After 3.5 years of use I decided that my PCSpecialist Vortex 2 laptop just wasnt up to the performance level that I was now after. Given that my Vortex 2 has never put a foot wrong ever and I was more than happy with the service provided by PCSpecialist last time, it was always the case that I was going to go back to them for my new laptop!
After weighing up the various specs on offer I narrowed it down to either the Vortex 4 or the Octane. As I was after the very tip top performance and a DVD drive wasnt a necessity, the Octane was the logical choice. I ordered the following specs:
Chassis & Display
Octane Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1525 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS (1 x POWERED) + 1 e-SATA/USB 3.0 PORT COMBINED
Battery
Octane Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (82WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 230W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
OCTANE SERIES BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MP FULL 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
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
FAST TRACK 3 WORKING DAY DISPATCH
Promotional Item
FREE DYING LIGHT DIGITAL VOUCHER with GTX 965M / 970M / 980M GRAPHICS!
Quantity
1
I also had my own 500GB WD Black HDD to put in as a data storage drive. I also intstalled my own copy of Windows 7 64bit.
Chassis
The build quality of the latop is top notch, I cant fault a single thing about it. There is very little flex in the chassis, the keyboard action is very good and there are no creeks or rattles. I am still not sure if I like the rubberised finish around the keyboard and on the back of the screen, it is not as cold to the touch as the metal finish on my Vortex 2, but it does show finger marks very easily so it can be difficult to keep it looking perfect (which can annoy the ocd people like me). The backlit keyboard is a nice touch too and also quite useful when in a dimmly lit room.
Performance
It is fast, very fast! I have run a couple of benchmarks which can be seen below and also been playing a few games such as Far Cry 4 and Company of Heroes 2 - the Octane ate them up with ease. Far Cry 4 and COH2 are playble at 1920x1080 on max settings with anti aliasing and great frame rates.
3DMark
SkyDiver: 23788
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/5770795?
FireStrike: 8520
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/5770900?
Since I have had the laptop I have been monitoring temps and the following are the maximum temps I have recorded:
CPU: 91 deg C
GPU: 74 deg C
I havent bothered benchmarking the Samsung 850 as there as plenty of benchmarks already, but I will say that it is noticably quicker than my OCZ Vertex SSD.
PCSpecialist Service
I was after the laptop in a bit of a rush and therefore ordered it with a 3 day fast track, at the time of ordering I was a little bit concerned as to if they could build and test it correctly within the time allowed and as you read ahead you will see that my concerns were not completely wrong. After recieving the email to say that my laptop had been shipped I logged into my customer area on the PCSpecialist website in order to download the necessary drivers, however, they were not all there! only 2 of the windows 7 drivers had been uploaded even though at the point of ordering I had specified that I would be installing windows 7. After a quick phone call to PCSpecilist the rest of the drivers were uploaded (or so I thought!). The following day when the laptop arrived I installed win7 and then set about installing the drivers that I had downloaded, however the driver for the wireless card was only for the bluetooth side of card and not the actual wireless connection. I again rang PCSpecialist and was emailed a link to a driver on the manufacturers website - this however was exactly the same driver that was uploaded to my customer area. I therefore decided to find the driver myself from the manufacturers website, which after installed, worked perfectly. The driver issues are only really a small problem as I am more than competant with a PC, however for someone who does not know much about PC's, it could cause a bit of a headache.
The other slightly more concerning issue with the laptop was that the backlight for backlit keyboard had never worked since delivery. After several phone calls to PCSpecialist (who were all very helpfull) I removed the keyboard to check the connections to the motherboard. What I found was that the power cable for the backlight was actually inserted the wrong way up! Whilst I am more than aware that anybody can make a mistake, this problem should have been picked up at the testing stage! Either there is not a set test specifiaction or it was skipped in order to get my laptop out in the 3 day fast track period!
Conclusion
Even with the few problems I have had, I am more than happy with the Octane Laptop and the service recieved from PCSpecialist - this is largely due to the helpfull attitude of all the different PCSpecialist employees that I have spoken too over the last few days. The performance of the laptop has also met all my expectations. I am also still of the opinion that I will go back to PCSpecialist for my next laptop in a few years time.
