Optimus X review

kencri

Member
I wanted to upgrade my laptop for processing Astro photography images in pixinsight. Things that were important to me are cpu, m2 ssd and ram. Pixinsight developers haven’t integrated the use of the GPU yet but the Optimus X came with an Nvidia GTX 1650 as standard so very pleased if they do decide to use the gpu in the future.

The spec I chose for processing was i7 9750h (standard) 6 core 12 thread 9th gen processor. 32gb 2666mhz ram and Samsung m2 ssd 1tb.

My initial tests with the pixinsight benchmark put my laptop in the top 5-10% of users at the time of posting. This is a massive improvement over my older 2 core laptop which could take up to 24hrs to finish one process in the software. My first image to process was M51 spiral galaxy which was completed in a fraction of the time.

One thing I did note was that a friend of mine was getting 1500mbs + with his Samsung evo plus 1tb but I’ve only been able to achieve 1100mbs in the benchmark. Not sure why but it appears to drop in speed as the cpu increases in speed. Weird but still exceptionally fast (twice the speed of a standard ssd)!

The laptop is very sleek which I didn’t expect ! Although this isn’t important to me It looks every bit as good as a modern MacBook or equivalent at a fraction of the price. Quite honestly I’m not going to look anywhere else for my processing needs in the future ! Now time to change my desktop :)
 

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steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Nice review! And good to see the pictures, always nice to see the finished products and hear all about them (good and bad!)
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Great review and photos, thank you!

I know nothing about the benchmark tool you're using but your comment that the RAM speed appears to drop as the CPU speed (and load?) Increases might be down to the benchmark software 'slowing' because of CPU contention?

It's also possible that as the CPU speed increases it does more pipelining meaning it can reduce direct RAM reads? That's pure guesswork on my part though. [emoji3]

It seems to be doing the job you need it to do though. Is this just for fun or are you doing research work?
 

kencri

Member
Great review and photos, thank you!

I know nothing about the benchmark tool you're using but your comment that the RAM speed appears to drop as the CPU speed (and load?) Increases might be down to the benchmark software 'slowing' because of CPU contention?

It's also possible that as the CPU speed increases it does more pipelining meaning it can reduce direct RAM reads? That's pure guesswork on my part though. [emoji3]

It seems to be doing the job you need it to do though. Is this just for fun or are you doing research work?

It’s the Samsung m.2. Ssd that appears to slow down as the cpu increases.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
It’s the Samsung m.2. Ssd that appears to slow down as the cpu increases.
Oops, my mistake. [emoji855]

Same thing applies though, if you start to do lots of I/O to any drive Windows will start to use RAM as a cache which will tend to reduce the drive reads. The more RAM you have the more Windows will use it as a file cache.

Again, I've no idea whether that's affecting the numbers you see but it could. It's curious that the SSD read rate seems related to CPU load, that's not accidental I'd think?

In any case, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applies, whenever you try to measure anything you always change it. [emoji3]
 

markh

Bronze Level Poster
Oddly, when I spec this laptop up, and I've tried on two different browsers, 32GB RAM doesn't appear as an option, whereas you've clearly managed it! I wonder why
 

MatTheCat

Member
Seems we won't have an answer :confused:
I'll wait for reviews of the aorus 7 as it seems they have a lot in common.

Great job removing my link mate 👏
 
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markh

Bronze Level Poster
re the 32GB RAM thing - I emailed PCS and they said there were stability issues with 32GB, so they're waiting for an updated BIOS before allowing the option again. I wonder if Kencri has experienced problems....?
 

GunDaBoss

New member
I wanted to upgrade my laptop for processing Astro photography images in pixinsight. Things that were important to me are cpu, m2 ssd and ram. Pixinsight developers haven’t integrated the use of the GPU yet but the Optimus X came with an Nvidia GTX 1650 as standard so very pleased if they do decide to use the gpu in the future.

The spec I chose for processing was i7 9750h (standard) 6 core 12 thread 9th gen processor. 32gb 2666mhz ram and Samsung m2 ssd 1tb.

My initial tests with the pixinsight benchmark put my laptop in the top 5-10% of users at the time of posting. This is a massive improvement over my older 2 core laptop which could take up to 24hrs to finish one process in the software. My first image to process was M51 spiral galaxy which was completed in a fraction of the time.

One thing I did note was that a friend of mine was getting 1500mbs + with his Samsung evo plus 1tb but I’ve only been able to achieve 1100mbs in the benchmark. Not sure why but it appears to drop in speed as the cpu increases in speed. Weird but still exceptionally fast (twice the speed of a standard ssd)!

The laptop is very sleek which I didn’t expect ! Although this isn’t important to me It looks every bit as good as a modern MacBook or equivalent at a fraction of the price. Quite honestly I’m not going to look anywhere else for my processing needs in the future ! Now time to change my desktop :)

2 questionssssss

1) is there a way to make the backlights rainbow?
2) do laptop stickers stick and look good on this laptop?
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Hi, how is the screen quality for astro photography?
The panel model PCS use in their laptops can change. If you need to know specifics for the screen panel, ask PCS what panel they are currently using and then you can look up details online
 
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