I think the Sega NP9873 might be the worst gaming laptop
I've ever encountered. What makes me say that, you might ask? Well, for one
thing, there's almost nothing about it that qualifies it to be called a laptop
at all. The CPU and the two video cards
and SLI are full performance desktop
parts. I mean, really, it's more like a a a port
I mean, really, it's more like a portable desktop with a screen attached
to it and a battery and a touchpad and
okay, it's a laptop, but it's unlike any laptop I've ever seen. Let's take a
closer look at it.
The be quiet! Darkbase Pro 900's modular design supports a variety of different
layouts and configurations. Click on the link in the video description to learn
more. So, not everything about the NP9873 is actually new. It's very
similar, at least externally, in many respects, to the Sega NP9870 that I
checked out a little while ago. Here, let's take a quick look. It rocks a
17-in display backed by a relatively tasteful LED lighting effect in either
1080p 120 Hz or 4K 60 Hz G-Sync IPS
flavors. Out of those two, I opted for the 120 Hz. And I'm actually happy with
the extra fluidity, though I think a 75Hz 1080p G-Sync option would be swell.
The bottom is basically all ventilation. The reason for that is pretty obvious if
you consider the kind of heat figuratively and literally that this
baby is packing. And IO is pretty similar looking but with a couple of key
upgrades. On the left is dual LAN, three
USB 3 5 GB ports and 5.1 audio with a
dedicated mic port. At the back is another USB 3 and an HDMI 2.0 port this
time around. A welcome addition. And on the right to go along with the last USB
3 SD card reader and dual mini DP 1.3
ports is two Thunderbolt 3 USB 3.1 10 GB
ports. This baby is loaded for bear. The
keyboard is still decidedly average though and doesn't seem to have been
modified much. It's accurate and comfortable enough, but given this is
nearly a 2 inch thick laptop, I don't think a longer travel distance or a more
tactile feel would have been that much to ask for. And the touchpad works well
enough that it didn't bother me at all. But the fingerprint scanner was pretty
hit or miss for me, making Windows Hello more work than just using a pin. All
right, now then, let's crack this puppy open. And no, wait, there's another
outside change we missed. What's he
talking about? The NP9873's box is heavy partially because
it contains a big ass heavy laptop, but also because it contains not one but two
330 W power bricks with a dual brick
adapter. For those of you wondering, the maximum
power draw from the wall that I ever saw with this beast was 450 watts running
our Crisis 3 Skybox test in SLI and IDA
64's floatingoint CPU stress test in the background. So, I did then try it with
just one of the 330 W power supplies.
And theoretically, you could actually use it that way if you didn't push it
too far, but Sagger and therefore me does not recommend this for safety
reasons. Inside the device, we're finally getting in there. We'll find the
reason for the dual bricks. Under the keyboard is the pre-installed Killer
Wireless, 16 gigs of RAM from some brand I've never heard of, and a 512 gig 950
Pro NVMe SSD with an additional M.2 two
slot available for another. And on the bottom is why the most beautiful 2 plus
pounds of copper vapor chamber cooling I
think I've ever seen. Let's take it off.
Look at those heat pipes. With that removed, now we get a
much better look at the MXM 3.0 0 TypeB
GTX 1080 graphics cards with 8 gigs of
GDDDR5X that make this by far the most
powerful gaming laptop I have ever laid
my hands on. Like the desktop grade 980
before them. They're wider than the M-Class cards that preceded them. And
while we don't know their TDP since that's between NVIDIA and the individual
system builders, we do know that they're rated at almost the same speeds as the
full desktop parts, although we'll have
to see how that holds up with GPU boosts having a lot of control over the dynamic
clock speeds of all Pascal based graphics cards. Also in here is our Core
i7 6700 K unlocked quadcore processor
and the somewhat anemic looking cooling solution that goes with it. Though it
should be noted it does manage to keep it under 80° with very reasonable sound
levels even under a synthetic load. And the whole system is actually very
reasonable acoustically. It's nearly silent at idle, fairly quiet under 100%
CPU load. And even with both GPUs working, as you see right
now, my mic's right here, it's not that
bad. With that said, I did manage to overwhelm the CPU cooler when I had both
GPUs and the CPU under synthetic loads.
Under the graphics cards, though they're not populated in my configuration, are
two 2 and 1/2 in SSD or hard drive slots. Nice to have if you want to order
it with a different configuration or expand your storage down the road. And I
guess that leaves us with the big question then. How does cramming two of
these in one of these affect
performance? Well, just like last time around when I compared the 6700 K GTX
980 laptop, apples to apples with a similarly equipped desktop, I'm going to
be challenging the NP9873 to beat a dual 1080 Founders
Edition equipped test bench. Let's see how it fares. And there you have it,
folks. If there was any doubt in your mind that the notebook version of the
GTX 1080, I got to say, NVIDIA is really
taking this whole confusing product naming thing to a new level here, is
basically equivalent to the desktop version. You can leave that behind now.
You need to reboot to enable or disable SLI for some reason, but that was the
only major difference I observed. The slightly lower base clock speed doesn't
hurt it. Though it should be noted that we are comparing to Founders Edition
cards rather than a board partner designed one with a beefier cooler. And
this particular Seager notebook integrates a pretty unbelievable cooling
solution with other notebooks featuring 1080s potentially not being capable of
boosting as high. Which I guess leads us
pretty well into the conclusion. I still remember my old GTX 7800based gaming
laptop. The thing was a turd with
terrible battery life and frankly very
mediocre performance compared to desktop GPUs at the time. And while some things
never change, don't expect to be gaming for long at the park with your 12 lb
beast here. From a performance standpoint, we've reached a whole new
level of zero compromises gaming laptops. The only thing really left in
my mind is for manufacturers to commit to providing upgrade parts for folks who
want more life out of these beasts. MSI did try to take a step in that direction
with the GT80 Titan, though those replacement kits didn't end up being
possible. So, we're not there yet, but I
can see a near future if we fix that
where desktops just aren't necessary anymore. That is to say, assuming prices
come down a little. Did I mention this laptop is like
$4,000? Don't you hate it when stuff you want is expensive? If only there was
some way for many potential buyers to
come together and buy all at once for a volume discount. Oh, but wait, there is.
Massdrop. Massdrop connects buyers like you with companies and authorized
distributors with genuine products at a
discount. And they're hosting a drop for the TFZ Series 5 in-ear monitors right
now. Now, this is the highest end model in the TFC series, and these inner
monitors have gained a pretty significant following over on HeadFi,
Reddit, and Best Audio Friends for delivering a great bang for your buck.
They have improved sound clarity and an upgraded braided cable from their
predecessors for better durability. And they ship with an assortment of
accessories, including three pairs of single flange silicone ear tips, one
pair of double flange silicone ear tips, one pair of foam ear tips, over ear hooks, cable clip, carrying pouch.
I think that's pretty much it. And you can check out these and other drops from
Massdrop at the link below. All right, so thanks for
watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like
button, or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the
video description. Also linked in the description is our merch store, which
has cool shirts like this one, and our community forum, which you should
totally join. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably
wondering what to watch next. So, click that little button in the top right
corner to check out our latest video over on channel Superf Fun.