kingmeisteruk
Active member
Hi all,
After receiving my Vortex III Extreme several weeks ago I have finally had chance to document a review of it having only really tested its performance over the last 7 days, yes for those of you thinking it I have been screaming inside to get onto it for a real test but holidays, work and a wife that demands I spend "quality time" with her and my 7 month old daughter have got in the way
The spec is as follows which is slightly different from the original spec I posted (Vortex III single GPU), I upgraded to the Extreme and opted for the 2 x GTX 680's, went for the 3940XM processor and reduced the RAM by 16GB.
Chassis & Display
Vortex Series:17.3" AUO Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£85)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Extreme i7-3940XM (3.00GHz) 8MB
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
2 x NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
480GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
480GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
SSD CACHE DRIVE
120GB OCZ® NOCTI mSATA MLC SSD - (mini PCIe SSD for extra storage)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BD-5750H 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ HD-Audiophile-Grade Sound External (£82)
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ULTIMATE-N 6300 (450Mbps)
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Vortex Extreme 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,800 mAh/89.21WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 300W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Carry Case
TARGUS XL CITY GEAR 16" - 17.3" LAPTOP CASE TCG417 (£43)
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£19)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1
I'll start of by saying the whole process of upgrading from my previous spec was dealt with by PCS in a very efficient and timely manner, at first I was told I had to cancel my previous order, obtain a refund and then re-order the extreme, after informing them that I would incur additional costs for money transfers as I live in the UAE they spoke to their accounts department and within the hour has set up a bespoke internal transfer to help me avoid these costs, therefore a big shout goes out to Paul Harrison and Darrin Cooper from their support team for giving me a service above and beyond what I could have expected
Once it was ready I had the laptop collected myself by a courier as PCS do not deliver to the UAE, I have to admit that PCS were on the ball with notifying me it had been dispatched, they were also very keen on following up to ensure the package had been delivered safely and in good condition (again, credit to Darrin), this was a reassuring sign to me that PCS have their customer satisfaction high on their list of priorities, an aspect of business that more high profile PC manufacturers could learn from (yes that's you Mr Dell).
Thankfully it arrived and upon opening it was all found to be in A1 mint condition, plenty of packing to look after it on it's long journey which is always reassuring to see.
After such a long wait having changed my order it was with great anticipation that I unboxed the machine. Ignoring anything that looked like a set of instructions I opened up the laptop and was immediately impressed with the feel of it, although not exactly lightweight it somehow feels lighter than I expected given it's physical size, that can't be said about the AC Adaptor, this thing is an absolute monster, I think I'll need a separate bag just to carry it !!
The feel of the laptop is very tactile, the upper part of the keyboard looks set in a nice brushed metal with the lower half in a matt finish which carries on across the rest of the laptop, both surfaces seem fairly resistant to finger prints which is a bonus, the keys are well spaced out and feel solid when pressed, I have heard many complaints about the undersized enter key but to be fair I can't say this has really bothered me to date, I'm a fan of having the windows key off to the right, this is the first PC I have had with this feature, it just makes sense to have it over there on a gaming machine. I have found there is a slight problem with the space bar in that sometimes if I catch it off centre then it doesn't get fully pressed and I end up with several words grouped together, this is proving somewhat annoying (especially typing this out), hopefully with a bit of working this may iron itself out, time will tell.
The backlit keyboard is a nice touch and even the wife commented she likes this feature, the overall look of the laptop is pleasing with all the USB ports etc positioned well around the back and sides, I really like and the silver finish around the cooling vents on the rear, it does lift the visual aesthetics somewhat. The screen feels solid with no play in the hinges and very little flex in the screen once opened. The lack of branding on the laptop is also nice, just a small reference to the X-Fi card, HDMI and a ONKYO badging in the top left.
After switching on it only took a couple of minutes to set-up windows and a few minutes more to install the drivers which were handily stored on the one disk, boot up time was around 30 seconds with shutdown time around 5 seconds, this is the first time I have had SSD's in a laptop and it's the way to go!!
