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Digital Storm x17 Notebook Review: Radeon HD 7970M And Enduro, Again
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1. Portable Gaming On A 17.3" Screen

While the contest between mobility and performance rages on, most enthusiasts will probably be fairly satisfied with some of the mid-size solutions out there. A combination of Intel's Ivy Bridge and Nvidia's Kepler architectures first took us by surprise in Eurocom Racer 2.0 Review: Intel's Ivy Bridge Meets Nvidia's Kepler, where those two worlds collided to give us stunning performance and reasonable portability.

But what would happen if a company combined the moderate thickness and weight of a mid-sized notebook with the larger screen of a desktop-replacement? And how might buyers respond to such a configuration, packed with high-end 3D graphics, at mid-market pricing? Digital Storm thinks it found a winner in Clevo’s P170EM.

Part of the value in Digital Storm’s custom-built x17 notebook comes from its reliance on AMD’s high-end Radeon HD 7970M graphics, a part that exhibited fairly strong performance in Xotic PC NP9150: Striking Back At Kepler With Radeon HD 7970M. But some folks rightly mentioned in the comments section that the graphics module's performance in a few games appeared weak, purportedly an issue with the company's Enduro technology.

We approached AMD about the issue and got the full story: its drivers were afflicted by a bug that bottlenecked the GPU, keeping it from being fully-utilized, particularly in situations where high frame rates were expected. The company promised a hotfix, but shied away from putting a date on it.

The company sort of fulfilled its promise by rolling the hotfix into its Catalyst 12.11 Beta release (now up to version 8)...on the desktop. We still haven't seen an official update on the notebook side, though, so part of today's story is going to require Digital Storm proving that AMD's Radeon HD 7970M was the right GPU to put in its x17 as the Pitcairn ASIC goes up against Nvidia's GK107 and GF114 parts. The company is off to a good start with a less expensive Ivy Bridge-based processor, but will AMD pull its weight in this competition, too?

Digital Storm x17 (Level 2) Standard Component List
PlatformIntel FCPGA988, HM77 Express, MXM-3 Discrete Graphics
CPUCore i7-3610QM (Ivy Bridge): 4C/8T, 2.3 GHz Base Clock Rate, 3.3 GHz Maximum Turbo Boost, 6 MB Shared L3 Cache, 45 W TDP
RAM4 x Samsung M471B5273DH0-CK0 (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 SO-DIMM, CL11
GraphicsAMD Radeon HD 7970M: 850 MHz, 2 GB GDDR5-4800
Display17.3" FHD 16:9 Glossy LED Backlight LCD, 1920x1080
Webcam2 MP
AudioRealtek Integrated HD Audio with THX TruStudio Pro
SecurityKensington Security Slot
Storage
Hard DriveSeagate Momentus ST9750420AS: 750 GB, 7200 RPM, 16 MB Cache, SATA 3Gb/s
Optical DriveLite-On DS-8A8SH: 8x Slim Internal DVD Burner
Media DriveRTS5208 DSD/MMC/MS Flash Media Interface
Networking
Wireless LANRealtek RTL8723AE 802.11n PCIe Combo Card
Wireless PANIntegrated Bluetooth Transceiver on Wireless Combo Card
Gigabit NetworkRealtek RTL8168 PCIe 10/100/1000 Mb/s Ethernet
IEEE-1394None
TelephonyNone
Peripheral Interfaces
USB1 x USB 2.0, 3 x USB 3.0
Expansion CardNot Available
HDD1 x eSATA/USB 3.0 combo port
AudioHeadphone, Microphone, Digital Out, Analog In
VideoDisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I
Power And Weight
AC Adapter220 W Power Brick, 100-240 V AC to 19 V DC
Battery14.8 V, 5200 mAh (76.96 Wh) Single
WeightNotebook 8.4 lbs, AC Adapter 2.6 lbs, Total 11 pounds
Software
Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition, OEM
Service
WarrantyLifetime Tech Support, Three-Years Labor, One-Year Parts
Price$1777


Digital Storm’s x17 is available in four basic configurations, and each can be further customized based on your needs. We received the $1777 configuration, which is a step up from the baseline build, with no further customization.

In addition to the flexibility Digital Storm allows on its parts list, the company also offers three warranty levels. An extra $126 gets you four years of labor and two years of parts protection, while a $247 premium secures five years of labor and three years of hardware coverage. The firm’s labor plan also honors manufacturer-backed component warranties above and beyond the plan you purchase.

