P15EM/Vortex 3/NP9150 Lux's Review

Hello ! (My review copied from different forum. Hope it might help few of you.)

I suppose everyone has his or her five minutes here - on this great NBR forum. And the life of the account we might divide into 7 sections:

So what is my story?
I was following dell outlet for half a year to get my dream machine. I set up a budget of 600. Than 700... And during one night (I ought to be studying for an exam I came across the PCS website. I'm gonna have a resit now

I was tracking an i7 2nd generation + gt555m from dell outlet that was going for about 770. (+-100 depends from the configuration)
I saw Vortex 3LE: I7 3'rd + GTX 660M - wow and just under 900. I needed a laptop to work. As I have plenty of time. And I got addicted to the GW2. What is more D3 was released. As my journey with Blizzard started 12 years ago... I had to!

I had a chat with the sales advisor. (Don't remember the name correctly but I think his surname was somehow related to Pirates of the Caraibbean. - Turner?) Man you are golden! From the very start I was surprised how friendly and helpful people prof PCS are. Than I ordered. Vortex 3 LE. I wanted to buy it on finance. I would pay 27/month for 11 and pay the rest in one go next year. Unfortunatelly I didn't get it that way. I remember that I was slightly shaking giving my card details (as bank at the beginning blocked my card I couldn't pay through the website).
6th day of pre-production ... and I just couldn't ! I'm spending fortune on the new computer and the HD 7970m that will outperform everything was just 200 quid more. What is 200 quid? I got two speeding tickets in on go for 120 overall today. I cancelled the order. I wanted the Vortex 3 with ATI on the board. + Some other amendments and I was just under 1200. ps. F*** me. If I wont be able to play GW2 on ultra...

Tomorrow is the day. In the morning I want to see a delivery man giving me the parcel in soo gentle way as he would walk with the egg. Tomorrow I want to plug in my prepared usb with Win7. I want to see 3dMARK11 result of about 5800. I will edit that post to post some pictures for you. And short reviews are to come as well!

Production Dates

• Processed Date 29-05-2012
• Pre-Production Date 06-06-2012
• Build Date 14-06-2012
• Test Date 15-06-2012
• Awaiting Dispatch Date 15-06-2012
• Dispatch Date 15-06-2012

Who Worked on This Order?

• Built By Tom Davies
• Tested By Carl Auckland
• QC'd By Carl Auckland
• Packed By Anthony Cunliffe

It arrived around 11. I was after the nightshift but the even pumped some blood and I couldn't hold myself from opening the package

The delievery in general was very smooth even if I had to wait for the whole weekend. I got a txt 2h before the delivery that the driver will pop in slightly after the 11. I am very happy about the DPD service in my area. I saw a guy couple of time. He is always a bit in a rush but he carries the packages in a way I do not have any complains. Now there will be some pictures and after them short review. I know it might be boring but keep up! I did it for you


























I opened the package that was packed to the high standard. Nothing was moving inside. I was happy about that fact. Inside I found only few items. First thought? OMG! What the f*** is that brick!? Just kiddin' I knew it will be large. I expected it to be. Its high-end laptop. I wasn't excited about the PSU but the performance which I saw later was a nice turn on - I'm telling you.
Summing up: That was sooo coool. No rubbish advertisements. Only neccesary staff. However I thought that I will find the Arctic Cooling Arctic MX-4 Thermal Compound's tube which was used for my CPU. Personaly I think that charging £9 for applying it JUST for the CPU (if I knew before I wouldn take that option) is imho not worth it. Having that knowledge beforehand I would buy it from Amazon with ArctiClean 60ml Kit (includes 30ml ArctiClean 1 and 30ml ArctiClean 2) for less then £10 and did it myself.

Before I turned it on or opened the lid. I turned it around/upside down/ twist(?) it few times very slowly to check if there is something inside that is moving. Unfortunatelly it didn't pass that test. I heard like a grain coming from the side to side each time when I placed it vertically. After few times it stopped. Probably that sth got blocked somewhere. Nextly I opened the lid very slowly but in one continous motion. I checked it for the scraches - there were none. I pressed every key before starting the notebook. It failed again "C" button was somehow different. The button isn't as tight as the other ones. Nothing serious. But that is not what I was expecting. You can see it in the photos. Does the warrany cover it? What would you recommend? After all I do not want to be with a missing "c" button on the keyboard







Show me what you've got! It started. I checked the BIOS first. Seeing label HD 7970M made me happy from the start. I just checked what is there and moved on. I plugged in an USB with Win7 and what I couldn't believe it was... After less then 30 minutes I had running system. My old Acer doesn't do tricks like that. Shame Than I used old laptop to copydrivers from DVD to another USB. ...
With my old laptop I wouldn't reboot the notebook after each installation of new drivers but I do not now the devil within yet.

Installed chipset driver first - reboot.
Intel HD 4000 driver - didn't reboot
AMD drivers (from the dvd I didn't want the modded drivers) - reboot...
and through all the drivers from the folder Drivers on the DVD

Then I installed IE 9 + Microsoft Security Essentials.
Next were the drivers from the folders Option(?) After installing the fingerprint scanner I had an error which dissapeared after the reboot.
I didn't find the Bigfoot 1102 drivers maybe they were somewhere on the DVD but definitely not in the folder Drivers or Option (?) I got them from the official website. Not a big problem at all.
Next was 3d mark 11. I was getting the errors all the time like something in the background was running. When I disabled the Wi-Fi and was taching the touchpad every now and then during the benchmark (not clicking just moving) it wen't through scoring more than I expected. Although - 6k would be nice one day!

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,CLEVO P15xEMx score: P5844 3DMarks

I played the D3 on max for a while. Something was not right. I do not want to say anything but I got a feeling I don't have constant 50+/60fps. I will go deeper into that tomorrow.

Okey I wrote quite few words today. I will continue this thread. I have to compare the temperatures which I couldn't do so far as HW info and HW Monitor doesn't see HD 7970M yet.

Noise on Clevo? I was looking an Acer. - What noise??

Diablo 3:

Looking at the drops in fps FPS I think it's weird as gpu load is only 60%. I recon it's because of the drivers that oficial are not released yet.

Changed the drivers for these: BenchmarK3D - Games Benchmarks and Analysis

Works great. However, There are some isues floating around about utilization of the GPU. Personally I think the issue is more related to the DirectX 9 vs 11 than CPU/PSU.

 

Great review! Cant wait for more.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! +rep

I know there is tonnes of debate about this right now (and you mentioned it already), but how loud does it seem to you on idle?

Anyway, thanks again!

 

battery life tests if u can? thanks

 

Thanks guys it's nice to hear you liked it.

On idle i can not hear it. I was suprised how quiet it is.
I had it near while watching telly with fun working at 100% - that was annoying but I can live with it

 

I'm afraid I will not be able to test the battery in a while. But when I have to opportunity probably I will !

 

+1 Great stuff, love the pictures! Magnificent

 

I really hope mine doesn't have any keyboard or screen issues; a few people are having them and I feel its because Sager had to rush to fill orders and they did a sloppy job on some...

 

Excellent photos! Thanks for taking the time to do a review.

 

Awesome review!

Thanks for the D3 rundown. I plan on playing a lot of D3 on my next laptop and have been hearing about potential issues with the game and the Radeon 7970M. Based on what you posted it doesn't seem to bad and I think it will be addressed when proper drivers are released like you said.

It beats my current laptop since it can't even run D3

 

OP delivered! Thanks, I appreciate it. Enjoy the laptop!