*** Official Clevo X170SM-G/Sager NP9670M Owner's Lounge ***

I guess 4500 vs. 3300 Euro was one of the reasons for lower sales. As well 6 vs. 4.25Kg, double PSU + 50% thicker. Today we talk more about same hardware and the only difference will be the wider chassis due 19 inch panel + better cooling. This won't cost 40% more. Neither will it be a thicker machine. None should look back in time and think the same has to be as before.

 

New lower volume, larger chassis with more heatsink material, so more expensive, heavier and more power hungry. It's the same thing.

 

Sadly, I doubt that we will ever see anything like the P870 again.

 

Just that there is no reason for this one to be that much heavier than the example you gave. Recent 18" top models from all manufacturers were usually between 0.5 and 1 kg heavier if you compared single GPU to single GPU. not almost 2.
Also a really good looking bigger screen would be appreciated by many and the chassis could do double duty as a serious mobile workstation.

Dragging that added weight around would be justified if we got better performance, more quiet operation and a nice big screen for it at our destination and sales numbers would not have to be huge, just enough to make it worthwhile. Apparently MSI made a decent profit with their 18" model as they continued to offer it for a number of years and I would guess that they almost had to discontinue it for lack of SLI AND a good big screen - that screen really held back both the higher end versions of the GT80 and the GT83.

 

Probably not. You're most likely 100% correct in having that doubt.

Too many sissy-boys like to whine and moan about thick and heavy laptops. Heck, some that already have pathetically thin and light turdbooks still complain about it. Just for giggles, let's call that OCD psychiatric condition "TDS" - Turdbook Derangement Syndrome. They've pretty much ruined things for the rest of us, and Clevo isn't going to continue an endeavor based on principle. They're going to do what all of their competitors do, which means doing whatever makes them the most money. It sucks, but that's why they're in business. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. For me, switching to desktops for my computing pleasure was conceptually the same thing as opening an umbrella. We can't stop the rain, but we can take the steps necessary to stay dry. The laptop manufacturers are looking out for number one. We have to do the same and vote no to compromise with our wallets.

 

As I said if there is a reason for the larger machine like higher tier graphics then i don't see why not in future.

 

See my reply below.

One thing for sure... Many will jump of the Clevo train with the move to <be more equal their competitors!>. If they don't offer a new machine who replace the best from them as the old P870 they will have to sell more machines to the average joe who don't care.

 

They will have to find a way to distinguish their brand. They'll have to if they are throwing in the towel on offering truly unique high-performance laptops that utterly destroy all competitors. Otherwise, there is no reason for anyone to want a Clevo.

That's totally doable. Just as Tongfang has done with their turdbooks offering the best bang for the buck available in an ocean filled with similar garbage from their competitors. Tongfangs are less expensive, run as good or, in most cases better, and are made better than most. Great value if spending as little as possible for something that works fairly decent and isn't the modern-day equivalent of a netbook.

We will have to see what Clevo's claim to fame will be. I am already not impressed with the newer N970TF model sporting a compromised non-K desktop CPU and BGA GPU filth. Seems like a pointless waste of a CPU socket. A little bit of leaven leavens the entire loaf. It would be a truly deplorable blemish on this niche of the industry if the half-assed piece of junk known as the Area 51m ended up being the performance king as a matter of default if Clevo forfeits the ownership of their crown.

 

The desktop series does pretty well for itself as it is, especially with a bit of tweaking.

 

As Alienware has no problem to massively overstrain the Area 51m the only way for Clevo to overtake them with the X170 would be to sell their own version of a flammable laptop or they can do things the proper way and build a bigger chassis that really can accommodate the combined TDP of at least 450W that the already confirmed hardware in the X170 will require.

Something else that Clevo should take into account: People like to buy smaller models from the leading brand as they expect the next biggest model below the top dog to still be very good. So having the P870 in their lineup probably pushed sales of the P775 and the same would be true for having an X290 on top of the lineup. It could help sell the X170 that would still be considered very good even if it wasn't quite there.

 

Dude, no. Companies that build laptops don't care for comments on this forum.
The reason that DTR laptops are going away is because "no one" buys them. You might find it sad, but it's the hard truth.
Thin and lights have good enough performance that people prefer them to a big and bulky DTR.

Clevo does not take that into account, because the brand Clevo does not exist to the average consumer.

 

LOL@ TDS - "I cannot twirl this laptop between my thumb and my index finger for more than a minute so it must be too heavy"

Due to air travel weight restrictions I have recently gotten hold of a Zbook 17 G5 that weighs a bit less than 7 lbs which to me feels really light especially given its size yet in reviews of this model reviewers say that one of its negatives is that it's too heavy!

