AVADirect's Clevo X7200 Redux: AMD 6970M CF Takes the Crown
by Dustin Sklavos on June 2, 2011 3:05 AM ESTConclusion: Nothing Wrong with the Radeon
As far as the Clevo X7200 itself goes, our previous conclusions still apply: budget be damned, if you simply must have the fastest, most powerful notebook on the market, here it is. While Clevo's dogged persistence in using this awful keyboard feels like God's punishment for a hateful world, and the notebook itself is easily big and heavy enough to use as a murder weapon, it's also more powerful than...well, anything. It's certainly in contention with a lot of the desktops I review, and that's saying something.
The real subject of our review today is the AMD Radeon HD 6970M, specifically in CrossFire, and this is a big winner. After a long dry spell of mobile graphics having a very hard time catching up with their desktop counterparts, the 6970M at least makes a decent stride towards closing the gap. AMD's much improved CrossFire scaling pays off in spades here, too: generally you'll get close to 100% performance improvement with the second GPU (at least at higher quality settings), and that's outstanding.
Thermals for the X7200 are mostly unchanged from last time, as Intel's Gulftown processor consistently impresses in both this shell and on the desktop. Power consumption is a little bit up on the battery, a little bit down on the mains, and ultimately inconsequential: this isn't a notebook you're going to run on the battery.
If you simply must have the fastest notebook gaming performance, it stands to reason a pair of GeForce GTX 485Ms will probably (however slightly) beat the AMD Radeon HD 6970M CrossFire solution. Of course, at AVADirect you'll pay dearly for the privilege: an extra $638 more than the two 6970Ms for what'll be at best around 10% more performance and certainly nothing that's going to break any games wide open. That's not AVADirect gouging you, either; a visit to Sager reveals a similar premium, and CyberPowerPC doesn't even offer the GTX 485M.
AMD has had a storied history with their high performance mobile parts, oftentimes struggling to actually get them to market. That history is over: the 6970M is here, it's available, and it's fast. Get two.
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bobbyh - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
cool laptop.first!Sufo - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
Yay, first to reply to first!tipoo - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
I vote that all "first" or similar comments constitute a temporary banShadowmaster625 - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
As long as the first comment doesnt include hawking nik e, jord an, and pr ada it is ok by me.m.amitava - Saturday, June 4, 2011 - link
Yeah..let the kids play! :PJamahl - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
To waste your first comment with such a crap one.mustafaka - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
But it is really cool, so not a complete waste :)wordsworm - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
the author wrote that AMD took the crown. But then he says for $600 more you might be able to do better? He doesn't know? Well, what is it? Is it the holder of the crown or not? When I see something like that, it looks like the article is not really objective and that it's really just a, as some say, sign of fanboyism.Will Robinson - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
Umm...eew k...in other words,you wanted to see NVDA win ...somehow...never mind.wordsworm - Thursday, June 2, 2011 - link
I don't care. Shy of becoming very wealthy, I won't ever buy a computer that's more than 2k, or a laptop that's more than 1k. So, it's all out of my ball park. I was just saying that it's misleading and false as well. I am, therefore, more interested in what's going on with Llano than this kind of stuff. I was drawn into reading it because of the misleading title.If he doesn't know which setup is better, then he should have said so. It's a cheap page-hit trick that I expect from Daily Tech, but not from Anandtech. For some reason, I have very high expectations here. Most of the time, the articles are not like this.
@Creig The author was saying that this setup holds the crown. If he hasn't tested the 485M in SLI, then he shouldn't have said it. More honest would have been, AMD's high end SLI significantly improves on AMD's previous effort.