hello, can you guys please list the price or price segment of the product u're reviewing from the get go? Do i really hafta scroll all the way to the back to get an idea of what the price range is, or if its a waste of time reading the article cause its out of said price range? U're constantly saying it costs more or this costs less, but there's no clear cut price easy for us readers to see. A comparison of similar products would be great too, in a clean easy to understand graph please and thank u!
Well, the Dell Precision M6500 has a 1920x1200 screen, 17".. and was reviewed on Anandtech.
But it's not Sandy Bridge yet. I'd imagine a good supply of new Sandy Bridge chipsets aren't common, but I'd have no doubt at all Dell will do a refresh on their Precision line with Sandy Bridge at some point in the near future. It also looks about a million times better than the Clevo stuff, which looks like a ghetto kit machine.
I bought a Sager back in 2005 with a 1920x1200 matte screen. It's still up and running, though relatively slow these days and a few things are broken now.
In my 3DMark Vantage settings, the "Performance" preset equates to 1280x1024, whereas "High" is 1680x1050. Did you have to use custom settings to get 1680x1050 or is there just a mixup of names?
Sorry, my mistake. I got the High default resolution of 1680x1050 confused with Performance. 1280x1024 panels are such a rarity these days that I was sure Vantage had switched to WS for everything. 3DMark11, interestingly enough, did shift to new resolutions. 1024x600 for Entry and 1600x900 for Performance I believe, with 1080p used at the High setting. About time...
Now, if Futuremark would quit being idiots about changing my power settings every time I load one of their apps. Seriously: tweak all your power settings (i.e. don't put the LCD to sleep or hibernate the laptop after inactivity), then load any Futuremark app. When you're done, the power settings are now "display off after 5 minutes, ask for a password on resume, and hibernate/shut down with a low battery even when plugged in." Is it too much to think they should save my current settings and then restore them when the benchmark is done?
Hi! to Jarred Walton: may be i missed something (sorry for English) , but i didn't see that you ever mentioned about HDMI ( Dual-Link DVI-D, etc.) revisions and resolutions in your article. Did you ever tried to test them simultaneously (for instance: watching a movie through HDMI & playing a game through Dual-Link DVI-D, or overwise) and not only on laptop screen? Please, do not forget about it in your next reviews. thnx
Agreed, that thing would drive me nuts. Why not just spread out the keyboard nicer and say screw the 10 key garbage? Get a USB mini addon board if you really use it that much.
Good to see a decent matte screen in this Clevo. Anyone know if Anand has ever reviewed the AU Optronics B156HW01 v4? Its a FHD matte screen with 95% NTSC color gamut (I believe its the same one that is an optional upgrade for the Thinkpad W series). Some of the Clevo resellers are starting to stock this v4 screen which I believe is even better than the one in this Clevo.
The report on the LCD panel in this notebook specifies V1. I found a link from another site (apparently from a notebook retailer) that AUO has discontinued the B156HW01 line and is now doing B156HW02; their site only lists the B156HW03, however, so maybe they've upped the number again. They don't mention 95% NTSC anywhere, and the post saying v4 was discontinued said the newer versions were only 60% NTSC (i.e. what I tested). If you're after a wide gamut LCD, you'll want to shop around, but if all you really want is good sRGB, the B156HW01/2/3 should all work fine.
It adds complexity to an already complex system, and hurts performance (presumably much more so on high end parts)-and gives me at least no benefit at all.
Optimus is actually a huge NEGATIVE for me on a notebook. I quit looking at the XPS 17 when learning it used Optimus-I don't want it's decent GPU stuck behind Intel graphics.
I gave up looking at Clevos because of the drivers issues-I'd love a GTX 485...for some reason neither the GTX 460 nor 485 used in the Clevos is supported in Nvidia's drivers.
While I prefer Nvidia's drivers, it's great to see what a competitive part the 6970 is! Kind of scary that it's basically 2x the performance of the 5850 used in the previous version of the HP Envy 17, considering the core count only went from 800 to 960!
I don't need anything as fancy as full blown Optimus, but the ability to use the integrated (lower power) chip for when I'm in windows typing / webbrowsing is a must. I have the 485M and wish it could be forced off when I don't need gaming performance.
