Vortex III Elite 680M Sli ,3840QM Full review & Pics

[Deviate118]

Just thought I would share my knowledge on my Vortex 3 Elite which arrived around 5 days ago. :taz:


Specs are as follows(Included my own personal touches he he :stuart: )


Chassis & Display Vortex Series:17.3" AUO Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£85)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB
Memory (RAM) 4GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB)
Graphics Card 2 x NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk ---INTEL 520 SSD 240GB 6GBs
2nd Hard Disk ---INTEL 520 SSD 240GB 6GBs
RAID YES (READ SPEED 1100MB ,WRITE SPEED 1000MB)
SSD CACHE DRIVE NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive SONY BC-5550H 4x BLURAY COMBO DRIVE & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH

I also ordered a Hard drive caddy accessory which allows me to add a 3rd had drive where the Blu ray drive slots into

Which is a 1.5TB caviar green hard drive(Largest possible I presume)

Review


I noticed a few people are having problems with the quality of the plastic stating that it seems rather flimsy and low quality,I cannot seem to fault it to be honest,coming up from a Vortex II 3D which had the aluminium around the touch pad,I sum how prefer this rubbery time feel than the metal finish,It was alot easier to get scratches on my Vortex II,this somehow resembles my first Alien ware M17 R1 before it was taken over by dell(Work horse of a laptop)

Screen:
The screen is absolutely blinding when it comes to vibrancy and color,I play games such as metro 2033,Crysis as well as watch blu ray of the screen and it just looks so much better than my Vortex II 3d screen,I would advise anybody to get the AUO matte screen, even if it does cost an extra £85 you will not be disappointed.

Hard drive:
Intel 240GB 520ssd Raid perform very well in this system,no blue screens or problems whatsoever,It installs mostly any game around 8-15gb in around 4 1/2 minutes,Windows office gets installed in Lol 1 minute or less. :saddam: My 3rd hard drive is a Western Digital Caviar green 1.5TB 2.5" which I have inserted where the Blu ray drive slows into
VERY HANDY INDEED

Processor:
It is the newer 3840qm which PC SPECIALIST upgraded for free (Thank you Pcspecialist for that )
This newer processor aswell as the 3820QM can be overclocked with Intel Extreme Tuning utility.
I have tried it but tbh the temperatures do go quite high ,normal multi tasking the temps go as high as 63c,but with Intel tuning turned on and x1 or x2 multipliers,temp do rise to 80c,with not much performance boost.

Cooling:
One of the most important features of any laptop is cooling,this laptop does it very well,Some people have stated that the laptop heats up considerably but I haven't seen it go past 80c with MSI AFTERBURNER Stress test.

Graphics :
Dual 680m is well............it does exactly what it says on the tin, Absolutely blistering performance in all games that I have played 60FPS in Battlefield,Borderlands 2
Metro does stress it and it falls down to 53 but I presume that is because of 4GB ram ( Waiting for my corsair vengeance to come ) 16gb
The cards can also be overclocked quite a fair bit which is always good to know for upcoming games such as Crysis 3

Laptop chassis and dismantling:
Out of every laptop I have owned,this is by far the easist laptop to take apart to upgrade,The blu ray drive screw is underneath the battery instead of being underneath the hard drive in the vortex II,
The hard drives are both slot together which i very convenient,the ram ,680m,processor are all under one roof.
The underneath plastic casing which slots out when pushing against the aside may be one of the only downfalls,it indeed is very flimsy and feels like its about to break if pressure is applied,

Speakers:
One of the biggest downfalls for this laptop are the speakers,they are very over rated compared to other system speakers,Ive owned a DELL Inspiron 17 which sounds better than these with base being more punchy and not rocking around as much,The clarity is nice but not loud enough to thoroughly enjoy.
Hopefully there will be a day when Laptops have B&W internal speakers :tt2: (one can only wish)

Keyboard:
Back lit keyboard is very nice indeed,the keyboard keys all have a nice feel compared to my VORTEX II which seemed very plastic y,it feels as if your hitting some sort of high quality rubber,My biggest frustration is the ENTER BUTTON,This has to be one of the biggest flaws with this laptop,How ,many times have I hit # or something else when not looking at the keyboard,I do not want to say.

Touchpad:
By FAR THE nicest keyboard I have ever seen on a Clevo or alienware laptop in my life,it is the same multipad that is on macbook pros,no left and right click,One beautiful ceramic feeling touchpad,Very big step up.


Overall:
After owning Dell precision m70,Alienware m17r1.m17xr4,Vortex II 3D This is the nicest machine I have ever owned and a very worth upgrade for those that have mixed agendas on whether to fish out for it.

