TWO GTX 1080s in a Freaking LAPTOP - Sager NP9873
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,624 words · ~8 min read
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I think the Sega NP9873 might be the worst gaming laptop
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I've ever encountered. What makes me say that, you might ask? Well, for one
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thing, there's almost nothing about it that qualifies it to be called a laptop
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at all. The CPU and the two video cards
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and SLI are full performance desktop
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parts. I mean, really, it's more like a a a port
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I mean, really, it's more like a portable desktop with a screen attached
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to it and a battery and a touchpad and
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okay, it's a laptop, but it's unlike any laptop I've ever seen. Let's take a
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closer look at it.
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The be quiet! Darkbase Pro 900's modular design supports a variety of different
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layouts and configurations. Click on the link in the video description to learn
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more. So, not everything about the NP9873 is actually new. It's very
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similar, at least externally, in many respects, to the Sega NP9870 that I
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checked out a little while ago. Here, let's take a quick look. It rocks a
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17-in display backed by a relatively tasteful LED lighting effect in either
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1080p 120 Hz or 4K 60 Hz G-Sync IPS
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flavors. Out of those two, I opted for the 120 Hz. And I'm actually happy with
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the extra fluidity, though I think a 75Hz 1080p G-Sync option would be swell.
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The bottom is basically all ventilation. The reason for that is pretty obvious if
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you consider the kind of heat figuratively and literally that this
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baby is packing. And IO is pretty similar looking but with a couple of key
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upgrades. On the left is dual LAN, three
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USB 3 5 GB ports and 5.1 audio with a
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dedicated mic port. At the back is another USB 3 and an HDMI 2.0 port this
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time around. A welcome addition. And on the right to go along with the last USB
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3 SD card reader and dual mini DP 1.3
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ports is two Thunderbolt 3 USB 3.1 10 GB
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ports. This baby is loaded for bear. The
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keyboard is still decidedly average though and doesn't seem to have been
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modified much. It's accurate and comfortable enough, but given this is
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nearly a 2 inch thick laptop, I don't think a longer travel distance or a more
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tactile feel would have been that much to ask for. And the touchpad works well
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enough that it didn't bother me at all. But the fingerprint scanner was pretty
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hit or miss for me, making Windows Hello more work than just using a pin. All
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right, now then, let's crack this puppy open. And no, wait, there's another
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outside change we missed. What's he
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talking about? The NP9873's box is heavy partially because
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it contains a big ass heavy laptop, but also because it contains not one but two
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330 W power bricks with a dual brick
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adapter. For those of you wondering, the maximum
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power draw from the wall that I ever saw with this beast was 450 watts running
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our Crisis 3 Skybox test in SLI and IDA
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64's floatingoint CPU stress test in the background. So, I did then try it with
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just one of the 330 W power supplies.
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And theoretically, you could actually use it that way if you didn't push it
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too far, but Sagger and therefore me does not recommend this for safety
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reasons. Inside the device, we're finally getting in there. We'll find the
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reason for the dual bricks. Under the keyboard is the pre-installed Killer
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Wireless, 16 gigs of RAM from some brand I've never heard of, and a 512 gig 950
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Pro NVMe SSD with an additional M.2 two
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slot available for another. And on the bottom is why the most beautiful 2 plus
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pounds of copper vapor chamber cooling I
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think I've ever seen. Let's take it off.
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Look at those heat pipes. With that removed, now we get a
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much better look at the MXM 3.0 0 TypeB
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GTX 1080 graphics cards with 8 gigs of
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GDDDR5X that make this by far the most
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powerful gaming laptop I have ever laid
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my hands on. Like the desktop grade 980
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before them. They're wider than the M-Class cards that preceded them. And
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while we don't know their TDP since that's between NVIDIA and the individual
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system builders, we do know that they're rated at almost the same speeds as the
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full desktop parts, although we'll have
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to see how that holds up with GPU boosts having a lot of control over the dynamic
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clock speeds of all Pascal based graphics cards. Also in here is our Core
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i7 6700 K unlocked quadcore processor
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and the somewhat anemic looking cooling solution that goes with it. Though it
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should be noted it does manage to keep it under 80° with very reasonable sound
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levels even under a synthetic load. And the whole system is actually very
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reasonable acoustically. It's nearly silent at idle, fairly quiet under 100%
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CPU load. And even with both GPUs working, as you see right
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now, my mic's right here, it's not that
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bad. With that said, I did manage to overwhelm the CPU cooler when I had both
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GPUs and the CPU under synthetic loads.
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Under the graphics cards, though they're not populated in my configuration, are
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two 2 and 1/2 in SSD or hard drive slots. Nice to have if you want to order
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it with a different configuration or expand your storage down the road. And I
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guess that leaves us with the big question then. How does cramming two of
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these in one of these affect
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performance? Well, just like last time around when I compared the 6700 K GTX
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980 laptop, apples to apples with a similarly equipped desktop, I'm going to
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be challenging the NP9873 to beat a dual 1080 Founders
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Edition equipped test bench. Let's see how it fares. And there you have it,
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folks. If there was any doubt in your mind that the notebook version of the
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GTX 1080, I got to say, NVIDIA is really
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taking this whole confusing product naming thing to a new level here, is
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basically equivalent to the desktop version. You can leave that behind now.
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You need to reboot to enable or disable SLI for some reason, but that was the
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only major difference I observed. The slightly lower base clock speed doesn't
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hurt it. Though it should be noted that we are comparing to Founders Edition
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cards rather than a board partner designed one with a beefier cooler. And
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this particular Seager notebook integrates a pretty unbelievable cooling
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solution with other notebooks featuring 1080s potentially not being capable of
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boosting as high. Which I guess leads us
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pretty well into the conclusion. I still remember my old GTX 7800based gaming
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laptop. The thing was a turd with
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terrible battery life and frankly very
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mediocre performance compared to desktop GPUs at the time. And while some things
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never change, don't expect to be gaming for long at the park with your 12 lb
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beast here. From a performance standpoint, we've reached a whole new
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level of zero compromises gaming laptops. The only thing really left in
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my mind is for manufacturers to commit to providing upgrade parts for folks who
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want more life out of these beasts. MSI did try to take a step in that direction
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with the GT80 Titan, though those replacement kits didn't end up being
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possible. So, we're not there yet, but I
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can see a near future if we fix that
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where desktops just aren't necessary anymore. That is to say, assuming prices
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come down a little. Did I mention this laptop is like
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$4,000? Don't you hate it when stuff you want is expensive? If only there was
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some way for many potential buyers to
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watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like
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