If you still have the notebook and are brave enough, would you be able to tear apart the notebook and check on the die of the 6970M if it says "ENG"? I'm just wondering because Eurocom has been shipping notebooks with the 6970M for sometime now, except they're shipping Engineering Sample 6970M's which a lot of customers have been pissed off by. Also, the 6970M doesn't even have an official ETA (some speculate by the end of this month) yet for its release, so how or why Eurocom would do this is questionable. If it is an ES chip, than I think it's worthy to include that in the review, because that is not something a customer would expect when buying a "new" notebook.
Well, the whole notebook is an ES right now, so I can't really make a judgement call one way or the other on the 6970M. If it has an ES GPU, all Eurocom needs to say is, "We sent you a pre-release notebook." (And they already said that before shipping, so we're covered on that front.) This version I received also includes the Cougar Point bug, and if were ordering it right now that would make me pretty angry. Hopefully everything will be sorted out when the product shows up on their actual site, but I wouldn't be shocked if some fishy stuff happened on occasion.
I'd also think AMD should have something to say about them shipping ES 6970M cards to customers, at least if they're not supposed to be available yet. What notebooks have shipped with the card to actual customers as opposed to reviewers? To my knowledge, every Clevo Sandy Bridge system is still affected by the Cougar Point bug and should be recalled, so my guess is only the X7200/Phantom 2.0 would be going out to customers.
I see all of this information about so many laptop/notebooks. But how do I know whether or not it has a matte display? My eyes have a problem with glare.
Most companies will say either "glossy" or "glare type" on the LCD, or "matte" or "anti-glare". In general, though, assume everything is glossy unless otherwise noted... or buy a business laptop, which are usually anti-glare (ThinkPad, Latitude, ProBook, etc.)
So the new Mac book pros use switchable graphics from their AMD gfx cards to the build in Sandy Bridge gpu when unplugged. Why didn't they do that here or at least give you the option?
Is there some technical limitation preventing this with a 6970M?
that's for sure. With ~10% less clocks and 25% less shader units than the GTX 485M, it ends up just slightly faster than GTX 480M. Though 6950M vs. 470M might be interesting - I'd expect the former to be faster but possibly not that much. It'll also depend on the exact clocks probably as those aren't really fixed for the mobile parts.
Some of those engineering sample 6970M's have 1120 shaders vs 960 shaders found in the retail ones. It could explain why Eurocomm may be pushing those in their X7200.
Possibly, but the retail units won't be 1120, and they'll likely use less power and run cooler/quieter. The unit I have was 960 shaders, though, so at least that's correct.
At the end of your article you say: "Now all we need to see is more mainstream notebooks like the ASUS G53/G73 and Alienware M15x/M17x add support for AMD’s latest tour de force."
FYI: Dell/Alienware is the first OEM to offer RETAIL 6970M GPU's in their Alienware M17x-r3 notebooks. Not only that, they offer integrated graphics support (SB IGP) that switches on the fly and can last up to 4+ hours on battery. In fact I'm using an M17x-R3 to type on right now and will be doing a review on it on my site (techinferno.com).
I was told my both cyberpowerpc.com and xoticpc.com that this chassis using a GTX460M gpu supports Optimus switcheable graphics. I was really hoping you guys would configure this laptop with that GPU so I could know for sure; cause it sounds too good to be true. Granted I was happy to see the AMD GPU thrown in there and compared, performance/dollar is really good I just don't like the power/heat problems.
The keyboard is a pretty massive deterrent for me on this laptop; so if it doesn't truly support Optimus then I won't buy it. But I am in the market for a new laptop and I want Sandy Bridge with DX11 DGPU in a 15.6" chassis with a 1080p screen, preffereably matte.
I was impressed with Compal's relative battery life figures. Maybe they'll make a 15.6" laptop with a 1080p screen and a 2620QM with GTX460M and DVI/HDMI out? Please!
Sorry, but no one has a 460m optimus solution yet. (Believe me, I've looked.) I'm surprised that anyone would tell you that -- on the Clevo/Sager forums I've been going to, the folks from xoticpc and other vendors have been pretty clear about their SB 460/485 solutions *not* supporting Optimus due to compatibility concerns.
it was on the P151HM not the P150, sorry. Not sure if that will make a difference or not but cyberpower and xotic definitely told me that chassis supported Optimus.
There's a big difference: P151HM uses GT 540M graphics where the P150HM can support GTX 460M/485M and HD 5870/6970M. So, it appears that Optimus with 460M or better is still elusive....
JMicron makes GigE controllers now? That's not quite a deal-breaker on a laptop, but still, yuck. Oh well, at least the wireless card is Intel, which might be more important to mobile users.
