Sager NP8640 / Clevo P640RE Overview (Videos & Written)

SAGER NP8640 / CLEVO P640RE REVIEW


INTRODUCTION
Sager just introduced their latest 14 inch gaming laptop named the NP8640 and is based on the Clevo P640RE, and LPC-Digital has provided a sample for review. The Sager NP8640 sports similar components to its larger laptop cousins, the 15.6" NP8657 and 17.3" NP8677, but of course due to its size has reduced expansion options. Weighing in at just a bit over 4.5 lbs and less than one inch / 25mm thick, this laptop packs enough portable punch for gaming on the go.

First let's look at the specifications.

SPECIFICATIONS:

14.0” Full HD (1920x1080) LG IPS LED-Backlit Matte Display
Intel Core i7-6700HQ Skylake Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M with 3GB GDDR5
16GB DDR4 PC4-17000 2133MHz Memory (2x8GB)
500GB Samsung 850 EVO Series SATA 6Gbps SSD
Windows 10 Home 64-Bit Edition Preinstalled (with 64-Bit USB Recovery Media)
Intel Dual Band Ultra Wireless-AC 8260 M.2 AC + Bluetooth 4.2 Combo Card

Dimensions: 13.5x9.5x1 inch or 350x245x23mm (about 28mm height with rubber feet)
Weight: 4 lbs 10.5 oz or 2.1kg

It also comes with a 180W 19.5V 9.23A power supply that is appreciably smaller than past power supplies measuring in at about 6x3x1.25 inches or 150x70x30 mm and weighing in at 1 lbs 10 oz or 0.74kg. The connector is 5.5mm x 2.5mm barrel.


SYSTEM OVERVIEW:

A video overview of the Sager NP8640 can be seen here:



The Sager NP8640 is an all black matte laptop with an aluminum lid, with the remainder of the laptop constructed of plastic. It feels solid overall with good build construction, no noticeable flex anywhere. The lid is flat and smooth with no feature lines and opens to about 110 degrees or 20 degrees past vertical and is hinged at both sides, each about one inch wide, with a black metal speaker grill spanning the distance between hinges on the base of the laptop.





The base of the laptop contains a multi-brightness white backlit chiclet keyboard and a nice big 4.25"x2.5" touchpad with two independent mouse buttons beneath it. The keyboard is quiet to type on and has medium travel distance and is responsive as expected. WSAD keys are highlighted by red carat arrows indicating gaming directional keys. Arrow keys are full size but this results in a shortened right Shift key, although it is still two keys wide. Traditional navigational keys, home, pgup, pgdn, end, del, ins, etc run down the right side of the keyboard, and Num Lock and Scroll Lock require use of the Fn key to activate.

The Synaptics touchpad is a good size and support three finger gestures. Control is typically what you'd find on Clevo based laptops.

Looking around the laptop, green indicator lights are located on the front left side, and the power button is centered between the speaker grille with a blue backlight with the power symbol. The right side offers two USB 3.0 ports, Realtek driven gigabit ethernet jack, a Kensington lock slot, and an SD/MMC reader near the front with a SIM card slot. Two more USB 3.0 ports are on the left side along with dual mini DisplayPort 1.2 jacks, HDMI port, and three 3.5mm (1/8") audio jacks: microphone, headphone, and digital audio out. Around on the back includes the power jack in between the vents on either side.



Flipping the laptop over there are only the grille slots, as the battery is embedded internally, and it takes fourteen screws to remove the bottom panel. All thermal venting goes out the rear. One odd thing though, is the bottom cover vent slots for the GPU fan are partly covered. I'd like to give benefit of the doubt to Clevo that they did their homework for best airflow, but it seems counter-intuitive to have fan intakes partially blocked. That being said, looking at the thermal performance later it seems to handle the component cooling well.



