KXDyana
New member
I've received and been using the 17.3 Vyper for about 3 weeks now.
Specs:
Chassis & Display
Vyper Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor 10875H (2.3GHz, 5.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 SUPER - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery
Vyper Series Integrated 91WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 3 PORT + 3 x USB 3.1 PORTS
Keyboard Language
VYPER 17 SERIES RGB BACKLIT USA KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
My previous laptop is a 2016 Macbook Pro, so the majority of the impression would be based on the comparison between the two (though they aren't really the same type of laptops; the graphic card on this machine alone needs more power than the entire Macbook!)
Here are some of my thoughts:
Performance:
It's good; well satisfies my needs.
I don't always run the most demanding games. By far the game with the most graphic power requirements I played on this machine is Mirror's Edge: Catalyst; and the game runs at about 80hz on maximum settings on a 2K monitor. As a reference for those who play newer and more demanding titles——it performances at exactly the same level as the MAX-17 with the same specs from Eluktronics in the US, in terms of benchmarks and gaming performances. In short, it is top tier for a laptop at this size and a bit of an overkill for me personally.
For normal uses, it opens most applications much faster than on the Macbook. I've been using Adobe Lightroom and illustrator on both platforms, and the experience is simply much smoother on this laptop. But for a laptop with this level of hardware, this shouldn't be a concern anyway.
Undervolting is available. (Just enable the XTU interface in BIOS) I'm not that much interested in tweaking the CPU to its limit, but it's good to have this option. I have not encountered thermal throttling on this laptop so far, so I would just leave it at it is.
You can also disable Optimus and select iGPU or dGPU depending on your needs (often referred to as a "MUX switch"), but this also needs to be done in BIOS.
Overall, for a laptop that you would want to put in a backpack, this offers the best performance currently (before the RTX 30 laptops are out).
Peripherals and Build Quality:
Screen: pretty good. Not as accurate, vibrant or bright as my external monitor or Macbook, but well enough for most uses. I could edit photos on this screen without hating my life and the experience is close to but not as good as using a Macbook, although color accuracy and vibrance aren't that relevant during gaming.
Speaker: Decent. It's clear and loud enough, but not exactly as good as the ones on Macbook. I suggest using headphones or external speakers for gaming and music.
Touchpad: It's usable. The touchpad only clicks down on the lower half. Besides, it seems to have a lot of space on the bottom corners when clicked down. This does not bother me as I usually tap instead of click (therefore the clicking mechanism doesn't really matter to me), but there are definitely better touchpads on other Windows laptops.
Webcam: I really like the Windows hello feature which lets me unlock easily. There are complaints about the horrible viewing angle caused by the placement of the webcam, but I personally use an external camera for video conferencing. The camera on the machine itself is just better than nothing. I would suggest using another laptop or an external camera or webcam.
Build Quality: Really solid yet light. The exterior is fully magnesium alloy, which (based on my impression, could be wrong) is typically lighter and transfers heat more efficiently than aluminum alloy. The surface also feels warmer than aluminum alloy, but just not as premium. It is openable with only one hand (idk why but I personally am obsessed with laptops being able to be opened with one hand). There is a PCS logo on the back surface which can be removed quite easily. It's not ugly, but if you don't like it you can remove it just with nails. Overall, I don't think there is many other laptops that have a better build quality than this one. (Razor and Apple are the only two I could think of)
Keyboards: The big keys are really clicky and satisfying to click, but the small keys are just decent. Typing experience is not bad, but I don't love it either. Perhaps its just me being used to a mechanical keyboard.
Backlights: This is one of the few aspects I don't like about this laptop. It is a pain to perform color selection for the keyboard backlit: they basically give you a color ring and you have to select the color based on eyeballing, no RGB values for more precise selection. What's more frustrating is that the four zones seem to be independent of each other, so I have to pick a color for each zone——making it very difficult to keep the four zones at the same color. Besides, it looks like I cannot get white backlit. I don't know whether this is a hardware limit or if a software update can enable it, but I really wish that I could set the backlit to white color for a better look. I sure hope that they could improve on the software which controls the backlit in the future.
Service:
I haven't encountered many problems with this device, so I can't really comment much.
I did fail to boot into safe mode when tuning by undervolting at one time (it was my fault and i almost freaked out), and I did send them a message about how to fix it. they did respond quickly and I appreciated it, but I solved the problem by myself before that. Based on this experience I think their service is probably pretty good.
Overall, a good experience with the laptop and PCS.
Feel free to ask questions and I would try my best to answer.
