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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JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Well, the whole notebook is an ES right now, so I can't really make a judgement call one way or the other on the 6970M. If it has an ES GPU, all Eurocom needs to say is, "We sent you a pre-release notebook." (And they already said that before shipping, so we're covered on that front.) This version I received also includes the Cougar Point bug, and if were ordering it right now that would make me pretty angry. Hopefully everything will be sorted out when the product shows up on their actual site, but I wouldn't be shocked if some fishy stuff happened on occasion.I'd also think AMD should have something to say about them shipping ES 6970M cards to customers, at least if they're not supposed to be available yet. What notebooks have shipped with the card to actual customers as opposed to reviewers? To my knowledge, every Clevo Sandy Bridge system is still affected by the Cougar Point bug and should be recalled, so my guess is only the X7200/Phantom 2.0 would be going out to customers.
Windkull - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Jarred,They shipped some ENG samples on X7200s saying that they were not:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/556994...
That said, I think consensus seemed to be that the ENG samples ran a bit too hot but might actually have more cores unlocked.
Also, Sandy Bridge Clevos have been getting delivered for about a week now, I think they started shipping 10 days ago or so.
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
See update note in the conclusion; thanks for the info!jah1subs - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
I see all of this information about so many laptop/notebooks. But how do I know whether or not it has a matte display? My eyes have a problem with glare.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Most companies will say either "glossy" or "glare type" on the LCD, or "matte" or "anti-glare". In general, though, assume everything is glossy unless otherwise noted... or buy a business laptop, which are usually anti-glare (ThinkPad, Latitude, ProBook, etc.)Ikefu - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
So the new Mac book pros use switchable graphics from their AMD gfx cards to the build in Sandy Bridge gpu when unplugged. Why didn't they do that here or at least give you the option?Is there some technical limitation preventing this with a 6970M?
mczak - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
that's for sure. With ~10% less clocks and 25% less shader units than the GTX 485M, it ends up just slightly faster than GTX 480M.Though 6950M vs. 470M might be interesting - I'd expect the former to be faster but possibly not that much. It'll also depend on the exact clocks probably as those aren't really fixed for the mobile parts.
Beenthere - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Won't buy any product with InHell inside.5150Joker - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Jarred,Did you leave Physx enabled for the nvidia cards when running Vantage? It would explain why there was such a huge overall score gap.
JarredWalton - Friday, March 18, 2011 - link
Oh... hmmm, yeah, I probably did. I don't know that I've ever shut off PhysX for 3DMark Vantage.