Removing the 14 screws and popping off the bottom panel, gives you access to all the internal components: CPU, GPU, wireless card, RAM, storage drives, and battery. You can clearly see the CPU and GPU share two heatpipes but run to two different heatsinks and fans, so cooling is shared between the components. RAM is esasily accessible to swap out as is the wireless car and 2.5" and M.2 drives. The battery is screwed to the chassis and its connector goes straight to the motherboard, although a firm tug removes it easily. In other Clevo laptops many components are found underneath the keyboard. In the case of the NP8640 there is nothing to access there, but you need to remove the two screws indicated on the bottom panel with an icon of a keyboard, and push on the location indicated by the GPU fan to pop it off. There you can clearly see the metal tray that the keyboard is secured to, giving it a solid and firm feel.




BIOS
See BIOS options in this brief video.



Now moving on to some details of the system components.


LCD

The LCD is an LG 14" 1080p IPS matte display (Device ID LGD040A / LP140WF1) and surprisingly this LCD had no noticeable backlight bleed. Of course this is not indicative of all of these LCD's but that has been a sore spot for IPS screens and can be a bit annoying to play the LCD lottery a lot of times especially if you are picky about your LCD, so it is a welcome surprise. In any case, the display itself has reasonable specs, but there is one glaring deficiency, and that is its brightness. Full brightness is only about 210 cd/m². Aside from that it has commendable specifications, not the greatest for a gaming laptop, but good. It is a 60Hz display with good color gamut (76% Adobe RGB, 98% sRGB) and contrast (770:1).

There are multiple versions of the LP140WF1 panel listed on Panelook but the anti-glare all have similar specs so will link to this one, not 100% certain this is the LCD, although 95%: http://www.panelook.com/LP140WF1-SPK1_LG Display_14.0_LCM_overview_23292.html
Important information we can draw out of that page is that it is a 2 lane eDP display with 80 deg viewing angles and 35ms response time. It also indicates 300 brightness and 700:1 contrast, but a Spyder 5 Pro analysis found the brightness to be much lower and falls in line with what notebookcheck also found on this panel in their Dell ultrabook review.

The 35ms response time seems slow but there was not noticeable ghosting. But the 60Hz refresh did result in some tearing when FPS exceeded this value. In the past I wasn't too sensitive to this, but since I've started using G-sync panels it has become more apparent. So not a fault of the LCD, just a fault of the technology in general. Just limit your FPS to 60 (using MSI Afterburner or Nvidia Inspector) and it should eliminate 99% of any tearing. The LCD could not be overclocked through Intel's control panel, which is where it needs to be overclocked since this is an Optimus machine. So unfortuantely it's not possible to overclock the LCD through traditional means to see if it can run at a much higher refresh.

Viewing angles indicated are about 80 deg, although there was some slight color shifting after approximately 70 degress or so side to side. Up down seems to be at least 80 degrees.

I ran a Spyder 5 Pro analysis on the panel and received the following results.

Spoiler: tone response and gray ramp

Viewing Angles






STORAGE

The Sager NP8640 comes with two drive storage options, one 2.5" up to 9mm height hard drive or ssd and a single up to 80mm M.2 PCIe or SATA drive. This particular model came with the Samung 950 Evo 500GB 2.5" SSD. Performance is admirable and what one would expect from a SATA 3 drive. It definitely keeps the system running particularly snappy and games and apps load quickly. During file transfers and benchmarking it never exceeded 42C and at idle or with light use typically runs in the low 30C range. There was no throttling or other anomolies noticed during benchmarking or regular use.

Crystal Disk Mark and ATTO Disk Benchmarks were run with the following results:

CrystalDiskMark


ATTO Disk Benchmark



RAM

Since this is an Intel Skylake system, it supports DDR4 So-DIMM modules and the Sager NP8640 supports two sticks of DDR4. This review machine is provided with two sticks of DDR4-2133MHz Samsung RAM at CAS 15. 16GB sticks of DDR4 laptop RAM is also available so you can effectively get up to 32GB of storage should you need or want to do so. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity to overclock the RAM in Intel XTU or the system BIOS.

