the right and has intermittently gotten stuck. Have contacted xotic about this.
Web cam -720p and produces acceptable quality video for chat even in low light.
Build quality Top and bottom are brushed aluminum. Hinge feels solid. Goes back to maybe 125-130 degrees. I noticed an area in the back of the laptop where the bottom panel meets the chassis that was not snapped together and upon removing and reassembling the panel to the chassis, could not get it to snap together. It looked like there was either a design flaw or a manufacturing defect right next to the tab that was preventing it from snapping together properly. It was a small plastic protrusion that I was able to shave a bit and compress and move to get it to snap together properly. I've also noticed that the power button does not respond when pressing it to the point in which you feel the click. You must press it further to get it to respond.
Power brick - 4 feet long cords on both sides of the brick. Not crazy about the placement of the input on the laptop. 19.5V 9.23A output.

Not sure what else to say. Overall, I am not impressed given the backlight bleed, trackpad buttons, obvious case defect, and power button issue. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Bummer how much of the chassis is plastic?

I ordered one same vendor. I'll try to take pictures

I have the 2070 mq

I actually plan on ordering a sharp Izgo uhd panel eventually when the warranty is out

 

The top and bottom casing are metal, the screen bezel is plastic, and the inside is plastic (guessing) but feels really solid.

 

I hope they sort it out for you, that totally sucks. I was considering Xotic for their 16.1" G series G66/67/68 (P960XX) as they offer Prema Bios for $50.

 

Good to see someone else with a 970! I can confirm that the power button does take 'more pressing' than you might expect, and as I mentioned in one of my follow-up post, I also had a moderate amount of backlight bleed; so these are likely to be general 'features' of this model. However, mine does not have the case defect or issue with the trackpad buttons, so these might be manufacturing errors on your laptop

Also a follow-up on speakers; with further use they do seem to be louder and clearer than I originally gave them credit, and they are definitely better than those in the P670. However, like you noted, they are really let down by the lack of base; it feels like they really needed a small built-in subwoofer.

 

Power button is stiff to stop it accidentally turning on

 

Hello @Meaker@Sager and @Support.3@XOTIC PC I am trying to get information on an RMA request in order to return the PC for refund and try a different brand. I have called XOTIC customer service and was told that I need to pay return shipping for this because the item was shipped from Sager. XOTIC's policy says it will provide the cost of return shipping but doesn't say anything about an exception due to PCs shipped from Sager. Could you guys help me out with this?

 

Really that's down to Xotic as your reseller to deal with.

 

Thanks. I was told on the phone by XOTIC that I'd be shipping the computer to Sager, they would refund XOTIC, and then XOTIC would refund me, and that Sager does not pay for return shipping. XOTIC did however, say that they could reach out to Sager to see if they would cover the cost of return shipping, but I was told they they typically do not. Can you elaborate on this?

 

I received mine the day before yesterday. I was disappointed that I had a BOE screen and not an AU Optronics screen. I checked it quickly, saw that it was BOE and closed it, without writing down the exact model to check its parameters later on Notebookcheck. Can someone among owners check and tell us the exact model name?

I had to RMA mine because of an unrelated defect (suddenly stopped booting).

The rest was good, only problems that I noticed:
- moderate bulging of the screen bezel in the right lower corner, couldn't fix it, all snaps seemed to be properly closed, couldn't figure out the reason;
- inability to boot in CSM mode, no such and option at all, only UEFI mode;
- keyboard seemed a little "inconsistent", some buttons were more clicky than others and had different "feel", but it's really minor, I wouldn't call it a problem;
- 3.5mm jack and the hole in the chassis were not aligned, by quite a bit, when I would insert my headphones, the connector would rub on the chassis;

I will add more if I remember something else.

 

Can confirm slight misalignment of audio jack on my unit but no scraping, although it does take above average pressure to insert an audio plug.

How do I check the screen?

 

You can find our warranty details below (mods feel free to remove this if its inappropriate but in this case I hope it's ok)

https://www.sagernotebook.com/Warranty.html

Satisfaction details are at the top.