Pictures below,Hope my review helps those ,Any questions ,please do ask

3d Mark scores is Performace 720p

Thank you for reading

 

[PCS]

Great feedback, + rep

We've added your review to the configurator section on our website!

 

[rickne]

Its very confusing to me that I can get those fps on a single 680. What am i missing? Good review though bud.

 

[Deviate118]

Thank you PCs for the reply.

Forget to mention that PCS also applied Artic thermal paste to my GPU free of charge,which was very handy

Thank you guys

Rickne for some reason the Second SLI 680m is locked to 2GB for some reason,So I only get 4gb + 2gb.This is what I was informed from The sales team at PCS.I do wonder why exactly My graphics score is so low,I have looked at the results on 3D MARK for dual SLI680 and the majority get 13000 physics.

Also a let down is my Processor,Could do with a XM but hey that beyond my budget

Cheers

 

[Iroquois Pliskin]

Your 3DMark11 score is within the norm for a stock configuration, check NotebookReview forums. A 13.2k Mark11 is doable on with OC'd SLI 680M. : )

Physics score is wholly dependent on PhysX setting - make sure it's enabled in Nvidia's control panel, though real benchmarking is done without it in Mark11, since AMD/ATi doesn't sport it, thus a physics score of 7.8k is also within norm.

P.S. Memory (RAM) 4GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB) - You really want to be running your memory in dual channel, another identical 4 GB stick is in order to do so. Ivy Bridge has its highest bandwidth rate in dual channel mode.

 

[Deviate118]

I may just try overclocking it but not to sure I need to since most games play quite fine,Metro 2033 is the only thing that seizes up my system a bit,But I think everyone with laptops suffers from the ridiculous textures of the game.My physx is set up and SLI is on.

Also Iro,The story of my memory (Such a powerful system and only 4GB ram,Lol The irony behind it )

Was that I had 1866MHZ Corsair vengeance in my Vortex II 3d 2ng generation 2860qm,I thought it was easily work with the Vortex III Elite since being a newer processor,I installed the 2*4gb modules into the motherboard only to turn it on and receive blue screen after blue screen.

I found it very peculiar that it works on the older generation but locked on 3rd generation.

I have since ordered corsair vengeance 1600mhz 32gb( bit of a waste but future proof none the less )

 

[Iroquois Pliskin]

Was that I had 1866MHZ Corsair vengeance in my Vortex II 3d 2ng generation 2860qm,I thought it was easily work with the Vortex III Elite since being a newer processor,I installed the 2*4gb modules into the motherboard only to turn it on and receive blue screen after blue screen.

I found it very peculiar that it works on the older generation but locked on 3rd generation.

I have since ordered corsair vengeance 1600mhz 32gb( bit of a waste but future proof none the less )

Heh, could be bad Ivy Bridge compatibility/stability with this particular set of 1866 RAM -
have you tried one stick at a time, or downclocking them in BIOS to 1600, see if it boots up? Corsairs 1600 should work flawlessly, and your CPU scores are fine, here's an OC 3820QM - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4226941

More here, most systems will be overclocked, tho - http://www.3dmark.com/search

 

[euan142]

Question, Do the 2 graphics cards work as one or do they act separate for different programs?
Also would the 2 2GB Radeon® HD 7970M be better than 1 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M

I don't know much about how they would work, last few computers i didn't worry about graphics

 

[Iroquois Pliskin]

Question, Do the 2 graphics cards work as one or do they act separate for different programs?
Also would the 2 2GB Radeon® HD 7970M be better than 1 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M

If you want to be technical, then you could probably define them as separate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_CrossFireX

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface#Implementation

"SLI allows two, three or four graphics processing units (GPUs) to share the workload when rendering a frame. Ideally, two cards using identical GPUs are installed in a motherboard that contains two PCI-Express slots, set up in a master-slave configuration. Both cards are given the same part of the 3D scene to render, but effectively half of the work load is sent to the slave card through a connector called the SLI Bridge. As an example, the master card works on the top half of the scene while the slave card works on the bottom half. When the slave card is done, it sends its output to the master card, which combines the two images to form one and then outputs the final render to the monitor."

Seeing as a single HD 7970M is almost equal to a GTX 680M - you decide if two 7970Ms are "better", than a single GTX 680M. : )

 

[euan142]

by better i mean would give you a higher fps in a game such as borderlands 2, and thanks for the info helped me made a decision

 

[Iroquois Pliskin]

by better i mean would give you a higher fps in a game such as borderlands 2, and thanks for the info helped me made a decision

Of course, but that will depend on AMD supplying an XFire profile in their drivers. Both AMD & Nvidia do it to enable their competing XFire/SLI solutions to work in games.