The matte screen is, well, pretty awesome, so crisp and clear with no glare to contend with, for those considering if this is worth the additional money then I can only say OMG, it is so worth it and no dead pixels for me so fingers crossed it stays that way (sorry Rickne, hope you got yours sorted if you read this ).
I have heard lots of stick in respect to the speakers on these Clevos, I must admit that the speakers are not as loud as my previous laptops and the bass is not great given they are supposed to be premium speakers but hey, this is a laptop, if I want decent stereo sound then I'l link it up to some decent speakers so it's not going to bug me that much.
Aside from the earlier issue regarding the spacebar I do have a bit of a problem with the Synaptics touchpad, the pad is actually one piece with the bottom left and right serving as the left and right buttons, I can't say I'm a fan of this design but I rarely use the touchpad so can live with it, that said the surface of the touchpad is great and the multi finger aspects work well and are responsive.
Battery life let's not go there, I haven't even bothered to try and measure this :no:
Having copied over my Steam portfolio from my ASUS G73 I was keen to get started on some high end ULTRA performance gaming, pretty much everything I have played on it this week has been eaten up alive by the GTX 680's running in SLI, so far I have tried Crysis 2, BF3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, COD Black Ops II, Borderlands 2 and Hitman Absolution on the highest settings and there hasn't been any signs that this machine has missed a beat in eating up everything these games have to throw at it.
I've just downloaded MSI Afterburner so will post some average FPS on highest settings in the days to come for those games mentioned above, I just ran a benchmark on 3D Mark11 with no tweaking so will post that onto the correct area of the forum soon as well.
All in all I am extremely impressed with everything about this machine, from the initial specification process with all the available options on the PCS website, from the level of service and support received from PCS throughout right down to the arrival and finally the awesome mind blowing performance this machine seems to put out, all without seeming to work to hard or generate excessive amounts of heat, I love this beast :tt1:.
All I can say is my next PC (or at least upgrade) will definitely be coming PCS's way and I can't wait for Far Cry 3 to be released in the UAE, so frustrated it's not here yet :wacko:
Hope some of you found this useful and will try and get some photo's posted once I get time :tt2:
After receiving my Vortex III Extreme several weeks ago I have finally had chance to document a review of it having only really tested its performance over the last 7 days, yes for those of you thinking it I have been screaming inside to get onto it for a real test but holidays, work and a wife that demands I spend "quality time" with her and my 7 month old daughter have got in the way
The spec is as follows which is slightly different from the original spec I posted (Vortex III single GPU), I upgraded to the Extreme and opted for the 2 x GTX 680's, went for the 3940XM processor and reduced the RAM by 16GB.
Chassis & Display
Vortex Series:17.3" AUO Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£85)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Extreme i7-3940XM (3.00GHz) 8MB
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
2 x NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
480GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
480GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
SSD CACHE DRIVE
120GB OCZ® NOCTI mSATA MLC SSD - (mini PCIe SSD for extra storage)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BD-5750H 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ HD-Audiophile-Grade Sound External (£82)
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ULTIMATE-N 6300 (450Mbps)
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Vortex Extreme 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,800 mAh/89.21WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 300W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Carry Case
TARGUS XL CITY GEAR 16" - 17.3" LAPTOP CASE TCG417 (£43)
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£19)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1
I'll start of by saying the whole process of upgrading from my previous spec was dealt with by PCS in a very efficient and timely manner, at first I was told I had to cancel my previous order, obtain a refund and then re-order the extreme, after informing them that I would incur additional costs for money transfers as I live in the UAE they spoke to their accounts department and within the hour has set up a bespoke internal transfer to help me avoid these costs, therefore a big shout goes out to Paul Harrison and Darrin Cooper from their support team for giving me a service above and beyond what I could have expected
Once it was ready I had the laptop collected myself by a courier as PCS do not deliver to the UAE, I have to admit that PCS were on the ball with notifying me it had been dispatched, they were also very keen on following up to ensure the package had been delivered safely and in good condition (again, credit to Darrin), this was a reassuring sign to me that PCS have their customer satisfaction high on their list of priorities, an aspect of business that more high profile PC manufacturers could learn from (yes that's you Mr Dell).
