Sager NP7339 / Clevo W230SD Review by HTWingNut

INTRODUCTION

Clevo first released their 13.3" W230ST gaming notebook in July, 2013, introduced with the GTX 765m GPU and Haswell mobile quad core CPU. The laptop is on its second refresh, first was W230SS which added the powerful and energy efficient Nvidia GeForce GTX 860m based on Maxwell technology and improved battery life significantly. This second time around they again refreshed with an updated GPU, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960m, which is based on the same Maxwell technology as the 860m, and continues to support socketed mobile Haswell CPU's, including 45W TDP Intel i7 quad cores.

Many thanks go to LPC-Digital for providing the review sample of the Sager NP7339 based on the Clevo W230SD for review. You can review both previous reviews of the W230Sx laptops here:
Sager NP7330 Review with GTX 765m
Sager NP7338 Review with GTX 960m

The laptop being reviewed has the following specificiations:

SPECIFICATIONS
Sager NP7339 / Cleveo W230SD
13.3" Full HD 16:9 1080p IPS Matte LCD
Intel Core i7-4710MQ Quad Core CPU 2.5-3.5GHz
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960m with 2GB GDDR5
Kingston HyperX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3L 1600MHz CL9 1.35V
Crucial BX100 500GB SATA III 2.5" 7mm SSD
Intel 802.11AC 7260 Wireless Adapter with Bluetooth
Windows 8.1 64-bit


OVERVIEW

From a quick external view, it is clear that the chassis remains the same from the previous two generations of laptops. This is not a bad thing, really, because it has proven to be a very efficient and functional design that manages powerful mid-range gaming performance.



The lid has a rubberized black surface, and the bottom and rest of the laptop is comprised of plastic. A dark silver colored bezel surrounds the LCD and keyboard surround and palm rest, with a 2MP web cam centered above the LCD. The Synaptics touchpad supports multi-gesture input, and has two independent and separate mouse buttons. The palm rest and touchpad are painted plastic, which from the previous two generations of this laptop, resulted in paint rubbing off with extended use. While this can be easily circumvented by applying a touchscreen protector film over it, it would be nice to see them address this by actually molding the plastic in the silver color to prevent this issue.



The NP7339 continues to offer a solid white backlit island-style chiclet keyboard. Ports around the laptop include three USB 3.0 at the front right side with HDMI, VGA, network, power, and Kensington lock at the right rear. The left side from front to rear includes a 3.5mm mic jack, 3.5mm headphone jack, one USB 2.0 port, and fan exhasut grille. System status lights are along the front edge at the left, with an SD/MMC card slot over on the left side.



Underneath is the removable 62WHr (11.1V/5600mAh) battery that slides out the back. Speaker grilles sit at the outboard rear edges covering the stereo Onkyo speakers. The bottom panel that offers access to all the user upgradeable components can be opened by removing four philips head screws.



Once inside, the motherboard layout remains the same as the previous W230 versions. Support for on 2.5" SATA hard drive or SSD up to 9.5mm height, two mSATA slots, two DDR3 RAM slots for support of DDR3L 1.35V RAM up to 8GB each slot for 16GB total, a mini PCIe slot for the wi-fi card, and of course the heatsink and fan covering the CPU and GPU.




BIOS
Sager BIOS is American Megatrends and as with most any other Sager BIOS, they are sparse in configurable options. It does support Intel rapid start, virtualization, secure boot, and of course UEFI boot with CSM support. However, limited CPU adjustments can be made using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility in Windows. This includes +200MHz overclocking of the i7-4710MQ along with TDP and processor voltage adjustments.


COMPONENTS

LCD
Sager continues to offer the 13.3" Chimei Innolux N133HSE-EA1 1080p IPS LCD, and this is a good thing. The only negative is the inherent backlight bleed, but that is really a result of the IPS manufacturing process, but the brightness, contrast, color reproduction, and viewing angles are superb over any TN panel. It's a two lane eDP 60Hz screen with 350 cd/m^2 brightness, 700:1 contrast, and 11ms response time, and perfectly fine for gaming, with no noticeable blurring or tearing.








SSD
The Crucial BX100 512GB 2.5" 7mm height SATA SSD that is in this laptop performs well for general purpose desktop tasks and gaming. It's considered a budget drive and won't break any benchmark records, but it was more than capable and fast for installing games and load times were as expected. There was no noticeable lag while doing general purpose Office tasks, browsing, or game loading. With the SSD 75% full, it maintained the same performance as when it was new and with a fresh install of Windows, which I feel is more a tell tale sign of actual real world performance. The system boots to a usable desktop in about 16 seconds from power on.

CrystalDiskMark with a fresh install of Windows and TRIM'ed


CrystalDiskMark after copying over 250GB of game data to SSD


AS-SSD after copying over 250GB of game data to SSD


ATTO Disk Mark after copying over 250GB of game data to SSD


Two mSATA slots supporting SATA III speeds are also availble for further expansion and include the fastening screws for securing any mSATA you might decide to install.

Wireless
An Intel 7260 PCIe 802.11 AC wireless card is included with this laptop, and is an upgrade choice over the stock Wireless N card. Intel AC wireless cards have had their share of growing pains since they were introduced a couple years ago but seem to have stabilized and offer consistent and reliable performance for both AC wireless and Bluetooth 4.0. I was able to maintain a steady 45-50 MB/sec with a 25 ft distance to an Asus router through a single plaster wall while transferring a 5GB ISO file from a local home server.

RAM
Two sticks of 8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3L RAM at 1600MHz CL9 are an upgrade option and offered with this laptop. CPU-z and HWInfo64 indicate the RAM speed and timings are consistent with what are advertised.





Audio
Clevo continues to use Onkyo speakers in a stereo setup. Volume is not that high and quality is pretty tinny. It's OK for general YouTube viewing, but add-on speakers or headphones would be advisable if you're particular about your audio volume and quality.

CPU Intel i7-4710MQ
Intel is making the move to soldered CPU's in their mobile machines, but due to the carryover nature of this machine, the NP7339 still uses a socketed Haswell CPU. The i7-4710MQ is a four core, with four hyper threads, CPU with base clock speed of 2.5GHz with boost to 3.5GHz for single core. For 3 or 4 cores loaded it can achieve 2.3GHz with boost to 3.3GHz or 3.5GHz if you use Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to adjust the clocks.



This CPU is entirely carryover from the NP7338 so there's nothing too exciting to tell here, other than it has commendable performance for gaming and general purpose desktop tasks. It even can hold its own with some basic video editing and 3D rendering, and the cooling system of the NP7339 maintains the temperatures even at load very well, rarely exceeding 80C except when heavily loaded for extended periods.

GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 960m
Clevo introduced the Nvidia Maxwell architecture GPU's with the previous version of this laptop, the W230SS, running the 860m based on the GM107. This embedded graphics chip has proven to be a very efficent and cool running mid range GPU. The GTX 960m with 2GB GDDR5 vRAM in the W230SD is an improvement on the 860m, basically a higher clocked 860m, as it still is using the GM107 architecture. Like the 860m it has 640 CUDA cores and 5000MHz GDDR5 running on a 128-bit bus, but the 960m has a reported base clock speed of 1096MHz with boost up to 1176MHz, however GPU-z reports actual boost speeds of 1200MHz were maintained through benchmark testing. Compare that with the 860m with 1029MHz base clock and boost to 1097MHz, that makes for about 67MHz or 7% improvement.



In general benchmark results showed about an 8-9% improvement over a stock 860m, and part of that difference could also be due to driver improvements since the 860m was last benchmarked with driver 337.50. GeForce drivers 350.05 beta were used for this review.

One disheartening concern, however, is that the 960m appears to be clock locked. The sliders in NvidiaInspector were grayed out which means they are locked. Considering the 960m is pretty new, the only WHQL drivers that worked were the included OEM drivers 347.52. Drivers 350.05 beta worked fine, and the sliders were unlocked, however the GPU speed could not be adjusted, only the video RAM. So unless Nvidia releases an updated driver or Clevo or Sager releases an updated vBIOS to unlock the GPU (if that's even possible), there will be no overclocking possible with this GPU.

That being said, the 960m does run about on par as a stock overclocked 860m, so there is at least no loss in performance. If you are willing to risk voiding your warranty, I'm certain there will be a Prema mod in the near future to fully unlock the GPU and likely add a lot more system and CPU tweaks as well.


POWER AND COOLING

Power Draw
From the NP7330 and NP7338 it was shown that the cooling system was more than adequate for maintaining reasonable temperatures at load, and I wouldn't expect the NP7339 to be any different, especially with the cool running Maxwell GPU. Same thing with power consumption. A 120W 19.5V/16.15A Chicony power supply is provided and based on benchmark results, was plenty to support this machine. Peak benchmark power draw was during the Thief benchmark at 123W power drawn from the wall, but sustained power draw was about 105W. For the most part, all the other gaming and benchmarks resulted in power draw from the wall running well under 120W.

Power Draw from the Wall - CPU Benchmarks


Power Draw from the Wall - Artificial Benchmarks


Power Draw from the Wall - Game Benchmarks



Component Temperatures
Temperatures of the CPU and GPU were both within a few degrees C of the NP7338 with 860m. The highest CPU temperature occurred during Dragon Age Inquisition gaming at 90C, which may seem a bit alarming, but the average temperature was about 83C, and the majority of the other games and benchmarks, the CPU remained under 85C. GPU temperatures were also cool, Battlefield 4 pushing a peak of 81C, although sustained/average CPU temperature maintained in the mid 70's, with all remaining games not peaking past 76C.

CPU TEMPERATURES

CPU Temperature CPU Benchmarks


CPU Temperatures Artificial Benchmarks


CPU Temperatures Gaming Benchmarks



GPU TEMPERATURES

GPU Temperature Artificial Benchmarks


GPU Temperature Game Benchmarks



Surface Temperatures
Even in the small confines of this laptop, surface temperatures at top and bottom are warm to the touch at best. Of course heat being pumped out the left side can become a bit toasty, but all that heat has to go somewhere and confining it to the exhaust is where it should be, not a scalding keyboard or bottom surface that could be touching your lap.

Cooling System
The cooling system consists of two heatpipes, one each for the CPU and GPU and share a common fan and finned heatsink at the exhaust. At idle the fans barely move or don't move at all. The fan profile can actually be configured somewhat as well using the Clevo Control Center (activated by pressing Fn+Esc) so you can initiate and stop the fans at a higher temperature to keep it more quiet, as well as setting max fan speed anywhere from 50-80%.

Battery Life

Battery life is comparable to the W230SS, running about 4.5 hours while looping a 1080p movie and about 5.5 hours with light web browsing. The battery was drained from 100% to 5% with automatic shutdown at 5% and time was recorded on the laptop until shutdown. Both instances were using power saver mode screen brightness at 40%, and backlit keyboard off.

Since the machine uses a Nvidia GPU, it is possible to use Nvidia Battery Boost feature the the Nvidia GeForce Experience app. This basically limits the FPS in game to reduce power consumption of the CPU and GPU. It is also advisable to run on balanced mode power profile. The Battery Boost feature was set to 30FPS and Grid 2 Attract Mode was run to loop for 60 minutes, with LCD at 60% brightness, backlight off, and the calculated result for game play time was 2hrs 3mins to take it from 100% to 10% (~55WHr of game time). So it's possible for some extended game time on battery, although personally I'd recommend against doing it frequently, because it's likely to greatly degrade battery capacity consider the rapid power drain compared with just movie viewing, office tasks, or web surfing. Also note that CPU runs at 1.5GHz max, and GPU at 875MHz with vRAM at 1600MHz max while running on battery and balanced mode.




BENCHMARKS

The NP7339 was put in a temperature steady state first by running a high load scenario by looping Grid 2 benchmark for 15 minutes and then allowed to cool down at the desktop for 5 minutes before initiating any testing. Ambient temperatures were about 72F during the tests, and the back end of the laptop was propped up with bottle caps for improved cooling efficiency. I do this because it usually helps 99% of the time with any laptop and it's simple enough to do and it's essentially free. The stock fan profile was used, start temp of 60C, stop temp of 50C, 80% maximum fan speed.

For CPU benchmarks the i7-4710MQ was compared with the i7-4810MQ in the NP7338 where applicable.

For the game and GPU benchmarks, the following configurations are compared:

NP7338 i7-4810MQ / 860m Stock: GPU 1029MHz (Boost 1097) / vRAM 2GB GDDR5 5000MHz
NP7339 i7-4710MQ / 960m Stock: GPU 1096MHz (Boost 1200) / vRAM 2GB GDDR5 5000MHz
NP7338 i7-4810MQ / 860m Overclock: GPU 1164MHz (Boost 1232) / vRAM 2GB GDDR5 5500MHz
NP8651 i7-4710HQ / 970m Stock: GPU 924MHz (Boost 1038MHz) / vRAM 3GB GDDR5 5000MHz

Most benchmarks were run at 1080p and at maximum details. Some games were also run at "high" or one step below maximum to check for performance and give users an idea how well it can perform once you relax some of the bandwidth limitations of the GPU. For most users 4xAA and high detail post processing effects aren't desired and can make a remarkable difference in maintaining 30-40FPS minimums or not.

