Eurocom Panther 5D Notebook Review: Faster Than Your Desktop
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Page 1:Meet Eurocom's Panther 5D
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Page 2:Exterior Design And Features
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Page 3:Now That's Different: Power Adapters
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Page 4:The Keyboard, Trackpad, And Stereoscopic Glasses
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Page 5:Size Comparison: Panther 5D Vs. R17x Vs. M6700 Covet
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Page 6:Size Comparison: ...To Guitars?
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Page 7:Bundled Software
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Page 8:Panther 5D Teardown
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Page 9:Test System And Benchmark Suite
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Page 10:Results: 3DMark
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Page 11:Results: Real-World Productivity And Media Apps
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Page 12:Results: Battlefield 3, BioShock Infinite, CoD: Black Ops II, And Crysis 3
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Page 13:Results: DiRT: Showdown, Hitman: Absolution, And Sniper Elite V2
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Page 14:Results: Tomb Raider, Total War: Shogun 2, And WoW: Mists Of Pandaria
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Page 15:Testing For Thermal Throttling
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Page 16:Battery Life and Power Draw
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Page 17:Storage And Audio Performance
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Page 18:Display Performance
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Page 19:Display Performance, Continued
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Page 20:Unparalleled Speed; Clear Compromises
Results: DiRT: Showdown, Hitman: Absolution, And Sniper Elite V2
DiRT: Showdown
DiRT: Showdown's built-in benchmark is very tough on both the CPU and GPU. It also exacted the highest continuous AC load of any game drawing 433 W from the wall on Eurocom's Panther.
Even with all of the quality settings maxed out, each notebook delivers playable average frame rates. Eurocom's two GeForce GTX 680Ms in SLI maintain the top position, but again the benefit of two cards isn't as pronounced next to the 780M's compelling performance. In fact, the GeForce GTX 780M enjoys a nice 20% improvement over a single GeForce GTX 680M.
We know DiRT to be both CPU- and memory-bound, so as we start relaxing the graphics load, those bottlenecks begin showing up.
At Medium quality settings, Eurocom's machine is completely platform-bound. MSI's GT70 exhibits the same symptoms, but still manages to stay a few FPS ahead of Alienware's system on average.
Hitman: Absolution
Hitman: Absolution is the opposite of Sniper Elite V2 when it comes to resource utilization. In the game's built-in benchmark, thousands of NPCs are animated throughout the scene. The GPU may end up waiting for the CPU to finish.
In the Ultra quality benchmark, both the MSI and Eurocom machines are CPU-limited. Alienware's sample trails behind, but is able to pull slightly ahead of MSI at 1366x768.
Since we tested the Panther 5D, Nvidia has made driver improvements to Hitman: Absolution's performance. The notebook should be able to cross the 60 FPS threshold, though it's likely that Nvidia will never show spectacularly in this AMD-sponsored title.
Taking the quality down a notch improves the Panther 5D and Alienware scores, but not as much for MSI's GT70. The Alienware system, with its single GeForce GTX 680M and Core i7-3940XM, manages to pull ahead of both comparison machines at 1366x768.
At Medium quality, the Alienware pulls ahead of MSI in all screen resolutions, and ahead of the Eurocom in two of them. This is largely academic, since no one with any of these systems would be playing at reduced quality or at a resolution of 1366x768.
Sniper Elite V2
The built-in benchmark for Sniper Elite V2 places a light load on our CPUs, but serves up a punishing GPU workload. These benchmarks are a good way to demonstrate the graphics capabilities of each machine.
With the game maxed-out at the Ultra quality preset, each card delivers playable frame rates at every setting. Since Eurocom's Panther 5D achieves more than twice the speed of a single GeForce GTX 680 (in Alienware's machine), the desktop-class CPU must be conferring some benefit to the final result.
Scaling back to the High quality preset changes very little about the placing of these three mobile platforms.
Dropping to Medium quality allows each configuration to speed up further, though only Alienware's M18x R2 benefits. The other platforms were already averaging more than 60 FPS.
Although the benchmark results at Low quality settings are a little higher, the Panther 5D was already playable at the highest detail settings. That's where you'd find us playing this game.
- Meet Eurocom's Panther 5D
- Exterior Design And Features
- Now That's Different: Power Adapters
- The Keyboard, Trackpad, And Stereoscopic Glasses
- Size Comparison: Panther 5D Vs. R17x Vs. M6700 Covet
- Size Comparison: ...To Guitars?
- Bundled Software
- Panther 5D Teardown
- Test System And Benchmark Suite
- Results: 3DMark
- Results: Real-World Productivity And Media Apps
- Results: Battlefield 3, BioShock Infinite, CoD: Black Ops II, And Crysis 3
- Results: DiRT: Showdown, Hitman: Absolution, And Sniper Elite V2
- Results: Tomb Raider, Total War: Shogun 2, And WoW: Mists Of Pandaria
- Testing For Thermal Throttling
- Battery Life and Power Draw
- Storage And Audio Performance
- Display Performance
- Display Performance, Continued
- Unparalleled Speed; Clear Compromises
"personal server: DEPLOY!"
@vmem "Personal Server: Please insert Credit Card to continue! $_$"
"personal server: DEPLOY!"
@vmem "Personal Server: Please insert Credit Card to continue! $_$"
the main people i can see needing this bad boy is division commanders on a battlefield as well as NSA hackers and CIA spies and Drone operators
but what i really wanted to see was the effects of ocing the gtx 680Ms :P
Finally I can have high end desktop performance on the go.
Lets see, a SFF setup parts:
PC: 5 = SFF-PC, keyboard, mouse, monitor, 2 power cords.
5D: 7 = 5D Panther, Mouse, 2 power cords, 3 power bricks/converter.
In return, you get a much better keyboard... then when broken, its a $10~150 replacement...
Nice machine, but it is overbuilt for a laptop if you need external monitors to use its full graphics. Sure you can take it somewhere where you can hook it up to multiple monitors, but then it is no more portable than a desktop.
Anyways, nice review. It's fun to read about the stupidly high end laptops that most of us don't ever see or use in real life, just to know what's possible if you go for performance over form factor.
I understand that it's "PERFORMANCE AT THE COST OF EVERYTHING ELSE" but wow.
To put this into perspective for that $6600, you could buy a fully loaded Precision M3800 quad core i7, 3200x1800 IGZO screen, 16gb ram, 512gb SSD + 1tb HDD and a Quadro k1100m that weighs 4lbs for $2600 and still have $4k left over to build a MONSTER workstation/gaming desktop
Lets go nuts. A 4k UP2414Q Ultrasharp Monitor for $1400
Core i7 4770k $300
2 x Nvidia GTX 780ti $700 each
512gb SSD
4Tb HDD
and a full build would still come out to less than 4 grand.
I think that statement is perfectly applicable to the Panther 5D.