 

Maybe your thinking. Dell say it sells well, the same show the numbers http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-g-owners-lounge.831618/page-20#post-10991357

 

You are quoting numbers of an notebook enthusiast forum. Of course people will want the DTR, it's what we are here for... to tinker, bench, upgrade and mod.

To the average person, that's heavy. Specially if you first means of transport is not a car....

Also, let's not talk about "upgrades". It's cheaper to sell the old system and buy a new one, instead of upgrading the VGA card.

The reality is that the number of DTR systems is declining. It might not be fun neither pleasant, but I think it's better to accept it.
I think they will not disappear, but they will be an even more niche market than what already is.

 

I came to grips with factuality and permanence of the abject stupidity of ordinary consumers and the pathetic filth which that produces en masse several years ago. The elite will always be limited by the mediocrity and compromise that normalcy drives as status quo. That's why I ditched laptops a couple of years ago and moved to desktops. No regrets. But, it's still sad to watch and I feel bad for the elite minority that deserve way better than the rubbish the masses are willing to put up with. It's kind of like McDonalds. This harbinger of heart disease and architect of obesity serve their garbage to tens of millions of customers daily... people that happily gobble up their barf-burgers under the golden arches as the Grim Reaper patiently waits for them in the shadows. That doesn't qualify the product as being good. It's just wildly popular, cheap and convenient. And, lots of people have extremely low standards, with no concept of what goodness looks, smells or tastes like. Pretty sad. But, not my problem. You can't fix stupid.

Embracing compromise and being accepting and forgiving of decline is never a good plan. Better to do what is right, stand your ground and reject change when change doesn't fit one's definition of good. As long as the niche exists, the niche is a good place to be. At minimum, you get to revel in the fact of your superiority. Daring to be different and aspiring to greater things is much better than embracing the alternative and thereby becoming part of the problem.

 

We cant all be enthusiasts in every field. How many of the people here will own card that just get them from a to b? What about house interiors? Do you go to ikea or do you use hand built oak furniture?

 

@Mr. Fox it's just computers...

 

It read like passion to me

 

Schenker, Sager, Eurocom, Origin, Evoc, Obsidian all are brands that could profit from a top of the line model like that and Clevo produces laptops that they sell.

I do not care for most technology that the average person likes, it is usually crap.

 

I'll bet that make more money from the "normal" laptop models.

Cool for you, you are in a niche market. The problem of being a niche market is that you usually pay a hefty premium compared to a more mainstream solution.
The biggest problem I can see occurring with DTRs is that it's costs can become so high that it's just cheaper to have a desktop + a cheaper laptop.

 

I know. But, the flippant " it's only a laptop, so we can't expect too much" mentality is why we have so little worth caring about. We've allowed that brain cancer to metastasize. Eventually, mediocrity (or worse) becomes status quo and that makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy. When almost everyone finds it appropriate to make excuses and accommodations for the suckiness of notebook computers, you know there isn't going to be much left worth trying to salvage. Nobody expect excellence any more, and those that attribute greatness where it does not exist clearly don't know what they don't know.

 

They certainly do but as long as they make enough to justify a top of the line model that's all it takes.

Obviously being in a niche market will not lead to great economies of scales but I am fine with that.

I am not fine with bigger screens and bigger chassis disappearing altogether. First it was 20" and 19" models that disappeared and then the 18" models and now we are down to 17" screens in what was previously a 15" chassis for almost all new notebook releases which results in further performance penalties compared to previous larger designs.

 

You can say "it's only a ...." as an excuse for every mediocre product out there. The underlying principle of good enough is applied far too often these days, not only when it comes to laptops.

 

Its not only a laptop but it is a different design challenge and you can still do that to a high standard.

 

It was just a response to a too serious response from Fox about computers

Laptops have been evolving to a more thin and light design and I wouldn't call them mediocre. There is a focus in portability and battery life instead of performance, and for most people (outside of this forum) that's fine. The performance compared to a desktop is mediocre, but you are trading it for more battery life and portability.
For enthusiasts in this forum the shift sucks, and I can understand your point of view, but my fear is that we are at the point of no return. Do MSI, Asus or Acer still make DTR machines? They seem to be discontinued. I think only Dell and Clevo make DTRs now, maybe being the only 2 companies making them can lead to better machines in the future.

I'll agree with you is in the fact that Dell released the 51m to be a DTR, and it's performance is disappointing. If you are making a 4Kg monster, do it right.

 

Good has always been the enemy of great. Attempts to lower the bar and redefine greatness is also a major problem. Everywhere.

