Eurocom's Sky X9 Is More Desktop Than Laptop
Eurocom released a new laptop with a special twist. The Sky X9 gaming laptop takes advantage of high-end Intel and Nvidia desktop hardware to give performance-hungry enthusiasts the power of a much larger PC inside of a mobile package.
At the heart of the new laptop, Eurocom placed a desktop Intel Core i7-6700K. Although the system will likely experience difficulties maintaining the 4.2 GHz turbo speed of the i7-6700K, the 4 GHz base frequency is already significantly higher than any mobile Skylake CPU and should provide a sizable increase in performance.
The system uses an Intel Z170 chipset and is thus theoretically capable of overclocking, too.
To try and avoid overheating, the laptop contains three fans used to cool specific pieces of hardware. Although this amount of cooling is considerably less than you would expect inside of a normal desktop, it is also quite a bit more than the typical laptop and may prove capable of efficiently cooling the hardware.
"We have put a desktop graphics card into a laptop, giving our customers amazing desktop 980 performance in a laptop. Users now have 980 desktop graphics performance combined with Intel Skylake desktop CPU performance," Mark Bialic, Eurocom President.
In addition to the desktop CPU, Eurocom also installed a desktop Nvidia GeForce GTX 980. Eurocom didn't deviate from the specs Nvidia sets either, giving the system a full GM204 Maxwell chip with 2048 CUDA cores. Eurocom improved on one aspect of the desktop GTX 980's reference specs, though, in that it includes 8 GB of GDDR5 clocked at 7 GHz. To date, all desktop GTX 980 graphics cards have only contained 4 GB of vRAM. This extra RAM will help the system perform better when gaming at ultra high resolutions.
The system is going to need this beefy hardware, too, as it can optionally support a 4K (3840 x 2160) 17.3-inch display with G-Sync support. The Nvidia GTX 980 is one of the few high-end graphics cards that have proven to capably run games at 4K, and assuming thermal throttling isn't a major issue, users should be able to play games at 4K with decent settings. The other display option is a standard 1080p panel, although we can't imagine someone buying a laptop with such impressive hardware and wanting to stay at 1080p.
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For storage, the laptop can hold up to two 2.5-inch drives and two PCI-e SSDs simultaneously, with RAID 0/1/5/10 support. Up to 64 GB of DDR4 is also supported.
| Eurocom Sky X9 | |
|---|---|
| Display | Choice of FHD 1920-by-1080 or 4K 3840-by-2160 pixels; 17.3-inch (43.94 mm); LCD Display |
| Chipset | Intel Z170 Express (Skylake) |
| CPU | Skylake, LGA1151, up to Intel i7-6700K, fully unlocked |
| Memory | Up to 64 GB; DDR4-2133/2400; 4 SODIMM sockets |
| Graphics Card | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 |
| Storage | Up to 4 drives; 2x HDD/SSD (SATA3) + 2x M.2 PCIe x4/SATAl RAID 0/1/5/10 |
| Communications | Two Gigabit LAN RJ-45 ports (Killer E2400 + M.2 WLAN)Bluetooth |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows: 10, 8.1 and 7 |
| Card Reader | 6-in-1 MMC/RSMMC/SD/miniSD/SDHC/SDXC up to UHS-II |
| Keyboard | Illuminated, backlit with customizable 7-colors |
| Security | TPM 2.0, Fingerprint and Kensington Lock |
| Audio System | Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3; external 7.1CH audio output; headphone out, microphone in, S/PDIF and Line-in port; two built-in ONKYO Speakers (2.2 W)+ Subwoofer (2.5 W) |
| Ports | 1x USB 3.1 / Thunderbolt 3; 2x miniDP 1.2; 1x HDMI 2.0; 3x USB 3.0 (1x Powered USB AC/DC); S/PDIF; Headphone; Mic; Line-in; 2x RJ45 (LAN) |
| Weight and Dimensions | 4.8 kg; WxDxH 428x308x45mm |
The system is available now, with a starting price of $2,543.
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flowingbass A GTX 980 is not a card for 4K gaming. If i were rich enough to buy this, id opt for the one with 1080p display. I prefer overkill rather than underpowered.Reply -
Hando567 ReplyA GTX 980 is not a card for 4K gaming. If i were rich enough to buy this, id opt for the one with 1080p display. I prefer overkill rather than underpowered.
OR, get the 4K display, enjoy the nice high res while in the desktop environment, for media, etc. Then when you want to game, just tell the game to play at 1080P. Since 4k is exactly 4x1080P, it actually works out nicely with a block of 4 pixels representing a single pixel. No real interpolation to speak of. -
dstarr3 ReplyA GTX 980 is not a card for 4K gaming. If i were rich enough to buy this, id opt for the one with 1080p display. I prefer overkill rather than underpowered.
For that matter, there really aren't any cards for 4K gaming yet. Even the Titan X can't hold a steady 60fps in a lot of games. But, y'know, if you strap three or four Titan together, than you should be alright. And $4,000 poorer, if you factor in the cost of the PSU it takes to power all that.
Suffice it to say, 4K is still a bit out of our reach at the moment. -
TechyInAZ Sweet rig! Not something that you would take into your local coffee shop, but a excellent desktop replacement.Reply
Why the 6700K? I would suggest putting the i7 mobile unlocked CPU in, it's still overclockable but with way less energy. -
IInuyasha74 Reply16766619 said:A GTX 980 is not a card for 4K gaming. If i were rich enough to buy this, id opt for the one with 1080p display. I prefer overkill rather than underpowered.
For that matter, there really aren't any cards for 4K gaming yet. Even the Titan X can't hold a steady 60fps in a lot of games. But, y'know, if you strap three or four Titan together, than you should be alright. And $4,000 poorer, if you factor in the cost of the PSU it takes to power all that.
Suffice it to say, 4K is still a bit out of our reach at the moment.
Right, maybe it can't do 4K maxed out settings, but if you notice in our reviews of the GTX 980, most games were tested with maxed out or close to maxed out settings. Modifying the settings a little makes 4K gaming a very real possibility with this card. -
Aspiring techie Is there some contest on "How much hardware can you fit into a laptop? How many hundred people actually need this?Reply
Personally, I'll continue to use my laptop for when I'm on the move and my (much cheaper) desktop for gaming. -
braneman You see, I don't get this, 980m SLI will perform on par or better than a Titan x(depending on the game and its SLI profile). Why would you take the time and effort to put this system together when laptop hardware has reached the point where this is no longer necessary?Reply
If you don't believe me on this look it up, Far Cry 4, Assasins Creed Unity, Shadow of Mordor, Rise Son of Rome. All of those games 980m SLI performs better than a desktop 980 and in some cases better than a Titan X. No I'm serious twenty seconds of googling will give you a youtube video with direct, side by side, card to card comparisons. -
USAFRet $2,500, 10 lbs. This is not a laptop. It is a small, expensive, non portable, crippled, desktop.Reply -
sullivang Hooray - a 17" 4K laptop at long last. THANKYOU Eurocom, although could you now just make one with the same display, but more mundane processing & graphics performance?Reply