Sager NP9377 / Clevo P377SM-A Review by HTWingNut

Disable automatic fan curves, set fan duty to 0% and wait.

 

lol ok no argument there

but seriously it must've been pretty bad for Clevo to axe this feature, or maybe people were just being idiots

 

They may give us a few broader options in the near future (other than Full Fan or Auto)...

 

Wow. I ordered mine and THEN read the review. I don't think I'll be disappointed, especially over AW 18 order I canceled for it.

I hope the 4940MX doesn't cause it to throttle though. That's my only concern...

 

All mobile cpus throttle when pushed to the max without tweaking. This is by design.

 

Not like the Alienware does. I know that all mobile chips throttle but the Alienware can't reach top performance at all. Dell royally messed up the BIOS and doesn't seem to want to fix it but rather to limit it further.

 

And for good reason. Somehow I don't think pulling a constant 120W is good for the VRMs in the long run -- that's desktop K/X territory. And this is to say nothing of the heat that comes with 120W.

 

Depends on the phase power design.

The 170 sm has an extra power phase over the 150 sm for instance, with the larger psu it makes it more suited to long term overclocking.

My 570wm is happy with 200 amps but it is a little different lol.

 

...

10char

 

At risk of being a contrarian, I was not nearly as impressed with the NP9377-S as I had hoped. The price seemed reasonable, the ability to customize and upgrade later is highly appealing, and seemed an ideal fit for a mobile gaming platform to complement a great desktop machine of mine. Ordered from Xotic (who I would definitely recommend) and paid for fast turnaround, was pleasantly surprised it came within a few days.

Salient points on the build are as follow:
Display 17.3" FHD 16:9 120Hz "MatteType" 72% NTSC Color Gamut Sager Screen (1920x1080) [*NVIDIA® GTX 880M purchase required] (SKU - SSC014)
Processor Sager - 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4810MQ (2.8GHz - 3.8GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache) (SKU – SPU401)
Thermal Compound FREE! - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Graphics Video Card NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 880M (8.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 [User Upgradeable] (SKU – GPU12X)
Ram 16GB DDR3 1600MHz [2x8GB] Dual Channel Memory (SKU - RAM04S)
Primary Hard Drive 1TB 7200RPM [SATA II - 3GB/s] (SKU - HDD097)

Initial unboxing impressions were favorable, its a beastly machine but no more so than comparable Asus and Alienware machines that I've checked out. After installing a 500GB Samsung SSD, I proceeded to install Windows 8.1 Pro, which went fairly smoothly. It's fairly quiet and runs cool during normal setup type operations. However there were a few problems that I noticed right away.

1) Stuck blue pixel on the lower middle part of the screen. You'd think Sager's QA would have spotted this immediately, especially with a 30 days no dead pixel warranty. Not a huge deal breaker, will try massaging it out, and am prepared to RMA it back to have it resolved.
2) The trackpad is barely usable. I've used some really bad trackpads in my day, including a work Dell XPS 12 laptop (which I like except for the trackpad), but the Sager is worse. Even after downloading the latest drivers and playing with settings, it was not very good. This could probably be fixed in software, and not a complete dealbreaker.
3) The trackpad buttons were either defective or poorly designed, perhaps both. Left click registered every other time, right click was worse, reminds me of button mashing arcade games back in the day and not something that should be done on a laptop. Again, this could have been an RMA situation, was not ready to give up at this point, still disappointed Sager didn't catch it during the build and burn in phase.

My last observation is not something that can be RMA'd or tweaked - the build quality on this laptop is not nearly what it should be for $2k+. Perhaps my expectations are high given a propensity for Lenovo Thinkpads at work, which are the Sherman tank of laptops, but there were a few things that really bothered me. The lid is very thin with little structure. allowing a lot of flex ,and a small amount of pressure on the back distorts the LCD, I'd honestly be concerned about it even in a backpack. I have seen laptop lids break and crack before, the Sager inspires zero confidence that won't happen on this thing. The chassis itself seems to be composed entirely of plastic without any metal skeleton/structure to support it. This allows the chassis to flex somewhat as well, along with the keyboard being slightly spongy too.

