AVADirect Clevo P170EM Part 2: GTX 680M Grudge Match

AVADirect’s Clevo P170EM: GTX 680M FTW

You’ll note that I skipped discussion of the various benchmark results for general performance, CPU speed, synthetic graphics testing, and even LCD testing. All of the results are available in Mobile Bench, but more importantly nothing has really changed in those areas compared to the P170EM with 7970M. Other than some variation in PCMark 7 scores (which is pretty common), the CPU performance is basically splitting hairs. Thus the focus for this second P170EM review is squarely on gaming performance, so let’s quickly recap the situation.

If you want the fastest mobile gaming GPU your money can buy right now, NVIDIA’s GTX 680M is where it’s at. There are a few titles where AMD’s Radeon 7970M comes out ahead, but there are far more instances where the GTX 680M has a substantial lead. More importantly, NVIDIA has a track record of releasing their Verde Notebook Drivers every time they put out a beta or WHQL desktop driver. They’ve been at it for more than two years now, and outside of the first month or so after a laptop first goes on sale (e.g. before the next official driver update), you should be able to update your NVIDIA GPU drivers—regardless of whether or not you use Optimus. AMD is working to get Enduro to that same point, and there are a few games that suggest with more driver enhancements AMD could even close the gap with NVIDIA, but I cannot recommend a product today based on promises of driver support tomorrow. Hopefully everything will be in place by the end of the year so that the next time we do a mobile GPU head-to-head we won’t have to worry about discussions of driver support.

As for Clevo’s P170EM, subjectively there are still some elements that I dislike, but I’ve beaten that horse enough. I don’t think anyone is really concerned about how nice a laptop looks if they’re considering a P170EM; they’ll be going after raw gaming performance, and that’s what the P170EM delivers. It also manages to keep the CPU and GPU relatively cool, even under sustained 100% loads for hours on end—the types of load a gaming notebook is likely to see when fulfilling its purpose. The question then is what sort of price/performance you’re looking at. As I noted in the 7970M conclusion, the competition right now for a high-end gaming notebook basically consists of three options: MSI GT70 (iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17), Alienware M17x R4, or the Clevo P150EM/P170EM. There are slightly lower performance gaming notebooks as well (e.g. the Razer Blade, ASUS G-Series, Samsung Series 7), but the GTX 680M in particular is about maximum GPU performance, even if it costs a bit more. So if you want a GTX 680M, let’s look at the various online prices (as of October 15, 2012).

AVADirect’s Clevo P170EM Gaming Notebook is what we received for review, and they appear to have the most memory and storage options of any of the Clevo P170EM resellers. That can be overwhelming if you don't know much about computer components, but for enthusiasts we love having options. We'd like to see their configurator updated so that it changes pricing in real-time, and the ability to narrow down some of the search fields (e.g. only show 8GB RAM and 240/256GB SSD options) would be nice to have as well.  Their support throughout our review period has been good, but then I haven't really had any horrible experiences with companies as a reviewer. For most people, the final decision is going to be made based on pricing or other features, so let's look at that aspect.

We configured a P170EM with a GTX 680M, i7-3740QM (i7-3720QM if the 3740QM wasn't available), 256GB Micron M4 (or 240GB/256GB alternatives if the M4 wasn't listed), 8GB DDR3-1600, Intel Ultimate-N 6300 WiFi, a DVDRW, and a matte LCD; for those components, the price comes to $2276. A semi-complete list of other P170EM resellers includes the Sager Notebooks NP9170 ($2299), XoticPC (Sager NP9170) ($2199 “Autumn Sale” and $2133 with cash discount), ProStar P170EM ($2299; $2230 cash discount), Origin EON17-S ($2489), Mythlogic Nyx 1712 ($2271 w/glossy LCD), Eurocom Neptune 2.0 ($2563), and Digital Storm x17 ($2395). Of those P170EM-based offerings, about the only really noteworthy difference is that Mythlogic actually has an option for a chiclet backlit keyboard (for $100 extra); the other differences mostly come down to component offerings, and I’m sure if you call any of the companies you could custom-spec a build with identical components.

Looking elsewhere, iBUYPOWER’s Valkyrie CZ-17 is probably the least expensive option in terms of pricing, often beating the P170EM by nearly $200 for otherwise identical components (currently $1925 with i7-3720QM, ADATA 256GB SSD, and otherwise similar components to the above notebooks). In fact their Battalion 101 is a P170EM based notebook that costs about $250 more than their CZ-17 for otherwise identical components. As I’ve said in the past, I’m not sure that any of these companies are inherently better or worse than the others and their prices change frequently, so it can’t hurt to shop around. As for Alienware’s M17x R4, aesthetically I still think it’s the most pleasing of the notebooks, but at roughly 20% more for a similar configuration to the above ($2644) that’s a tough pill to swallow—plus it has an uber-glossy edge-to-edge glass cover in front of the LCD.

Given my gripes with the keyboard and touchpad, I’m not going to be handing out an Editors’ Choice award, but if you can overlook those areas the Clevo P170EM certainly deserves props for being one of the fastest gaming notebooks this side of the dual-GPU behemoths (e.g. Alienware M18x and Clevo P370EM). I’d also say it has the best cooling of the current trio of GTX 680M options listed above, and that’s definitely an area you should pay attention to when looking at high-end gaming notebooks. And that’s really the star of the show here: NVIDIA’s GTX 680M. Yes, it will set you back an extra $195 to $350 (depending on notebook vendor) compared to AMD’s HD 7970M, but it's generally impractical to look at just purchasing a GPU upgrade for a notebook so we have to look at the total notebook cost. Looking at AVADirect, a reasonably configured gaming notebook (e.g. i7-3610QM, 8GB RAM, 256GB M4 SSD, Intel 6300 WiFi) runs $1822 with the HD 7970M compared to $2096 with the GTX 680M. That’s a cost increase of 15% for a typical gaming performance increase of around 20% at high quality settings (e.g. 1080p 4xAA). Add to that the proven track record of NVIDIA's driver updates and for gaming purposes, that extra $200 is money well spent.