New Nova Series 15.6 Ryzen 9 Laptop

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lauwai

Bronze Level Poster
Recieved this just over a week ago after a 1 week build from order to dispatch.

Chassis & Display
Nova Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 3900 12 Core CPU (3.1GHz-4.3GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1

This replaces a 7yr old 17in MSI Stealth gaming laptop and an old Core2Quad Q9550 desktop, so this is quite a beast of a replacement.

1st impressions are it is smaller and lighter than I expected given the horsepower under the hood and I really like that the battery is user removeable. Atfer windows setup, quick runs under battery, it's showing between 1-1hr 30mins of battery only time which is around the ball park I expected. As others have noted it is a little loud fanwise so I've got a bit of tweaking to do to the power and fan profiles. 1st time with AMD cpu so see how that goes.

Also a 1st time PCS and custom laptop build buyer. Pre order emails were answered pretty effeciently from the sales team and the build time was quite fast especially given the current environmental and economic climate.

Delivery and packaging were pretty spot on with tracking ref and hour slot delivery times. Packaging was plain but effective with the laptop box wrapped in sturdy air bubbles inside a quite tough exterior box.

On 1st startup the only issue I experienced was the screen brightness wasn't adjustable. A support phone call to PCS explaining situation came back with an email on the next working day with a bios update and instructions. Need to point out I did look on the PCS forum for a solution and told the tech support guy on the phone about the BIOS update info. The screen itself is excellent IMO and loving the fast refresh rate for gaming. Stuck now in trying to see if it's worth getting a 32in high refresh monitor as I already have a 29in ultrawide. Decisions, decisions.

Following some of the info from other users I bought an elevated laptop stand https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07F3TN91T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 to raise it up and allow it to suck in enough air to cool it. I might add a laptop cooler at a later stage.

All in all a pleasant buying experience and very happy with the laptop itself.

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SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Yes, not that I’ve seen one in person, but from photos, it just isn’t anywhere as chunky as normal DTR’s are, I thought it was a lot smaller than I would have expected, in a good way.
 
L

lauwai

Bronze Level Poster
Yeah. If it wasn’t for the battery life. It’s weight and size could quite easily make it useable for a mobile life.
 
FerrariVie

FerrariVie

Super Star
Wow, I had a Q9550 myself! Quite a beast at the time, I used it until 2016, when I was about to move to Ireland and needed to get a laptop instead.

Regarding the panel, I think exactly the same as you: Nice colours, no noticeable ghosting, almost no backlight bleed, no dead pixels. However, I always heard a lot of bad reviews over Panda panels, and today I came across this review: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Avoid...-buying-your-next-gaming-laptop.494190.0.html

My exact panel is not analysed there (LM156LF-1F02), but it seems to be a similar panel code to the ones tested. Anyway, either my panel is better or I'm not that picky. The only thing I've noticed is that it was not a huge difference between my old 60Hz and this 144Hz, as I was expecting it to be a completely different experience.
 
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L

lauwai

Bronze Level Poster
fevieira said:
Regarding the panel, I think exactly the same as you: Nice colours, no noticeable ghosting, almost no backlight bleed, no dead pixels. However, I always heard a lot of bad reviews over Panda panels, and today I came across this review: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Avoid...-buying-your-next-gaming-laptop.494190.0.html

My exact panel is not analysed there (LM156LF-1F02), but it seems to have a similar panel code to the ones tested. Anyway, either my panel is better or I'm not that picky. The only thing I've noticed is that it was not a huge difference between my old 60Hz and this 144Hz, as I was expecting it to be a completely different experience.
Click to expand...

I'm happy with the performance of the laptop panel. I've not run any colour accrucy or benchmark tests to be honest as it's not that important to me. On playing a coupld of FPS games on the laptop screen and my current 60hz monitor I notice a subtle difference with the 144hz seeming to give me a better reaction time and doing quite a bit better on it than the monitor. Although this could just be BS and it's just all in my head. I have ordered a 144hz replacement monitor anyway just to double down on it. :eek:
 
FerrariVie

FerrariVie

Super Star
lauwai said:
I'm happy with the performance of the laptop panel. I've not run any colour accrucy or benchmark tests to be honest as it's not that important to me. On playing a coupld of FPS games on the laptop screen and my current 60hz monitor I notice a subtle difference with the 144hz seeming to give me a better reaction time and doing quite a bit better on it than the monitor. Although this could just be BS and it's just all in my head. I have ordered a 144hz replacement monitor anyway just to double down on it. :eek:
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm not saying that there is no difference... There is, but it's kind of less than what I was expecting. Please keep us updated when you get the proper 144Hz monitor and compare both side-by-side.
 