2. Getting To Know The x17

A total weight of 11 pounds, including the adapter and power cord, sounds pretty heavy. But that's actually a fairly big achievement for a 17.3” gaming notebook, which often weigh anywhere from 12 to 18 pounds. Part of that slim-down can be credited to Clevo’s chassis design, but a big chunk of the x17’s weight savings come from more efficient CPUs and GPUs. This newer notebook model gets by with a smaller power brick and lighter heat sinks than many of the gaming notebooks we've reviewed in the past.

Clevo supplies the lightweight LED-backlit screen that helps to keep the notebook itself under nine pounds.

A clean front edge make it easy to work with the x17 on your lap, though we suspect it wouldn't be comfortable to game like that for very long.

The x17’s left edge includes gigabit Ethernet connectivity, three USB 3.0 ports, and a flash media interface slot. As you can see, the third USB port integrates eSATA support, too. Meanwhile, the media slot supports most SD, MMC, and MS formats.

The x17’s right edge adds digital audio output and analog input to the familiar headphone output and microphone input, along with a single USB 2.0 port. If you so desire, Digital Storm will upgrade stock 8x DVD burner to a 6x Blu-Ray burner for $89.

DisplayPort connectivity updates a rear panel that also includes HDMI and DVI outputs. In theory, the platform should support three simultaneous outputs (the panel, plus two external screens). One of those would need to be hooked up via DisplayPort.

Though you can use one if you have it, the outdated DVI-to-VGA adapters is not part of Digital Storm's bundle.

The support kit does include an OEM-packaged Windows CD, driver disk, and CyberLink Media Suite 8, along with the power brick, AC cord, and a low-cost notebook bag.

3. Inside Digital Storm's x17

On the previous page, we suggested that heat might limit the amount of time you'd want to spend gaming with the x17 on your lap, and fan location is the primary reason for that. With intake vents almost perfectly aligned to your legs, starving the cooling subsystem of airflow seems like it'd be easy to do on accident.

Once we pull off the bottom covers, we see the hard drive and half of the notebook's memory. Those parts can be removed without unscrewing anything else.

A second 2.5” drive bay is exposed by sliding out the optical drive (right). CPU and GPU fans are mounted directly to the chassis, and can be left in place if you need to pull off their corresponding heat sinks.

Four #1 Phillips screws secure the CPU heat pipe, and are easily removed. The GPU and graphics memory sinks are held in place by smaller #0 screws. The CPU socket latch and GPU module stand-offs are slotted for a thin flat-head screwdriver.

The x17's baseline 750 GB hard drive saves $80 compared to the 120 GB Intel SSD 520 found on Xotic PC's NP9150. The hard drive also adds a bunch of storage capacity, though it's naturally quite a bit slower.

Also shown in the above photo are the secondary drive tray and the optical drive that covers it. If you want both capacity and speed, add an SSD to one of the system's two bays.

4. Hardware And Test Setup
Test System Configurations
 Digital Storm x17XoticPC / Sager NP9150Eurocom Racer 2.0
CPUIntel Core i7-3610QM: 2.3 GHz Base, 3.3 GHz Turbo Core, 4C/8T, 6 MB Shared L3 CacheIntel Core i7-3820QM: 2.7 GHz Base, 3.7 GHz Turbo Core, 4C/8T, 6 MB Shared L3 Cache
ChipsetIntel HM77 Express PCH
RAMSamsung M473B5273DH0-YK0
16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 C11
Samsung M473B5273DH0-YK0
12 GB (3 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 C11
GraphicsAMD Radeon HD 7970M:
850 MHz, 2 GB GDDR5-4800
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M:
835 MHz, 2 GB GDDR5-4000
Graphics 2 Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M:
620 MHz, 2 GB GDDR5-3000
Hard DriveSeagate Momentus ST9750420AS
750 GB, SATA 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM
Intel SSD 520 SSDSC2CW120A3
120 GB, SATA 6Gb/s SSD
SoundIntegrated HD Audio
NetworkIntegrated Gigabit Networking
PowerFSP 19 V, 11.57 A AdapterFSP 19 V, 9.47 A Adapter
Software
OSMicrosoft Windows 7 Home Premium x64Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Graphics1204122214-8.951.6-120329b-136980C-ClevoNvidia GeForce 302.71


Even though the x17 is larger, it relies on the same P150HM battery as the competing mid-sized models in today’s review. Its 220 W power brick is carried over from larger-sized predecessors.