See details of this RAM in the CPU-z screenshot below:


Audio
The Sager NP8640 mounts the speakers front and center. Kudos to Clevo for finally doing this since previous smaller Clevo laptops would place them underneath and to the rear of the laptop. Also there is no Onkyo logo on the laptop itself so either they aren't using Onkyo any more or Onkyo or Sager didn't want the advertising on their machine. Nevertheless, the sound quality is good and better than the W230SS and comparable to my NP8651/P650SE. It doesn't get real loud, but it has decent rich sound and does not sound tinny. There is no subwoofer, but for general video watching and web browsing and even gaming it's fine. Sager continues to offer Sound Blaster audio software as well running the X-Fi 5 suite that offers improved audio through added volume, Pro Studio optins, EAX Effects and and equalizer.

CPU: Intel I7-6700HQ

Intel's latest architecture is the 14nm Skylake and the Sager NP8640 comes configured with the i7-6700HQ based on this technology. It is a quad core with hyperthreading and runs at boost up to 3.5GHz with a single core active, and 3.4, 3.3, 3.1 GHz for two, three, four cores active respectively, and is BGA, which means that it is soldered to the mainboard.



Intel Extreme Tuning Utility or Intel XTU, offers limited tuninga ability with the i7-6700HQ. The only thing you are able to tune is the voltage, and undervolting is highly recommended. Take a look at the Thermal section of this review for results after undervolting by 150mV. It basically reduced CPU temperatures by 15-20 deg C! It seems most Skylake CPU's I've run across are simply running with much higher voltage than what they really need to run at stock speeds. Stock voltage when at load was showing about 1.06 to 1.08V and with the undervolt about 0.92 to 0.94V.

INTEL XTU SETTINGS CAN BE SEEN BY CLICKING ON SPOILER TAG TO EXPAND IMAGES

Spoiler: Intel XTU Settings

In any case a few CPU-centric benchmarks were run to test for performance, thermals, and power consumption (results in each respective section of this review)

The i7-6700HQ resulted in about an 8-9% improvement over the comparably clocked Haswell i7-4710HQ in the few benchmark tests that were run. All benchmarks were run with CPU undervolted by 150mV.

Cinebench R15


wPrime 2.10 8 Threads


x264 v5.0



GPU: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970M

Nvidia's Maxwell top tier mobile cards have been top dog for about 18 months now and they continue to be solid performers. The GTX 970m with 3GB GDDR5 is packaged in the Sager NP8640 and delivers great gaming performance. The Sager NP8640 is an Optimus system, meaning that the Nvidia GPU routes through the Intel integrated GPU packaged on the CPU die, and the GTX 970m becomes active only when intense 3D calcualtions are needed, primarily gaming. The LCD and all external ports (two DP and one HDMI) route through the Intel GPU as well.

EDIT - CORRECTION:
The rearmost mini DisplayPort is routed directly to the Nvidia GTX 970m GPU and DOES support G-Sync on an external display. This is not published in the specs or manual, however. See video here showing it works:



Gaming performance is where expected for a 970m, and GPU-z and HWInfo64 logs indicate no throttling when at full load either, and no skipping or stuttering during gaming either, only a fluid experience. The GTX 970m runs at a GPU clock of 924MHz with a boost to 1038MHz, and maintained a solid 1038MHz through benchmarking and gaming, with GDDR5 video RAM running at 5000MHz.

GPU-Z Info


GPU-Z Sensors at stock



The Nvidia drivers included with the NP8640 were 359.14 and latest supported at the time of this review. Overclocking is available through Nvidia Inspector, although I was only able to achieve +70MHz on the core and +160MHz on the vRAM, but it still resulted in a tangible improvement with little to no thermal or power consumption increase. Resulting overclock speeds for the GPU core were 994MHz base with boost to 1108MHz and video RAM from 2500MHz (5000MHz effective) to 2660MHz (5320MHz effective).

