1610ftw

Looks like some embargo was lifted today:

CPU is doing reasonably well, GPU not so much. Looking at Time Spy the 4090 mobile does about 21K on notebookcheck.com while 100th place for the 4090 desktop card on 3Dmark.com is 41K and 100th for the 4080 30.5K - quite ridiculous to lag that much behind at the prices that these laptops fetch. As for this being on Nvidia I am pretty sure that if laptop manufacturers all wanted 200, 225 or 250W they would get those, too but they are probably happy that the 4090 only goes up to 175W so that they do not have to invest in better cooling and their laptops can stay thin and light.

It is quite obvious that we do not get to see any Time Spy benchmarks. Pretty sure Nvidia does not allow it at this point which in turn probably means they are less than flattering.

We live in sad times when excellence is at most relative and at worst just mediocrity pretending to be excellence. Clevo is doing it with even less shame than others with the X370 and with them I find it to be the most disappointing. I am pretty certain they will suffer for having done that as top of the line Clevos were all socketed for several generations.

It is a combination of thin bezels and much less internal height. As for maximum screen size the old top of the line 17.3" 16:9 chassis like the Asus 701/3, Clevo P870 and MSI GT72/73/75 could hold 19.2" 16:10 screens if they had the 5.5 to 7mm bezels that are found in current laptops. In such a chassis it is possible that even Asus, Acer and Alienware would find the space for 4 memory sticks and 4 2280 NVME slots outside of workstations. And if you are looking at something really big like the MSI GT83 or the last Alienware 18 then you are looking at a chassis that would even hold a 20.5" 16:10 screen. Now that is a nice screen size and something that I would also sign up for.

The revolutionary part is that today more than ever mediocrity can be sold as superiority. This takes on an Orwellian quality as of late with zero progress or regression being sold to the customer as some stupendous improvement. I guess that all major laptop manufacturers except for Clevo have the advantage of having stopped really powerful designs years ago so now they can celebrate mediocrity as something to be applauded as they had these in between years that were even worse. MSI is as guilty as any company as it is beyond silly to sell the exact same power envelope as last year as revolutionary. They did not even bother to go with a small increase to let's say 260 or 275W as I can only assume that manufacturers have formed some secret cartel of mediocrity whereby no manufacturer is advertising more than 250W combined for CPU and GPU so that they can all continue to offer their thin and light "behemoths" as the gullible call them. The result is that now we have 18" screen laptops with a chassis that has less volume than former 15.6" workstations. As it looks like the only exception is the Alienware 18m which seems to be bigger but with its own strange shortcomings despite its weight and dimensions.

Tuxedo version of the X170SM-G: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/17-3-inch/TUXEDO-Book-XUX7-Gen11.tuxedo# Tuxedo version of the X170KM-G: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/17-3-inch/TUXEDO-Book-XUX7-Gen13.tuxedo There indeed seem to be a number of instructions on their site with regard to how to install Linux on them.

If you are curious if it is in any way temperature related you could keep the bottom open and blow some really cold air on it in a cold(er) room. If that doesn't help I would expect other limiting factors. In any case you did very well with your P775, what is the max power draw of the GPU during Time Spy?

Very close to 3Dmark top 10, currently you would sit in 17th place. So excellent job overall with even the top 5 only being 2.5 to 3.5% away and the first place is somebody with a desktop motherboard so that one does not even count, @johnksssis really the first placed laptop score:

No problem here with 10th generation, 4 memory slots and overclocking enabled (to enable undervolting and higher all core clocks only). So it may have to be a combination of overclocking and ccc. Of course with 10th gen one gains stability but loses one SSD slot - love those brilliant Clevo engineers...

If a laptop can call itself DTR then it should have space for an ethernet jack as then it will not be so thing that the jack is an issue. Personally I have zero interest in any network connector that does not allow for at least 2.5G and I hate those flaps. I guess one could argue that they offer some kind of protection from dust but that is being too kind imo as I never had an issue with dust in normal ethernet ports.

That was cruel 😄 The M18 should be at least 1.5" wider so that could just be enough to offer 4 full length SSDs. Still I am not fond of the idea to not easily reach the CPU and GPU because they are installed the other way round. Agreed on the scarcity of 4 or 8TB NVME SSDs - it is about time that we get more manufacturers who offer 4 and 8TB.

Thanks for that, crossed off the (now empty) list. Who would have thought that we would get 18" screens back with neither proper storage nor memory options and BGA only. Notebook manufacturers effortlessly turn everything into a huge disappointment these days.

Drive options are pathetic on these new 18" units with the exception of the Alienware 18". I am very much displeased with the trend to not have more than that in almost every laptop. Three of these with a 2280 form factor take up about as much space as a single 2.5" drive so why is it not even possible to have three? Almost the whole laptop segment is becoming a lightweight downpared joke even at the very top end. I have no issue with 99% of laptops being (for me) worthless soldered lightweight e-waste but how about at least a handful of models being different?

