Defiance V review

Leeuk13

Active member
Hello everyone,

I received my new Defiance V about 2 weeks ago, I thought I would give it a couple weeks of vigorous use before posting a review to ensure that everything I comment on is well justified. I also notice that there are not many reviews about this laptop at all, hopefully my review will help anyone thinking of purchasing.

A quick run over the specs I chose;
Display - 17.3’ QHD 120hz
CPU - I7 8750H
GPU - GTX 1070
RAM - 2x 8gb (2400mhz)
Storage - 1TB Serial ATA (7200rpm) & 500GB Samsung 960 EVO.

I use the laptop for heavy gaming sessions and in the near future I want to stream some of my gameplay to Twitch. Mainly I use it to play WOW, Overwatch and Fortnite, maybe even the odd AAA.

My first impressions, quality. The packaging was good with minimal junk in the box. The chassis of the laptop feels premium with a full metal body, even underneath. Be aware though, it’s a massive finger print magnet. The keyboard feels nice however I will be purchasing a separate mechanical keyboard for gaming.

Now onto the juicy stuff, performance. What a beast. It has easily handled everything I’ve thrown at it with graphics maxed out at 1440p and it’s looks delightful. I’m really happy I went with the QHD display, it really makes a difference. I use it on a cooling pad to ensure airflow is optimal however this thing does get very warm, why wouldn’t it? It’s a thin laptop packed with a GTX 1070, which from my experience performs no differently to its desktop counterpart. I have monitored temps and the graphics card is well cooled, normal sitting between 75-80c when deep into a heavy gaming session. The CPU normally sits between 75-85c depending on what game you are playing, (this is with the improved Thermal Compound). This causes the top left area of the laptop to become rather hot, the WASD keys are also pretty walm due to this, however I don’t really notice that anymore. The fans seem to be doing there job, all be it pretty loudly (about the same as my PS4). Again, what do you expect from a laptop with this kind of hardware. They blow powerfully, and for good reason.

I did have a few issues with the control centre not working, apparently the new version of control centre (the software used to look at your system performance & change your rgb lights etc) is experiencing problems but the older version works. I am currently using the older version which is fine but it doesn’t remember your settings. If you make any changes, they will be reverted back the next time you start up. Pretty annoying.

Another issue I seem to be having is when streaming using Streamlabs OBS. When playing Overwatch I am normally hitting 150+ FPS with everything maxed out. As soon as I open OBS, my frames drop to between 20-30. This happens on all games. Before anyone says it, it’s not due to thermal throttling at all. Temps are not really any higher than normal so I do think that something somewhere either in OBS or my system settings is causing this, I’m just struggling to find out what it is. After now playing at 120+ FPS at 1440p, going back to 20-30fps looks disgraceful. If anyone has ever experienced this and has a solution, I would grateful if you could let me know. I’m eager to let other people see how much I suck at fortnite... lol!

Overall I am absolutely delighted with it. I can’t belive I have gone through 26 years of my life without an SSD and high refresh rate display, I now see the world in full QHD! Amazing! And the best thing is, I can easily take it to my mates house for all nighters! Even the 230w powerbrick is pretty small.

If any of you have any other questions about it, feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer.

Ratings-
Display - 10/10
Graphics - 10/10
Thermals - 7/10
Fan Noise - 8/10
Build Quality - 10/10
My happiness level - 10/10

I hope this helps anyone looking to invest in a rig that you can take where you want! I’m not that great at reviews but I think I’ve covered everything. Pictures of my new baby (called Jane, after the DPD woman that delivered it) are on route.

The reason I have a laptop is because I have no space for a desktop at the moment. As soon as I move house and get a gaming room (wife permitting) I will be purchasing a desktop for home use and after this experience, I will definitely be doing it through pc specialist. Massive thumbs up from me!! Thanks!!
 
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Leeuk13

Active member
Pictures

IMG_0509.jpgIMG_0510.jpgIMG_0511.jpgIMG_0512.jpg
 

MancioGames

New member
Love u! I was searching for a review these days because I am also interessed to this Laptop! And apparently yours is the only one around XD One question. The fan make noises only when playing videogames? When you don't use it, is it silent (not at 100% obv)?
 

emichi

Member
I am also planning to buy this laptop. However my main concern is the heat generated while playing and the fall of the keyboard letters

Could you, please, enter this post later and tell us how you have behaved with the passing of the days the temperature playing?
Thank you Sr
++
++
spanish:
tambien estoy planeando comprar este laptop. Sin embargo mi principal preocupación es el calor generado mientras se juega y la caida de las letras del teclado

Podrias, por favor, entrar a este post más adelante y decirnos como se ha comportado con el paso de los días la temperatura jugando?
Muchas gracias
 

Leeuk13

Active member
I am also planning to buy this laptop. However my main concern is the heat generated while playing and the fall of the keyboard letters

Could you, please, enter this post later and tell us how you have behaved with the passing of the days the temperature playing?
Thank you Sr

As stated above, the metal casing over the cpu fan (top left) gets very hot, in turn this makes the keys in that area walm too, however after 2 weeks of intensive use, I have not even really noticed it whilst gaming. No distraction at all to me.
 