 

Thanks. So who should I be contacting to do a return? Both XOTIC and Sager policies indicate free return shipping whereas XOTIC is telling me that I have to pay to ship to Sager. @Support.3@XOTIC PC.

 

In Windows 7: Start - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Device Manager - Monitors - Generic PnP Monitor - Properties - Details - Hardware Ids.

For example, on my low-end office laptop it's LGD0504.

 

MONITOR\BOE07B6. Getting 144hz and 7ms on vsynctester

 

That's in case of a warranty claim, this is a satisfaction claim, please see the top section which I directed you to. Please see

And beyond.

 

Finally got the parts in for mine to make it work (HID shipped me one with no HDD/RAM/Wifi card). Anyone have a link for the drivers/software for this? NP8971 doesn't result with anything on the Sager website. Also, this was my first time installing a wifi card in a laptop, do I need to do anything special with the sleeves over the antenna connectors? Got it hooked up but signal is pretty weak even sitting next to my router.

 

Most drivers you can use manufacturers standard so Intel, nvidia etc.

 

I ordered without disk as well. We're you not given a USB stick with drivers on it?

 

Yes, but I have no RGB or fan control.

 

I didn't order without a HDD, I simply didn't get it lol. But no, they sent me a CD, but I have no cd drives

 

Did they not preload the HDD they sent? Get them to send you a set.

 

Guess I'll have to. Just figured there would be a spot online that would have the software for this.

 

I just got mine in.
Build quality seems very nice! The screen is friggin awesome.
Some backlight bleed though.

Anyway, I did a quick benchmark on R6 siege, with the built in benchmark and the results are dissapointing.
On very high, I am getting 77 fps on average.
In the P960ED review (same specs) Jarrod gets 174 fps on that game.

Does anyone have an idea why that is?

Edit: I had the options on custom, not ultra. I am getting 133 fps on average now. Way better, but still some way off from Jarrod's result.

 

I would guess that at that framerate it may be CPU-limited and this laptop's default settings don't quite let the CPU hit its full potential. Firstly, you can try switching to performance mode in the CCC. This seems to increase the thermal cut-off from 90C to 98C, and may do some other stuff too.

If you haven't already, I would also strongly suggest undervolting in Throttlestop as this enables you to get the most out of the chip. -0.125 on core and cache seems fairly standard for the 8750h. (I managed to go much lower on the core, and it helped with benchmark performance, but it caused soft crashes in games.) The chip actually runs at higher frequencies when undervolted, presumably due to power-limit throttling otherwise. Slightly lowering Speed Shift EPP (128 --> 80) also helps a lot to reach the maximum frequencies.

My suspicion is that the thermal limits are a bit stricter in this thin-and-light model than elsewhere. I've noticed that the amount of time the laptop is allowed to spend at 75W seems quite short, and this is probably to keep temperatures from getting out of control. It can quite happily dissipate the standard 45W at good temperatures (depending on fan speed, can be as low as 60C under load over long periods), but it really can't handle the full 75W (where it can get to 90C in a few seconds).

 

Thanks man!
That did the trick, performance mode gave me 175 fps on average. Sick.
Going to undervolt later today and see what more I can get out of it.

EDIT: getting 179 fps average in the benchmark now with undervolting. Nice!
Is overclocking the GPU safe? I feel like there is alot of thermal headroom on the GPU.

 

Overclocking the GPU will often void warranties (this may depend on the reseller though), so one should check before doing so in order to make a properly informed choice! Under standard conditions, the GPU does not actually reach maximum frequencies when under load during benchmarks such as Timespy/Firestrike; this is likely to be similar with demanding games. This means that 2060 GPU performance is likely to be mainly limited by the 80W TDP cap, rather than the 'standard' maximum frequency. Like the CPU, it would therefore possible to increase GPU performance by undervolting the GPU. One might expect gains of 5-10% performance by this.