Just had a quick question - should the Racer noise levels be roughly comparable to the ones from the old "Gaming Laptop Roundup" from Summer 2008? (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2607/13) I have an Alienware m15x, and from the numbers it seems like the noise levels are roughly comparable with the Racer.
I can definitely live with the noise if it's the same as the older machine, and am in the market for a new 15" gaming laptop :).
The testing is similar but not quite the same... I used to measure at 24", and now I'm down to about 18". I also used slightly different programs, but that shouldn't matter too much. It's usually a difference of around 2-3dB if you're 6" closer, so overall it looks like the M15x of old is about as loud as the P150HM.
Ah, thanks a lot :). Might give serious consideration to this laptop then!
Owned a MBP 2011 for a grand total of 11 days before returning it due to the banshee wail of the fans and the temperature of the casing while gaming! Not too keen to repeat that :)
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freezervv - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Re: "by Jarred Walton on 3/17/2011 3:00:00 AM"Or at least those of us ESTers just getting around to a catnap amidst exam studying. ;)
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Hey, I'm PDT, so it's only just past midnight. And here I thought I'd be finished with this about six hours ago....poohbear - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
hello, can you guys please list the price or price segment of the product u're reviewing from the get go? Do i really hafta scroll all the way to the back to get an idea of what the price range is, or if its a waste of time reading the article cause its out of said price range? U're constantly saying it costs more or this costs less, but there's no clear cut price easy for us readers to see. A comparison of similar products would be great too, in a clean easy to understand graph please and thank u!JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Page one, bottom of the spec table, in bold. Was that not clear enough?chrnochime - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Bottom of the spec like Jarred said. Need that to be 3 or 4 larger font size?jcompagner - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
And then for SandyBridge?If only 1 17" is made with a 1920x1200p resolution on this planet that is not from apple, i would buy it immediately..
piroroadkill - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Well, the Dell Precision M6500 has a 1920x1200 screen, 17".. and was reviewed on Anandtech.But it's not Sandy Bridge yet. I'd imagine a good supply of new Sandy Bridge chipsets aren't common, but I'd have no doubt at all Dell will do a refresh on their Precision line with Sandy Bridge at some point in the near future. It also looks about a million times better than the Clevo stuff, which looks like a ghetto kit machine.
bobsmith1492 - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
I bought a Sager back in 2005 with a 1920x1200 matte screen. It's still up and running, though relatively slow these days and a few things are broken now.blah238 - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
In my 3DMark Vantage settings, the "Performance" preset equates to 1280x1024, whereas "High" is 1680x1050. Did you have to use custom settings to get 1680x1050 or is there just a mixup of names?JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Sorry, my mistake. I got the High default resolution of 1680x1050 confused with Performance. 1280x1024 panels are such a rarity these days that I was sure Vantage had switched to WS for everything. 3DMark11, interestingly enough, did shift to new resolutions. 1024x600 for Entry and 1600x900 for Performance I believe, with 1080p used at the High setting. About time...Now, if Futuremark would quit being idiots about changing my power settings every time I load one of their apps. Seriously: tweak all your power settings (i.e. don't put the LCD to sleep or hibernate the laptop after inactivity), then load any Futuremark app. When you're done, the power settings are now "display off after 5 minutes, ask for a password on resume, and hibernate/shut down with a low battery even when plugged in." Is it too much to think they should save my current settings and then restore them when the benchmark is done?
rustycurse - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Hi!to Jarred Walton:
may be i missed something (sorry for English) , but i didn't see that you ever mentioned about HDMI ( Dual-Link DVI-D, etc.) revisions and resolutions in your article. Did you ever tried to test them simultaneously (for instance: watching a movie through HDMI & playing a game through Dual-Link DVI-D, or overwise) and not only on laptop screen?
