Inside The W880CU
Removing the battery reveals the second hard drive bay and a Mini PCIe card bay with a mirror-finished cover that, in turn, reveals the type of camera used for today’s photographs.
The larger cover hides the first hard drive, factory-installed wireless modules, two mid-sized cooling fans, and a fairly elaborate heat-pipe arrangement. Notice that the component on the right uses both fans and has two-thirds the total number of heat pipes.
A look at the size of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 480M gives us some clue as to why the majority of system cooling serves this part. At barely more than half the size of the GPU, Intel’s Core i7-820QM also gets by without active cooling for its memory.
Also seen above are the CastleNet BTC04R Bluetooth module, Intel Ultimate-N 6300 Wi-Fi card, and a pair of Kingston’s KVR1333D3S9/K2 memory modules.
Matching the performance configuration of its previous machines for today’s tests required AVADirect to include a Corsair Nova series 128 GB SSD, in addition to the previously-mentioned CPU and RAM. A full range of alternative components allow AVADirect customers to seek even higher performance, or lower cost.
One might think that a notebook with a bigger screen and higher-wattage graphics solution might come with a larger battery, but Clevo picked the same 3800 mAh capacity for the W880CU as previously tested in its 15.4” W860CU.
Gaming is going to require a wall connection, and that’s where the W880CU is really upsized. At 6.7” long, 3.3” wide and 1.7” thick, its 180 W power brick is at least thinner than its masonry namesake.