Thankfully it arrived and upon opening it was all found to be in A1 mint condition, plenty of packing to look after it on it's long journey which is always reassuring to see
.After such a long wait having changed my order it was with great anticipation that I unboxed the machine. Ignoring anything that looked like a set of instructions I opened up the laptop and was immediately impressed with the feel of it, although not exactly lightweight it somehow feels lighter than I expected given it's physical size, that can't be said about the AC Adaptor, this thing is an absolute monster, I think I'll need a separate bag just to carry it !!
The feel of the laptop is very tactile, the upper part of the keyboard looks set in a nice brushed metal with the lower half in a matt finish which carries on across the rest of the laptop, both surfaces seem fairly resistant to finger prints which is a bonus, the keys are well spaced out and feel solid when pressed, I have heard many complaints about the undersized enter key but to be fair I can't say this has really bothered me to date, I'm a fan of having the windows key off to the right, this is the first PC I have had with this feature, it just makes sense to have it over there on a gaming machine. I have found there is a slight problem with the space bar in that sometimes if I catch it off centre then it doesn't get fully pressed and I end up with several words grouped together, this is proving somewhat annoying (especially typing this out), hopefully with a bit of working this may iron itself out, time will tell.
The backlit keyboard is a nice touch and even the wife commented she likes this feature, the overall look of the laptop is pleasing with all the USB ports etc positioned well around the back and sides, I really like and the silver finish around the cooling vents on the rear, it does lift the visual aesthetics somewhat. The screen feels solid with no play in the hinges and very little flex in the screen once opened. The lack of branding on the laptop is also nice, just a small reference to the X-Fi card, HDMI and a ONKYO badging in the top left.
After switching on it only took a couple of minutes to set-up windows and a few minutes more to install the drivers which were handily stored on the one disk, boot up time was around 30 seconds with shutdown time around 5 seconds, this is the first time I have had SSD's in a laptop and it's the way to go!!
The matte screen is, well, pretty
awesome, so crisp and clear with no glare to contend with, for those considering if this is worth the additional money then I can only say OMG, it is so worth it and no dead pixels for me so fingers crossed it stays that way (sorry Rickne, hope you got yours sorted if you read this ).I have heard lots of stick in respect to the speakers on these Clevos, I must admit that the speakers are not as loud as my previous laptops and the bass is not great given they are supposed to be premium speakers but hey, this is a laptop, if I want decent stereo sound then I'l link it up to some decent speakers so it's not going to bug me that much.
Aside from the earlier issue regarding the spacebar I do have a bit of a problem with the Synaptics touchpad, the pad is actually one piece with the bottom left and right serving as the left and right buttons, I can't say I'm a fan of this design but I rarely use the touchpad so can live with it, that said the surface of the touchpad is great and the multi finger aspects work well and are responsive.
Battery life let's not go there, I haven't even bothered to try and measure this :no:
Having copied over my Steam portfolio from my ASUS G73 I was keen to get started on some high end ULTRA performance gaming, pretty much everything I have played on it this week has been eaten up alive by the GTX 680's running in SLI, so far I have tried Crysis 2, BF3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, COD Black Ops II, Borderlands 2 and Hitman Absolution on the highest settings and there hasn't been any signs that this machine has missed a beat in eating up everything these games have to throw at it.
I've just downloaded MSI Afterburner so will post some average FPS on highest settings in the days to come for those games mentioned above, I just ran a benchmark on 3D Mark11 with no tweaking so will post that onto the correct area of the forum soon as well.
All in all I am extremely impressed with everything about this machine, from the initial specification process with all the available options on the PCS website, from the level of service and support received from PCS throughout right down to the arrival and finally the awesome mind blowing performance this machine seems to put out, all without seeming to work to hard or generate excessive amounts of heat, I love this beast :tt1:.
All I can say is my next PC (or at least upgrade) will definitely be coming PCS's way and I can't wait for Far Cry 3 to be released in the UAE, so frustrated it's not here yet :wacko:
Hope some of you found this useful and will try and get some photo's posted once I get time :tt2: