AVADirect's Clevo W860CU: Mobility 5870 vs. GTX 285M
by Dustin Sklavos on June 3, 2010 11:25 PM ESTAVADirect Clevo W860CU Wrap-Up
What we're really dealing with here are two separate reviews: the Clevo W860CU notebook from AVADirect and a comparison between the two top-of-the-line mobile graphics solutions.
On the one hand, there's the Clevo W860CU notebook itself, which certainly acquits itself well. The cooling system is extremely effective, the speakers are reasonable quality, and the system on a whole is—at least as configured here—fast. You do pay a premium for mobile gaming like this, but the 15.6” 1080p screen is extremely attractive, the keyboard is comfortable enough, and the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 that comes bog standard is the fastest mobile GPU on the market. It also includes every expansion port you could ask for on a modern notebook short of DisplayPort. If you need a portable do-everything computer for gaming or multimedia work, the W860CU is an excellent option at a reasonable price.
There are some compromises, though. The cooling system may be effective but it sure is loud, and it adds a substantial amount of weight to the unit. The W860CU is a desktop-replacement notebook and they mean it: this thing should only be used on a desktop, and the dismal battery life means that the only time you should ever unplug it is if you intend to move it to another flat surface. The 4-cell battery is more like a UPS than something you'd use regularly. It's still smaller than the 17/17.3" (and 18.4") DTR notebooks, but at 7.25 pounds it's still hefty. If you're after a fast 15.6" notebook, though, this is one of the top options.
And then there are the mobile graphics parts. We may simply be asking too much of these compared to how mobile graphics evolved prior to the advent of DirectX 10. NVIDIA lead an awesome march with the GeForce Go 6800 and 7800 lines, and then the G92 allowed it to bring DirectX 10 goodness to the mobile market. But then things stalled out, and we've been sitting on G92-class hardware for entirely too long.
Unfortunately, AMD squanders a grand opportunity here. Is the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 the fastest mobile GPU? Absolutely. But the G92 has been a known quantity for a while now, and the best the 5870 can do is to beat it by maybe 20% at most, and there are times where the 285M is still faster. There's a lot to be said for DirectX 11 class hardware in notebooks, but we just can't help but feel underwhelmed. We did ask why the GeForce GTX 285M costs an extra $78 over the stock Mobility Radeon HD 5870, and apparently this isn't AVADirect's fault; the GTX 285M part simply costs more than the Mobility 5870, which makes the HD 5870 the clear choice. However, NVIDIA's new "mobile" tour de force should arrive next month, bringing higher performance and more heat to the mobile party, so if you're not in a rush you can wait for that. At present, it looks like the 480M will go primarily in 17" and larger notebooks, so for those looking for something smaller the W860CU remains viable.
Of course, we also need to give props to AVADirect, who was gracious enough to provide us with these test notebooks. Each unit was extremely well-padded in the box it shipped in, and each came with a carrying case for the notebook along with a personalized binder detailing all of the testing the unit underwent before shipping. A driver CD was also helpfully included, and the notebooks ship free of bloat. If you buy from AVADirect you definitely get what you pay for. In this case that's a Clevo W860CU chassis with the components you select, though they have plenty of other options—including the D900F with a GTX 480M in the very near future.
We also like the fact that AVADirect has a virtual cornucopia of configuration options; you can get anything from a standard hard drive to the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive, and every major SSD size and brand on the market. If you're in the market for a gaming notebook and are looking for something more personal—and with more personality—than your standard Alienware experience, AVADirect and the Clevo W860CU are a great way to go. If you don't mind the idea of buying a pre-configured gaming notebook, the ASUS G73Jh provides nearly the same performance as the W860CU but drops to an i7-720QM CPU and two 500GB hard drives while providing 8GB DDR3 and a 17.3" chassis. For the price, it remains our current recommendation for a gaming notebook.
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DannyH246 - Sunday, June 6, 2010 - link
The review concludes with - "Unfortunately, AMD squanders a grand opportunity here"So AMD have a faster, cheaper, and less power hungry card - but they've squandered a good opportunity and we should wait for an architecture that is both known to be hugely power hungry and dissapointing performance wise.
An NVIDIA marketing employee couldnt have said it better. Nice unbiased review, well done!