Benchmark Settings
3D Games
Battlefield 3Campaign Mode, "Going Hunting" 90-Seconds Fraps
Test Set 1: Medium Quality Defaults (No AA, 4x AF)
Test Set 2: Ultra Quality Defaults (4x AA, 16x AF)
DiRT 3V1.01, Run with -benchmark example_benchmark.xml
Test Set 1: High Quality Preset, No AA
Test Set 2: Ultra Quality Preset, 8x AA
Metro 2033Full Game, Built-In Benchmark, "Frontline" Scene
Test Set 1: DX11, High, AAA, 4x AF, No PhysX, No DoF
Test Set 2: DX11, Very High, 4x AA, 16x AF, No PhysX, DoF On
The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimUpdate 1.5.26, Celedon Aethirborn Level 6, 25 Seconds Fraps
Test Set 1: High Detail Defaults (8x AA, 8x AF)
Test Set 2: Ultra Detail Defaults (8x AA, 16x AF)
StarCraft IIVersion 1.5.3, Tom's Hardware custom map
Test Set 1: High Texture, High Quality
Test Set 2: Ultra Textures, Extreme Quality
Audio/Video Encoding
iTunesVersion 10.4.1.10 x64: Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 minutes, default AAC format 
Lame MP3Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
HandBrake CLIVersion 0.95: "Big Buck Bunny" (720x480, 23.972 FPS) 5 Minutes, Audio: Dolby Digital, 48 000 Hz, Six-Channel, English, to Video: AVC Audio: AC3 Audio2: AAC (High Profile)
MainConcept ReferenceVersion: 2.2.0.5440: MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1 kHz, Two-Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV
Productivity
Adobe Photoshop CS5Version 12.1 x64: Filter 15.7 MB TIF Image: Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates
Autodesk 3ds Max 2012Version 14.0 x64: Space Flyby Mentalray, 248 Frames, 1440x1080
WinZipVersion 15.5 Pro: THG-Workload (464 MB) to ZIP, command line switches "-a -ez -p -r"
WinRARVersion 4.01: THG-Workload (464 MB) to RAR, command line switches "winrar a -r -m3"
7-ZipVersion 9.22: THG-Workload (464 MB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5"
ABBYY FineReaderVersion 10.0.102.82: Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages
5. Benchmark Results: DiRT 3 And F1 2012 Problems

DiRT 3 has a history of being more easily bottlenecked on platforms backed by AMD graphics solutions. That's why we thought nothing of it when we saw low performance numbers from this title in Xotic PC NP9150: Striking Back At Kepler With Radeon HD 7970M. It turned out, however, that DiRT 3 was suffering from AMD's Enduro graphics bug.

We installed AMD's Catalyst 12.11 Beta 3 build and immediately saw significantly higher average frame rates, giving us a good indication of just how driver-limited the original driver from Clevo really was.

When we really tax the graphics subsystem with DiRT's Ultra quality preset and 8x MSAA, the Radeon HD 7970M stomps Nvidia's GeForce GTX 675M.

But then we stumble across another problem. We're in the process of updating our testing suite from an old set of games, which included DiRT, to a new set, which includes F1 2012. For some reason, Enduro doesn't work with Digital Storm's configuration and F1 2012 using the original Clevo driver, Catalyst 12.11 Beta 3, or even Beta 4. We know it worked on a different notebook using the same driver from Clevo, so the problem appears specific to this platform. In essence, when we configure the game to run on AMD's graphics module, the game tries to launch, is visible as a running process consuming resources, but never shows up.

For now, the solution in F1 2012 is to run the game from Intel's HD Graphics 4000 engine. That's good enough to get us through 1280x720 using the High quality preset. But of course, anything more demanding is simply unplayable.

Also, you'll notice that we mentioned the Beta 4 build of AMD's Catalyst 12.11 driver, but tested using Beta 3. The newer version was unstable on this hardware, and became increasingly unstable over time. Fortunately, the latest Beta 8 release gets us back to Beta 3 performance levels without the stability issues of Beta 4.

6. Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3 And Metro 2033

AMD's Radeon HD 7970M already established its dominance in Battlefield 3 using Clevo's bundled driver, so we were surprised to find that this title was also affected by the Enduro bug. Catalyst 12.11 Beta 3 uncorks what initially appeared to be a platform bottleneck, but turned out to be a lack of data making its way to the Pitcairn GPU. Low-resolution performance enjoys the largest speed-up, though there's even a quantifiable gain at 1920x1080 all the way up through Ultra quality detail.