Not trying to dissuade anyone from purchasing the Sager, on paper it offers a lot of great components for a low price and I'm sure performs admirably. But if you're accustomed to well built laptops, it's my assertion the build quality is liable to disappoint. I'm willing to pay a bit more for something with better construction and have RMA'd the Sager back to Xotic (who again is awesome) and ordered an Alienware 17. Fully acknowledge it's less capable on paper (slower CPU, single video card, screen isn't 120hz) but my subjective opinion is that it's a reasonable trade off.

 

Running a single gpu is a SERIOUS trade off.

 

sorry about your opinion on sager, but the trackpad does takes some time to get into in a few days, honestly i rarely use the trackpad myself, ergonomics wise i don't find it troublesome but not as easy but now as owning it about more than a month I'm used to it already. if handling is better to you then you made the best choice on going for the 17, for me handling takes some time, and what's matter is what i have on the inside don't mistaken me then but aw laptops are beastly enough i own a m18x also. its just that the tradeoff in my part is the bulkiness of the laptop which i could not take on a 18 inch, whereas in a 17 im stuck at 1 gpu and i trade all for sli with respective for the tolerable size because i travel every now and then and its not only the laptop inside my bag

To sum it up, both brands are outstanding on their own levels, not both perfect but both gives distinction overall, whenever its build quality or eye candy etc. its a matter of your own preference.

 

Thankfully I've got a fairly beefy desktop machine that serves as primary gaming machine device with a GTX 780 (not SLI'd yet), it's more than keeping up with all the games in my roster. The laptop is used at home for Minecraft, Diablo 3, and whatever MMO du jour I happen to be playing (ESO at the moment), and at work for weekly League of Legends matches. A 860m should be able to handle these games without any trouble, my requirement for an 880m is to hedge against future gaming needs over the next few years.

Fully agreed, not trying to dissuade anyone from a Sager if the price and plethora of configuration options is the primary motivation, it has all the right components to be sure.

To address some of your more specific comments, the trackpad wasn't the dealbreaker, usually I've got an external mouse connected as well. However I do expect it to work properly, and in this case mine did not. Bulk isn't the prime consideration so the AW18 could also work, but it's a fairly big jump in price to get the 2x880m. It's an option if the AW17 single 880m doesn't bring a smile to my face but the chief financial offer (my wife) will surely give me a bit of grief for dropping an extra $1k

 

Wow... I really hope I made the right choice... Even my cheap 400 dollar Inspiron 17R doesn't cause the LCD to warp with a bit of pressure... I put things on its lid all the time. :\

I guess we'll see. I'll be really bummed if I have the build issues you describe.

From what you're saying, this part of the review is inaccurate then:

"All exterior chassis trim is plastic, but overall it is a very solid machine with little to no flex anywhere."

 

That (and my observations for that matter) is (are) somewhat of a subjective statement. The lid has quite a bit of flex, the body far less so but it's certainly there. Contrasting with 3 laptops in my home (Dell XPS 17 LZ1, Dell Studio 14z, Lenovo T530) and 2 at work (Dell XPS 12, Lenovo x201), they all exhibit less lid and body flex in my estimation, to the degree that I would feel comfortable picking up each of the above by the lid without compunction.

 

Hmmm... I guess I'll have to see what I think of mine when I get it. How was XOTIC about the whole thing? It sucks because I paid for some XOTIC extras in my build so I'd lose those plus pay the added cost of an Alienware if I RMA it with them :\

I spent 5k on a machine because I want it to last... I do have the 3 year + accidental damage though but still. I may not like what Dell has done lately but my Alienware really is built like a tank.

 

Alienware are tanks, also the lighted touchpad is what really killed it for me. I had the old model but I love that small touch.I need that in my life. Plus, its an alienware.

 

Am kinda surprised as am used to sager doing well built systems and clevo
Is known for plain but good quality chassis.
Am supposed to finalize my order with powernotebook soon was just waiting to read more about the system from users.
Gonna hold on a bit more I guess and see if other owners share the same opinions.

