Sager NP9156-G2/Clevo P750TM1-G Mini(ish) Review

Hey NBRers. It's been a while, but today I'm here to look at the Sager NP9156-G2, aka Clevo P750TM1-G. This was bought from a awesome folks at GenTech PC (and special shoutout to Ken Lee for helping get everything squared away with this order). I'll be honest, I was going to write this several months ago, but I actually forgot. But here it is.

This particular unit is mostly stock, packing an Intel i7-9700k, an nVidia RTX 2070, 16GB of DDR4-2400 (single stick, 1200 MHz), and a Kingston 512GB NVME SSD. Aftermarket I added a Western Digital WDC500 500GB M.2 SSD (SATA3) and a 2TB Seagate Firecuda SSHD. Sadly at the time I started writing this the Firecuda randomly died (taking a bunch of backed up Steam games with it). Since I spent a pretty penny on this laptop already, I went ahead and replaced the Western Digital with an Intel 660p 1TB NVME M.2 SSD, and the Firecuda with a Samsung 860 QVO 1TB. QLC SSDs, sure, but they weren't expensive for their size and they shouldn't conk out on my like the Firecuda.

I also had the back cover logo removed (less is more) and Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the CPU and GPU.

Anyway, the actual review.

First the physical look of the laptop. The palmrest and LCD back panel are rubberized. On the one hand, the rubber won't dissipate heat as well. On the other, it'll insulate my hands better. Win some, lose some. I'm not quite the enthusiast I once was, but if anyone remembers me I liked keeping my computers cool. But let's take a look at how to open this guy up.



Unlike my old notebook, where a single bottom panel and about a dozen screws separated you from the entirety of the innards, this model compartamentalizes things a bit. In the bottom left (relative), you have the battery which releases with two latches.





On the bottom right, there's a bay that holds an PCI/SATA3 M.2 slot as well as two 2.5'' HDD bays.



The door that covers this bay has only a small ventilation point, so airflow can't be too good. That said, it's also compartmentalized away from the hot-running CPU and GPU. The top, main panel hides all the goodies. Located here is a ginormous heatsink assembly covering the CPU, GPU, and, sadly, two of the four DDR4 RAM slots. Lots of heatpipes connect the coldplates with their respective radiators. In fact, one of the heatpipes from the RTX 2070 connects with the 9700k's coldplate. Lastly, there's another m.2 slot that can accommodate NVME or SATA3 SSDs.





Viewing angles are... okay, I guess. I've never been one to pay attention to screens, but have some weaksauce angle shots. I do have to express a little disappointment that the display has white bleeding (I don't know the correct term) when the screen is displaying dark/black colors. This seems to be bezel related. I might separate the bezel and reattach it to see if I can eliminate the bleeding.













Funny note: The 330W power brick weighs 3.1 pounds, while a 2014 11'' Macbook Air weight 2.6 pounds. The power supply literally weighs more than another computer.





Previously I owned a Sager NP8157, aka Clevo P650HS-G. That laptop had an i7-7700HQ and a GTX 1070. It was also a noticeable thinner laptop, and had a chiclet-style keyboard versus the more standard one of the NP9156-G2. Depending on what games I was playing, the CPU (even with a -0.150V undervolt) could get mid 80s Celcius. GPU thankfully remained relatively cool, rarely ever breaching 80C and usually hanging low 70s.

After installing Windows 10 Pro and updating to 1809, I took it for a spin. The 9700k is no joke. With a TDP of 95W versus the 7700HQ's 45W, it runs quite hot.

However with some undervolting and underclocking to the CPU (GPU remains untouched) helped out a bit. Quite a bit. Gaming through the past few months (admittedly, the game I play aren't super intense, like Killing Floor 2, Castlevania Lord Of Shadows, Warriors Orochi 4, etc) I haven't seen the GPU or CPU go higher than 75C. Granted, it's on a laptop cooler, but still.

That said, the below pictures are on a bare desk.









For the more miscellaneous stuff, speakers are nothing to write home about, though I've never been an audiophile nor do I use laptop speakers regularly. The fingersprint scanner is pretty responsive when logging in, though not something like a phone has.

Delving further into cooling, I underclocked and undervolted as seen below.
The results were quite nice. Sure, it's not as powerful as stock, but those cooling gains are very satisfactory.









Been using this for over half a year now, and it's a fine machine. Consider picking one up.