Here are benchmarks for 2x 7970M setup - http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970M-Crossfire.74305.0.html

Scroll below and click on +Compare to open up a full graph. XFire scales nicely, often 100% over a single GPU configuration, but again, it depends on driver support. For example, the 12.8 Catalyst added Borderlands 2 XFire profile, http://www.bluesnews.com/s/135250/new-amd-catalyst-cap-for-borderlands-2

New profiles added to this release:

Borderlands 2 – New CrossFire profile
Guild War 2: Resolves grass texture corruption observed when changing graphics settings in a CrossFire configuration
World of Warcraft(DX9): Fix the flickering observed when view distance is changed to fair in graphics settings when CrossFire is enabled
Depth Hunter: Resolves shadow flickering seen when running in CrossFire mode
Dirt Showdown – Resolves flickering seen in CrossFire mode
Stalker Call of Pripyat – Resolves flickering seen in CrossFire mode
War of Roses – Fixes flickering seen in CrossFire mode

Same goes for Nvidia's SLI method. ; )

 

[ObserverJLin]

From the images you've OCed it correct? Wouldn't that mean you've voided the warranty? :sweatdrop:

 

[Ninjax]

maybe these numbers ( a bit old too I guess )

notebook check http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...e.74305.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.72679.0.html
bf3 7970m xfire = 67 / 680m = 34 / desktop 680gtx =57 http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages...review,18.html
metro 7970m xfire = 54 / 680m = 24 / desktop 680gtx =39 http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,15.html
crysis 2 7970m xfire = 95 / 680m = 49 / desktop 680gtx =63 http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,20.html

 

[dimdim]

Hey, very nice post. +1 rep
I have a question, though. What is your mobo's make and model?

 

[Ihai]

What cooling stand are you using?

 

[Deviate118]

Hi ObserverJlin,In some cases it does void warranty well people go crazy and try maxing out a Laptop GPU,This is never a good idea because the cooling is very good for laptop standards but for OC,you will burn it out and render your cards useless,I have been able to overclock Stable

Core clock +70MHZ (MAX via MSI AFTERBURNER is 135mhz)
Memory clock + 560MHZ (Max setting via Msi Afterburner is 1000mhz)


This is the optimum overclock I have manaaged to get out of my Sli without little green dots or system stability being affected.

Everything in Moderation I say

 

[Deviate118]

Ihai the laptop cooling stand I am using is in my oppinion the best for Pc specialist laptops.

It is a

Cooler Master Notepal U3 Notebook stand with 1 port USB hub

The reason I praise this over most laptop coolers is that you can Specifically place each Fan exactly where your vents are,All 3 fans that come with the laptop Cooler can be taken off quite easily and moved around to everyones laptops needs.

Which is a major help

Below is a link to where you can purchase the item from

http://www.google.co.uk/products/ca...a=X&ei=G1WWUJDZIuKp0QXew4DICQ&ved=0CEMQ8wIwAg



I would suggest to Pc specialist that this may be a good cooler to have in your options when buying a laptop

Thank you sir

 

[Rakk]

Hi ObserverJlin,In some cases it does void warranty well people go crazy and try maxing out a Laptop GPU,

Whether you go crazy or not with the overclocking, if you overclock your GPU, then your warranty for it with PCS will be void, its possible the manufacturer may not mind but then you would have to go through the manufacturer instead of PCS to get it replaced.

Note: this is as far as I know - I could be wrong, but don't think I am.

 

[Deviate118]

You may be right Rakk but tbh Nvidia Sli cards were meant to be overclocked a tiny bit,Its what give it that little extra edge,I always found overclocking easier on my Nvidia cards than AMD which became a lot more unstable for some reason,I have never hard a burnt out GPU (touch wood ) because I don't go crazy,I have played for 6 hours continiously with the Overclock on and temps never went over 67C on both cards,I am astounded how cool the Nvidia cards run at,Even when playing Metro or stress tests,It is up to the buyers own preference I guess.

Thanks

 

[ayqazi]

Was that I had 1866MHZ Corsair vengeance in my Vortex II 3d 2ng generation 2860qm,I thought it was easily work with the Vortex III Elite since being a newer processor,I installed the 2*4gb modules into the motherboard only to turn it on and receive blue screen after blue screen.

I found it very peculiar that it works on the older generation but locked on 3rd generation.

THANK YOU! This is just the info I was looking for. I wanted to get confirmation if the 1866MHz kit worked, and now that I have I'm going to be ordering the CL9 1600MHz kit now. +1!