1610ftw

Yours looks like a textbook DTR use case so that's a definite yes. If you buy next year we may have an even bigger selection of 18" laptops but even now you may want to check them out first.

And there are gaming laptops like the MSI GP series or most Lenovo Legion models that look pretty much normal with their RGB effects disabled.

In Germany we now have 48GB UDIMM from: Corsair G-Skill Mushkin TeamGroup Still no SO-DIMM to be seen anywhere...

Not sure if we really need 8 drive slots but with the option to stack drives the manufacturers should go for 6 drive slots for the 2280 form factor. That should be the minimum for top of the line DTRs. A nice side effect would be that laptops would have to get a bit thicker again which can also be used for better cooling.

At least in Germany three manufacturers are offering 48GB UDIMMs so hopefully SO-DIMMs are not too far off.

So I found a disassembly video of the Zbook 16 G9 on youtube and there is no regular MXM from factor card on this one any more and unfortunately the chassis is also used by the Zbook 16 G10: So not too many options for the X170 and I wish HP would go back to a compatible MXM form factor for an 18" Zbook Fury 18 G11.

If it feels to be roughly the same speed it would be good enough for me and as SATA usually feels about as fast as PCI-E I am pretty sure that would be the case. I used to be happy with SATA, too but now the cheapest storage seems to be PCI-E, at least up to 2TB and therefore I have mostly PCI-E drives now.

I usually prefer adjustability but being in a compromised performance state on battery I do not think I would mind SSDs being half of their usual speed as it is not like they could hold that speed for very long anyway. So if AMD based systems only have these restrictions on battery I would not really mind. I had to read that part with @Papusantwice as I could not quite believe it 😄

It probably pretty much depends on what one is doing - if battery life is of any importance check it with the workload you are using as that will give you the best idea of real world useability and in your case your AMD laptop lasts twice as long as the Intel version. It would be a really good idea to tell a laptop how much it is supposed to consume at most or alternatively how long you plan to use it on battery and then it would need some intelligent reallocation of resources to do as best as it can with the consumption / time limit that has been set.

Calling brother @Papusan an AMD fanboy is something else... While the numbers you post are quite interesting it seems the tables are turned with more powerful CPUs like for example here: And FWIW: I had/have a bunch of Intel CPU powered laptops that cannot do shit when on battery but these are the ones with the big boy CPUs that can all pull at least 150W and often up to 200W in multithreaded loads.

Alienware 3.9 kg, GT77HX 3.5 kg, the rest around 3 kg: I am pretty sure that a higher performance 18" model with up to 3.5 kg would be quite attractive and those who cannot/will not lift 3.5kg can always go for the 16" version.

It tells us a lot about the questionable designs employed by other manufacturers that an easy to replace keyboard is not the norm but an advantage. I think this is one of only three models this generation with at least three full size 2280 M2 slots so that definitely could count as a bonus and also the non-flashy design. Apart from not being flashy I find the design to be pretty unimpressive but with other ugly ducklings like the GE78 or the rather silly looking Asus models having a "special" look seems to be the norm and not the exception for this generation.

That is a bit hard to understand so is there any comparison between stock fans and regular fans with everything else being the same? A 10°C reduction with application of LM and the new fans would cause me to wonder which part of the reduction is due to the fans and which part is due to the LM 🙂 In any case it is very nice to again hear that the new fans are really quiet!

This seems to be a bit hard to understand with regard to temps, would it be possible to give us temps like this: stock heat sink old fans CPU/GPU stock heat sink new fans CPU/GPU hybrid on air old fans CPU/GPU hybrid on air new fans CPU/GPU In any case from what you say it looks like the fans are quite a bit cheaper then the hybrid heatsink and give a similar reduction in noise or temperatures?

I knew it was something with v 😄

Not to mention those who bought the 8GB 4070 - they must really feel validated now...

The Clevo RTX3080 with a new heatsink and possibly a shunt mod would be your best current bet and give you a substantial increase in raster, raytracing and memory performance. If you wanted to go beyond that you would have to try and get the biggest semi-regular form factor MXM that is sold for the HP Zbook 16 G10 and get it to work in the X170 or rather find somebody who can do it for you: https://www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/zbook-fury-specs.html https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/rtx-5000-mobile-ada-generation.c4097 Depending on TGP and application I would expect another 20 to 50% performance boost from that card but it will be very hard to get it to work both with regard to fitting it in the X170 and giving it a proper heatsink and with the needed vbios and other adjustments. To even get it you may be better off to take it out of a Zbook and then sell that on without the card instead of buying it separately. There are also other possible vendors who may have MXM cards but the latest generation of cards hasn't been out for long and these vendors usually specialize in workstation cards.

You probably need a better binned 10900K or 10900KF. How much power do you need for 5GHz all cores with a stable undervolt? That is one of the advantages of a socketed CPU that you should make use of: Get a better CPU, they are easy to swap.

Haha, yes I remember the Qosmio - that one was big but not really great. I think the last really big - and ridiculously thick - laptop was the MSI GT83 but after SLI died MSI saw no justification for it any more.

Mankind used to strive against and grow with obstacles and now grown men balk at lifting a 3kg laptop that used to be considered the lower end in weight for a 17" form factor - "it's a behemoth": https://me.pcmag.com/en/laptops/14160/ces-2023-hands-on-the-asus-rog-strix-scar-18-is-a-mega-powered-xxl-size-gaming-laptop Ridiculous. At least Alienware has stemmed the tide with a heavier offering but then it is still Alienware so they pull so much other crap with the m18 that I cannot consider it a viable option either.

Obviously you will get a certain amount of portability with a certain amount of other features like battery life, performance, screen size and so on, it is for you to decide what is more important. Except that it isn't beyond a certain point as performance, features and capabilities have been reduced compared to what we used to have both in relative and absolute terms.

Thin and light is always a con as whatever (relatively) great cooling solution a company comes up with in a thin and light could be better in a properly sized laptop. Add to that the space needed for more drives, memory and a big battery that can be readily accessed and a non-destructive way to open the device and you have a lot of factors that make thin and light undesirable. If one was to construct a proper 18" DTR I would draw the line at something like 7lbs and 3cm high at the back - anything less than that will just be too compromised and make the wrong choices just for looks. With a certain minimum height it is also quite easy to stack memory and SSDs which allows double the drives we see in a thin and light. The HP Zbook G9 and G10 show that and they are also quite easy to open. They have other issues but they certainly got that one right and with the stacked drive design we could even go up to 6 NVME drives for serious mobile workstations.

Given the size the performance is indeed quite stunning. If only Lenovo were more ambitious with screen size, memory, storage or modularity. Have you tested how much CPU power it can sustain for a 10 minute CB R23 run? As for not running the fans at max I would assume that you may still have something like stock performance due to your cooling pad, if not more as those temps are quite low.

Who cares about only being able to use 70% of TGP for his favorite game when he can always have 100% of RGB - laptop gamers need to have their priorities in order. 😄

The problem is not labels but that the cards do not use all of the advertised power for certain applications. If I buy a 140W card I do expect it to use that power for everything I choose to do on it. Sure there will be diminishing returns at some point but that is different than these artificial limitations.