One could hypothetically do this in Afterburner through the voltage curve. If one capped the maximum frequency at the standard maximum, it would also arguably not be 'overclocking', but rather undervolting. No idea how this would technically affect warranties in cases where no overclocking is allowed. There are apparently some guides out there on how to do undervolting with the voltage curve, and it ought to be effective and not that difficult to implement.

A caution though; there is allegedly a bug with Afterburner at the moment that it doesn't play nicely with Optimus, so unless one wanted the discrete GPU to be permanently active, one would need to turn the undervolting on and off as needed.

 

Afterburner will keep the gpu awake while active. Though you can set it to set clocks at boot but not continue to run.

 

Will I be able to replace its BOE display panel with a similar one from another manufacturer, AUO for example? Is compatibility only about the same connector or there is more to it?

 

I'll be trying this out tonight! Thank you for the replies! @Meaker as well.

FYI for other owners.
I had blue screens when operating the laptop on battery.
This was easily solved by updateing the intern iGPU drivers via device management
For reference; error code was something like:

Video TDR Failure (NVLDDMKM.SYS)

 

N0 problem, thanks for sharing your findings

 

Hi! Will this laptop be getting a per key RGB option?

 

>presumably due to power-limit throttling otherwise.
>the amount of time the laptop is allowed to spend at 75W seems quite short

Just in case you don't know already, you can see most throttling settings such as power limit settings right in ThrottleStop as well. It's under "TPL", where "Turbo Boost Power Max" is the sustained power limit aka PL1, and "Turbo Boost Short Power Max" is the burst power limit aka PL2. Then the "Turbo Time Limit" is the number of seconds CPU is allowed to run higher than PL1 before throttling. Then you can change those settings in ThrottleStop (of course don't blindly remove the power limit and let the CPU go straight to thermal throttling ).

According to your description the PL1 is set at 45 W by default? I would really appreciate if one can test to see if this model can handle 55 W of CPU load only, or what is the limit of heat dissipation this one can handle when stressing the CPU only before hitting a high temperature, say 90 °C?

My expectation is about 55 W for P960/P970 (this is also what Dell XPS 15 and ThinkPad X1 Extreme featuring the same i7-8750H is capable of), and the new PB5/PB7 can probably handle 65 W. My experience is that for many common CPU intensive tasks (AVX2 included), a good undervolted i7-8750H can already run at full 3.9 GHz while staying below 65 W, while at 55 W the CPU has to throttle to about 3.6 GHz, but I would be happy with that as well.

Thanks.

 

Hello Meaker, I have been interested in one of the new P970 and PB7 models recently, but I was wondering what is the exact model of the 144 Hz screens.

On Sager's website the screens of the P970 models (NP897x) are described to have 3 ms response time, so first I thought these are unlikely to be IPS (-like) panels, but then I couldn't find any 17.3-inch 144 Hz TN panels actually exists, and somebody pointed to me that the 3 ms is probably just the best possible value if you take overshooting into account according to a tech spec info sheet, and they should be all the same or similar screens.

Could you please clarify on this? Are they both the same 144 Hz IPS (-like) panels on P970 and PB7, but just that for P970 there is no G-SYNC?

Thank you.

 

Yes they are all si.ilar, that is a best case from the spec sheet.

 

The default scheme is 78W for 28 seconds, and then a sustained 45W.

With a few quick tests in Cinebench 20, the laptop really can't handle 78W sustained, and you rapidly hit thermal throttling. 28 seconds (the default) really is about it. Here's a quick summary of results based on a -0.125 undervolt:

Watts Temperature 12-thread Clock Speed
45 70 3.0
60 85 3.4
65 90 3.5
78 95+ 3.8

As you can see, I don't get close to full speed at 65W, so I may have a poorly-binned CPU. If you further underclock the CPU core, you can get to 3.2GHz on all cores at 45W (and 3.7GHz at 65W), but the stability starts to deteriorate (you get soft-crashes with 'Oops' messages when gaming - the greater the overclock, the greater their frequency). Note that the fan was barely on for the 45W run, so it could easily run cooler than that under standard 'sutainable' load.