L

lauwai

Bronze Level Poster
Yeah the refresh effect isn't night and day. I think its a YMMV situation depending on how affected you are by it. If there's no effect I'm sending the monitor back to Dell :LOL:
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
lauwai said:
Yeah the refresh effect isn't night and day. I think its a YMMV situation depending on how affected you are by it. If there's no effect I'm sending the monitor back to Dell :LOL:
Click to expand...
I think with refresh rate, some people are more sensitive to it than others, but most people won't notice any difference above 120Hz.

Between 60 and 100Hz, definite improvement, but really moreso for fast paced first person shooters.
 
L

lauwai

Bronze Level Poster
Just a quick update after having had the laptop a few weeks.

Firstly, and this really bugs me and would have made me dismiss the machine if it wasn't so good. Why, oh why, in this day and age would you build a machine that is so potentially powerful and stick a USB 2.0!!!!!! port on it. Obviously I knew it had it when ordering but didn't think it would annoy me so much but it does. :mad: Surely the cost difference must be less than £5 to put a USB 3.1 or even a USB C 3.1 on it. It just smacks of cheapness, much like plastic painted to look like metal.

Anyhow, overall I'm still very happy with it, USB 2.0 port not withstanding, and very happy with the performance. I've played about with the CCC to try to get the temps of the CPU and GPU to be a bit more consistent and lessen spiking. I've underclocked it a bit as well as undervolting it and temps haven't gone above mid to high 70 degress on both chips. Obviously I'm leaving a bit of performance on the table but I regard stability and longevity above absolute performance as more important. I'd already specced the CPU above my current needs anyway so that I have some headroom for the future.

Also, to continue the discussion above about the refresh rate of the screen and it's affect on the user. I've been using it with a 32" 165hz 1440p Dell screen for about 10days now and for me the high refresh rate does seem to have had a beneficial effect on my gaming, especially on FPS games.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
lauwai said:
Just a quick update after having had the laptop a few weeks.

Firstly, and this really bugs me and would have made me dismiss the machine if it wasn't so good. Why, oh why, in this day and age would you build a machine that is so potentially powerful and stick a USB 2.0!!!!!! port on it. Obviously I knew it had it when ordering but didn't think it would annoy me so much but it does. :mad: Surely the cost difference must be less than £5 to put a USB 3.1 or even a USB C 3.1 on it. It just smacks of cheapness, much like plastic painted to look like metal.

Anyhow, overall I'm still very happy with it, USB 2.0 port not withstanding, and very happy with the performance. I've played about with the CCC to try to get the temps of the CPU and GPU to be a bit more consistent and lessen spiking. I've underclocked it a bit as well as undervolting it and temps haven't gone above mid to high 70 degress on both chips. Obviously I'm leaving a bit of performance on the table but I regard stability and longevity above absolute performance as more important. I'd already specced the CPU above my current needs anyway so that I have some headroom for the future.

Also, to continue the discussion above about the refresh rate of the screen and it's affect on the user. I've been using it with a 32" 165hz 1440p Dell screen for about 10days now and for me the high refresh rate does seem to have had a beneficial effect on my gaming, especially on FPS games.
Click to expand...
Regarding the USB 2 port, my guess is it’s actually aimed at legacy gamers. There’s still a lot of devices around that actually require usb 2, and glitch out on usb 3. My original HTC Vive headset for instance won’t work on a USB 3 port and think that’s the case for a number of original headsets, there are also older mice that struggle on usb 3.
 
L

lauwai

Bronze Level Poster
SpyderTracks said:
Regarding the USB 2 port, my guess is it’s actually aimed at legacy gamers. There’s still a lot of devices around that actually require usb 2, and glitch out on usb 3. My original HTC Vive headset for instance won’t work on a USB 3 port and think that’s the case for a number of original headsets, there are also older mice that struggle on usb 3.
Click to expand...

That's a fair point I suppose. My 7yr old MSI had USB 3.0 all round so it just struck me as a bit of a step back.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
lauwai said:
That's a fair point I suppose. My 7yr old MSI had USB 3.0 all round so it just struck me as a bit of a step back.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the fact they only put one on there is what makes me think it was purposeful rather than just for the sake of saving a nickel :)
 
FerrariVie

FerrariVie

Super Star
I don't mind the USB 2.0 port, as there are already 2 high-speed that you could use with external drives, while the 2.0 could be used with headset, mouse/keyboard dongle or yubikey/similar security devices.

In my opinion it might be a limitation of the motherboard (not able to have 3 high-speed USBs), but it's better to have an extra 2.0 (totalling 3 ports) than just 2 USB A ports overall.
 
J

JimDav

Member
Just ordered the same except 64GB RAM
Currently running an Asus ROG laptop from 2015
& an Overclocked i7 desktop from 2014.
Wanted a Desktop replacement.
Was hoping for a 3950X but this should suffice for now.
I'm old so not for gaming.
Will be used for Cad & Video editing & Creation etc.
Very excited.
Jim
 
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