If I find time I will try to uplaod some pictiures.
Andy
After weighing up the various specs on offer I narrowed it down to either the Vortex 4 or the Octane. As I was after the very tip top performance and a DVD drive wasnt a necessity, the Octane was the logical choice. I ordered the following specs:
Chassis & Display
Octane Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1525 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS (1 x POWERED) + 1 e-SATA/USB 3.0 PORT COMBINED
Battery
Octane Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (82WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 230W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
OCTANE SERIES BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MP FULL 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
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
FAST TRACK 3 WORKING DAY DISPATCH
Promotional Item
FREE DYING LIGHT DIGITAL VOUCHER with GTX 965M / 970M / 980M GRAPHICS!
Quantity
1
I also had my own 500GB WD Black HDD to put in as a data storage drive. I also intstalled my own copy of Windows 7 64bit.
Chassis
The build quality of the latop is top notch, I cant fault a single thing about it. There is very little flex in the chassis, the keyboard action is very good and there are no creeks or rattles. I am still not sure if I like the rubberised finish around the keyboard and on the back of the screen, it is not as cold to the touch as the metal finish on my Vortex 2, but it does show finger marks very easily so it can be difficult to keep it looking perfect (which can annoy the ocd people like me). The backlit keyboard is a nice touch too and also quite useful when in a dimmly lit room.
Performance
It is fast, very fast! I have run a couple of benchmarks which can be seen below and also been playing a few games such as Far Cry 4 and Company of Heroes 2 - the Octane ate them up with ease. Far Cry 4 and COH2 are playble at 1920x1080 on max settings with anti aliasing and great frame rates.
3DMark
SkyDiver: 23788
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/5770795?
FireStrike: 8520
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/5770900?
Since I have had the laptop I have been monitoring temps and the following are the maximum temps I have recorded:
CPU: 91 deg C
GPU: 74 deg C
I havent bothered benchmarking the Samsung 850 as there as plenty of benchmarks already, but I will say that it is noticably quicker than my OCZ Vertex SSD.
PCSpecialist Service
I was after the laptop in a bit of a rush and therefore ordered it with a 3 day fast track, at the time of ordering I was a little bit concerned as to if they could build and test it correctly within the time allowed and as you read ahead you will see that my concerns were not completely wrong. After recieving the email to say that my laptop had been shipped I logged into my customer area on the PCSpecialist website in order to download the necessary drivers, however, they were not all there! only 2 of the windows 7 drivers had been uploaded even though at the point of ordering I had specified that I would be installing windows 7. After a quick phone call to PCSpecilist the rest of the drivers were uploaded (or so I thought!). The following day when the laptop arrived I installed win7 and then set about installing the drivers that I had downloaded, however the driver for the wireless card was only for the bluetooth side of card and not the actual wireless connection. I again rang PCSpecialist and was emailed a link to a driver on the manufacturers website - this however was exactly the same driver that was uploaded to my customer area. I therefore decided to find the driver myself from the manufacturers website, which after installed, worked perfectly. The driver issues are only really a small problem as I am more than competant with a PC, however for someone who does not know much about PC's, it could cause a bit of a headache.
The other slightly more concerning issue with the laptop was that the backlight for backlit keyboard had never worked since delivery. After several phone calls to PCSpecialist (who were all very helpfull) I removed the keyboard to check the connections to the motherboard. What I found was that the power cable for the backlight was actually inserted the wrong way up! Whilst I am more than aware that anybody can make a mistake, this problem should have been picked up at the testing stage! Either there is not a set test specifiaction or it was skipped in order to get my laptop out in the 3 day fast track period!
Conclusion
Even with the few problems I have had, I am more than happy with the Octane Laptop and the service recieved from PCSpecialist - this is largely due to the helpfull attitude of all the different PCSpecialist employees that I have spoken too over the last few days. The performance of the laptop has also met all my expectations. I am also still of the opinion that I will go back to PCSpecialist for my next laptop in a few years time.
If I find time I will try to uplaod some pictiures.
Andy
Last edited:
and as long as you dont overclock it will probably run really sweet, that has to be a rendering beast on the move
