AVADirect's Clevo W860CU: Mobility 5870 vs. GTX 285M

AVADirect 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.