Received my new laptop 10th August with great anticipation as haven't upgraded for over 10 years and wanted a machine that would suit both heavy duty editing and gaming.Pleased with overall look, feel of quality and well packaged, with windows preinstalled. However, there are problems, see below spec:
Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Eight-Core Processor i9-11900 (2.5GHz) 16MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
128GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (4 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3080 - 16.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP400 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 3480 MB/R, 3000 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
2 x 280W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
2 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Recoil Series Detachable 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (97WH)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Atlas & Super X-Fi
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 x THUNDERBOLT 4 + 1 x USB 3.2 (TYPE C) + 3 x USB 3.2
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Carry Case
Tech Air 18.4" Premium Toploading Case (Clam-shell)
Monitor Cables
1 x 2m DisplayPort Adapter Cable - DP to DVI
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Had a few hiccups within 10 minutes of firing it up, screen suddenly went dim and no response from pressing brightness control, so restarted and all been fine since - a mystery.
Then every time on laptop waking from sleep, BSOD followed by restart, then ok. Found someone on forum who had similar issue, which he solved by installing the IRST driver from the accompanying CD that PCS supplied in welcome pack. I did the same and this also resolved the issue.
I am surprised that this wasn't picked up by PCS on testing the build, and this has left me confused as to what drivers have actually been installed.
Am I supposed to download and install all the drivers on the CD, or the drivers from the download section on the PCS site that are specific to my order, or let windows update do all that?
For example, the IRST driver that came preinstalled and caused the BSOD was a year older than the one I installed from the CD, which solved the problem.
I also did a random access test of my 3 ssd drives by copying the same folder (120GB) of mixed photos and small videos from each drive to the others - The corsair to the 970 plus averaged only 15MB/S, yet the corsair to the 980 pro averaged 200MB/s, makes no sense, and the slow speeds make me wonder if the controllers are out of date too- both storage space controller and NVM express controller drivers are dated 21/06/2006. To make things even more confusing, the bios shows the AHCI disabled and the IRST enabled, yet I thought IRST was for Raid configurations, which I don't have.
Overall, I'm happy with the machine,very quick start up etc but feel very uneasy as to whether it is really running at full speed, since the testing of the build does not seem to have been very thorough, and feel more information about which drivers should be used was lacking, and would give new buyers more confidence in the product.
Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Eight-Core Processor i9-11900 (2.5GHz) 16MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
128GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (4 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3080 - 16.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP400 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 3480 MB/R, 3000 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
2 x 280W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
2 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Recoil Series Detachable 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (97WH)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Atlas & Super X-Fi
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 x THUNDERBOLT 4 + 1 x USB 3.2 (TYPE C) + 3 x USB 3.2
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Carry Case
Tech Air 18.4" Premium Toploading Case (Clam-shell)
Monitor Cables
1 x 2m DisplayPort Adapter Cable - DP to DVI
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Had a few hiccups within 10 minutes of firing it up, screen suddenly went dim and no response from pressing brightness control, so restarted and all been fine since - a mystery.
Then every time on laptop waking from sleep, BSOD followed by restart, then ok. Found someone on forum who had similar issue, which he solved by installing the IRST driver from the accompanying CD that PCS supplied in welcome pack. I did the same and this also resolved the issue.
I am surprised that this wasn't picked up by PCS on testing the build, and this has left me confused as to what drivers have actually been installed.
Am I supposed to download and install all the drivers on the CD, or the drivers from the download section on the PCS site that are specific to my order, or let windows update do all that?
For example, the IRST driver that came preinstalled and caused the BSOD was a year older than the one I installed from the CD, which solved the problem.
I also did a random access test of my 3 ssd drives by copying the same folder (120GB) of mixed photos and small videos from each drive to the others - The corsair to the 970 plus averaged only 15MB/S, yet the corsair to the 980 pro averaged 200MB/s, makes no sense, and the slow speeds make me wonder if the controllers are out of date too- both storage space controller and NVM express controller drivers are dated 21/06/2006. To make things even more confusing, the bios shows the AHCI disabled and the IRST enabled, yet I thought IRST was for Raid configurations, which I don't have.
Overall, I'm happy with the machine,very quick start up etc but feel very uneasy as to whether it is really running at full speed, since the testing of the build does not seem to have been very thorough, and feel more information about which drivers should be used was lacking, and would give new buyers more confidence in the product.