 

Alienwares are tanks but plagued with issues... My M17x was NEVER fixed. I have to slow down the bus speed for my video cards to get stability with nVidia's drivers which costs me performance and that machine came out in 2009. The current Alienware 18? Instead of fixing it, Dell is nerfing the BIOS for people that buy the MX chips and the fan tables are broken so it overheats and shuts down before the fans kick on... Doesn't sound like the Dell is going to last very long either.

I should have mine in 2 weeks or so, I'll make sure to post a full review because I'm going to put it through its paces.

 

Tbh I am not a big fan of overclocked CPUs. I'm a gamer and I really focus on the graphics card. Give me a 4700 any day of the week. I'm not into chasing numbers,

 

The fan table issue would bug you too although apparently its fixed in the latest BIOS (the one that nerfs support for the MX chip). I don't want to support a company that won't stand behind their products but I suppose if push comes to shove I'll work with XOTIC to get an Alienware 18 and compromise on price, screen quality, performance and supporting Dell in exchange for their support and warranty and Dell's build quality.

 

From what I have heard the screen on the new AW 18's is really super nice. Sure it's only 60 hertz, which is definitely not as good as the 120hz but it's an ok trade-off I think.

 

Its glossy though isn't it? Glossy screens are such a bad choice on a gaming machine usually. I guess I could always go to Micro Center and see what the screen looks like. The 120hz matte though... that's the stuff dreams are made of for me. My 17R has a glossy screen and I can't stand it, I miss the matte screen on my M17x a lot.

 

it's in between a matte and glossy, you can't see your reflection in it like the previous panel. Whichever choice you go with I'm sure you will be happy. They are both great machines each with their own tradeoffs.

 

Yeah, we'll see. Hopefully the trade off isn't as dramatic as is being stated. I've never heard anything particularly bad about Clevo machines other than their warranty (which I resolved by going through XOTIC) and their cooling (also resolved by a custom cooling upgrade through XOTIC) so I'll be really bummed if the build quality is that bad.

 

and I really hope people don't pick up their laptop by the lid, that makes me cringe when I hear it.

 

That gave me a pause... I can't think of a single time I ever did this.

 

Sorry I am not meaning to cast any doubt about your purchase, my advice is wait until receipt and form your own opinion. It may be exactly what you're looking for, in my case it was not.

30 day no questions asked return policy except for any Xotic extra's, which are not refundable afaik. My return was handled very swiftly by Eric, had a response back with an RMA number the same business day, shipped it off the next. It gets returned to Sager (not Xotic) and am waiting for them to receive and credit my card back. Not anticipating any friction and no reason to believe there will be any.

In terms of Alienware being plagued with issues, my hedge against that is buying an extended warranty, which is normally something I would not normally buy. Even with the 3 year warranty, after a coupon and harassing Dell with a few phone calls, my total price (including a ~$200 DPA gift card) made it within a few hundred of the Sager, but again is not quite as well equipped (less RAM, slower CPU, no 120hz screen).

Again I apologize if my comments are upsetting owners or prospective buyers, just thought I'd share observations and thoughts. It's hard to beat component selection for the money in the Sager, and the level of expandability is excellent. If it were sitting in one spot and not moving (a desktop replacement), I'd have far less reservations about keeping. But mine will definitely be mobile and moved around quite a bit so having a well built tank of a machine is important to me. The Sager just didn't quite measure up in my opinion.

 

Don't apologize for being honest in your evaluation, that's what forums are for - exchanging information.

Mine won't be moved much so it may not be much of an issue to me but I did opt for the extended warranty plus accidental damage in my build as well. With that said, I want to feel secure knowing that it would be okay in my milspec laptop bag and you have indeed place doubt about that in my mind so I will certainly investigate and report back. Either way, I'll test and report back. Glad you were able to haggle with Dell. Me personally... I can't stand their CS long enough to haggle. Enjoy your machine though!

 

Was seriously considering the alienware 17 but then read the users review and
Changed my mind instantly.
Alienware 14-17-18 seem to peel off around the edges and soft touch ,
The alienware matte 17 inch tn panel is poor according to lots of users.
And really lots if mixed opinions on it.
I really wanted the alienware 17 even if it's bit overpriced , it's a beauty but then if i own one I with its premium price n it started to peel off ,it would a horrible experience for me .
I prefer the sager plastic build that would last ages than a rubber surface that would only hold on for a while.
As for performance per money spent , no one seems to able to beat sager on that part yet for a high end gaming machine.