Sep 29 2020
Specs:
Chassis & Display
Vyper Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor 10875H (2.3GHz, 5.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 SUPER - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery
Vyper Series Integrated 91WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 3 PORT + 3 x USB 3.1 PORTS
Keyboard Language
VYPER 17 SERIES RGB BACKLIT USA KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
My previous laptop is a 2016 Macbook Pro, so the majority of the impression would be based on the comparison between the two (though they aren't really the same type of laptops; the graphic card on this machine alone needs more power than the entire Macbook!)
Here are some of my thoughts:
Performance:
It's good; well satisfies my needs.
I don't always run the most demanding games. By far the game with the most graphic power requirements I played on this machine is Mirror's Edge: Catalyst; and the game runs at about 80hz on maximum settings on a 2K monitor. As a reference for those who play newer and more demanding titles——it performances at exactly the same level as the MAX-17 with the same specs from Eluktronics in the US, in terms of benchmarks and gaming performances. In short, it is top tier for a laptop at this size and a bit of an overkill for me personally.
For normal uses, it opens most applications much faster than on the Macbook. I've been using Adobe Lightroom and illustrator on both platforms, and the experience is simply much smoother on this laptop. But for a laptop with this level of hardware, this shouldn't be a concern anyway.
Undervolting is available. (Just enable the XTU interface in BIOS) I'm not that much interested in tweaking the CPU to its limit, but it's good to have this option. I have not encountered thermal throttling on this laptop so far, so I would just leave it at it is.
You can also disable Optimus and select iGPU or dGPU depending on your needs (often referred to as a "MUX switch"), but this also needs to be done in BIOS.
Overall, for a laptop that you would want to put in a backpack, this offers the best performance currently (before the RTX 30 laptops are out).
Peripherals and Build Quality:
Screen: pretty good. Not as accurate, vibrant or bright as my external monitor or Macbook, but well enough for most uses. I could edit photos on this screen without hating my life and the experience is close to but not as good as using a Macbook, although color accuracy and vibrance aren't that relevant during gaming.
Speaker: Decent. It's clear and loud enough, but not exactly as good as the ones on Macbook. I suggest using headphones or external speakers for gaming and music.
Touchpad: It's usable. The touchpad only clicks down on the lower half. Besides, it seems to have a lot of space on the bottom corners when clicked down. This does not bother me as I usually tap instead of click (therefore the clicking mechanism doesn't really matter to me), but there are definitely better touchpads on other Windows laptops.
Webcam: I really like the Windows hello feature which lets me unlock easily. There are complaints about the horrible viewing angle caused by the placement of the webcam, but I personally use an external camera for video conferencing. The camera on the machine itself is just better than nothing. I would suggest using another laptop or an external camera or webcam.
Build Quality: Really solid yet light. The exterior is fully magnesium alloy, which (based on my impression, could be wrong) is typically lighter and transfers heat more efficiently than aluminum alloy. The surface also feels warmer than aluminum alloy, but just not as premium. It is openable with only one hand (idk why but I personally am obsessed with laptops being able to be opened with one hand). There is a PCS logo on the back surface which can be removed quite easily. It's not ugly, but if you don't like it you can remove it just with nails. Overall, I don't think there is many other laptops that have a better build quality than this one. (Razor and Apple are the only two I could think of)
Keyboards: The big keys are really clicky and satisfying to click, but the small keys are just decent. Typing experience is not bad, but I don't love it either. Perhaps its just me being used to a mechanical keyboard.
Backlights: This is one of the few aspects I don't like about this laptop. It is a pain to perform color selection for the keyboard backlit: they basically give you a color ring and you have to select the color based on eyeballing, no RGB values for more precise selection. What's more frustrating is that the four zones seem to be independent of each other, so I have to pick a color for each zone——making it very difficult to keep the four zones at the same color. Besides, it looks like I cannot get white backlit. I don't know whether this is a hardware limit or if a software update can enable it, but I really wish that I could set the backlit to white color for a better look. I sure hope that they could improve on the software which controls the backlit in the future.
Service:
I haven't encountered many problems with this device, so I can't really comment much.
I did fail to boot into safe mode when tuning by undervolting at one time (it was my fault and i almost freaked out), and I did send them a message about how to fix it. they did respond quickly and I appreciated it, but I solved the problem by myself before that. Based on this experience I think their service is probably pretty good.
Overall, a good experience with the laptop and PCS.
Feel free to ask questions and I would try my best to answer.
Sep 29 2020
Last edited:
