New laptop Ordered

Kai121

Kai121

Bronze Level Poster
Chassis & Display Viper III: 18.4" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2760QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 12GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (3 x 4GB)
Graphics Card 2 x 1.5GB nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M - DirectX® 11 (SLI)
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB KINGSTON HYPERX SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive SONY BD-5730S 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£79)
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Sound Card Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1102 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N NETWORK CARD
USB Options 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 3 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery Viper Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (4,700 mAh)
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Laptop Cooling Stands Zalman ZM-NC2000 Ultra-Quiet Cooler, upto 20 inch (£39)
Keyboard & Mouse LOGITECH® MK520 WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MOUSE COMBO (£39)

£1,963.00 - fast tracked, with luck I'll be posting pictures within a week :santa:

Edit: Review:
After a slightly shaky start I managed to get everything customised and programs installed, be warned the killer wireless gaming card does NOT work with AVG (Due to a network protocol AVG installs, couldn't work around this), so am using Avira as a backup for now.

The laptop is fast, their is no 2 ways about that! Boot to fully loaded including using the fingerprint scanner is around 15 seconds and it loads games off the 7200rpm drive like theirs no tomorrow, very low loading times compared to my tower computer! The 18.4 inch screen is nice and large and quite bright to be honest, but it really does bring out the HD in HD gaming, especially with the two 560M's running in SLI.

Noise wise, even when fully ramped up it is still fairly quiet, maybe 20DB tops, and it keeps itself very cool (maxed 58c with the zalman on low after playing Skyrim for 2 hours).

Gaming wise, I have run: Crysis 2, Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3, max graphics and the two 560m's brush them aside with ease, haven't stuttered once so far (Unless you count bad latency in BF3 :p).

Cons:
It is unwieldly, don't get me wrong, I was looking for something fairly mobile with oomph, which is what I got, but don't kid yourself into thinking this thing is mobile as you can't really game on the battery (It will drain in minutes, not hours). Battery life in power saver mode is around 170mins, as long as you stick to emails, youtube ect... Have SLI turned off and the brightness ramped down you can use it on the move, just don't expect to explore it's full potential on battery for an extended period of time.

All in all I rate this a personal 9.5/10, it scored 7.3 on the windows experience index but for some reason cannot finish the 3Dmark test (keeps cutting out saying something else is using the display when its the only thing running), photos to come when I have the time and I will do my best to get that 3Dmark test score.

PCS:
What can I say, I asked for the Fast Track and got it:
Processed Date 21-11-2011
Pre-Production Date 22-11-2011
Build Date 22-11-2011
Test Date 22-11-2011
Awaiting Dispatch Date 22-11-2011
Dispatched 23-11-11
Arrived 24-11-11

As Doobie put it our laptops went through Neutron from CERN fast, and I would like to thank PCS for the speed of the build and the quality (Although I must admit I almost had heart failure when I saw the box it was in was a tower computer box and thought I had been sent the wrong thing! :p)

And a special thanks to:
Built By Liam Ramsden
Tested & QC'd By Carl Auckland
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
My local Yodel driver who waited an extra 15 minutes in the depot for my parcel to go into his van (They didn't even scan it into the Glasgow Depot, he scanned it as out for delivery while in the van!)

Would recommend the service to a friend for sure.

Jonesey

3DMark test results:
P4156 3DMarks http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2262769

A bit of a strange score on this as I have already played many graphics intensive games and had no issues, was in high powered mode, running SLI, although it did say their was a problem (didn't say what, just that their was)

Images:
My new gaming station (Literally built today)
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/193/img0090hv.jpg/

View from above:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/802/img0091bk.jpg/

View from the side:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/684/img0092tf.jpg/

FPS tests:
Skyrim: 60 Average (Caution game micro stutters even at 60FPS in SLI, Nvidia are looking to fix issue in next patch)
MW3: 90 Average
BF3: 80 Average
LA Noire: 28 Average (Games caps FPS at 30)
 
Last edited:
T

truegrace

Enthusiast
Sweet build, been debating something similar meself. Interested to hear some benchmarks for the duel cards, and also if possible about how well the Zalman ZM-NC2000 works. Read loads of reviews on it and sounds the nuts, but looking at pics I was dubious that the gpu would get much benefit due to the size of the laptop and where the vent holds are located.

Cant wait to see pics though :p
 
Kai121

Kai121

Bronze Level Poster
Well I'll be running a 3D mark test to show off it's speed when it arrives and I went for the Zalman because I too had heard great things (and because this things going to be able to heat my living room :p). The NC2000 coming with it is designed for 20 inch laptops and from what I can see the Zalmans fan board should line up nicely with the fans on the underside of the Viper III itself so it should work nicely. Obviously I cannot tell how well it affects the GPU temp wise however I will be testing the CPU with and without the Zalman to see how well it reduces core temps which should give a rough idea of how well it is affecting the cards temps!
 
T

truegrace

Enthusiast
Looking forward to the review :) if you get the chance a few fps numbers on some games would be nice as well as been struggling to find much info at all on 560 sli. Torn between that or a vortex with a 6990.
 
Kai121

Kai121

Bronze Level Poster
I would like to thank:
Liam Ramsden
Carl Auckland

For building and testing my new laptop at the speed they have:
Processed Date 21-11-2011
Pre-Production Date 22-11-2011
Build Date 22-11-2011
Test Date 22-11-2011
Awaiting Dispatch Date 22-11-2011

One is hoping this means I may actually get it tomorrow or the next day :D
 
Kai121

Kai121

Bronze Level Poster
And it's out for delivery, one must confess I considered a sicky today to be their when it arrives! As is I'm not home till 10pm so it's going to be a long long day :( maybe get some arrests to make it go faster :p
 
Kai121

Kai121

Bronze Level Poster
Want some salt and vinegar to rub that in with? :p it has been delivered so just waiting to get home now :( someone want to cover the rest of my shift for me? I'll pay in chocolate
 
A

AndyL

Well-known member
Im interested to see what benchmark results you get, also interested to see how well it fits on the NC2000 (My Vortex 17" over hangs the side of my NC2000 by about 0.5cm each side, but it does a fantastic job cooling it down)
 
Kai121

Kai121

Bronze Level Poster
Andy, I'll be running the benchmarks tomorrow, the cooling stand is up to 20" so I don't think overhang will be an issue
 
J

JoshEly

Bronze Level Poster
This is the EXACT same spec I'm getting! If you could give a quick review or something with stuff like game performance that would be awesome!

Enjoy, it looks like a beast! :)
 
Kai121

Kai121

Bronze Level Poster
The Zalman coolpad fits the Viper III as if it was made for it, no overhang and the fans are in the right place to get the full effect of it, so its a recommend if you want that extra bit of cooling power, just be warned, if you get an 18.4 inch laptop bag then it won't fit inside with the laptop aswell.
 
D

doobie

Active member
Great review Kai, I have to admit, I agree with everything you said and from what I remember, most of your scores look close to mine. I dont have the problem running 3Dmark that you had though.

I hope youre enjoying it as much as I am.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top