Bitcoin 6970M
I hate to do this to Eurocom, but I’m going to get this out of the way right at the start. Eurocom is quick to point out that they offer many specialized features that you can’t get elsewhere, making their Clevo-based offerings something more than you’ll get from other vendors. That’s true to an extent, but at the end of the day this is still a Clevo P150HM chassis, the smaller version of the Clevo P170HM we looked at a couple weeks back. They asked us not to compare with pricing from other vendors, but we know our readers are smart enough to put two and two together, so there you have it. With that messy subject dealt with, let’s discuss some of the extras that Eurocom likes to tout.
First, most of Eurocom’s laptops fall more into the category of mobile workstations rather than pure notebooks. If you saw dollar signs flash when I said “workstation”, you’re not alone. So what makes for a “mobile workstation” as opposed to a regular notebook? In this case, Eurocom gives users the option to equip their Racer notebook with Quadro graphics cards, which make even the GTX 485M seem affordable. How much of the extra testing and validation is done by Eurocom and how much comes from Clevo I can’t say, but there’s definitely more involved in qualifying a notebook for use with a Quadro 5000M than just stuffing a GPU into the chassis and hoping for the best.
Extra features don’t end there. Eurocom also lists support for 8GB SO-DIMMs, something few other vendors even think about; each 8GB DIMM will set you back over $850, though, so you’d better have a really good reason for going there. And just for the record, that price isn’t all that unreasonable—Dell lists 2x8GB as an option on the Precision M6500, and it’s a $4280 upgrade. Ouch! Eurocom also supports the use of a second HDD/SSD in place of the optical drive via a caddy, or just buy the caddy on your own for future use as a $125 upgrade. As a final incentive to go the Eurocom route, they offer the P150HM/Racer with one of three LCDs: 1080p matte, 1080p glossy, or 768p 120Hz glossy 3D. We received the cheapest option, which also happens to be the best: the matte 1080p panel. In a word, it’s beautiful!
The bottom line, as you’ll see below, is that Eurocom offers some extras that you can’t get from most Clevo resellers, but it will cost you a bit more. Here’s the setup we received for review.
| Eurocom Racer Specifications | |
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-2720QM
(4x2.2GHz + HT, 32nm, 6MB L3, Turbo to 3.3GHz, 45W) |
| Chipset | Intel HM65 |
| Memory | 4x2GB DDR3-1333 (Max 32GB) |
| Graphics |
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB
960 Stream Processors, 680/900MHz Core/RAM clocks |