Please, do not forget about it in your next reviews. thnx
araczynski - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
i don't care what they put in there, with that joke of a keyboard they can keep it.AssBall - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Agreed, that thing would drive me nuts. Why not just spread out the keyboard nicer and say screw the 10 key garbage? Get a USB mini addon board if you really use it that much.bhima - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Good to see a decent matte screen in this Clevo. Anyone know if Anand has ever reviewed the AU Optronics B156HW01 v4? Its a FHD matte screen with 95% NTSC color gamut (I believe its the same one that is an optional upgrade for the Thinkpad W series). Some of the Clevo resellers are starting to stock this v4 screen which I believe is even better than the one in this Clevo.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
The report on the LCD panel in this notebook specifies V1. I found a link from another site (apparently from a notebook retailer) that AUO has discontinued the B156HW01 line and is now doing B156HW02; their site only lists the B156HW03, however, so maybe they've upped the number again. They don't mention 95% NTSC anywhere, and the post saying v4 was discontinued said the newer versions were only 60% NTSC (i.e. what I tested). If you're after a wide gamut LCD, you'll want to shop around, but if all you really want is good sRGB, the B156HW01/2/3 should all work fine.Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
No way that thing survives, unless you are constantly blowing out the dust.Wolfpup - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
It adds complexity to an already complex system, and hurts performance (presumably much more so on high end parts)-and gives me at least no benefit at all.Optimus is actually a huge NEGATIVE for me on a notebook. I quit looking at the XPS 17 when learning it used Optimus-I don't want it's decent GPU stuck behind Intel graphics.
I gave up looking at Clevos because of the drivers issues-I'd love a GTX 485...for some reason neither the GTX 460 nor 485 used in the Clevos is supported in Nvidia's drivers.
While I prefer Nvidia's drivers, it's great to see what a competitive part the 6970 is! Kind of scary that it's basically 2x the performance of the 5850 used in the previous version of the HP Envy 17, considering the core count only went from 800 to 960!
douglaswilliams - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
I definitely will not be making a purchase until Optimus the elusive otter shows it's head.noeldillabough - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
I don't need anything as fancy as full blown Optimus, but the ability to use the integrated (lower power) chip for when I'm in windows typing / webbrowsing is a must. I have the 485M and wish it could be forced off when I don't need gaming performance.idrivepie - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Jarred,If you still have the notebook and are brave enough, would you be able to tear apart the notebook and check on the die of the 6970M if it says "ENG"? I'm just wondering because Eurocom has been shipping notebooks with the 6970M for sometime now, except they're shipping Engineering Sample 6970M's which a lot of customers have been pissed off by. Also, the 6970M doesn't even have an official ETA (some speculate by the end of this month) yet for its release, so how or why Eurocom would do this is questionable. If it is an ES chip, than I think it's worthy to include that in the review, because that is not something a customer would expect when buying a "new" notebook.
Thanks!
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Well, the whole notebook is an ES right now, so I can't really make a judgement call one way or the other on the 6970M. If it has an ES GPU, all Eurocom needs to say is, "We sent you a pre-release notebook." (And they already said that before shipping, so we're covered on that front.) This version I received also includes the Cougar Point bug, and if were ordering it right now that would make me pretty angry. Hopefully everything will be sorted out when the product shows up on their actual site, but I wouldn't be shocked if some fishy stuff happened on occasion.I'd also think AMD should have something to say about them shipping ES 6970M cards to customers, at least if they're not supposed to be available yet. What notebooks have shipped with the card to actual customers as opposed to reviewers? To my knowledge, every Clevo Sandy Bridge system is still affected by the Cougar Point bug and should be recalled, so my guess is only the X7200/Phantom 2.0 would be going out to customers.
Windkull - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Jarred,They shipped some ENG samples on X7200s saying that they were not:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/556994...
That said, I think consensus seemed to be that the ENG samples ran a bit too hot but might actually have more cores unlocked.
Also, Sandy Bridge Clevos have been getting delivered for about a week now, I think they started shipping 10 days ago or so.
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
See update note in the conclusion; thanks for the info!jah1subs - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
I see all of this information about so many laptop/notebooks. But how do I know whether or not it has a matte display? My eyes have a problem with glare.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Most companies will say either "glossy" or "glare type" on the LCD, or "matte" or "anti-glare". In general, though, assume everything is glossy unless otherwise noted... or buy a business laptop, which are usually anti-glare (ThinkPad, Latitude, ProBook, etc.)Ikefu - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
So the new Mac book pros use switchable graphics from their AMD gfx cards to the build in Sandy Bridge gpu when unplugged. Why didn't they do that here or at least give you the option?Is there some technical limitation preventing this with a 6970M?
mczak - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
that's for sure. With ~10% less clocks and 25% less shader units than the GTX 485M, it ends up just slightly faster than GTX 480M.Though 6950M vs. 470M might be interesting - I'd expect the former to be faster but possibly not that much. It'll also depend on the exact clocks probably as those aren't really fixed for the mobile parts.