Nvidia Inspector and GPU-Z with overclock settings




A number of benchmarks were run both at stock and also with the overclock speeds mentioned above and compared to that with a Sager system running GTX 980m for comparison. Note that Fallout 4 is consistently 60FPS, that's because the game itself is tied to that clock speed, and anything faster would screw up the world physics. But it just shows that it can easily perform at the 60FPS cap without issue.

Most games run fine at 1080p and maximum details, although dropping some AA or detils will help you achieve 60 FPS in more demanding titles like Assassins Creed Syndicate, Crysis 3, and Witcher 3.

Results from 1080p runs are here. White number/darker bars indicate the minimum FPS, the black numbers/lighter bar indicates average FPS.

3DMark11




3DMark Fire Strike


Unigine Heaven


Gaming Benchmarks



THERMAL AND POWER PERFORMANCE: Temperature, Power, Noise, Battery Life

Temperatures
System component temperatures actually ran quite cool overall, especially after undervolting the CPU by 150mV. I would say this is nearly necessary since without it temperatures risk running much hotter. While the system was configured with IC Diamond paste from Sager, I did repaste it and it resulted in reduced temperatures, especially on the CPU. You can see the repasting and temperature results of this in the YouTube videos below and also examing the charts below.

Spoiler: Temps before and after repaste

The GPU and PCU sharing heatsinks and dual heatpipes running to the two fans in the NP8640 isn't a bad idea, especially after an undervolt of the CPU since the temperatures remain similar when stressed. Average and peak temperatures were recorded during benchmarking and shown in the below charts. All of these results were after the CPU and GPU were repasted and CPU undervolted by 150mV.

CPU i7-6700HQ TEMPERATURES

CPU Benchmarks - CPU Temperatures


Artificial Game Benchmarks - CPU Temperatures


Game Benchmarks - CPU Temperatures



GPU GTX 970M TEMPERATURES

Artificial Game Benchmarks - GPU Temperatures


Game Benchmarks - GPU Temperatures



SURFACE TEMPERATURES

While component temperatures are important, surface temperatures are also pretty important for a laptop. For the most part the common touch surfaces of the laptop were comfortable, although some areas outside that were a bit toasty, but not unconfortably so. In a few spots temperatures were 45-50C, primarly at the rear of the laptop, which stands to reason considering that's where the CPU and GPU are at as well as the heatsinks and exhausting air. See images below showing measured temperatures after system is at load for 20 minutes.






NOISE

With keeping a cool machine also comes noise. And a smaller laptop typically has smaller fans resulting in faster RPM and hence, more noise. That being said, the fan noise is rarely audible and fine in a quiet environment. You can even adjust fan settings through the Clevo Control Panel (Fn+Esc) to meet your needs. During gaming the fan noise is noticeable, but it's fast whooshing sound and not a high pitched whine. With headphones on, I couldn't notice the fans at all. You can also increase the temps when the fans come on to reduce the intensity and frequency that the fans engage. Overall I would say the fan noise is abated as best it can be with a system this small.

See this video of audio quality and fan noise:



POWER
Power consumption in the Sager NP8640 was measured using a Kill-A-Watt P4330 and is measured as power drawn from the wall, so the actual power used by the laptop will be slightly less, maybe about 10% less. The system comes with a 180W power supply which based on these measurements, a 150W would have sufficed, but glad to see that Sager offers the 180W. For the CPU tests I show the system compared with the Sager NP8651 and i7-4710HQ just to give a reference of how much less power the CPU can draw. Note that since the systems are different it can't be assumed a direct power reduction, but it is still significant nevertheless.



All benchmarks shown were run with the CPU undervolted by 150mV

CPU Benchmarks - Power Draw


Artificial Game Benchmarks - Power Draw


Game Benchmarks - Power Draw



BATTERY LIFE

Meh, this is one spot where this machine fails IMHO. The meager 45WHr battery actually should be sufficient to power this for a solid 3.5-4 hours with power saving measures, but even with airplane mode on, backlit keyboard off, LCD at 40% brightness, Power Saver mode, it barely makes it past 2.5 hours on battery with movie viewing or web browsing. It would be good to see improvements in this area.


