Tron1982
VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Sooooo, after a pair of messages about my feeling about the 17” recoil (clevo chassis number X170KM-G) and a promise I made to myself to write a review, here I come …
(I’ll join some picture when I can)
First thing first, please, accept my apologies for my “mandatory” English mistakes ^^” (we all know the cliché about French speaking other language
)
To give you some background, I came from a asus rog g750jm with a 860gtm gpu
And now, let’s the fun begins ^^ :
The specs of the laptop I bought can be seen here (and I’ll do my review about it, obviously) :
www.pcspecialist.co.uk
So, let’s start with the pcs service :
Even before buying the laptop, it’s should be noted that, I was … let’s say I asked many many questions on the pcs chat, and, every time, the pcs personnel was awesome
Then, I paid for the 5 days fast track build, and it was worth it, my laptop was built in 3 days after the payment was accepted, just before the summer, with tons of other system to build.
The delivery, otherwise, was … complicated, thanks to the brexit and the covid … I know it’s not PCS fault, they were as helpful as they could when I asked for more info about it, but FedEx was kinda … completely out of sorts … (I hope the expression is clear ? ^^”)
The point is, maybe, PCS should find an other delivery service (if it’s possible, of course ^^)
Anyway, the pcs service was, overall, very good.
To have my mind at peace, I took the 36 months assurance that pcs offer
And as French customer, I already had the gold warranty
The only point that should be noted after the reception is that I did a clean install of windows.
Twice, because I did a mistake when I chose the os disk.
And it’s only took 15 minutes each times (CF my later remark about what I had as HDD before)
And the windows update did not found the fingerprints pilots (I found it on the web using the part serial number)
Now, about the laptop:
I don’t use cooling pad (for now) and I started using a little bit of undervolting very recently.
Let’s start with the overall chassis and power supply units …
The chassis is in a grey brushed metal that feel really nice (only the bottom is in plastic).
The recoil is heavy, like, really REALLY heavy (something like 6.5kg with the 2 power bricks - and bricks the perfect word to define it (4.5kg for the laptop and 1kg for each PSU)) even with the appropriate bag (I bought the Everky titan, and it's still tiring, but, the laptop fit perfectly inside and this is to be noted, because the chassis is huge).
The laptop need the two power units to run to its fullest capacity (and to charge the battery), but it can run with only one with some compromises.
The battery is pretty weak (even if it's a 97watt one) in the recoil because the hardware is a really power hungry monster ... with everything at the lowest consumption, you may have 1h30 max i'd say ... (something like 1%/minute ...)
The screen is a 144Hz classic resolution (1920*1080) and, to be honest, it would have be nice to have a better one (I mean, I have a 3080, I could run smoothly 4k screen …), but otherwise, it’s a pretty decent screen. The light is pretty decent to.
I didn’t chose the 300Hz panel because I tought it would have been pointless on a laptop with my choice of game … (And let’s be honest, I don’t think the human eye will see any difference above the 144hz refreshing rate …)
The backlight bleed look like to me not so bad
So, even if it’s not the best, it’s a pretty good screen.
About the number of port, it’s amazing how many ports (number and type, some with thunderbolt) clevo put on this chassis, but, I have to admit that I think one more classic usb would have been nice (I’m coming from a laptop with 4 usb port) …
Anyway, I doubt that, one day, I’ll use them all on the same time Oo …
(and it’s the only point where I did not follow @spydertrack advices, I finally bough a simple docking hub to have more usb port)
Then, let’s talk about the keyboard, it’s a per-key keyboard with rgb, a lot of rgb (I like it, I played with the rgb for … I don’t know hours, just because I was like a child in Christmas with the wave choice) …
Sorry, I lost myself with the rgb, so, the keyboard is very sturdy, fresh and the key feel nice (I’m juste afraid to damage the key with my nails after what I read on the forum …). I just needed some adaptation time and now, I’m good when I’m using it.
The palmrest are always fresh (to cold) even with heavy demanding game.
The trackpad has 2 “real” buttons and I really like this details (but it’s a personal choice ^^)
To conclude this part, let’s talk about the cooling system.
The recoil has 10 heatpipes inside and that can cool the laptop from 95 to 45 °C in less than a minute (i tried it for you)
The fans can be loud when you play games, but i think it's pretty normal nowadays, especially with the hardware inside ... when you don't play and do office work it will stay silent.
I managed to have better cooling result in “real-life” use with some personalized fan settings (I’ll put the setting here later).
Unlike when I did the performance test with max speed fan settings.
Now, let’s talk about the hardware :
I chose the 3080 because it’s the first bottleneck in laptop (even in modular DTR, I’m pretty sure that I will never find a laptop next gen gpu ^^”).
Even with my latest game, I didn’t manage to even make it sweat a little with the ultra settings
And I’m pretty happy with that, seriously, it’s so cool to play game with ultra settings as it was nothing for the laptop (and I’m sure the rgb light bar on the rear help with that … did I say that I like rgb ? XD)
I chose the i7-11700k cpu, as the i9 is over-overkill for me, and if I’m not wrong, it was the best available choice when I made my purchase
(I wish I could have gone with amd, but we can’t always have what we want – honestly, I think this it the only “problem” with this laptop)
Otherwise, I don’t really know what to say about the cpu for now, I didn’t really used it to do thesis work or vm, so … I can say that I’ll not be cold this winter, thought o
To sum up what happen during a game session about heat, the CPU stay between 70 to 80 °C (with some spikes at 95/99°C) and the GPU stay between 50 to 60°C. And after game session the cpu went from 80°C to 45° in less than a minute and the same about the gpu, it went from 50ish to 40 quick.
About the ssd, I have the samsung 980pro … Coming from an old HDD 7200rpm to that it’s like night and day, before, I had to wait 5 minutes to use my laptop after started id, and now … well, I don’t have to wait more than a couple of sec … (I understand all the ssd memes now #happy)
About the sound system, it’s a pretty good one for a laptop.
It’s not as good as my “musical” earphone, but it’s pretty good (it even has a subwoofer ^^).
So, to conclude, I’m very happy with this laptop (maybe it’s the rgb effect), everything work smoothly on it and I can’t find anything that’s really wrong with it.
So, i am now an happy man with a monstrous power hungry powerful speedy almost perfect laptop (yeah, I still have some dream about the same spec with an amd cpu)
If any of you have any question that I did not answer, please ask, I’ll be happy to answer and to help you (or any correction to suggest, I’ll think about it ^^)
(I’ll join some picture when I can)
First thing first, please, accept my apologies for my “mandatory” English mistakes ^^” (we all know the cliché about French speaking other language
)To give you some background, I came from a asus rog g750jm with a 860gtm gpu
And now, let’s the fun begins ^^ :
The specs of the laptop I bought can be seen here (and I’ll do my review about it, obviously) :
Laptop specs advice
Hello hello, (as the text is longer than usual, if i do some mistake, all my apologies) So, as I said somewhere else (many time i think :D ), i have to change my laptop (did i told you that i really really want to play mass effect and i was frustrated yesterday ? :D) Anyway, so, i would like...
So, let’s start with the pcs service :
Even before buying the laptop, it’s should be noted that, I was … let’s say I asked many many questions on the pcs chat, and, every time, the pcs personnel was awesome
Then, I paid for the 5 days fast track build, and it was worth it, my laptop was built in 3 days after the payment was accepted, just before the summer, with tons of other system to build.
The delivery, otherwise, was … complicated, thanks to the brexit and the covid … I know it’s not PCS fault, they were as helpful as they could when I asked for more info about it, but FedEx was kinda … completely out of sorts … (I hope the expression is clear ? ^^”)
The point is, maybe, PCS should find an other delivery service (if it’s possible, of course ^^)
Anyway, the pcs service was, overall, very good.
To have my mind at peace, I took the 36 months assurance that pcs offer
And as French customer, I already had the gold warranty
The only point that should be noted after the reception is that I did a clean install of windows.
Twice, because I did a mistake when I chose the os disk.
And it’s only took 15 minutes each times (CF my later remark about what I had as HDD before)
And the windows update did not found the fingerprints pilots (I found it on the web using the part serial number)
Now, about the laptop:
I don’t use cooling pad (for now) and I started using a little bit of undervolting very recently.
Let’s start with the overall chassis and power supply units …
The chassis is in a grey brushed metal that feel really nice (only the bottom is in plastic).
The recoil is heavy, like, really REALLY heavy (something like 6.5kg with the 2 power bricks - and bricks the perfect word to define it
(4.5kg for the laptop and 1kg for each PSU)) even with the appropriate bag (I bought the Everky titan, and it's still tiring, but, the laptop fit perfectly inside and this is to be noted, because the chassis is huge).The laptop need the two power units to run to its fullest capacity (and to charge the battery), but it can run with only one with some compromises.
The battery is pretty weak (even if it's a 97watt one) in the recoil because the hardware is a really power hungry monster ... with everything at the lowest consumption, you may have 1h30 max i'd say ... (something like 1%/minute ...)
The screen is a 144Hz classic resolution (1920*1080) and, to be honest, it would have be nice to have a better one (I mean, I have a 3080, I could run smoothly 4k screen …), but otherwise, it’s a pretty decent screen. The light is pretty decent to.
I didn’t chose the 300Hz panel because I tought it would have been pointless on a laptop with my choice of game … (And let’s be honest, I don’t think the human eye will see any difference above the 144hz refreshing rate …)
The backlight bleed look like to me not so bad
So, even if it’s not the best, it’s a pretty good screen.
About the number of port, it’s amazing how many ports (number and type, some with thunderbolt) clevo put on this chassis, but, I have to admit that I think one more classic usb would have been nice (I’m coming from a laptop with 4 usb port) …
Anyway, I doubt that, one day, I’ll use them all on the same time Oo …
(and it’s the only point where I did not follow @spydertrack advices, I finally bough a simple docking hub to have more usb port)
Then, let’s talk about the keyboard, it’s a per-key keyboard with rgb, a lot of rgb (I like it, I played with the rgb for … I don’t know hours, just because I was like a child in Christmas with the wave choice
) …Sorry, I lost myself with the rgb, so, the keyboard is very sturdy, fresh and the key feel nice (I’m juste afraid to damage the key with my nails after what I read on the forum …). I just needed some adaptation time and now, I’m good when I’m using it.
The palmrest are always fresh (to cold) even with heavy demanding game.
The trackpad has 2 “real” buttons and I really like this details (but it’s a personal choice ^^)
To conclude this part, let’s talk about the cooling system.
The recoil has 10 heatpipes inside and that can cool the laptop from 95 to 45 °C in less than a minute (i tried it for you
)The fans can be loud when you play games, but i think it's pretty normal nowadays, especially with the hardware inside ... when you don't play and do office work it will stay silent.
I managed to have better cooling result in “real-life” use with some personalized fan settings (I’ll put the setting here later).
Unlike when I did the performance test with max speed fan settings.
Now, let’s talk about the hardware :
I chose the 3080 because it’s the first bottleneck in laptop (even in modular DTR, I’m pretty sure that I will never find a laptop next gen gpu ^^”).
Even with my latest game, I didn’t manage to even make it sweat a little with the ultra settings
And I’m pretty happy with that, seriously, it’s so cool to play game with ultra settings as it was nothing for the laptop (and I’m sure the rgb light bar on the rear help with that … did I say that I like rgb ? XD)
I chose the i7-11700k cpu, as the i9 is over-overkill for me, and if I’m not wrong, it was the best available choice when I made my purchase
(I wish I could have gone with amd, but we can’t always have what we want
– honestly, I think this it the only “problem” with this laptop)Otherwise, I don’t really know what to say about the cpu for now, I didn’t really used it to do thesis work or vm, so … I can say that I’ll not be cold this winter, thought o
To sum up what happen during a game session about heat, the CPU stay between 70 to 80 °C (with some spikes at 95/99°C) and the GPU stay between 50 to 60°C. And after game session the cpu went from 80°C to 45° in less than a minute and the same about the gpu, it went from 50ish to 40 quick.
About the ssd, I have the samsung 980pro … Coming from an old HDD 7200rpm to that it’s like night and day, before, I had to wait 5 minutes to use my laptop after started id, and now … well, I don’t have to wait more than a couple of sec … (I understand all the ssd memes now #happy
)About the sound system, it’s a pretty good one for a laptop.
It’s not as good as my “musical” earphone, but it’s pretty good (it even has a subwoofer ^^).
So, to conclude, I’m very happy with this laptop (maybe it’s the rgb effect
), everything work smoothly on it and I can’t find anything that’s really wrong with it.So, i am now an happy man with a monstrous power hungry powerful speedy almost perfect laptop (yeah, I still have some dream about the same spec with an amd cpu
)If any of you have any question that I did not answer, please ask, I’ll be happy to answer and to help you (or any correction to suggest, I’ll think about it ^^)