New drivers help the Radeon HD 7970M at our lower Metro 2033 settings, but slow the game slightly at our more taxing profile.

7. Benchmark Results: Skyrim And StarCraft II

Though the performance improvements in Skyrim appear small (since this title is actually platform-limited), AMD's new drivers with fixed Enduro functionality still propel Core i7-3610QM-equipped Digital Storm x17 past the Core i7-3820QM-enhanced Xotic PC NP9150.

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 675M appears rather weak, making it pretty obvious that we still haven't had a notebook with the company's GeForce GTX 680M come through the lab yet.

New drivers accelerate Digital Storm's x17 through StarCraft II at all settings.

8. Benchmark Results: Audio and Video Encoding

A faster processor helps both Core i7-3820QM builds beat Digital Storm's Core i7-3810QM. No play-by-play analysis is needed here. If these workloads are important to you, buy a faster host processor, plain and simple.

9. Benchmark Results: Productivity

Again, we see the Core i7-3820QM's higher clock rate serve up an advantage compared to Digital Storm's baseline x17. Will the cost of a pricier CPU play out in the efficiency charts? That's what we'll figure out on the next page...

10. Power Consumption, Battery Life, And Efficiency

The x17's idle power consumption is slightly lower than the rest of the field, and yet its full-load draw is nearly identical to what we measure from the NP9150. That also means Digital Storm's machine gets about the same gaming battery life, which is a respectable 45 minutes (give or take a few).

Battery Eater Pro concurs with our battery-backed gaming tests, showing the x17 and NP9150 with nearly identical battery life at medium load.

Efficiency compares energy to work, so we use average performance to begin its calculation. Xotic PC's NP9150 was first notebook in our lab with AMD's Radeon HD 7970M inside, so it sets the basis for comparing Digital Storm's competing model.

Remembering that the x17 is less expensive and armed with a larger screen (something we certainly consider valuable), a modest 7% performance shortfall sets it up for great overall value rating. But before we get to that, let’s see how its performance compares to its power consumption.

The original graphics drivers were optimized for Clevo's Radeon HD 7970M module, so we’re not surprised to see it take a small lead in overall efficiency. We’d ignore the performance average, though, and go straight to gaming performance when is comes to choosing the right driver for a gaming notebook. Efficiency goes down a bit, we're sure, because AMD's GPU is no longer starved for data, leaving it underutilized. By fixing Enduro, the Pitcairn chip uses more power, but serves up better performance in return.

11. Does A Fixed Radeon HD 7970M Help Digital Storm?

Digital Storm surprised us by taking on its competition's expensive CPU and SSD with lower-cost parts in an attempt to improve value.

The cheaper CPU offsets the difference in system price, while the conventional hard drive gives Digital Storm an extra $80 to spend on a chassis with a larger screen. The company ends up with a 6% overall value lead before we even begin to consider how much more its 17.3” display is worth (actually a little comparison shopping on Digital Storm's site tells us that the display is worth $54).

A few more configuration changes allow us to create the same system on Digital Storm's page that we received from Xotic PC, and we end up with roughly the same price, within a few dollars. Digital Storm isn’t what we'd consider a low-cost builder, but the company knew how to pick the parts that'd make its setup appear as price-optimized as possible. Bravo!

Getting back to the primary purpose of these notebooks, we wanted to see how each one compared in terms of gaming performance-per-dollar.

Most of our games are not CPU-bound (particularly when they're backed by a 3 GHz+ Core i7). So, processor performance isn't a major factor in the frame rates observed for our gaming value chart. Digital Storm's original x17 configuration comes within 1% of Xotic PC’s average performance at 1920x1080, and the processor’s lower price boosts the system's overall value significantly. When you arm it with a Core i7-3610QM, the x17 has 13% more gaming value than Xotic PC's smaller notebook with the faster CPU.

The big number is where AMD's Radeon HD 7970M rides in on a white horse. Performance enhancements to a somewhat-better driver (remember, we're still seeing problems in F1 2012, even with Catalyst 12.11 Beta 8) combine with Digital Storm's good processor choice to give it a commanding 29% lead. We can only hope that a final version of AMD’s Enduro-patched driver is released soon, and that a Clevo-specific version is able to fix the issues that remain.