barlew
Godlike
So i finally got my Vortex back and this evening is the first chance i have had to properly run some benchmarks and tests to see how it performs.
The specs are as follows:
Looks/build quality
So this is an extremely smart looking laptop. As i was told in the forums when i was trying to make the decision of which laptop to go for this system bears no resemblance to the Vortex i bought back in 2012.
The lid, palm rest and keyboard surround are all made from a metal and are finished with a lovely gunmetal colour. The rest of the laptop is made with black plastic, except for orange accents on the exhaust grills and down each side of the laptop which surprisingly i actually quite like.
The quality of materials and construction feel premium and there is absolutely no flex or creaking when handling this body. The only slight gripe i have is when the lid is closed and the laptop is in any position except flat flat on a desk the lid seems to open about 5 mm.
The keyboard looks fantastic when it is lit up however you can only have one colour the keyboard is not split down into different lighting sections. The keys feel really nice to type with providing a good amount of travel and stiffness with a satisfying click.
The touchpad appears to be made of glass and is really smooth and nice to use. It is extremely responsive and i have not noticed any input lag. The finger print scanner is integrated with the touch pad but is invisible until windows needs authorisation, at this point a fingerprint logo illuminates where you are required to put your finger. This is a really nice touch. It seems pretty accurate and recognises my finger 90% of the time however it does sometimes get it wrong, but i have had the same issue with every scanner i have ever used.
The mouse buttons are physical and seem good enough for the job. They don't feel cheap and don't feel like they are going to get un-duely loose over time.
Sound
The sound quality from the speakers is surprisingly good. It is delivered with a noticeable bunch and has a surprisingly high volume. When gaming without the headset the sound can easily be heard over the fans and after a while you forget the fans are there. This takes some doing as the laptops cooling system sounds like a jet turbine when it kicks in under load. This is another gripe but it cant really be helped as of course this is a laptop with some silly specs.
Screen
The screen is great. Very sharp and clear with good colour representation. The gysnc works and there are no dead pixels i havent really got much else to say about it.
There is also minor light bleed which is expected but it really is minimal so mo worries there.
Performance
This laptop is an absolute beast of a machine i can play all the latest games on ultra settings whilst maintaining at least 80fps. As someone who usually had to cap framerates at 30fps to maintain high settings on his old laptop this is a big deal. How inherently this means there is a drawback which as to be expected is the issue of heat. This laptop runs extremely hot which does result in thermal throttling. I did expect this but it does need mentioning.
I have configured the unit with a -135mV undervolt which is as low as i can get whilst maintaining system stabillity. This seems to reduce the typical systems temps i was experiencing by around 5C.
To give a quick idea of how hot the machine runs and how the undervolt has made a difference i played R6 Siege for approximately 3 hours before applying the undervolt with all settings set to ultra. Afterburner was reporting my CPU temperatures averaging around 98C and often hitting 100C whilst my GPU stayed at a steady 81C.
After finally finding a stable undervolt on another day i played Monster Hunter World for about 3 hours. The GPU temps were again low to mid 80C's and the CPU was sitting at 90 - 95C. After using a cheap 2 fan cooling stand this dropped to sitting at high 80C and very occasionally hit 90C. I have ordered a much better cooling stand which comes tommorow.
It is important to note that right now in the UK we are experiencing extremely hot weather and the room i was testing in had an ambient temperature of around 28C which of course is not ideal.
So this is clearly not particularly scientific which is why i have carried out a load of benchmarks and taking some measurements which will be detailed in a following post.
To conclude my thoughts this laptop really is astonishing especially when you compare it to equivalent known brands such as Razer or ASUS. Not only are they twice the price for an equivalent system but in many cases they arent even equivalent.