CONCLUSION

Most gaming laptop makers keep pushing the limits on how small and light they can make their laptops. Clevo seems to prioritize thermal management and accessiblity over everything else, which results in a cooler and easy to upgrade laptop, albeit at the cost of a thicker and heavier system than the competition. At 4.5 lbs and 25mm thick, it won't win any beauty awards, but it is safe to say it will no throttle and it will run components cool. While I'm not a fan of soldered components, OEM's have their hands tied in many respects due to Intel making all mobile CPU's soldered, so it's hard to hold this against Clevo when making a 14" notebook. There's something to be said, however for easily accessible and replacable components. 14 screws may not seem easily accessible, but compread to the competition where you can void the warrenty just for touching the inside, I think it's an added bonus that Sager does not void the warranty if yuo want to repaste or upgrade components yourself.

The Sager NP8640 is a great portable gaming laptop that offers plenty of gaming power typically found only in larger 15.6" notebooks. Gaming performance is as expected from the 970m, so you can expect 60FPS at 1080p and high to ultra settings depending on the game. Dual storage drives, and the two DDR4 RAM slots make future upgrading easy as well. While the system can hold its own as a performance machine, considering it is an Optimus laptop it is too bad to see its battery life only at a meager 2.5 hours. Also, while the IPS LCD has great color and contrast qualities, its low brightness can make it a bit difficult to use in high light areas.

Overall if a 15.6" notebook is too big for your needs, then the NP8640 will fit the bill nicely. It is a bit smaller, weighs less, but can still pack a punch when it comes to gaming.




INITIAL IMPRESSIONS SHOWN BELOW IN SPOILER

Spoiler

Videos for this posted now, to follow up with written overview and review in the near future.

1080p/60 YouTube video may take a while to convert. Should be complete by 9pm Eastern tonight (Jan 8).







Edit Jan 10, 2016 4:30pm
A few quick observations after some use:

- 14" form factor is nice at 4.5 lbs and 1" thick it feels comfortable and not too small. Seems they could have squeaked a 15" panel in there if they opted for a thin bezel and offer better LCD options.
- LCD is an LG 1080p matte IPS, but brightness seems too dim even at max brightness, and viewing angles aren't what we're used to, that being said there doesn't seem to be any backlight bleed issues
- CPU i7-6700HQ seems to run hot at stock voltage, but easily undervolt by 150mV or more using XTU, resulting in peak temps in the mid 70's instead of mid 90's. You cannot adjust core multipliers though in XTU, only voltage.
- 970m continues to be a best bang for buck GPU and runs plenty cool to fit in these smaller form factor laptops. 6GB GDDR5 would have been nice, though.
- Shared cooling system between CPU and GPU is mixed bag, but in this case, seems to work well when CPU is undervolted. Still questioning the partially blocked vent over the GPU fan. Will do some testing to see if it improves with more airflow.
- Surface temperatures are good, Nothing uncomfortable or noticeable on keyboard or bottom panel. But above keyboard near the speakers gets hot to the touch when system loaded, although not scalding it isn't comfortable.
- Battery life is only about 2.5 hours which is a shame. I'm certain Clevo could improve on that greatly. There's no reason this system shouldn't get at least four hours in Airplane mode looping a movie or browsing. I'd take 2.5 hours if it were manual switchable graphics with G-sync.
- Gaming performance is as expected for 970m, but after using G-sync for a while, tearing is annoyingly noticeable, but limiting FPS at 60 seems to eliminate most of the tearing.
- Clevo Control Center, Backlighting app, and X-fi controls are all there, with user controllable fan settings
- Fn+1 full fans works
- Speakers seem an improvement. Finally they placed them in good location (top and center aimed at you), and no more Onkyo labeling so not sure if it's still Onkyo or not but it sounds pretty good. No subwoofer.

A few basic benchmarks for now:
3DMark 11 P = 9502 / Graphics 10024
3DMark Fire Strike = 6554 / Graphics 7453
Cinebench R15 = 655 multi / 124 single

 

The -150Mv repaste temps are nothing to joke about... Looking forward to the written review..

 

just goes to show once again that the simple thing of propping up the back of your machine for improved airflow can help a lot with temps already!

 

@HTWingNut - might consider re-naming the thread title. The model is P640 RE. Otherwise, great review, I'm still watching it.

Edit: after watching these videos, I can satisfactorily say this is a better-cooled laptop (despite being thinner) than the W230SS. Still probably not going to buy this, though... I am waiting for the P740DM and my conscription stipend.

 

D'oh! Good catch. Keep thinking of the P650SE... sigh. Thanks.

 

once again, they still block the vents in the bottom panel of the laptop. what the f**k is in their mind...

 

I would *assume* that they did some airflow analysis. But it just doesn't make much sense. You'd think you'd want full airflow over the fans. If I owned this I would mod it just by cutting out the slots covering the fan and see what improvement it offered.

 

Thanks that was great, really looking forward to the written review. Debating about upgrading to this from my w230ss but not sure it's worth taking the plunge at this point or waiting one more year for Pascal.

 

It may be to help supply air to the M.2 and chipset with the cooling.

 

Added some observations at bottom of first post.

 

While that paste job will ensure contact it's not the most optimal by the way

 

I know it's not optimal but better than missing coverage. I haven't found much difference in temperature if I get it mostly perfect spread or add extra, because it's all squeezed out the sides anyhow. Not ideal, but won't matter a whole heck of a lot. Square dies are the most difficult because a dot will spread in a circle pattern, and need a lot extra to make sure it gets to corners of the die, and the clamping force isn't all that great. A single line will be oval, and never had good coverage on a square die with that. There's no good pattern to cover a square die with a single glop of TIM.

The CPU is easier because a single line works great because the die is rectangular. But temps are not that bad, considering the meager cooling pipes in the laptop. Peak in the upper 70's in the most demanding games with averages in the upper 60's and low 70's. I wouldn't call that bad at all.

 

Similarly to the P870DM bottom cover, is it aluminium foil covering the GPU vent ? or plastic bit ?
Saying this, removing it should definitely help with temps.

 

According to this article, an X shape gives the best thermal performance.

 

That's on desktop CPU with an IHS not a bare die. Even so, the temperature differences are minimal, 2C across all 12 variations. So 1 or 2C is OK, but I think 1C is easily within margin of error and not going to see significant improvements. But thanks for the link, good info!

 

Full review posted in first post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/sager-np8640-clevo-p640re-overview-videos-written.786609/

 

Excellent review. Just one thing: I think @Meaker mentioned that one of the DisplayPort outputs are routed directly through the dGPU and hence G-Sync might be capable on that port.

Now all we need is some @PremaMod magic on this!

 

I'll verify. Have to see if I can get my hands on a DP to mini-DP adapter or cable. I didn't see anything in the owner's manual about it though.

EDIT: Here's pages in the manual about it that say about the same thing, basically it's tied to Intel GPU. I'll still give it a try though.

 

Update!

The rearmost mini DisplayPort is tied directly to the Nvidia GPU and it works with G-sync on a G-sync monitor! I'll update the review and show some details as such. Also added Speaker test and fan noise and BIOS to main review.

 

Added video showing the rear mini DP works with G-sync. Thanks Meaker!

 

you have the same problem like notebookcheck that the fan gets maximum speed for short time without high cpu usage?

 

No, haven't noticed it. It's quiet until taxed.

 

Is there a reason Clevo has not put usb type c on their laptops yet?

Just curious...

 

They have on the DM models.

