EVGA's SC17 Gaming Laptop, Priced At $2,699, Arrives Mid-April

By Rexly Peñaflorida
published

At CES, we saw some of EVGA's upcoming products, one of which was a gaming laptop called the SC17. The company is well-known for its lineup of graphics cards, PSUs and motherboards, but the SC17 is EVGA's first gaming laptop. Now, we have more details about what's inside the laptop as well as its final price.

The SC17 is powered by an Intel Core i7-6820HK (2.7 GHz, 3.6 GHz Turbo, Skylake) and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 980M. As the name suggests, you can overclock the CPU for additional power. Obviously, you can do this through the system's BIOS or with the company's new EOC feature. By pressing the Function key and the up or down arrow keys, you can switch between overclock and normal speeds for the CPU. You can also cycle through various overclock presets.

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EVGA SC17 Gaming Laptop
CPUIntel Core i7-6820HK (2.7 GHz, 3.6 GHz Turbo, Skylake)
GPUNvidia GeForce GTX 980M (8GB GDDR5)
RAM32GB G. Skill DDR4 (16GB x 2, 2666 MHz)
Storage256GB M.2 NVMe PCI-E SSD and 1TB SATA HDD
DisplaySharp 17.3 inches (3840x2160)
AudioRealtek ALC 255, Integrated Subwoofer
ConnectionRJ45 Ethernet (10/100/1000), Intel AC-8260 Wi-Fi (Snowfield Peak), Bluetooth 4.2
I/O1 x HDMI 1.4, 2 x Mini DisplayPort, 2 x USB 3.0 Type A, 1 x USB 3.1 Type C, 3.5 mm headphone/mic jack
CameraFull HD (1920x1080)
OSWindows 10 Home (64-bit)
Accessories240W Power Adapter, Audio Splitter, USB 3.1 Type C to Type A adapter
Weight8 pounds

At CES, an EVGA representative told us that pricing would sit around the $2,600 mark; the final price is $100 more at $2,699. If you pre-order now, you can also get a free EVGA Torq X10 gaming mouse, which has nine programmable buttons and max dpi of 8200. You can place an order now, but EVGA won't ship the device until mid-April.

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Rexly Peñaflorida
11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • sillynilly
    That thing looks sexy. A serious contender for me as a replacement to my old portable rig.
    Reply
  • ohim
    Laptop made only for spec freaks but at the same time pointless ... 32 GB ram on an laptop ... 4k at 17" useless pixel density and not even 1 GTX 980Ti can drive games at 4k with fluidity but let alone a 980M ....
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    I feel like at this price tag, they could squeeze in at least a 512GB SSD.
    Reply
  • wewum
    @ohim

    Because the screen is so small, you can just turn down the resolution to 1080p when you game, and back up to 4k when you browse the web and play less demanding games.
    Reply
  • Russell Elfenbein
    The Gigabyte P35X v3 has been out for over a year with the same GPU. I own it and I can tell you that if you want performance, you will need a better GPU. Why didn't they go for the laptop version of the desktop GTX 980? crazy.
    Reply
  • hitman400
    I feel like at this price tag, they could squeeze in at least a 512GB SSD.
    These PCI-E based SSDs are 2 or 3x faster than typical SSD's. You are right though, $2,700 and only 256? I speculate that most of the cost went into the unibody design, IPS display, and heat management to bring the laptop down to 1" thickness.
    Reply
  • dorianh94
    Not worth the money. If they priced it below 2,000 $, then it would be a competitor but, there is still one deal-breaking problem. Thin high end gaming laptop IS NOT a good thing unless it has some kind of hybrid/water cooling and this laptop doesn't. Some people are asking why not put a stronger GPU into it, since it's a 4K laptop. Well, the answer is simple....it's barely able to cool 980M, let alone anything stronger. If they placed it somewhere around 1,600$ and put a 970M into it, it would be a much better buy but this is just ridiculous. Thought EVGA would be somewhat wiser that that.
    Reply
  • Nyhil116
    Honestly if they had made this a QHD display at 2200 I would have gave my Dell XPS to my wife and bought this... But my desktop has 2 980ti's in SLI running a 4K screen and it can't always produce playable frame rates; depending on the graphics settings of course. 4k is awesome if you're pushing a monitor 45" or larger, not a 17" screen. Resolution guidelines should be roughly this:

    <21" = 1080p or 1440p if feeling froggy
    22"-36" = QHD 1440p
    >40" = UHD 4K or as I like to call it 2160p

    On a side note, calling these new UHD TV's 4K really bothers me as they are not 4K, they are 4x the pixels, they have 4x the screen area, but they are not 4K. Changing the labeling system from height (720p, 1080p, 1440p) to a new system just to make the numbers bigger is a disgusting marketing tactic which takes advantage of the general publics lack of knowledge on the subject, and not only that but the TV's aren't even 4K pixels wide... Unless we are rounding to the nearest thousand.
    *steps off soap box*
    Thanks for reading :)
    Reply
  • spagalicious
    17737015 said:
    Laptop made only for spec freaks but at the same time pointless ... 32 GB ram on an laptop ... 4k at 17" useless pixel density and not even 1 GTX 980Ti can drive games at 4k with fluidity but let alone a 980M ....

    My thoughts exactly. My main gripe with theses 'desktop replacement' laptops is that there isn't really anything gained other than the mobility aspect. And with the 980m and 6820HK, I'd imagine it also uses a fair amount of power. Which requires the user to be plugged in anyways. Spending $2700 on a desktop gets you one hell of a rig that would last years.

    17737137 said:
    @ohim

    Because the screen is so small, you can just turn down the resolution to 1080p when you game, and back up to 4k when you browse the web and play less demanding games.

    Yes but scaling varies from display to display. 1920x1080 could look fuzzy, less sharp compared to the displays native resolution. Personally, I don't mind swapping between 4K desktop and 1080/1440 gaming. But some may.
    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    it comes with Windows 10 HOME? wtf evga.. come on now..
    Reply