The specs are as follows:
Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 9750H (2.6GHz, 4.5GHz Turbo)
Get Total War: Three Kingdoms & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
Get Control & Wolfenstein: Young Blood w/ select GeForce RTX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 660p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 1500MB/sR | 1000MB/sW)
Intel Optane Memory
32GB INTEL® M10 OPTANE MEMORY - USE WITH MECHANICAL HDD
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery
Vortex IX Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
MULTI COLOUR BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 9750H (2.6GHz, 4.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 660p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 1500MB/sR | 1000MB/sW)
Intel Optane Memory
32GB INTEL® M10 OPTANE MEMORY - USE WITH MECHANICAL HDD
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery
Vortex IX Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
MULTI COLOUR BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Looks/build quality
So this is an extremely smart looking laptop. As i was told in the forums when i was trying to make the decision of which laptop to go for this system bears no resemblance to the Vortex i bought back in 2012.
The lid, palm rest and keyboard surround are all made from a metal and are finished with a lovely gunmetal colour. The rest of the laptop is made with black plastic, except for orange accents on the exhaust grills and down each side of the laptop which surprisingly i actually quite like.
The quality of materials and construction feel premium and there is absolutely no flex or creaking when handling this body. The only slight gripe i have is when the lid is closed and the laptop is in any position except flat flat on a desk the lid seems to open about 5 mm.
The keyboard looks fantastic when it is lit up however you can only have one colour the keyboard is not split down into different lighting sections. The keys feel really nice to type with providing a good amount of travel and stiffness with a satisfying click.
The touchpad appears to be made of glass and is really smooth and nice to use. It is extremely responsive and i have not noticed any input lag. The finger print scanner is integrated with the touch pad but is invisible until windows needs authorisation, at this point a fingerprint logo illuminates where you are required to put your finger. This is a really nice touch. It seems pretty accurate and recognises my finger 90% of the time however it does sometimes get it wrong, but i have had the same issue with every scanner i have ever used.
The mouse buttons are physical and seem good enough for the job. They don't feel cheap and don't feel like they are going to get un-duely loose over time.
Sound
The sound quality from the speakers is surprisingly good. It is delivered with a noticeable bunch and has a surprisingly high volume. When gaming without the headset the sound can easily be heard over the fans and after a while you forget the fans are there. This takes some doing as the laptops cooling system sounds like a jet turbine when it kicks in under load. This is another gripe but it cant really be helped as of course this is a laptop with some silly specs.
Screen
The screen is great. Very sharp and clear with good colour representation. The gysnc works and there are no dead pixels i havent really got much else to say about it.
There is also minor light bleed which is expected but it really is minimal so mo worries there.
Performance
This laptop is an absolute beast of a machine i can play all the latest games on ultra settings whilst maintaining at least 80fps. As someone who usually had to cap framerates at 30fps to maintain high settings on his old laptop this is a big deal. How inherently this means there is a drawback which as to be expected is the issue of heat. This laptop runs extremely hot which does result in thermal throttling. I did expect this but it does need mentioning.
I have configured the unit with a -135mV undervolt which is as low as i can get whilst maintaining system stabillity. This seems to reduce the typical systems temps i was experiencing by around 5C.
To give a quick idea of how hot the machine runs and how the undervolt has made a difference i played R6 Siege for approximately 3 hours before applying the undervolt with all settings set to ultra. Afterburner was reporting my CPU temperatures averaging around 98C and often hitting 100C whilst my GPU stayed at a steady 81C.
After finally finding a stable undervolt on another day i played Monster Hunter World for about 3 hours. The GPU temps were again low to mid 80C's and the CPU was sitting at 90 - 95C. After using a cheap 2 fan cooling stand this dropped to sitting at high 80C and very occasionally hit 90C. I have ordered a much better cooling stand which comes tommorow.
It is important to note that right now in the UK we are experiencing extremely hot weather and the room i was testing in had an ambient temperature of around 28C which of course is not ideal.
So this is clearly not particularly scientific which is why i have carried out a load of benchmarks and taking some measurements which will be detailed in a following post.
To conclude my thoughts this laptop really is astonishing especially when you compare it to equivalent known brands such as Razer or ASUS. Not only are they twice the price for an equivalent system but in many cases they arent even equivalent.
Last edited:
