AVADirect Clevo X7200: Six Cores, SSD RAID, and GTX 480M SLI Yields World's Fastest DTR Notebook
by Jarred Walton on October 7, 2010 12:30 AM ESTIntroducing the Clevo X7200 UPS
If you're after raw performance in a transportable notebook, clearly the Clevo X7200 can deliver. We've shattered every notebook benchmark in our test suite—hardly surprising since the system manages to keep pace with full size desktops! But some will inevitably ask, "What about battery life?" We ran our standard set of tests just for fun, because let's be honest: no one expects a DTR system to deliver great battery life, and when you start stuffing multiple GPUs and desktop CPUs into a notebook the battery life is laughable. Ready for the shortest battery life result we've ever measured?
Yes, we top out at a maximum battery life of 43 minutes—doing nothing beyond sitting at the desktop. We've set the CPU to 0% maximum (i.e. run at the minimum clock speed), the display is at 100nits (42% brightness), and the HDD/SSDs are set to power down after 1 minute of inactivity. So we're essentially looking at an integrated UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Do some Internet surfing and battery life drops to 38 minutes, and we come up with just over a half hour of video playback time. Even the old D900F with a desktop i7-965 gets 33% more battery life per Wh, but then it only supports a single GPU. Similarly, the W880CU with a single 480M and a puny 42Wh battery bests the X7200. With .49 minutes per Wh, you’d have to carry around a massive 240Wh battery just to surf the Internet for a couple hours…but it would be great exercise!
If you're curious about the size of the power brick, that's a 120W power adapter from the Toshiba A665-3DV. It's relatively large compared to many bricks but dwarfed by the X7200 adapter! Dimensions on the Clevo power brick are 8.13" x 4.44" x 1.94" (L x W x H). We don't have a scale that's accurate for objects this size, but we'd estimate the weight at close to three pounds.
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CharonPDX - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
My Macintosh Portable weighs 16 pounds. It's a monster. A gigantic behemoth.This thing weights almost as much. And once you include the power bricks, it's probably a tossup.
And whaddaya know, they're pretty close to the same physical size, too! The Macintosh Portable is 15.25" wide, so this thing is an inch wider; the Macintosh Portable is 14.83" deep, so this thing is 3.5" narrower, but this also has 2" less thickness. (4" for the Portable.)
Although the Macintosh Portable came with a 2 pound lead acid battery that could run it for nearly 10 hours... Or nearly 1400% the battery life of this new behemoth.
MeTechE - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
A bit heavy on the memes here, eh? Otherwise an excellent review, what an outrageous notebook...CharonPDX - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
I mean, with that little battery life, it's just a glorified UPS, as you call it.Why not just go for a dual-socket briefcase computer with a full-blown desktop video card in it? http://www.nextcomputing.com/products/mobile-works...
Their website doesn't list their latest models. While at Intel, I played with one that had dual Xeon L5530s in it, and a GeForce GTX 280. (The fastest GPU available at the time.)
Now you could throw in two 6-core L5640s and a GTX 480 or Radeon 5970. And with its 520W power supply, you could *POSSIBLY* go with a Crossfired pair of 5870s.
yelped - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
Isn't X59 under Chipset a Typo?yelped - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
Spotted another one. Under the specifications it says that the USB 3.0 ports are on the right side, a few paragraphs later it states that they are on the left side.I don't mean to nitpick, just making it look more professional for those who will read it later.
JarredWalton - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
Thanks, no problem with the corrections. Got the sides switched in the table. :-)my_body_is_ready - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
Choose oneSteelCity1981 - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
Really Clevo, only a 9 cell Battery? At least throw in a 12 cell battery for how much this thing cost.MrSpadge - Friday, October 8, 2010 - link
And that would change what except price?MrS
jed22281 - Thursday, October 7, 2010 - link
So who's getting their wallet out?Pics or it didn't happen!!! :)