Defiance V - Review

dafjoh

Member
I finally ordered my Defiance V on the 16th of October after a lot of deliberation! Delivered on the 24th.

First Thoughts: Amazing quality, fast build/delivering time with notifications throughout the build process! Performs like a dream!

Spec:
Chassis & Display Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen(1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU) Intel® CoreTM i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive 500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2300MB/W)
Memory Card Reader Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor 1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (66WH)
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + Sound BlasterX® Pro-Gaming 720 ̊
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9260 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB Options 4 x USB 3.0 Ports + 1 x USB 3.1 Type C Ports
Keyboard Language RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee 1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Promotional Item FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Promotional Item FREE Assassin's Creed: Odyssey with select SAMSUNG NVMe SSDs!

Full Review:
Background
I've been looking to make the move to something a bit more portable for quite some time.
I am a game developer, specializing in 3D art & Level design predominantly using programs such as Autodesk Maya, Unreal Engine 4, I also work with photo, video & sound editing tools as well!
Until this point I've been working between my home PC; a well used 2500 i5 paired with a 4GB GTX 770, which is starting to show its age but does the job & my office PC an i7 7700k paired with an 8GB GTX 1070.
As my home PC is due for an upgrade I thought it more efficient to invest in a laptop with the best of both worlds hence arriving at PC Specialist as I'm a sucker for custom builds rather than off the shelf.

After reading A LOT on here about other peoples experiences & opinions the Defiance, with many threads complaining about heat issues & thermal throttling I was a little skeptical but I took a chance on the Defiance, after seeing some comments about Bios updates & fixes. I'm so glad I took the chance! It's been nothing but a dream. Whatever PCS have done to rectify these issues, or if it was just a select few who were unlucky, but for anyone looking at this laptop I wouldn't worry.
Sadly I think people who have had good experiences have either been too busy enjoying their new laptop or slipped their mind to even bother leaving a review.

Running Temps:
No issues what so ever...
Idle Temps: 30's
Full Load Temps (Games, Benchmarking & 3D work): 70-80
No throttling or slow down to speak of!

Chassis Quality:
Faultless... Its a beautifully sleek design with a premium feel, however is a fingerprint magnet as you can see in the photos :p (Not an issue at all).
Weight is nice; heavy enough to feel sturdy but light enough to stay in your backpack all day without giving you back pain!
It actually runs cooler than a friends Razer laptop of equal spec which surprised me, seen as its was literally more than twice the price!
It can feel warm to touch, some people might use the word hot but in no way could it burn you and its only at the top left next to the exhaust, which is a good thing as its clearly expelling all that hot air.
Keyboard is nice to use, good feel when typing and for gaming. LED customization is a nice touch!

Noise:
It's silent until I boot an intensive program then its has a slight noise. Gaming it does wind up to the point it can drown the built in speakers out a little, but its actually quieter than my desktop on full chatter. With headphones in it's unnoticeable.

Screen Quality:
The 144hz is a pleasure to the eye. Colour's are vivid and have a good range, though in a darkroom and black screen there is a slight bit of bleed near the hinges, where I imagine there is more pressure due to clips/screws. Though nothing that hinders use at all, another non problem.

Gaming performance:
I've actually been very surprised at its performance in games, online I'd read the 10 series cards are meant to perform with around 30% difference to their desktop alternatives (Not including the MaxQ versions) which I was taking with a pinch of salt, but it actually is very close and even on par in a lot of cases in the games I've tested.

Assassins Creed Odyssey: 50-80 FPS.
Call Of Duty - Black Ops 4: 90-120 FPS.
Rust: 90-140 FPS
MGS5: 60-90FPS.

All graphical options maxed out!





Thickness


AC Odyssey FPS


Idle Temps


Load Temps


To cap it off, if you can't already tell I'd highly recommend this chassis and PCS.
I'm normally a DIY'er and have always built my own systems, but I can happily say I'd use PCS in the future!