whatthehey - Sunday, June 6, 2010 - link
Some people... Let's look at the facts: AMD saves you $78: stated. AMD is overall faster: stated. NVIDIA's old part is very competitive: yup. NVIDIA has a new part coming this month: yes. AMD's latest and greatest uses less power: yes, but there are bugs that cause the "higher power" 285M to get better battery life. AMD doesn't support CUDA or PhysX, while DirectCompute and OpenCL aren't used enough to matter yet. So a part that has been out less than four months can't clearly dominate a part that has been around (more or less) for well over a year. AMD should have increased the power envelope of the 5870 and given it more shader cores and bandwidth; then NVIDIA would have something to fear. As it stands, I agree that this is a "missed opportunity". But then, AMD/ATI GPUs have been tough to recommend in laptops for a long time, and only in the past four months (with the new drivers) has that changed.Hrel - Monday, June 7, 2010 - link
If someone could do a review on the laptop that I currently suspect is the best "bang for your buck" out there. It's made by compal, and available on Cyberpower.com who's machines you've reviewed before. If you'd like it configured like I did, which I think is the best bang for buck, do this: Go to the website. mouse over 15.6" Laptops and click on the $999 Xplorer X6-8500. It has a 1080p screen. (I'm not sure why the people who run this site do this, but even though the other configurations use the same chassis when personalized they come out to cost more than this one; annoying since it makes me configure all 3 or 4 machines built on the same base chassis to figure out which one is cheapest/best for me.) Then I configured it with the Core i7-620M CPU. (to get it over 1K so I can take advantage of the 5% off.) 4GB 0DDR3-1333, hopefully 7-7-7-21, probably not, but hopefully. ATI MR HD5650 1GB GDDR3 320GB 7200rpm HDD (I did this cause I'm gonna take that HDD out and use the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, thanks for that review!!) Everything else on that page I left untouched. The only thing I did on page 2 was switch to Intel wifi with bluetooth; Though I'm curious if the MSI option is equal/better; 17 bucks isn't nothing. It has HDMI out and a fingerprint reader. This page says 3 USB ports, the specs sheet says 4USB ports; not sure which is true. (I do wish they were USB 3.0 ports, but I was hoping you guys would test some stuff and tell me if that even matters for use with an external hard drive, mechanical disk 7200rpm. Transferring large files like movies and games mostly.) On page 3 I select "none, format only" for the OS. And select "LCD perfect assurance" cause even 1 dead pixel is unacceptable to me. This brings the total to $1008.90 after 5% off, or $992.75 if you get the MSI network card. So yeah, I really hope you guys can get a hold of one of these for review; as a loner or given as a review unit or maybe someone will just buy one and review it cause it's really tempting me right now... like a lot! If you're review is good I'm gonna start saving up and hopefully be able to buy it around Christmas. Thanks guys! A loyal reader. - Brianlappyhappy - Monday, June 7, 2010 - link
Nice review Dustin. I've seen and love your articles that you have written on www.notebookreview.com. I know some have been critical of your article but if they look at some of your work at notebookreview they will see that you are not bias at all, and are quite good at stating the facts. Everyone, check out Dustin's articles and he does a great job of explaining laptops and how they work. This guy really does know his stuff.Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - link
Hey, thank you for the kind words! It's really cool to see someone follow me between sites and actually recognize my work, very gratifying.What's funny is that I know that I do have a personal bias, but the fact that my bias is being read as favoring Nvidia reassures me that I'm doing a good job as a writer. :)
lappyhappy - Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - link
I almost put that from what I've seen you actually have an AMD bias so yes you did a great job of putting it the other way. In all honesty though I think your reviews from what I've seen have been quite neutral and you always go with what is best but do know that you really want for AMD to be competitive.JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - link
NVIDIA has released their reviewer's guide for GTX 480M. Obviously, there's the potential they cherry picked some of the tests, but in general I'm guessing most of the scores are realistic. After all, if you use the DiRT 2 built-in benchmark, you can't really change the settings. Here's the guide for the interested:http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/mobile/2010/gt...
coldwave007 - Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - link
Hi There,After reading the article, I read through the comments and was very surprised by the negativity. I just wanted to say that I thought it was a very fair and balanced review, andthat you did an excellent job.
mod_to_odd - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
When it comes to quality gaming laptops, I dont think any body comes even close to Alienware and Sager. They have amazing customization options which no other brand offers.I had almost bought the Asus G73jh but after reading thousands of horrifying issues on the net regarding the customer support and faulty components even after RMA, i dint want to take any chances. In fact, one of my own friend who recently bought the G73jh is in a state of depression as he is dealing with new issues since the very day his notebook arrived.
The most ridiculous of all is that when you are all excited to unbox the G73, u realize there is no windows7 dvd, you actually got to make backup discs of the Operating System. Asus does not provide you with a windows7 dvd along with such an expensive notebook, instead they fill up your laptop with loads of bloatware. Way to go ASUS...
Asus needs to really improve big time on quality and customer satisfaction.
It rather makes sense to buy a gaming notebook from a reputed company even if the price is a bit on the higher side. But then again, to each his own.
whenamanlies - Saturday, July 24, 2010 - link
Very nice review since I'm right in the middle of configuring a laptop for myself.Want to switch from G51J (i7-720QM + GTX 260M) to something more powerful (and lower resolution).
Now it all clear regarding which GPU to get, but what about CPU? I'm little bit disappointed with 720QM so I'm wondering if i5-540M or i7-620M would be a better option? My feeling that higher frequencies would be a better option for games. Heck, even TF2 suggesting me to disable multicore rendering :)
You thoughts?