Mythlogic Pollux 1613 / Clevo P157SM Review
by Jarred Walton on August 30, 2013 12:00 AM ESTMythlogic Pollux 1613 / Clevo P157SM: Much Improved
The last round of Ivy Bridge notebooks often felt like most of the vendors were simply phoning it in with hardware and component upgrades but no fundamental changes. Alienware had the M17x R4, which was identical to the R3 other than the chipset, CPU, and GPU options; most of the Clevo builds fell into a similar state of affairs. With the Haswell laptops, most things have remained similar to the previous generation Clevo notebooks, but at least my biggest complaint (the keyboard layout, and in particular the 10-key) has been addressed. Couple that with cooling that gets the job done much better than the MSI GT70, and the only real drawback is lower battery life than some alternatives, and potentially the aesthetics; both of these are typically not primary factors for gaming notebooks.
Note that the carbon fiber adhesive from Mythlogic tends to scratch easily.
After seeing CPU temperatures hit 95C+ on the MSI GT70 with the GPU only a few degrees behind (on three different MSI GT70 notebooks), it’s clear that a single cooling fan isn’t going to handle all the heat of a high-end gaming notebook – at least, not without higher fan RPMs and/or a larger fan. For the P157SM, maximum gaming temperatures hit 65-80C on the CPU and 70-81C on the GPU, depending on the game. Stress testing with a CPU intensive application running alongside a game actually lowered the GPU temperatures slightly (68C max after more than an hour) while the CPU got hotter and topped out at 88C. That’s still warm, but we’re looking at a 10-20C delta compared to the GT70 in our stress testing. And again, I’ve confirmed the MSI temperatures that Dustin saw with two additional GT70 notebooks, so it’s not a fluke.
Since you’re likely to buy a big and bulky gaming notebook for the purpose of playing games, performance and cooling have to be two of the most critical factors – price, features, aesthetics, and other aspects all still play important roles but they’re generally not at the same level. This is where the P157SM delivers, and Mythlogic offers up a nicely customized build that hits all the right notes. The touchpad could have been better, but with a bit of tuning in the settings panel it’s not bad – just a bit less responsive than I’d like. The keyboard layout is also mostly good, with my only complaint being that I’m accustomed to the Fn key being on the left hand, and the touchpad being off-center from the space bar means I’m more likely to inadvertently brush it while typing (which is easy to overcome by disabling the touchpad via the Fn+F1 shortcut.
As far as the component choices go, this is also the type of configuration I’d recommend for most high-end users, with potentially a 1TB HDD for storage of larger files that don’t need fast access times (like movies, images, music, and possibly games depending on your own personal preference). The i7-4700MQ doesn’t seem to be quite fast enough to really get the most out of the GTX 780M, but at maximum detail it’s mostly splitting hairs – unless you’re a professional StarCraft II player, in which case the extra 10-20% increase in frame rates that you can get with an upgraded CPU might be worthwhile. Given the overall price, I’d be inclined to upgrade to the i7-4900MQ, or maybe just the i7-4800MQ, but it’s all relative. As for the storage, I’m sold on having a 512GB class SSD for your OS and “important” applications; some people would be fine with a 256GB or even 128GB OS drive coupled with a larger HDD, but I have enough applications and other items that I prefer more. And I love the fast WiFi speeds of 802.11ac, not to mention the fact that you’re less likely to have 30 networks contending with each other in urban environments…though it’s too bad the Intel adapter seems to lose the ability to communicate over 5GHz on occasion, requiring that you turn the WiFi off and then back on (Fn+F11).
The only real question – and one I don’t have an answer for yet, though Dustin is working on the review – is how the Alienware 17 stacks up to the new Clevo offerings. It will cost more, that’s for certain, but if it has a better display with similar cooling performance, there will be users that will prefer the Alienware design. What I do know is that Clevo trumps the MSI GT70 this round, and I hope all the decision makers and engineers start paying attention to cooling on systems that need it. It’s not enough to simply stay below Intel’s maximum rated temperatures, especially on a new notebook; it should be well below the 100C mark, as dust and other factors will only make things worse over time.
How does Mythlogic compare against other brands that have been around longer? If I take the baseline of an i7-4700MQ, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, GTX 780M, and a high gamut LCD as the configuration of choice, they do pretty well – particularly if we toss in the free color calibration. With that configuration and 802.11ac WiFi, the Pollux 1613 will run $2250. XoticPC with a 3% cash discount and their summer sale will run $2230, but you have to get a 2.5” SSD as the largest mSATA option they have is 256GB. Sager is basically the same, but they give you 16GB RAM for $2284. AVADirect has 512GB mSATA options, but they (currently) require a 2.5” drive as well; anyway, pricing there is currently $2367. There are other vendors as well, but pricing is all pretty similar to the ones I’ve already mentioned. My experience in communicating with Mythlogic over the course of the review was great, and they were always quick to respond to questions, but I can say the same for most of the boutique notebook vendors. Given that pricing is competitive and in many cases better than some of the alternatives, Mythlogic is definitely worth a serious look for anyone buying a new gaming notebook.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
47 Comments
View All Comments
GTVic - Saturday, August 31, 2013 - link
Obvious answer is the tradeoff with the weight. If you overclock to the extent that you need 220W+ then you are going to need heavier duty cooling design which adds even more weight.Khenglish - Saturday, August 31, 2013 - link
The 15" and 17" laptops both have identical motherboards with Identical cooling (the 15" has a default aluminum CPU radiator, but most resellers offer the copper version found in the 17")So no there would be no extra weight.
waldojim42 - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
I, for one, am always glad to see high end displays in use. Props to Clevo for such a decent display.On your last page, you mention wanting to test against the Alienware 17. While I understand the reasoning, I think that Alienware/Dell put the majority of their focus on the 14 and 18 this time around. Both the 14 and 18 have high end display options that the 17 doesn't get. IPS, and PLS to be exact. Frankly, I would be far more interested in your results on those over the 17" TN panel.