 

Actually you highlighted my biggest complaint about the build quality of the M17x - my touchpad's coating started to come off within a few months and it dramatically affected usability. The middle spot on the pad has lost all of its tactile feel and also is mostly a dead spot on the trackpad now. The keyboard is wrecked too but that's a relatively easy replacement. My Bluray drive died though and Dell wanted 400 bucks for a new one. It up and died on its own one day.

 

You've highlighted my two reservations about the AW17. The rubber peeling off seems the major downside of the Alienware, but it should be covered under warranty. The screen can easily be replaced for ~$100 if it's bothersome.

The third issue that I've noted but am not concerned about is locking the BIOS to aggressively throttle the CPU, which sounds like a dealbreaker for those that purchased the mobile Extreme CPU, not necessarily the 47xx CPU, unless I'm misreading the Alienware forums. This "nanny state" mentality undoubtedly saves them from having to do a lot of warranty work. Haven't looked into the specifics but there may be a way with hardware TPM to write something that cannot be tampered, like the fan and CPU settings, and refuse warranty coverage when a user cooked their system due to the lack of understanding on how to responsibly push their system to its limits.

Even though I'm no longer an owner, looking forward to hearing others peoples observation about the 9377. Moving over to the Alienware forums and will post my initial feedback on the 17 as well.

 

Cosmetic damage is NOT covered in the Alienware warranty and I would guess that the rubber peeling off would be considered cosmetic like my touch pad's rubber coming off was considered cosmetic, even though it affected usability. If you have an issue, you are SOL unless you attach the rubber issue to a hardware issue.

The nerfing of the BIOS has to do with Dell refusing to acknowledge that there isn't enough power going to the components. Instead of working in a second power adapter, they are nerfing the BIOS. It has zero to do with hardware failures caused by user error and everything to do with the fact that the machine doesn't have a large enough power supply to feed two graphics cards and an extreme chip.

 

The lid is not a carry handle.

Sent with love from my Galaxy S4

 

Gimping the AW BIOS isn't as big of an issue for the AW17 as it is for the AW18.

 

This is correct but buying a machine from Dell with the knowledge of their business practices tells them its okay to continue doing what they're doing. Its obviously working since I got my M17x in 2009 and its now 2014.

To be perfectly honest, even if the build quality isn't fantastic on the Sager when I get it, I more than likely will still skip Dell and go for a single 880M ASUS ROG from XOTIC. The more I think about it, the more I remember about exactly what I went through with that M17x. I'm done defending Dell to others who gave me crap for having an Alienware machine and the wool is gone from my eyes. What they are doing and have been doing since they bought Alienware is just not okay.

This is completely off topic at this point though. I still can't wait to get my machine. Hopefully its fine.

 

And that is exactly why I skipped the AW18 and went for a P370SM.

Actually, I literally had my mouse pointer on the order button on Dell's website when I got cold feet. Long story short I ended up on the AW18 forum here, read about all the issues plaguing the AW18, and decided that Dell would not be getting a penny out of me.

 

I want your honest opinion when you get it
You ordered around the same time as me from Xotic so we are kind of like laptop bros.

I think this may be my last Alienware, like I said my previous machine was stolen so this was a very emotional decision as well, but once that is satisfied there is really no reason for me to buy another one after that if the Sager really does work out.

 

The P370EM has the same # of phases as the P170EM, but uses twice the amount of mosfets per phase (4 vs 2 in 170) correct?

But the 170SM only has 2 phases? P370SM still has 3 phases, but seems like it uses one less mosfet per phase compared to 370EM (3 vs 4).

Does this mean that for 24/7 overclocking, the P370EM is actually superior to the P370SM?

 

Depends on the actual components used, you can only compare number of phases when you are sure they are the same.