CPU BENCHMARKS

Blender Pabellon Image Render





Cinebench 11.5


wPrime 2.10 1024M


x264 5.0



GPU BENCHMARKS

ARTIFICIAL BENCHMARKS

3DMark 11





3DMark Fire Strike







Allbenchmark Catzilla


Unigine Heaven



GAME BENCHMARKS

Battlefield 4



Bioshock Infinite - "High" = "Very High" Preset



Crysis 3 - "High" = "High" Preset



Dragon Age Inquisition - "High" = "High" Preset, temps are based on gameplay, FPS based on built in benchmark



Far Cry 4 - "High" = "High" Preset



Final Fantasy XIV - "High" = "High (Laptop)" Preset





Grid 2 - "High" = "Very High" Preset with 2xAA



Metro Last Light - "High" = "High" Preset, no Tesselation



Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - "High" = "Very High" Preset



Resident Evil 6 - "High" = "Medium" Preset with FXAA





Sleeping Dogs - "High" = "High" Preset



Thief - "High" = "High" Preset



Tomb Raider - "High" = "High" Preset



FRAME TIMES

Frame times for the most part are excellent. There are some hitches and anomolies in some games, but for the most part it is a fluid experience. The two that stand out, Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3, there are noticeable jerks or hitches in benchmarking, and this is shown in the frame time results with the spikes. I think Bioshock Infinite it is more the demo than the gameplay though, because gameplay is much smoother than the benchmark. Crysis 3 was taken from actual gameplay, although it wasn't quite as noticeable. Otherwise average frame times varied from game to game, with Grid 2 and Tomb raider with impressive low ms frame times. Grid 2 ranges from 6.4 to about 14ms with an average of 9.26ms, if you eliminate the few flyers, and Tomb Raider having an impressive 13.8ms average, with range of 11.5 to 17.5ms if you remove the one flyer anomaly.

Frame times can be fickle things to evaluate. It's a mixture of hardware, drivers, and game code. So take it for what it's worth, but overall gaming experience with this laptop was smooth.

In any case here's the frame time results.

Bioshock Infinite
I'm not sure these demo results accurately represent gameplay, but it does represent the hitching you can see during the benchmark



Crysis 3
This is taken from actual gameplay, although those spikes didn't seeem to be felt so much in game.



Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy looks impressive from this macro view, with those massive spikes representing transition from scene to scene


If we zoom down to the 0-50ms range we can see there is a lot more fluctuation, but it's still fairly tight and not noticeable during the benchmark, mainly because everything is more or less below 30ms.



Grid 2
Grid 2 is exceptionally impressive. Actually Grid 2 shoudld be a teaching tool for other games. It makes excellent use of CPU and GPU resources and generally is a very smooth experience. It averages 9.25ms with a range for the most part of 6 to 14ms with a few flyers which are still below 20ms.



Metro Last Light
Metro Last Light looks like frame times fluctuate, but they remain tight within the band that they're at, no real flyers. Makes for an smooth gameplay experience.



Resident Evil 6
Resident Evil 6 runs fairly smooth as well, the spikes you see are transition from scene to scene. The frame times remain tight and relative to one another throughout the benchmark, and well below 30ms for the most part.



Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider runs buttery smooth in the benchmark and in the game. It's a well programmed PC port and runs on low spec hardware as well. You can see how low the frame times are, less than 17ms with one hitch to 42ms, which is not noticeable at all.




CONCLUSION

If it ain't broke don't fix it. I guess that's the thought behind the Sager NP7339. This second generation refresh basically updates the system with the latest GTX 960m GPU and leaves the rest alone. The NP7339 performs on par or slightly faster than last year's NP7338. This 13.3" gaming companion can chomp through games at 1080p easily maintaining well over 30FPS with most games at maximum or near maximum detail, and lowering details a bit will run pretty much any game out there with FPS minimums above 40FPS, all while running cool and reasonably quiet. It can also manage your daily desktop and Office apps without issue as well as processing images and video can be completed in reasonable time. The system is solid and offers plenty of storage expansion and easy to access components.

In addition to the powerful CPU and GPU, the 13.3" 1080p IPS LCD is great, as is the backlit keyboard and overall construction of the laptop. That being said, now that we have a couple years of history on this chassis, it is a bit disappointing that some changes weren't made to address the few shortcomings of this laptop. One primary one is the painted palm and touchpad surface which wears easily with use. Also, the subpar Onkyo speakers continue to be a sore spot, not to mention their placement at the back and underneath the laptop doesn't help. Other things like location of USB and video ports could be better thought out. Having three USB 3.0 ports and the two video out ports on the right side of the laptop, and stationed near the front of the laptop no less, can be problematic when using a mouse and plugging in any external displays or peripherals.

Overall, though, it is easy to recommend this laptop. The Sager NP7339 offers a complete portable package for gaming on the go for those users that want something smaller and more manageable than your traditional 15" notebooks.