Also, I have a 9700QM based machine being delivered later this week - one thing I didn't see mentioned, was the thermal impact from overclocking. Also, is the 2bin OC limit an Intel limit, or BIOS limit? I know the machine I am picking up is supposed to allow overclocking, but I prefer not to go into these things blindly - and there really isn't a lot of good information on this.
JarredWalton - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
I honestly don't know if the limit is BIOS or Intel, but I suspect it might be BIOS. Usually, Intel lets you do +4 bins, and you can set SC, DC, TC, QC to the same multiplier (basically, what I could do with the 4900MQ). But perhaps Intel locked down the 4700MQ for precisely the reason that it would be nearly the same as a 4900MQ if you could set everything to 3.8GHz. Thermally, the 4700MQ didn't have any issues overclocked, but the 4900MQ behaved oddly; I think I need to tweak the OC settings to get more out of it, and even then I think it will only be at best a 3-5% improvement over stock clocks.Finally, regarding Alienware, the 18 is hard for me to go for, as it's so huge -- it's in the same category as the Clevo P370SM. I'm just not sold on SLI for notebooks, as there are too many gotchas (heat, size, drivers, cost, etc.) I didn't realize the AW 17 didn't do anything more for the display; I was hoping to see IPS/AVHA/PLS in there, but I guess not? Maybe next time; anyway, Dustin has the full review in the works, but the high gamut TN panel in the Clevo's is getting somewhat out of date.
Meaker10 - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
4700 = +2004800 = +400
4900 = +600
4930 = unlocked
4.2ghz on all cores is a +600mhz boost to the core ratio:
4900 = 38/37/36/36 (4core/3core/2core/1core turbo max)
4990 oc max = 44/43/42/42
The biggest restriction on the 4900 and 4800 will be that tdp increases are locked to +10w to 57w so going beyond 3.9ghz wont mean much (setting anything higher than 57w may looks like it has set but the cpu power wont go beyond 57w).
Also powernotebooks is niw selling a 4.1ghz oced 4939mx and 3.9ghz 4900mq in the msi barebone range. How many times do we have to tell you your machine was a bad sample?
kogunniyi - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
You're right, but MSI deserves some flack for sending Anandtech two bad samples.DanNeely - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
They've gotten a good one; hopefully at part of one of their upcoming articles they'll publish updated thermals. Unless the issue was a, now fixed, design flaw/fan controller bug though 2 faulty laptops in a row suggests serious QA problems that would scare me away.JarredWalton - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
Anyone that thinks the MSI was a "bad sample" at this point is fooling themselves. You can keep "telling us we had a bad sample", but that just isn't true. Dustin had one MSI notebook, and at full load it hit 96C on the CPU (unless you trigger the max fan tweak that turns it into a blow dryer). Then he sent that back, and NVIDIA sent me not one but two MSI GT70 notebooks for additional testing. Both of those hit 95C on the CPU under full load -- 10C hotter than the P157SM reviewed here. That said, the MSI notebooks I had from NVIDIA did not throttle -- they just ran hotter than I'd like. 95C is still less than the 100C max that Intel specifies, but how long will you be able to game on a notebook hitting such temperatures before things start going south?Could we replace the TIM to get reduced temperatures? Perhaps, but I just don't think that should be standard procedure, and it shouldn't be required in the first place. What's more, it still won't run as cool as the dual HSF Clevo designs, since it's cooling two power hungry chips with one fan.
As for the overclocking statements above, the maximum clock on the 4900MQ at stock is 3.8GHz, and pushing that to 4.2GHz was not stable (wouldn't even boot into Windows). While 4.4GHz is an option in theory, in practice I don't see it happening on any but the best CPUs. Even 4.0GHz is behaving oddly, with performance often lower than stock settings. I'm going to try a scaled OC of 4.1/4.0/3.9/3.8 to see if I can get any better performance than my initial results though....
Meaker10 - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
The thing is to go beyond 3.9ghz you will start having to add voltage which will instantly slam you into the 57W TDP limit. It looks like you were already hitting into it anyway.This is an even more delicate operation than a mITX desktop after all but can be done if you are patient.
But by your own admission if throttle was not occurring on the sager then temps would likely be in the same area and the dual fan has no advantage....
JarredWalton - Friday, August 30, 2013 - link
Temperature and power draw are different, so the 57W TDP is the factor. The Sager can better dissipate that (keeping the CPU at <90 and usually <85, with the GPU <80), but Intel's preventing higher Turbo even at lower temperatures. The MSI isn't throttling, meaning, it's not dropping below the rated speed, but it's also not running at max Turbo either. There's a difference.