Eurocom Racer: Why the Radeon HD 6970M Rocks
by Jarred Walton on March 17, 2011 3:00 AM ESTOne of My Favorite Laptop LCDs of Recent History
If you’ve been following our laptop reviews for any length of time, you’ll know that we’re suckers for a good quality LCD. What makes a good LCD? Well, first we really need at least a 500:1 contrast ratio, and higher is always welcome. Next, we’d like good viewing angles, but we’re generally disappointed in this regard as just about everything uses TN panels (with HP’s IPS DreamColor LCDs being the rare exception). We understand some people prefer glossy LCDs because they like the increased contrast, but I think everyone here at AnandTech would prefer a good quality matte LCD to anything glossy (emphasis on good). Having a large range of brightness levels is also desirable. Finally, good color accuracy and color gamut round out our wish list; since most of us tend to work in the sRGB color space, all we really need is about 65 to 70% of AdobeRGB, but we’re okay with slightly higher gamuts (particularly if the laptop includes an option to select your target color space). So, how does the panel in the Eurocom Racer measure up to this list? Let’s see….
Clevo P150HM Gamut
The Eurocom Racer misses out on viewing angles, as it’s still a TN panel, but as the images below show it’s not quite as bad as some of the competition. The contrast and colors are good, and we’re very pleased to get all this with a matte LCD. The only other area where we’d like to see improvements is backlight intensity. 240 nits is reasonable for indoor use, but we’re prefer at least 300 if not 400 nits.
There are definitely better LCDs out there—like HP’s DreamColor panels—but this is a good and reasonably priced panel. We’re still floored that it’s actually more expensive for the glossy 1080p panel, but to each his own. I’d rate the panel overall as a competitive solution to Dell’s XPS 15 and some of the other good 1080p LCDs we’ve seen in the past six months, but for me the matte coating pushes it ahead of the competition. Now if only the bezel matched the LCD….
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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!