deathbyspork
Member
Hi there,
Just received my Vyper 17! For the sake of brevity I won't post the full specs, but to cut a long story short it's got a 2070 super, 16gb of the 2666 ram (2x8), 512gb sdd, and the upgraded thermal paste.
My impressions are that it is a well built machine that offers unbelievable thinness and performance at a price that is simply not comparable to anything else. In many cases getting a different 2070 super or 2070 or 2080 MQ laptop gets you equal, worse, or marginally better performance for hundreds or even a thousand more pounds.
The tradeoffs, such as they are, are that the fans are loud and the temps range between 85 and 90 under heavy load. This is a trade I am happy to make considering the simply incomparable performance to price ratio and the fact it becomes a very manageable general purpose machine in office mode.
I will continue doing thermal and performance testing over the coming weeks, hopefully under more reasonable operating conditions than the UK has offered recently.
Initial thoughts:
-Performance is very, very good. Ran basic Timespy on turbo mode with max fans. Out of the box it got an overall score of 8221, graphics 8056 cpu 9307. As far as I am aware this sort of performance is simply not available close to this price point anywhere. Total warhammer 2 benchmark was 70 on beyond ultra settings using gaming mode and normal fans, which I was very happy with.
-Build quality seems superb, all drivers etc seemed well installed out of the box (although have not checked). A few minor windows updates did download and update after the first startup. No trackpad issues of the sort some people have complained about, and the keyboard is absolutely fine for me.
-As expected the temp is on the "upper side", but not what I would consider unreasonable for a laptop with this performance. Gaming mode hovers around 80-86 under moderate to high gaming load as far as I can tell. Turbo takes it slightly higher, to around but generally below 90. Have not done comprehensive testing of max fans but in general they do seem to help.
-Running on turbo mode for a long time at hot ambient temperatures (yesterday was 38 degrees in the room I was gaming in) the CPU averaged about 90. Turning on max fans would bring down a bit, in the 85-90 range, as would switching to gaming mode. Middle of the laptop got very hot, but for me was manageable. 38 degrees is not a normal operating environment! Perfectly happy with this as I was aware of the tradeoffs (price, thinness) of the machine and to me it's a no brainer.
-The fans are loud, but I was aware of this and perfectly happy to make the trade considering the laptop's many advantages over comparable models. It's a thin laptop with very powerful hardware, if the fans were not beastly it would get hot as hell. The max fans really are incredibly powerful and loud.
-Office mode is an absolute pleasure, moderate sound and moderate performance while CPU stays around 80 gaming. I play some low-spec games such as dota 2 and it was an absolute pleasure to use in this mode.
-Installing the Intel XTU utility seemed to disable the control centre software that allowed switching between different power and fan modes, so I uninstalled it. Not sure if this is supposed to happen, will follow up with PCS at my leisure. TBH performance is pretty good, or sensational even, so not sure if I'll bother undervolting and overclocking yet.
-Edit: I had a superb experience with PCS in terms of delivery time and keeping me updated. I had the laptop within 5 working days of order, which I thought was sensational. I ordered on Friday, got it the *following* Saturday. They gave me regular updates, and responded promptly to one email asking for an update
-Edit: the body can get a bit warm, but so far I have not managed to get the spacebar so hot that it becomes unusable.
-Edit: camera placement is a joke as many people have said. I personally have an external webcam so no biggie for me.
-Edit: the damn thing crashed and is now not detecting the graphics card. Details below.
-Edit: latest drivers installed as per PCS instructions and have had no further issues.
Just received my Vyper 17! For the sake of brevity I won't post the full specs, but to cut a long story short it's got a 2070 super, 16gb of the 2666 ram (2x8), 512gb sdd, and the upgraded thermal paste.
My impressions are that it is a well built machine that offers unbelievable thinness and performance at a price that is simply not comparable to anything else. In many cases getting a different 2070 super or 2070 or 2080 MQ laptop gets you equal, worse, or marginally better performance for hundreds or even a thousand more pounds.
The tradeoffs, such as they are, are that the fans are loud and the temps range between 85 and 90 under heavy load. This is a trade I am happy to make considering the simply incomparable performance to price ratio and the fact it becomes a very manageable general purpose machine in office mode.
I will continue doing thermal and performance testing over the coming weeks, hopefully under more reasonable operating conditions than the UK has offered recently.
Initial thoughts:
-Performance is very, very good. Ran basic Timespy on turbo mode with max fans. Out of the box it got an overall score of 8221, graphics 8056 cpu 9307. As far as I am aware this sort of performance is simply not available close to this price point anywhere. Total warhammer 2 benchmark was 70 on beyond ultra settings using gaming mode and normal fans, which I was very happy with.
-Build quality seems superb, all drivers etc seemed well installed out of the box (although have not checked). A few minor windows updates did download and update after the first startup. No trackpad issues of the sort some people have complained about, and the keyboard is absolutely fine for me.
-As expected the temp is on the "upper side", but not what I would consider unreasonable for a laptop with this performance. Gaming mode hovers around 80-86 under moderate to high gaming load as far as I can tell. Turbo takes it slightly higher, to around but generally below 90. Have not done comprehensive testing of max fans but in general they do seem to help.
-Running on turbo mode for a long time at hot ambient temperatures (yesterday was 38 degrees in the room I was gaming in) the CPU averaged about 90. Turning on max fans would bring down a bit, in the 85-90 range, as would switching to gaming mode. Middle of the laptop got very hot, but for me was manageable. 38 degrees is not a normal operating environment! Perfectly happy with this as I was aware of the tradeoffs (price, thinness) of the machine and to me it's a no brainer.
-The fans are loud, but I was aware of this and perfectly happy to make the trade considering the laptop's many advantages over comparable models. It's a thin laptop with very powerful hardware, if the fans were not beastly it would get hot as hell. The max fans really are incredibly powerful and loud.
-Office mode is an absolute pleasure, moderate sound and moderate performance while CPU stays around 80 gaming. I play some low-spec games such as dota 2 and it was an absolute pleasure to use in this mode.
-Installing the Intel XTU utility seemed to disable the control centre software that allowed switching between different power and fan modes, so I uninstalled it. Not sure if this is supposed to happen, will follow up with PCS at my leisure. TBH performance is pretty good, or sensational even, so not sure if I'll bother undervolting and overclocking yet.
-Edit: I had a superb experience with PCS in terms of delivery time and keeping me updated. I had the laptop within 5 working days of order, which I thought was sensational. I ordered on Friday, got it the *following* Saturday. They gave me regular updates, and responded promptly to one email asking for an update
-Edit: the body can get a bit warm, but so far I have not managed to get the spacebar so hot that it becomes unusable.
-Edit: camera placement is a joke as many people have said. I personally have an external webcam so no biggie for me.
-Edit: the damn thing crashed and is now not detecting the graphics card. Details below.
-Edit: latest drivers installed as per PCS instructions and have had no further issues.
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