 

For a lot of manufacturer's, it is only on the higher end of systems right now it seems, not just Clevo. Not sure if that is just due to the manufacturing/design costs, if it might be related to licensing fees of some kind, or just a perceived lack of demand at this point, or a combination of those. As long as more thunderbolt 3 peripherals come out, I'm sure you'll see more wider adoption for this on models to come out.

 

@HTWingNut
hey looking to buy this (rebranded as metabox P640RE)
http://www.kongcomputers.com/product-detail/gamers/metabox-prime-p640re.aspx

for the sound test video you showed the sound from the fans during the ff14 benchmark
was this video done after the repaste(does repasting it really not do that much for this laptop ? ) if so how much difference is it when you have undervolted it (also doesnt undervolting lower performance ?)

much appreciated

edit Posted the wrong ones ment the 6640RE

 

It was after repaste. If I get a chance can run with it undervolted. Undervolting doesn't lower performance, it can improve performance because the CPU won't thermal throttle, and it will maintain max boost speeds. It's just optimizing the voltage for the chip's clock speed.

This chart shows temp improvement from repaste:



and also shown in this video:

 

thanks for the @HTWingNut
so if i just undervolt it by -150 i should be fine you recon ? never repasted a laptop
wish i learned more of this stuff at uni. suppose i am doing an netowrking/cybersecurity degree
small question though what is the room temp where you did this being in australia we get really hot days some times

edit
what paste you recommend and what method for laptops ?

i use the dot method on my desktop cpu when im building is that the right way ?

 

About 75F or 24C.

Undervolt little by little and test. Start at -50mV and stress test to make sure it doesn't lock up. Then increase by -20 to -25mV and stress test again. Every system and CPU are different and have different threshholds. Some more some less.

For laptop CPU and GPU dies it's best to run a small bead the length of the die for rectangular, and for square like the GPU it's debatable, but I do two lines and some say an X is better. Only because you need to fully cover the die because it's not like a desktop CPU that has the heatspreader cap on it. Look under the Temperatures section of the review and I have a YouTube video showing repasting the machine.

 

thanks ofr the reply @HTWingNut
ill get one of these some time next month
ill proberly just undervolt it having a max temp of 85-88 c is fine for me tbh but ill message my reseller and ask if he can organise it to be repasted there the guy is nice so hopefully
but ill check to see if undervolting ruins my warranty if it does ill think harder about this thinking f getting the p650re hows yours been since you got it ? saw the review looks promising but since im traveling so damn much the 14inch really apeals to me

 

I don't see why undervolting would void warranty. It's a software change through Intel's own application and it resets to default if it ever locks up. I'd steer clear of any reseller that says it'd void warranty.

 

ok wasnt too sure. still thinking if this is the right laptop as for
AU 1853.39 with the configuration i want problem is that it might need rapsting (if undervolting alone doesnt do enough)
also if it doesnt last 2 hours on battery its gonna be a pain in the ass for those lectures.
or the p650RE
AU1944.74 but im worried about the screen apparently its really bad (read your review)
it says it comes with 15.6" FHD 1920x1080 IPS Matte LED Display is this the one you got waiting for the reply on model no for the screen
is the P650RE worth the extra 90?

main factors are battery life and temps

sorry for the many questions @HTWingNut

EDIT
the price of the p64re is going up by 30

 

I'd buy this in a heartbeat to replace my 13" laptop if it had better battery life & a G-Sync display. A 6-cell battery would effectively double the life. Oh well, perhaps the next iteration of this model will be better. Thanks for the review.

P.S. I agree with you about the bottom grill being blocked off. Seems a bit ridiculous.

 

If you are comparing the 650 and 640 models, they are going to be fairly similar in a lot of ways for performance. The 650 models do give more options for upgrading, if you wanted more SSD space, more ram, or more screen options as you mentioned. But if you don't plan on adding more in to it down the road, then it might not be worth paying the extra, unless you might just prefer the 15 inch screen more.

