I thought I would post a brief review of my Nova now that I have had it just over 2 weeks. First week or so was spent just getting everything setup and reinstalling stuff that I needed from my old machine etc so I am only just now starting to get into what this machine can do. Here are the specs -
Chassis & Display
Nova Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.4GHz/36MB 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
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated Micro-SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Nova Series Detachable 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x USB 3.2 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.2 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
15" NOVA SERIES UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Promotional Item
Get Assassin’s Creed® Valhalla with select AMD Ryzen CPUs
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
Price: £0.00 including VAT and Delivery
I am obviously aware that the Nova is a DTR as opposed to a standard laptop so when it arrived, I was quite surprised to find it not as bulky as I expected. The chassis is actually smaller than my old ASUS ROG GL502 in both length and width (about 20-30mm on both approx I would say). It is thicker than the old ROG but as I said, that is to be expected given that it is a DTR. Weight wise, I don't notice too much difference to the ROG but I am not carrying round outside the home so portability isn't really a factor for me. Chassis its self in Matte black looks good and has a good feel too it. Took me a couple of weeks to get used to the trackpad as it does have a different feel to it than my old laptop but I don't think this is a negative factor, it is just different so takes an adjustment.
I moved a Samsung EVO 970 1TB from my old laptop into the Nova which was very easy to do as the chassis has a handy "service" fitting at the bottom which is easy enough to unscrew and slide out. I did unfortunately encounter an issue where it seems that this chipset\motherboard doesn't like 2x NVMe drives in there at once. The PCS Drive regularly failed when trying to write to it and I know of another user with the Nova who has this issue. In the end I decided to RMA the PCS NVMe Drive for a 870 QVO 1TB SATA SSD and now all is good. More details on the issues I had are here
It's been a long while since I have had an AMD machine as I have been on Intel since the E series generation but I have to say, the 3700X is incredibly impressive. My primary use for this laptop is for Flight Sim games, general use and the odd other couple of games too. It absolutely shreds tasks with ease both in general use and gaming. Paired with the RTX2070, this combination is very impressive and I am getting great performance.
On to the main topics that I know always interests most serious use laptop owners - thermals and fan noise. In CCC (Clevo Control Center) quiet mode is absolutely fine for general use of the laptop ie web browsing, video streaming, installing programs etc. The fans stay pretty much silent and temps might get into the mid 60's if you were installing a program or a game for example. If you are just web browsing, CPU temps will be in 50's easily. In performance mode, again temps are similar for when just web browsing but if you install a program or make the CPU do any serious work then the fans will crank up a little so you can hear them but still perfectly acceptable noise levels. When gaming, I have the laptop setup on a table on a raised cooling pad. CPU Temps can get higher here, average around 80's with the odd spike into the 90's. Once the temps go above 80, the fans will seriously kick in so headphones strongly advised as expected as the fans are loud at this point once going above 80 and getting towards 90. This is something to be aware of if you plan to try game on your lap in a living room etc with other people in, it might not be suitable. GPU temps, I have never seen go above 65 but I will caveat this by saying flight sim (Prepar3D) is notoriously CPU intensive rather than GPU. Even the latest P3D V5, I rarely see the GPU go above 50% usage so that helps with the temps of the GPU. Overall, all of these thermals are well within acceptable limits, I've never seen any thermal throttling so far which is a credit to the Nova chassis and the job it does at adequately cooling a desktop CPU as well as how good and versatile the CPU itself is!
So that is pretty much my review, very impressed so far and think I will come to really love this machine as I get into it more over the next few weeks and months. Thanks a lot PCS, first time I have bought from you and I can't imagine it will be my last!
I will shortly be posting a thread about benchmarking, overclocking (manual boosting really!) the 3700X and undervolting.
EDIT - Benchmarking and OC\UV thread now posted here
Chassis & Display
Nova Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.4GHz/36MB 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
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated Micro-SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Nova Series Detachable 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x USB 3.2 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.2 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
15" NOVA SERIES UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Promotional Item
Get Assassin’s Creed® Valhalla with select AMD Ryzen CPUs
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
Price: £0.00 including VAT and Delivery
I am obviously aware that the Nova is a DTR as opposed to a standard laptop so when it arrived, I was quite surprised to find it not as bulky as I expected. The chassis is actually smaller than my old ASUS ROG GL502 in both length and width (about 20-30mm on both approx I would say). It is thicker than the old ROG but as I said, that is to be expected given that it is a DTR. Weight wise, I don't notice too much difference to the ROG but I am not carrying round outside the home so portability isn't really a factor for me. Chassis its self in Matte black looks good and has a good feel too it. Took me a couple of weeks to get used to the trackpad as it does have a different feel to it than my old laptop but I don't think this is a negative factor, it is just different so takes an adjustment.
I moved a Samsung EVO 970 1TB from my old laptop into the Nova which was very easy to do as the chassis has a handy "service" fitting at the bottom which is easy enough to unscrew and slide out. I did unfortunately encounter an issue where it seems that this chipset\motherboard doesn't like 2x NVMe drives in there at once. The PCS Drive regularly failed when trying to write to it and I know of another user with the Nova who has this issue. In the end I decided to RMA the PCS NVMe Drive for a 870 QVO 1TB SATA SSD and now all is good. More details on the issues I had are here
It's been a long while since I have had an AMD machine as I have been on Intel since the E series generation but I have to say, the 3700X is incredibly impressive. My primary use for this laptop is for Flight Sim games, general use and the odd other couple of games too. It absolutely shreds tasks with ease both in general use and gaming. Paired with the RTX2070, this combination is very impressive and I am getting great performance.
On to the main topics that I know always interests most serious use laptop owners - thermals and fan noise. In CCC (Clevo Control Center) quiet mode is absolutely fine for general use of the laptop ie web browsing, video streaming, installing programs etc. The fans stay pretty much silent and temps might get into the mid 60's if you were installing a program or a game for example. If you are just web browsing, CPU temps will be in 50's easily. In performance mode, again temps are similar for when just web browsing but if you install a program or make the CPU do any serious work then the fans will crank up a little so you can hear them but still perfectly acceptable noise levels. When gaming, I have the laptop setup on a table on a raised cooling pad. CPU Temps can get higher here, average around 80's with the odd spike into the 90's. Once the temps go above 80, the fans will seriously kick in so headphones strongly advised as expected as the fans are loud at this point once going above 80 and getting towards 90. This is something to be aware of if you plan to try game on your lap in a living room etc with other people in, it might not be suitable. GPU temps, I have never seen go above 65 but I will caveat this by saying flight sim (Prepar3D) is notoriously CPU intensive rather than GPU. Even the latest P3D V5, I rarely see the GPU go above 50% usage so that helps with the temps of the GPU. Overall, all of these thermals are well within acceptable limits, I've never seen any thermal throttling so far which is a credit to the Nova chassis and the job it does at adequately cooling a desktop CPU as well as how good and versatile the CPU itself is!
So that is pretty much my review, very impressed so far and think I will come to really love this machine as I get into it more over the next few weeks and months. Thanks a lot PCS, first time I have bought from you and I can't imagine it will be my last!
I will shortly be posting a thread about benchmarking, overclocking (manual boosting really!) the 3700X and undervolting.
EDIT - Benchmarking and OC\UV thread now posted here
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