What Do You Think of this Clevo Spec?

[Alty]

Hi, I would love to hear your opinions on this! In particular: anything that seems like a bottleneck, or any components that seem overpowered compared to the other parts of the system. Any other ideas/suggestions are also appreciated! Thanks.

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte 95% Gamut LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)

Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 670M - 1.5GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

Memory - Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BD-5750H 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£79)

Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)

Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING

Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack

Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N130 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH

USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD

Firewire & Video Editing
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT

Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)

Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor

Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD

Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE

Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Dead Pixel Guarantee
30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£12)

Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days

[Mobius 1]

Tick the 7970M and leave everything as is.

Might also want to get a thermal paste upgrade to a IC diamond

[Brandons3737]

The 7970 could be hundreds more though (I'm guessing tick means upgrade it? Not sure) otherwise its gret. Thermal compound would be a good idea for the 670 and the i7

[Mr_Mysterious]

Not sure why you would want a blu ray writer instead of a reader. BR Discs are still quite expensive, and it would make more sense to get a flash drive or an external hard drive.

Mr. Mysterious

[Alty]

Thanks for the feedback!

Tick the 7970M and leave everything as is.

The 7970 could be hundreds more though (I'm guessing tick means upgrade it? Not sure) otherwise its gret. Thermal compound would be a good idea for the 670 and the i7

Yes, obviously it would be nice in theory, but the current spec is at the limit of my budget, so if I spend more on the graphics, I'll have to take a hit somewhere else (e.g., CPU).

Not sure why you would want a blu ray writer instead of a reader. BR Discs are still quite expensive, and it would make more sense to get a flash drive or an external hard drive.

I believe it's also a reader. I wanted a blu ray drive because I'd like to future proof it so that I can use it as a means of watching films, and also of installing software if it starts to be distributed on the medium in the future. The writing functionality was not as important, however it was only £20 more which didn't seem like too much compared to the whole cost of the system (roughly £1100).

[Mr_Mysterious]

Lol, I know it's a reader as well But do you really need the writer? BR discs aren't going anywhere (it's a dead-end technology in terms of storage).

Anyways, it's your choice, and you have a solid computer right here Welcome to the clevo/sager family.

Mr. Mysterious

[Alty]

Fair enough. Out of curiosity though, how do you think large software, like games, will be distributed in the future if not through blu ray?

[nissangtr786]

Its quite funny I just checked notebookcheck and the gt 620m is better then the gt 630m which is a rebranded gt 640m at games and the gt 620m takes half the power consumption. The gt 640m is better then the gt555m. gt 650m and gtx 660m are close by while the fermi gtx 670m loses to the gtx 660m kepler on some games.

To the op a gtx 670m takes more electricity about 20-50w more on stress test then a 7970m. The 7970m is over twice as fast as your 670m you chosen as well as the 670m is with one or two tweaks a rebranded gtx 570m.

In other ways a gtx 670m vs a 7970m is similar to a 9800m gts vs a 6970m performance per watt wise. The 670m is based on fermi that has been around for 2 and a half years while a gtx 660m or 650m are latest generation with all the new features and its 28nm.

If you can get the gtx 660m as it is virtually identical performance as the 670m and saves 50w electricity.

I think nvidia have done well as there are lot of newbies in comuting getting the gtx670m or 675m.

Another way to look at is a gtx 670m is the fat first ps3 while the 7970m or gtx 660m or 650m is like the latest slim ps3 as it halfs the power consumption and weighs less and fits in a smaller profile.

[Alty]

Thanks, although that makes things confusing! It seems strange that the GTX 670m is not as effective as the GTX 660m... Although, if that's true, I'm not complaining!

I find it slightly hard to work out the point you are making with your first paragraph. Are you essentially justifying why the GT 640m and GTX 650m are comparable, and the best options to go for?

It is of course tempting to get a 7970m, but it is a substantial £137 more than the GTX 670m.

EDIT: On the website I'm buying from (pcspecialist), I can either get a GT 640m, a GTX 670m, a GTX 675m, or a HD 7970m. Here are how much more the other cards cost over the GT 640m:

GTX 670m: £82
GTX 675m: £144
HD 7970m: £211

So we're talking pretty big values here. If the GT 640m is really not much slower, then I'm almost tempted to just go for that and save a lot of money. What do other people think?

[DaCM]

I would definitely go for the 7970m if you have the money; your laptop will last much longer that way, and with some more mature drivers you may even get better battery life on it.

Also just to clarifiy this 660 vs 670 thing a bit: as both cards have Optimus their power drain while turned off would be very similar and while in use you would probably be plugged in anyway, so power consumption isn't a significant matter here. Regarding game FPS scores, I went through all games on this list and the 660 scores higher than the 670 2 times out of 57 games/settings of which one (MW3 on high) might be a typo imo...