Personally, the higher temperatures, noise and power usage don't justify the performance boost of increasing the wattage, so I'd say the default CPU power draw scheme is about right for this model. Obviously, if you have a particular CPU-heavy task that would benefit from that boost, then it might be worth it temporarily.

 

Wow, many thanks for the detailed test!

The temperatures look even better than I expected. Also I feel like a -0.125 voltage offset is somewhat average, so it's not bad at all. The actual frequency you can get at a certain power limit heavily depends on the kind of task the CPU is running, and I personally haven't tried the CB20 yet, so can't really comment on that.

I totally agree that for most people you might want to just leave the 45 W PL1 as is, and that should be more than enough for most games. It's just me want to push the CPU to its limit while I have much less demand on the GPU.

Thanks again for testing and sharing these numbers. Also thanks @Meaker@Sager for confirming.

 

Any 3ms statements are legal "fine print"-kind-of lies. You will not find any 3ms IPS laptop panel on Notebookcheck. The fastest AUO panels will be 6-10ms. Panelook never rates IPS laptop panels as 3ms. You can trust only real test, done by Notebookcheck for example. All statements from manufacturers/vendors have almost no value.

Panels are not the same. Response times vary between 10ms and 40ms, which is the difference between sky and ground.

Moderators, feel free to delete the message if I react too sharp.

 

Yes, I understand it's all about advertising, but apparently for me I would doubt rather than sold...as 3 ms sounds like a TN panel which is not what I want, and I wouldn't trust it until I get confirmed even it's already saying "wide view angle", because it's not clear how "wide" it is.

That being said, actually this is something I like about Clevo laptops. Finding out the exact model of the screen panel would be slightly harder for other brands.

 

There are often options that resellers can choose from the factory.

 

Mines still on the way.

I got nine with a sata ssd.
And i ordered 2 2 tb pcie ssd ( 4 tb pcie ssd yes)

I know this is probably innthr wrong place but a shot innthe dark how should I get windows to the pcie ssd will I be able to put one in with the sata and what should I do?

 

Is it coming with an os on the sata drive?

 

Yes so can I plug in one pcie and transfer it and then plug in the other?

 

Can anyone help me with gpu undervolting? I seem to misunderstand how to actually do this.
I followed Bob's video on it.
My max VDDC during gaming is 1.05000 V.
So what do I do now with the MSI afterburner curve editor?

 

Check out @Mr. Fox 's guide.

 

Received my 2 NP8972s (P970EFs) from Sager this week, which are replacing my retiring NP8671s (P670SEs).

Love:
• Lightweight
• Power brick much smaller
• Big bold text on the keys
• Large rubber piece on the bottom makes handling more secure
• Cool factor of the fingerprint reader. However, it is just as finicky as previous swipe versions.
• Screen has much better color accuracy than the older model. However, still not as good as I’d like. Given the 5 screens in use I may break down and buy a color calibration kit.
• Even though the laptop panel is not 4K, in mirrored view, I can now designate both the laptop panel and the destination output as 4K. That was not possible on the P670. I was limited to 1920x1080 in mirrored view. I'm not sure if that's a function of the graphics card, driver or panel. However, these units can push 4K video in extended view without breaking a sweat.

Could be better:
• Port placement. I heard a choir of angels singing when I saw the port placement on the PB71s, but those would be nearly as bulky as the units I’m replacing. Sigh. However, still a vast improvement over some other brands who inexplicably put the video outs on the RH side.
• WHERE DID ALL OF THE INDICATOR LIGHTS GO? Caps lock, Num lock, scroll lock and graphics card indicator lights are now gone. Strangely, the “Airplane mode” lights remain. Has anyone at Clevo been on an airplane in the last 10 years? Even using a 13” laptop is next to impossible.
• I’ll need to be careful with the hinges on this model. Like their ancestors they are plastic but, on this model, protrude from the back of the case which could be a point of vulnerability.

Overall, I am very pleased so far.

 

The plastic on the hinges is just a cover so it would not place them at a mechanical risk. Just don't smack it about.

 

I have a 970ef on the way as well

what are the benchmarks i should run to see what Im shooting to tweak around?