I mean just sell a chip that goes into a socket like with AMD and Intel desktop CPUs. Obviously this isn't going to happen in desktops but it would be a perfect solution for laptops to widen choices for the users and drastically reduce SKUs for the manufacturers

That was meant to be a soldered GPU as I just cannot see socketed happen at the moment and as you say prices more than likely would be so high that almost nobody would be interested. Options down to at least the 4070 and possibly 4060 would be nice for people who mainly want a flagship CPU in a portable form factor and often have to buy lots of memory, storage and/or GPU / screen just to get the CPU - it is ridiculous. If GPU manufacturers would sell their GPUs like Intel and AMD sell their CPUs then things would have the potential to be a lot more flexible. Not likely to happen any time soon but that would be very cool. .

I am not so sure that enough people care but it is hard to say really. A good test case would be one of the above mentioned companies putting out a model with a socketed GPU and graphics options that go down to the RTX 4060 accompanied by at least a nice priced QHD+ 18" screen. Add in 4 slots each for storage and memory and top notch connectivity and people may actually buy in bigger number as now they can finally afford such a laptop as it is not priced at 4k or more. Dell was mostly pretty good with offering more options but Asus and MSI were quite bad and not at all willing to offer lesser graphics or CPU options to save some money.

They are relatively powerful given their weight and volume but what about people who would be willing to carry 9 or 10 lbs from time to time? Clevo was the last manufacturer with a ca. 10lbs laptop (X170) but that was it. These days the problem with Clevo is that they do not have enough pull with Intel to support socketed CPUs for multiple generations and as for Nvidia they do not let Clevo have any MXM modules any more. I am pretty sure that Dell would have enough clout to build an Alienware with a socketed CPU that could be supported for more than one generation and the same goes for MSI and Asus at least as they also manufacture motherboards and not just laptops. Yet nobody seems to be moving in that direction - makes me wonder how bad those GX800, GT83 and Alienware 18 sales really were...

Thinner and a bit more narrow, too? In any case only the old Alienware 18 and the GT76 are as deep and it is just the GT83 that is even a bit deeper by 8mm. Due to the limited width the GT77 looks almost square though so that is a strange look and not very practical either. Indeed, no complaints from me about the CPU by itself, I just wish it was socketed. The GPU will probably give us the biggest jump in performance since the jump from GT980 to the GT1080. What is disappointing is that it could have been a lot better if Nvidia had offered the 4090 desktop chip and more power for laptops.

Most big laptops have at least two USB-C / Thunderbolt ports so it would be possible to do 2 x 240W this way. So that would not be an issue. The issue is of course that we are now stuck with 250W max combined power delivery. Makes no sense as obviously 7lbs laptops are good enough to allow for 250W so with 9 lbs 300W or more wouldn't be an issue especially with most of the added weight going directly to cooling. The easiest way to achieve something that is good for both the enthusiast and the thin and light crowd would be a chassis that allows for a slim AND a beefy cooling solution. Apart from the heat sink assembly only the bottom cover would have to change for that and the beefier version would get the higher TDP. And of course a socketed CPU would be most welcome - please do it in time for the next Intel generation as then it will last a few years with proper microcode support.

With 175W max TGP I have hardly seen high temperatures for either big Clevo or MSI DTRs as of late. That is as long as the fans run at full speed and from what I have seen this also goes for the top Asus ROG units. I would only expect issues if one wanted to game at max load and in a relatively quiet environment.

Here is some gameplay with two games being played without DLSS: Looks to be a bit too close and the fps with the two non DLSS games would imply that the 4090 mobile is performing closer to the 4080 desktop card than to the 4070 Ti desktop which I find hard to believe.

Imposter - I love it 😄 The X370 is lacking so much it isn't funny: socketed CPU? nope top of the line BGA CPU? nope socketed GPU? nope full fat vapor chamber? nope 4 memory slots? nope 4 storage slots? nope 18" screen? nope This generation the X370 could have everything but a socketed GPU which just seems out of reach to Clevo. Yet they decided to offer none of the things mentioned above - go figure. At least when MSI brought back the Titan they went with top of the line chips, connectivity, memory and storage options and before they just did not have a Titan for I think two generations - that is still disappointing overall because of the lack of thickness and modularity but at least they made an effort in some areas. Same with Dell - they bothced the heatsink design in the 7770 but at least it has a socketed GPU and a full complement of drives and up to 128GB memory even though that is only available at extortionary prices. Clevo on the other hand seems to be happy with only carrying over the X name and adding a third SSD slot. LOL @ 12lbs not being heavy, in fact we now have an issue with carry on luggage in planes imposing ever lower weight limits and on long flights you could not take a big DTR out as it would occupy more width than we usually get on planes these days - can't have it all I guess 😄

One thing's for sure - you will never run out of heatsinks 😄

Does anybody know if this will again have the rubberized surfaces that Dell likes to use? My lightly used palm rest in the 7760 already starts to look pretty bad while the plastic / metal surface in Clevos and MSI laptops hold up much better - hate that rubber stuff. I would probably put something on that if I got another laptop with it, I think brother @ssj92is doing that, too?