 

Hey guys .... So yea found some benchmarks done by eurocom on the 870m sli and 880m sli , since I don't know much what' the numbers mean I'll leave that for you guys maybe some one can do us the math and we know the actual difference between them.
Was considering the 880m but read on a review that ithe GPUs are getting bottlenecked by the CPU on some titles thus the average increase in performance of the 880m sli is just 40% ..... So was thinking of getting 2 lower 870m so maybe I can make full use of them.
Here are the numbers your thoughts and notes are very welcomed.


http://web.eurocom.com/ec/data/benchmarks/69_0.jpg

 

The reviewer is on crack. The bottleneck is the gimped VBIOS in 880M. The CPU has plenty of power. I am running a 4810QM and only seeing about 25% CPU utilization in Mechwarrior Online which is known to be a CPU hog.

Sent with love from my Galaxy S4

 

There is absolutely no way that the CPU in that machine is the bottleneck. It is a desktop Extreme chip. There are some titles that are maxed out on the graphics and that makes the CPU the limiter but that doesn't mean that your graphics card is going to waste, just that it readily handles the load thrown at it and the rest is CPU.

The 880M is not going to bottleneck with a 4960X or 4940MX chip.

 

That being said... the 870M SLI is not a bad choice. You get a lot for your money.

Sent with love from my Galaxy S4

 

Well, considering the 880m sli at stock should be around 18K gpu and not 15.6k. explains allot.

 

The SLI system is almost 40% ahead of a single GTX 880M on average. Is a performance advantage of 40% really worth an additional charge of 650 Euros (~$899)? That can be discussed.
However, the improvement is bigger with less powerful GPU systems like the GeForce GT 755M SLI (Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p) or the GeForce GTX 765M SLI (Aorus X7) because they are not as quickly limited by the CPU. You can actually notice that the Core i7-4810MQ is the limiting factor in some games, and not the GTX 880M SLI. This is the case in Guild Wars 2, Saints Row IV as well as Hitman: Absolution, and even the GTX 780M SLI is slightly ahead in these titles. Speaking of the GTX 780M SLI: The old high-end combination is around 10% behind the GTX 880M SLI; the almost 550 Euros (~$760) less expensive Radeon R9 M290X CF falls behind by around 20%.

Excellent benchmark scores or not: We still believe that even passionate gamers should be better off with a single GPU solution, and the saved money can be invested into the next notebook.


Source : Review Clevo P370SM-A (Schenker XMG P724) Barebones Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews


- I know the 870m sli will probably max all current games as well , and if what's in this review is true then I'll make more use of its power based on money spent.

 

That review is with a 4810MQ... The processor in the benchmarks that were posted previously by you were with a 4960X CPU. The 4960X will *NOT* be a bottleneck as its a desktop CPU, not a mobile CPU and I highly doubt that the 4940MX would be a bottleneck either.

Honestly if you can afford the 880M, its stupid not to go for them. Your system will be relevant longer with faster performing parts, that's a fact.

 

When will you be getting your system would really like your thoughts of the machine .... I would probably go for 880ms as well but the hesitation started after reading this review.... Would even make more sense waiting for maxwell with x2 the performance but again that's way too long to wait..
Think I should just pull the trigger and stop googling all day lol.
If am still waiting is that I need to read more comments from users.

 

Its in the customization phase with XOTIC now so hopefully I'll have it by the end of next week. I'll definitely report back with my thoughts after I get it.

I can tell you that if you are constantly searching, you will drive yourself insane. It is impossible to keep up with the tech world. As for Maxwell... don't expect a doubling of performance in laptops. We're hitting a performance wall that won't be easily fixed due to cooling and power limitations in laptops. An 880M SLI is roughly equivalent in performance to a single 780 Ti chip when SLI is running FLAWLESSLY which pretty much doesn't happen so its more realistic to say its about 10% off from a regular GTX 780 at worst and 10% away from a 780 Ti at best in practice. I may not even be accurate on that, its just based on the history of past chips. Either way, a Maxwell-based mobile chip won't likely come out til 2015 so if you need a machine now, its silly to look at the future. At least we know these machines are upgradeable though (unless they change the interface the graphics cards use of course), that gives us room to pay to upgrade later if we so choose.

 

If you tweak the cards the difference will extend a little more but 880M SLI is starting to be mostly limited by 1080p lol.