Thin and light merely makes it more difficult to avoid mediocrity. The form factor itself isn't the problem. Not trying hard enough and embracing performance limitations and tolerating compromise is the problem. Blocked access to firmware settings, inadequate thermal management, stunting power limits instead of addressing poor engineering... sounds like mediocrity to me. Can thin and light run as cool as big, thick and heavy? No, of course not. But, they could do a better job of not making excuses for castrating everything, selling broken garbage and stop using form factor as a crutch. Denying access to everything accessible on a desktop enthusiast motherboard firmware is not acceptable. Dell and Clevo both suck at all of those things, as do all other notebook manufacturers. I do not expect any of that to improve. Unless it does, mediocrity will remain status quo. The only thing that makes Clevos better is @Prema and (historically, but now showing disturbing evidence of decline) the option of avoiding BGA CPU and GPU. Take away the @Prema firmware mods, socketed CPU and MXM GPU and it's just another feckless gamer-kid turdbook. There is nothing magical in the name or branding plastered on the outside. Crap is crap no matter whose name appears on the decals.

 

Good point but they almost never do.

 

That's what being a consumer is in this case, looking at what meets your needs the best.

 

I really dislike that corporate talk when companies refer to people as 'consumers' and not customers. For me, there is an inherent negative connotation associated with being seen as a 'consumer'. Where you're seen as a mindless drone that's sole purpose is not to question anything and keep buying.

 

Well you have a thing called physics
In a more serious note, I think the laptop industry (mainly Intel) as a whole was not prepared that Zen was such a huge success.
They are trying to put more cores in a manufacturing process 2 generations behind. I think the manufacturers tried their best to still deliver some good products.

I'll totally agree with you on this one, marketing a laptop as enthusiast as then not having some settings available trough BIOS is just dumb. Even more when you can change those same settings in windows. Makes no sense.
Maybe to cover potential damage to the product? So they get less RMAs? Maybe @Meaker@Sager or other company representative can give us some explanation. Still, if you are selling it to enthusiasts manly, they are going to thinker with their machines... can't understand hidding features from a BIOS screen.

That ship has sailed. Intel started it unfortunately, and the constant socket changes also kill the upgrade paths. So I won't blame laptop manufacturers, the problem was Intel.

 

Sure. The engineers have full access to new hardware when they determine what cooling is needed. They aren't blind. Only cheapo or just blinded by own stupidity! Pick what you want.


Lenovo has made the ThinkPad X1 Extreme worse
With the second generation of the X1 Extreme there are new CPUs, a new GPU and more choice of displays. However, the new model performs worse than its predecessor, especially when it comes to processor performance.



Dangerously hot: Almost 70 ° C case temperature on the ThinkPad E15

None forced Azor and Dell going fully retarded with soldered Cpu and Graphics 2014/15 for their gaming flagship. Thinnest possible was the goal. Hence they got rid of the upgrade paths the Aw brand was known for. And we all know how this went. The performance enthusiasts jumped off the ship before leaving the dock. And never looked back. I wonder what brand will be the next.

 

Whatever you want to call it, if you have need of something then you need to go what's best for you. It's up to you decide the criteria of that.

 

We probably agree on more than what we disagree on. Zen hasn't been a success in the laptop space as far as I can see though. That's really only true in the desktop space, and the degree of success varies by who you ask and what you're measuring. But, yes, Intel did get caught with their pants on the ground... no question there. AMD is only just now kind of/sort of starting to try to enter the laptop arena, and they're not really doing it with any enthusiast-grade hardware. Mostly low-end consumer stuff, and not even very much of that.

 

AMD laser targeted and focussed on good execution in the markets that made sense. It's the only strategy with limited resources against a giant. I'm expecting a big push on notebooks with the APU 7nm chips.

 

Probably so. It would make sense to see a push on them because becoming relevant in the notebook space will be an important step toward ensuring their survival. Those are very weak on the graphics side, so they will only be suitable for low-end products or slightly better products when paired with a discrete GPU. I really do not expect them to make a push toward offering anything special in the enthusiast niche on the mobile side of things. I suspect they are going to target the low-cost notebook market since it is massive compared to everything else. Probably will target product lines like Dell Inspiron, Acer Aspire and HP Pavilion. Those are the products the masses impulsively gobble up like candy at places that do not even offer high-end notebooks, like Best Buy, Target and Walmart. It would not surprise me to see AMD-powered Chromebooks as well.

 

Also one factor is probbaly since the M18xR2 was the last true flagship with AW 18 being the nail in the coffin. Everyone was super excited for a comeback in the DTR space after so many years.

The P570WM was on a whole different level. HEDT CPUs and it was back then when designs weren't as nice. P870DM series probably sold much better but they were now mainstream CPUs.

Alienware also sells a lot more volume probably so that's another factor.