I'm happy to post more screenshots of specific things if there is anything someone is looking to see.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Firstly, really great review, thank you!

Secondly, great to see such good operating temps and zero throttling!
 

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
Thank you for taking the time to write that. As you say, most of the comments/reviews here are quite negative around the temperatures and it's nice to see one that isn't saying that.

I suspect you're right - Oussebon said the same thing recently - that the issues with heat are actually a small minority, but equally that people will be more willing to complain or write a negative review.
 

fabcas

Active member
Thank you for the review, you have been faster than me (I'm sorry I didn't post my review yet but...I prefer to take more time for a correct review). May I ask you which program is the one you posted showing the hardware status and temps? Thanks
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
The software in the pics in NZXT Cam. Personally I use HWinfo + RTSS, or MSI Afterburner.
 

dafjoh

Member
May I ask you which program is the one you posted showing the hardware status and temps? Thanks

As Oussebon said it's NXZT Cam.

It's a great little program, in the past I've used HWMonitor & MSI Afterburner/EVGA PRECISION Monitor (All based around the same program).
Though I moved to Cam because it's easier to glance at when gaming due to its simple design.

Hopefully more people start to leave reviews and a more unbiased picture starts to form, as I find it hard to believe PCS would continue selling them if they were predominately faulty.

Update: I was out and about yesterday and had a couple hours to kill so I decided to try Destiny 2 out using mobile data on my phone and didn't have access to mains power.
I managed to get a solid 1hour 52Mins on full settings (Limited to 30fps) until the battery gave out, which I was extremely impressed with!
 

Reamzy

Active member
Hello there.

I just got this same laptop a week ago and my only concern since then are the running temperatures in-games.
While gaming my CPU was at 70-85 and stayed there all the time while gaming, never went higher than 86. The GPU was at 60-75.

Are these normal temps?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Hello there.

I just got this same laptop a week ago and my only concern since then are the running temperatures in-games.
While gaming my CPU was at 70-85 and stayed there all the time while gaming, never went higher than 86. The GPU was at 60-75.

Are these normal temps?

Totally normal, those are bios temps.
 

dafjoh

Member
Seem like totally acceptable temps if you were running a new game at max settings.
I've managed to get mine a couple degree's higher since my initial post, though that was not at a desk and in a warm room.

I find myself sat in bed much more now, so I may end up getting myself a decent cooling pad to raise it off my lap to help airflow.
Though very tempted to design and build my own with some extra room for a mouse mat.
 

dafjoh

Member
Yes, if you enable MSHybrid (switches between igpu & dgpu when needed), reduced brightness for screen & keyboard.
I've had mine predict over 5 hours though I did not test this prediction.

I think I've used it for about 3 hours straight not plugged in with basic web browsing, a bit of image editing and Netflix.

Gaming on full on battery I lasted 1 hour on Destiny 2.
 

dafjoh

Member
So a little update:

If you're an avid gamer/game dev or basically do anything GPU related which you'd benefit from getting the most out of your GPU, DON'T enable MSHybrid!
Whilst it's great at maximizing your battery power when unplugged it severely handicaps your GPU utilization.
For example on Rust:
MSHybrid enabled: 30-50fps (Regardless of being plugged in or what settings were enabled).
MSHybrid disabled: 70-90fps average.

Just a heads up! I personally didn't realise it would cap my overall FPS as well as being able to switch between iGPU & dGPU.

Secondly the 500GB 970 EVO became a problem quicker than I anticipated and filled it far to fast! So I bought a 1TB 860 EVO and fitted it myself.
Honestly it was harder than I thought it would be, BUT after struggling and finally finding the manual on how to do this from Clevo I had done it within an hour.

For anyone attempting this, DO NOT TRY THIS WITHOUT THE MANUAL.
I mean you probably can but you need to know that before the bottom of the case will come off, you need to pull out the keyboard as there is a final screw under it, allowing it to be removed.
After this its very simple plug and play, just like a desktop albeit slightly tighter.