Jorès

Member
I have monitored temps and the graphics card is well cooled, normal sitting between 75-80c

Actually,the temps of the gpu are not good because it's well cooled, they are good because when it reaches 72°C the GPU boost clock gets disabled by the Clevo Control Center. So, as throttling the GPU clock to 1468MHz is not really a good cooling solution, we can't say that it's well cooled.
When you uninstall this software, the GPU gets normally boosted and reaches 90°C before getting normally thermal-throttled.

By the way, the cpu and gpu share a pipe,so when one is warm it effects the temps of the other thus it might explain why you get those 30 fps while running OBS.
 
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Leeuk13

Active member
When you uninstall this software, the GPU gets normally boosted and reaches 90°C before getting normally thermal-throttled.

Ahh ok, that makes sense. So to get the most out of it, would you say uninstall the control centre or would that burn the whole thing out?

By the way, the cpu and gpu share a pipe,so when one is warm it effects the temps of the other thus it might explain why you get those 30 fps while running OBS.

I still don’t understand that because even if I’ve just turned it on and the whole system is really cold is happens. Sureley it can’t throttle that hard when cold?
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Thank you for a very detailed and honest review. :)

As you can see these kinds of reviews do help others thinking of buying a similar config, +rep well deserved and given. :)
 

Jorès

Member
Ahh ok, that makes sense. So to get the most out of it, would you say uninstall the control centre or would that burn the whole thing out?



I still don’t understand that because even if I’ve just turned it on and the whole system is really cold is happens. Sureley it can’t throttle that hard when cold?


An other strange thing I noticed, on AIDA64 when i run a stress test, the cpu gets 95°C for something like 2 sec then gets throttled to 70°C and the clock is blocked to 2.2Mhz. It seems that the CPU clock-boost is also getting disabled when the cpu is fully charged.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
An other strange thing I noticed, on AIDA64 when i run a stress test, the cpu gets 95°C for something like 2 sec then gets throttled to 70°C and the clock is blocked to 2.2Mhz. It seems that the CPU clock-boost is also getting disabled when the cpu is fully charged.

PCS have confirmed this issue and there is a BIOS update to fix it which should be available as of tomorrow. Be advised, any BIOS update needs to be done with PCS supervision, so give them a call to talk through it.
 

Leeuk13

Active member
PCS have confirmed this issue and there is a BIOS update to fix it which should be available as of tomorrow. Be advised, any BIOS update needs to be done with PCS supervision, so give them a call to talk through it.


Sorry, I am now really confused. Is this something I will need to sort out?
 

Jorès

Member
Do you think this would be the reason my games lag massivley when OBS is open in the background?

I think that when you run obs it uses 100% of your cpu for the encoding so as a stress test the system might respond by disabling the clock-boost
 
Looking into this beast as well, the QHD screen is a must for me.

So after some months, BIOS update included i guess, how will you rate your experience? is still that hot when extreme gaming?
 

PhantomR

Member
Hey, is there any chance you've done any testing on battery life during normal usage (web browsing, reduced brightness)?
 

fedbar

New member
Hello everyone,

I received my new Defiance V about 2 weeks ago, I thought I would give it a couple weeks of vigorous use before posting a review to ensure that everything I comment on is well justified. I also notice that there are not many reviews about this laptop at all, hopefully my review will help anyone thinking of purchasing.

A quick run over the specs I chose;
Display - 17.3’ QHD 120hz
CPU - I7 8750H
GPU - GTX 1070
RAM - 2x 8gb (2400mhz)
Storage - 1TB Serial ATA (7200rpm) & 500GB Samsung 960 EVO.

Thank you for your review.
I'd like to buy the same notebook configuration on pcspecialist.it but is not clear to me if the screen panel is IPS or TN and if it is strongly recommended to buy a cooling down panel.

Thnak you in advance for your kind answer.

Federico:yes:
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
The panels PCS use can be subject to change, so even if the OP has X, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get X too. You may be best placed calling PCS for the model numbers of what they're using at the moment, and asking whether that's what would be used for any order you place at a given point in time :)
 
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