 

Probably they shouldn't have updated to gen 10 CPUs. But imagine being brand with an enterprise model that has a previous gen CPU, they wouldn't sell. Not everyone can be Apple

Intel did, when they retired socket mobile CPUs. That and market pressure to have thin and light machines.

 

Now imagine the p570wm had no major hardware difference except the better cooling and imagine how much less it would have sold.

 

They need the apu side of things for power even in higher end machines.

Having integrated graphics let's you do switching, you can get away without a south bridge perhaps and you can focus the whole chip on a lower power envelope.

They need that to fight Intel in the notebook space.

 

Yes this is true. Without it they have no horse in the race. And, the overwhelming majority of people that buy notebooks do not know anything about computers except they want to spend as little as possible for something they consider to be nice looking yet non-descript (not flashy or weird colors) that they can use for web surfing, email and using office productivity apps. Most have never even heard of benching or overclocking and their idea of gaming does not closely resemble what gamers play. Paying $500 for a notebook is a big deal for them and it is an upgrade from their antique low-end laptop, phone or $50 Amazon Fire tablet. Most are going to be happy because today's cheapest turdbooks cost about half what they paid for the cheapest thing they could get their hands on five to ten years ago that they are replacing today. They also won't know that it is overheating and thermal throttling while web browsing and playing Candy Crush.

 

Quality of the chips produced now by intel has drastically decreased in the last years. Talking about physical quality, it's a real pain when all BGA chips are way too convex and the heatsinks come mainly flat and rough, and you pay for this machine thousands of $. I can't let this as is, I always lap these to best contact possible between heatsink and the chip. This has to be done by the manufacturers, you can't just constantly use LM and expect this to last long.

Same thing now with pascal GPUs, nVidia decided not to use anymore metal bracket on their pascal chips, and most of these are not even as were for example kepler and maxwell, those were literally like a mirror, you just sand the heatsink to the mirror and that was all. I didn't got a chance yet to see next gen GPUs after pascal.

But about internal quality... we can't see it, only testing can tell something.
Other thing is: no ASIC - no problems.

 

They have a total focus on yield funnily enough at the moment.

 

Intel's Core i9-10900KF CPU Benchmarked - Almost on Par With The 12 Core AMD Ryzen 9 3900X But Power Consumption & Thermals Could Spell Trouble For Team Blue
The Intel Core i9-10900KF features 10 cores & 20 threads and just like the Core i9-10900K, it will feature a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.1 GHz. However, using Intel's Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology, the chip can boost up to 5.2 GHz on a single-core and what's even better is the 4.9 GHz all-core boost. The package TDP at PL1 (base clock) is rated at 125W but the PL2 or boost state where the chip would be averaging around is the proper variable to use for comparing power consumption numbers of this chip which is reportedly going to break 300W barrier.

Yeah, the unfied Heatsink in x170 is barely enough for the unlocked 10 core Cpu running alone at max boost. At stock clocks But the cooling will be sufficient and just fine with the 35W T-series 10 Core / 20 Thread Intel Core i9-10900T paired together with the 200w Gpu

 

Sounds like intel are running it overclocked out of the box though.

 

Yeah, they need to upen the gates to be able to compete with the Ryzen chips. And this not even close to AMD's fastest chips. Only the unlocked 10 cores chips is an improvement vs. last year chips The way it has to be when they milk and milk on same arch year after years. If it wasn't for the coming 10 cores chips this would be pretty embarrassing.

 

The amount of power that Intel is throwing at their chipsets is obscene and they are very lucky that more cores do not scale very well in games or AMD would also dominate High End gaming.

 

I would much prefer if they used same ram speed for both amd/intel testing. But that 10whatever is one crispy chip from the looks of it!

 

It's more the crashing down of their process that really killed them.

 

If this is of somewhat correct info.... Comet lake is dead end. If people want the new Clevo x170 with Intel's old 14nm+++, then get it with with Rocket lake and IPC uplift coming fall/spring https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/intel-14nm-rocket-lake-s-core-architecture-xe-graphics-pcie-40

A new leak by VideoCardz on Sunday suggests that Rocket Lake-S will be a major upgrade from any of Intel’s prior 14nm desktop silicon. Purportedly coming late this year on the 500-series platform, a leaked block diagram says the chips will bring a new core architecture, Xe graphics, 12-bit AV1, PCIe 4.0, twice the DMI 3.0 lanes and Thunderbolt 4. Notably, Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) security instructions have been removed.

Intel claimed that Ice Lake’s Sunny Cove delivers an 18% instruction per clock (IPC) improvement over Skylake. Willow Cove, in turn, might improve IPC another 5-10% or so. This would deliver a solid 25% or so increased IPC relative to Skylake.

 

I'd be surprised if they doubled the DMI lanes when it's already doubling in bandwidth.