Sager NP8671 / Clevo P670SE with GTX 970m Review

UPDATE 1: Pics have been added as attachments. My new laptop is on the left in all pics.
UPDATE 2: Added section about installing SSD and re-installing Windows.
UPDATE 3: Added benchmark info.

Introduction

My NP8671 arrived yesterday! :thumbsup: This laptop was purchased to replace my aging NP8170. I purchased my NP8170 in November 2011, it's been over 3 years, so I knew I was going to get a new laptop this year. After a bit of research the NP8671 stood out from the pack in terms of specs, price and design.

My Specs

Components
- 17.3" Full HD LED-Backlit Display with Matte Finished Surface (1920 x 1080)
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M GPU with 3GB GDDR5 Video Memory
- 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4720HQ Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.60GHz)
- Stock Standard Thermal Compound
- Genuine MS Windows® 8.1 64-Bit Edition
- 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 8GB [+$90.00]
- 1TB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive
- Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 M.2 AC Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Module
- Smart Polymer Battery Pack (4 Cell, 60WH)
- Fingerprint Reader
Software & Services
- Microsoft Office 365 Trial - Included in Price
- Sager 1 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty

+ a 512GB Crucial MX100 I purchased on my own.

Total build price after shipping and taxes: $1684.00

I bet my britches you wont find a matching deal with these specs on a non-Sager laptop. This was with no promos on the laptop, but I did get free shipping so that helped. I also saved $100 by buying my own SSD from Newegg.

Exterior and Screen



HUGE upgrade over my last laptop. I love the feel of the keyboard and touchpad. And its backlit too. I think the screen looks good, no issues with the viewing angle. I also like the exterior design, they have an aggressive angular theme going on. Looks a lot better than the boxy NP8170.

Size Comparison: NP8671 vs NP8170




I'm not going to post numbers, because its obvious that the NP8671 is much slimmer. I will note that the NP8671 still feels very heavy, almost as heavy as the NP8170. I don't mind this because it is a desktop replacement, but if you want something to easily fit into a backpack I think the NP8651 is a better choice. This is of course my subjective opinion If you really cared about weight, it would be best to look at the as configured weights on different laptops. I do appreciate the sturdiness of the chassis, but I think that hinders the portability a bit.

No Optical Drive

I have to mention this: the laptop is sans optical drive, yet all the drivers included in the box are on CDs. Would it really be that hard for them to include an 8GB USB drive with all the drivers? I'd gladly pay $5 to have one included. I bring this up because after reinstalling windows on my SSD, I had to download some drivers from Clevo and the site was incredibly slow. Took me over an hour to get everything downloaded on LAN highspeed internet. It's 2015 people, 10 KBps is unacceptable. Now if you had another computer with an optical drive you could put the CD in and move the files to a USB to avoid the download. But you shouldn't have to do that! Clevo needs to speed up their site .

Other than that, I will not be missing the optical drive. All the games and software I use are cloud / subscription based.

Installing an SSD and Re-Installing Windows

For extensive information, see this thread where I asked about possible storage setups in the NP8671.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/769692-1tb-hard-drive-512mb-ssd-sager-np8671-2.html

There are a lot of storage options here. The only thing you cant do with the NP8671 is stack two 9mm drives in the main bay. Some Sager models only allow 7mm + 7mm, so research before you choose your model. This link on the Clevo website contains information about the possible storage configurations: 藍天Clevo My SSD is a 7mm, so by putting the 7mm on the bottom, I was able to stack the 9mm stock drive on the top.

In terms of physical installation, its pretty obvious and there is a dedicated drive bay on the bottom. I had to remove about 10 screws on the back, and some of the screw holes are hard to get to. I would recommend getting a flexible LED book light to help illuminate the screw holes. You'll have to remove the entire back panel to get to the drive bay. I actually like this design, because the back of the laptop is one solid part, and all the components are well protected.

A quick tip for re-installing windows 8: It looks like the key still ties to the motherboard. It barked at me when I first tried to re-install. The solution was to delete all the partitions on the stock drive, then partition the SSD. It was smart enough to transfer the license to the new drive. You can then repartition the stock drive after the install process. The error code I was getting was 0x80300024.

Temps



Seems fine. These are my idle temps. I'm elevating it on a notebook cooler so the vents are getting good airflow. My ambient is ~70F.

Benchmarks

Ok guys so I decided against synthetic benchmarks this time around. I don't need that extra stuff on my computer, and this is my work laptop as well so I'd rather not needlessly stress out my hardware. I will be posting a combo of HW Monitor temps and Task Manager as I work. I wont be gaming on my laptop again until Legacy of the Void is released. This section will be updated over the course of a few weeks.

Blender3D rendering a model with millions of triangles:



I'm not using any GPU acceleration so this is all CPU. With all cores engaged temps maxed at 80 C. Not too worried, this is the most stress you could possibly place on the CPU. If you wanted to do this for longer periods max the fan speed and you should be ok.


Conclusion

This is my second Sager, and as before I'm excited and happy with my purchase. It's still rather heavy, but I need the 17" screen. If you are travelling a lot with your laptop I'd say go for the NP8651 instead. For my uses this will be a desktop replacement so the extra weight is not an issue. Also try to get all of the needed drivers on a USB drive before your laptop arrives, the Clevo site is very slow. Of course, if you have an external optical drive this will not be an issue.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll be monitoring this thread for your updates.

 

Ok cool, I added 4 pics as attachments.

In terms of benchmarks maybe the community can recommend me an all in one benchmark? I say this because I'm going to be busy getting caught up on work. So I have to pick one benchmark to post that will be most useful to the community. Back when life was simple I could devote a whole weekend to testing out my new toy. Darn deadlines...

 

Either pick a game like battlefield 4 or go for an all rounder benchmark like 3dmark firestrike.

 

How is the stock screen and what kind is it? AUO?

 

It's a better viewing angle than my old laptop. I like the display but of course that's subjective. I don't know how to check the monitor type.

 

Hey I'm also looking into one of these machine. Do you know is it compatible with the windows 7? Data sheet specified only Windows 8.1
Perhaps no driver support for the older version of Windows?

 

That doesn't make sense to me. It's an intel mobo, so can't see them explicitly not supporting windows 7. Unless maybe something in the chassis wont work. I'd check with the re-seller before you purchase to be sure.

I also saw an Xoticpc review on youtube of the 8651 and he was using windows 7.

 

I don't see why it wouldn't support Windows 7. I will most likely be putting Windows 7 on mine. I'll let you know how it works out.

 

Windows 7 should be fine as it is offered from Sager directly as well.

 

thanks for the info man , and i just want to ask you few questions about this laptop , so after using this laptop , do you still recommend it ? how about the performance ?

and my big concern is the cooling , how is the cooling in this laptop ? is it good ? is it getting very hot during gaming ? and what about fan noise ? is it very loud ?

or its just normal noise ? also what about the battery , is it good , and will it stay more than 4 hours in normal stuff like watching a movie ?