 

@pat@XOTICPC
The reason im going to the p650RE is the battery life of th40 being bad

 

The 14 inch is for those who really need the performance and maximum mobility, if you don't mind the extra size and weight the 15 inch models will give you better battery life and cooling potential.

 

I'd agree and say there might be more of an upside to the p650, unless your biggest concern is size and weight as mentioned.

 

its a real shame about the battery life i recon maybe it wouldve been possible to put a stronger batteyr? but stilla good laptop for those looking for 14inch with power

 

It's about balance of weight/cost/performance/size, you can of course change some of these but they will impact the others.

 

I'm using a P640RE myself and with a full charge, it has lasted for 3 hours, leaving me with about 20-30% battery left.

Most of the time (during class) I only have Words/Powerpoint and Outlook running. I usually close Google Chrome (takes up battery) and only used Microsoft Edge if there's something I need to do a quick search on.

Well, I picked the 14" over the 15" with one of the top few reasons being bringing it to school and travelling around. The 14" is going to be so much more manageable. If you're staying in school for a longer period of time, the weight of the laptop + the power brick is going to be much lighter and portable than the 15". Otherwise, if you just attending lectures, I would think the built in battery would suffice for 3 - 4 hours.

Hope this helps!

 

That's pretty good for a gaming laptop really. Perfect portable powerhouse to take with you and game wherever you are at

 

Weight can be so important for people carrying it around all day, I think the balance suits a lot of people on this one Especially at the price you can grab it at.

 

won't break your back or the bank (unless you're doing a GTA heist on it!)

 

In which case it should be smooth sailing

 

I know I'm chipping in on an old post, ngotiendat, I completely get what your saying, but I wanted to expand on it - nothing personal, I'm sure more people share your thoughts than mine.

As has been mentioned, Clevo have looked at this extensively - and to go to this extreme, they will have done some considerable computational fluid dynamics!

Cutting open or unblocking slots will do more harm than good. It may improve the temperatures you can see or immediately think of, but it will significantly impact the ones you can't/don't.

A lot of the components are passively cooled inside, but they need a little help! They're not in a position to benefit from convection (being in a cramped enclosed case). This is also why many laptop motherboards have holes cut right through them under the centrifugal fan - thus drawing in air from/over the back side of the motherboard to keep those components cool too! Often, you can feel cool air getting sucked in through the gaps and edges of the keyboard

If you want to uncover those vents, I'd suggesting using copper strips as heat spreaders on the other components that get got (which would be easiest to spot by thermal imagining) - or better still (if there are to many bits getting hot - Seal the CPU/GPU fans completely and fit a case fan so the main fans only cool the heatsinks and whatever connected to them - maybe in conjunction with a few copper strip heat spreaders too.

I doubt you'd gain anymore than a few degrees tops - that covered fan will draw a lot of air even through the case - as it's designed too. Also, if you block it by using it on you knee or something, it doesn't matter so much, it will draw air though many other places - its a double edges sword for Clevo.

undervolt, all the way. Intel benefit from increased yields and it also allows them head room to bring out low power models now and higher frequency versions in the future once the silicone process matures - and all the manufacturers will already be set to run with the power consumption.

 

One thing that becomes important when making modifications like that is the environment you are in, if you are in a cold climate it's likely the other parts will be fine if you open up the vents. However if it's warm then they may struggle.

 

I did some informal testing and found temps dropped a good 4-5C when I removed the bottom cover and propped the whole thing up on bottle caps compared with the cover on and propped up the same. Ambient temps were about 23C/74F.

(and when did you become a Sager rep?)

 

Good info. maybe could try a notebook cooler to take it down even farther.

 

HTWingnut, please forgive my noobish question, but could you please explain to me how you go about undervolting the CPU through Intel XTU? I have the program installed but I don't see any option to manually enter a 150mV offset. Thankfully my temps from the factory were good, but I know they can be better with this simple trick.

Best wishes,
-Chris

EDIT: I believe I have found it. *Wipes egg off face*

 

Don't worry, we all have those moments