Beenthere - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Won't buy any product with InHell inside.5150Joker - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Jarred,Did you leave Physx enabled for the nvidia cards when running Vantage? It would explain why there was such a huge overall score gap.
JarredWalton - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Oh... hmmm, yeah, I probably did. I don't know that I've ever shut off PhysX for 3DMark Vantage.5150Joker - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Jarred,Some of those engineering sample 6970M's have 1120 shaders vs 960 shaders found in the retail ones. It could explain why Eurocomm may be pushing those in their X7200.
JarredWalton - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Possibly, but the retail units won't be 1120, and they'll likely use less power and run cooler/quieter. The unit I have was 960 shaders, though, so at least that's correct.5150Joker - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
At the end of your article you say: "Now all we need to see is more mainstream notebooks like the ASUS G53/G73 and Alienware M15x/M17x add support for AMD’s latest tour de force."FYI: Dell/Alienware is the first OEM to offer RETAIL 6970M GPU's in their Alienware M17x-r3 notebooks. Not only that, they offer integrated graphics support (SB IGP) that switches on the fly and can last up to 4+ hours on battery. In fact I'm using an M17x-R3 to type on right now and will be doing a review on it on my site (techinferno.com).
Aankhen - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
1080p on a 15″ screen? I feel sorry for anyone using it. o_opiroroadkill - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Pff..I have an old Dell Latitude D800, 1920x1200 on a 15.4" screen, which is slightly more dense than this! It's fine =D
Hrel - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
I was told my both cyberpowerpc.com and xoticpc.com that this chassis using a GTX460M gpu supports Optimus switcheable graphics. I was really hoping you guys would configure this laptop with that GPU so I could know for sure; cause it sounds too good to be true. Granted I was happy to see the AMD GPU thrown in there and compared, performance/dollar is really good I just don't like the power/heat problems.The keyboard is a pretty massive deterrent for me on this laptop; so if it doesn't truly support Optimus then I won't buy it. But I am in the market for a new laptop and I want Sandy Bridge with DX11 DGPU in a 15.6" chassis with a 1080p screen, preffereably matte.
I was impressed with Compal's relative battery life figures. Maybe they'll make a 15.6" laptop with a 1080p screen and a 2620QM with GTX460M and DVI/HDMI out? Please!
ckevin1 - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Sorry, but no one has a 460m optimus solution yet. (Believe me, I've looked.) I'm surprised that anyone would tell you that -- on the Clevo/Sager forums I've been going to, the folks from xoticpc and other vendors have been pretty clear about their SB 460/485 solutions *not* supporting Optimus due to compatibility concerns.Hrel - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
it was on the P151HM not the P150, sorry. Not sure if that will make a difference or not but cyberpower and xotic definitely told me that chassis supported Optimus.JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
There's a big difference: P151HM uses GT 540M graphics where the P150HM can support GTX 460M/485M and HD 5870/6970M. So, it appears that Optimus with 460M or better is still elusive....jabber - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Glad I got my new Intel 6200 N card for £12 on Ebay. Works perfect.Metaluna - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
JMicron makes GigE controllers now? That's not quite a deal-breaker on a laptop, but still, yuck. Oh well, at least the wireless card is Intel, which might be more important to mobile users.Marwan - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
I just don't understand why do you even waste your time reviewing $2K systems with TN panels. You are just as bad!Get it?
JarredWalton - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
Please point me to a single sub-$2000 notebook with a non-TN panel.Menty - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
Just had a quick question - should the Racer noise levels be roughly comparable to the ones from the old "Gaming Laptop Roundup" from Summer 2008? (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2607/13) I have an Alienware m15x, and from the numbers it seems like the noise levels are roughly comparable with the Racer.I can definitely live with the noise if it's the same as the older machine, and am in the market for a new 15" gaming laptop :).
JarredWalton - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - link
The testing is similar but not quite the same... I used to measure at 24", and now I'm down to about 18". I also used slightly different programs, but that shouldn't matter too much. It's usually a difference of around 2-3dB if you're 6" closer, so overall it looks like the M15x of old is about as loud as the P150HM.Menty - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Ah, thanks a lot :). Might give serious consideration to this laptop then!Owned a MBP 2011 for a grand total of 11 days before returning it due to the banshee wail of the fans and the temperature of the casing while gaming! Not too keen to repeat that :)
yohannest - Saturday, March 26, 2011 - link
Sweet new stuff always makes me happy!