I've attached a screen grab of updated temps.
This is the hottest I've managed to get it and you won't get much more (Real world) intensity than what I was doing; Building & Packaging my game in UE4, whilst also modelling in Maya LT and having Netflix on in the background (3 Screens).

So for anyone worrying, I wouldn't bother unless you're doing something so intensive it shouldn't be done on a laptop and probably your typical desktop unless its a PRO spec system.

UE4_Building1.png
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
MSHybrid enabled: 30-50fps (Regardless of being plugged in or what settings were enabled).
MSHybrid disabled: 70-90fps average.


Just a heads up! I personally didn't realise it would cap my overall FPS as well as being able to switch between iGPU & dGPU.
Odd to see that. Out of interest, does that performance difference hold true with gsync disabled for both MSHybrid on and off?
 

ioapop

Member
So a little update:

If you're an avid gamer/game dev or basically do anything GPU related which you'd benefit from getting the most out of your GPU, DON'T enable MSHybrid!
Whilst it's great at maximizing your battery power when unplugged it severely handicaps your GPU utilization.
For example on Rust:
MSHybrid enabled: 30-50fps (Regardless of being plugged in or what settings were enabled).
MSHybrid disabled: 70-90fps average.

Just a heads up! I personally didn't realise it would cap my overall FPS as well as being able to switch between iGPU & dGPU.

Secondly the 500GB 970 EVO became a problem quicker than I anticipated and filled it far to fast! So I bought a 1TB 860 EVO and fitted it myself.
Honestly it was harder than I thought it would be, BUT after struggling and finally finding the manual on how to do this from Clevo I had done it within an hour.

For anyone attempting this, DO NOT TRY THIS WITHOUT THE MANUAL.
I mean you probably can but you need to know that before the bottom of the case will come off, you need to pull out the keyboard as there is a final screw under it, allowing it to be removed.
After this its very simple plug and play, just like a desktop albeit slightly tighter.

I've attached a screen grab of updated temps.
This is the hottest I've managed to get it and you won't get much more (Real world) intensity than what I was doing; Building & Packaging my game in UE4, whilst also modelling in Maya LT and having Netflix on in the background (3 Screens).

So for anyone worrying, I wouldn't bother unless you're doing something so intensive it shouldn't be done on a laptop and probably your typical desktop unless its a PRO spec system.

View attachment 12510

You can't enable G-sync with MsHybrid on, tried on my Defiance V and have some problems with my Defiance V screen which i described in my review page of laptop.
 

mike01

Member
Hi Guys

first off , many thanks for the post . its very helpful . thinking of getting this laptop , specs attched on pic
cost just over £1400 now ,

I dont really play games , maybe F1 and footie manager at a push . I do some video editing using videoredo
I currently have a 17 " msi ge72 2qd , had it for 3 yrs , hinges have broke , and dont want the hassle to repair it
would have got another msi , only for the very bad reports of hinges breaking.

want something not as heavy as this one and not to loud , this one gets hot on top left too , and fans get lots
of dust , as windows are open a lot , as I live in spain , so do you guys recommend this one

many thanks

Mike
 

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SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Hi Guys

first off , many thanks for the post . its very helpful . thinking of getting this laptop , specs attched on pic
cost just over £1400 now ,

I dont really play games , maybe F1 and footie manager at a push . I do some video editing using videoredo
I currently have a 17 " msi ge72 2qd , had it for 3 yrs , hinges have broke , and dont want the hassle to repair it
would have got another msi , only for the very bad reports of hinges breaking.

want something not as heavy as this one and not to loud , this one gets hot on top left too , and fans get lots
of dust , as windows are open a lot , as I live in spain , so do you guys recommend this one

many thanks

Mike
If you proceed on the spec and select post to forum, it's almost impossible to work out what's on that image.
 
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