PC Specialist Defiance IV (i7-7700HQ, GTX 1060, Full HD) Laptop Review

Unlike the recently tested Proteus V, the case of the Defiance IV comes from the well-known barebone manufacturer Clevo. The 17-inch case is made almost entirely of aluminum, which promises high quality and good stability. Unfortunately, the latter is only true for the base unit: The display cover could be a lot more stable and warp-resistant despite its metal surface.

Apart from that, the case gave a great impression. We have nothing to criticize about the workmanship, for example. The design, as always, is a matter of taste. The shape and form is quite modern considering it is a Clevo case, but it still remains simple and straightforward. The same case (PA71HP6) is used in a slightly altered form for the Medion Erazer X7857, which means that the two devices can be compared with each other easily.

Talking of comparison: While many 17-inch gaming devices are rather bulky, the Defiance IV is quite slim with a height of 2.5 cm (~0.98 in) - only the MSI GS73VR 7RG (19.6 mm / 0.77 in) and the Razer Blade Pro (22.5 mm / 0.88 in) are slimmer. The weight is average at 3.0 kg (~ 6.6 lbs). This is a little too heavy to carry about regularly, so users who travel a lot might want to choose a lighter 15-inch device.

Apart from the missing Thunderbolt 3 port, the Defiance IV has a very good port selection. It offers a total of five USB 3.0 / 3.1 gen 1 ports (4x Type-A, 1x Type-C), which is just as generous for a gaming notebook as the three digital image output connectors (2x Mini-DisplayPort, 1x HDMI) and three audio jacks (headphones, microphone, S/PDIF). Last but not least, the device has an RJ45 port, a card reader and a Kensington lock connector.

The distribution of the ports is not quite as pleasing. Many ports are placed towards the front of the two sides, which can make it difficult to use a mouse without colliding with connected cables. We would have preferred a stronger focus on the back for port positioning.

The card reader not only supports the usual formats (SD, Mini-SD, SDHC and SDXC) but also supports the more unusual MMC and RSMMC versions. We would also like to compliment the Defiance IV on its first-class performance in this area. Only the MSI GS73VR 7RG can keep up with a sequential read rate of 207 MB/s, and 179 MB/s when transferring photos (which was measured with our reference card from Toshiba). Most gaming notebooks only manage USB 3.0 speeds (about 100 MB/s) or USB 2.0 speeds (about 30 MB/s).

Our device is equipped with the Wi-Fi module Intel Wireless AC 8265 for wireless communication. It supports 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac as well as Bluetooth 4.2. The device received varying results in our range test, which is done at one meter distance to the reference router Linksys EA8500. While it only managed an average 436 Mbit/s when sending, it reached a great speed of 680 Mbit/s when receiving.

The operating system is free from annoying bloatware, which is great. However, PC Specialist almost exaggerated its slim setup. We could not find a program to adapt keyboard backlighting nor software for the Creative sound system. These tools are probably available on the driver DVD.

Great news: PC Specialist sends a Windows DVD with its device, which is becoming more and more uncommon and makes reinstalling the operating system a lot easier. A 200-watt power supply takes care of the Defiance IV's energy needs. The power supply weighs 843 grams (~1.8 lbs).

Like most gaming notebooks, maintenance work is done by coming in from the bottom of the base unit. After removing various screws from the device, the entire cover can be lifted up. Below, you have access to the slots for storage devices, two DDR4 RAM slots, the wireless module, battery and cooling system, which is made up of three fans (two for the GPU, one for the CPU) and several heat pipes. Please be aware that as the processor and graphics chips are soldered onto the motherboard, it is not possible to upgrade these later on. The keyboard, on the other hand, can be exchanged.

PC Specialist offers a generous warranty. Three years is very unusual in the notebook segment, although the 36 months is only valid for labor. Parts have a warranty of two years. You can extend the collect-and-return warranty from one month to 12 or 24 months for an additional fee. You can also additionally choose a dead-pixel warranty. Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

The 17-inch device is equipped with a matte 120-Hz panel (CMN N173HHE-G32), which is also used in the MSI GS72VR-7RG. The main advantages of a TN panel are the low response times. 9 ms black-to-white and 28.8 ms gray-to-gray are not available to notebooks with IPS technology.

The Defiance IV does not offer Nvidia's image optimization technology G-Sync. Instead, PC Specialist has given the 17-inch device Nvidia's Optimus technology. This technology switches from the GeForce GPU to the integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 when possible, which saves energy and is also good news for emissions.

With its NVMe SSD and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, the Defiance IV can be considered a high-end device. The quad-core processor should have enough reserves for the next few years, but things might get a little tighter for the graphics card - at least if you want to continue playing in high to maximum details and would like to connect a QHD or 4K display in the future.

But back to the Core i7-7700HQ. The quad-core processor, manufactured in the 14 nm process, is equipped with 6 MB of L3 cache and it reaches a clock rate of 2.8 - 3.8 GHz under load. There were no anomalies during the CPU benchmarks. The performance of the Defiance IV is similar to that of other 7700HQ notebooks.

We tested how the clock rate changes over a longer period of time by running the Multi Core test from Cinebench R15. As long as only the processor is under load, the Core i7-7700HQ's Turbo Boost can reach its full potential. You can see very well from the graphs below that the results are all constant.

The system performance of the Defiance IV is also similar to that of its competition. In the Work test of PCMark 8, our test unit even almost made first place among its comparison devices. Only the MSI GS73VR 7RG performed a little better.

The 17-inch device does not lack slots for storage devices. The gaming notebook can be equipped with a 2.5-inch hard drive and up to two M.2 SSDs. In our case, the test unit came with a Samsung PM961 - an NVMe SSD with 256 GB of storage. This performs a lot better than some of the comparison devices' SSDs. The biggest difference in performance is to the MSI GS73VR 7RG. The test configuration from Xotic PC was equipped with a SATA III SSD. The Samsung PM951 (Razer Blade Pro) and Intel SSD 600p (Acer V17 Nitro) are also left behind by our fast SSD - although you are not likely to notice the difference in everyday use.

The graphics card that PC Specialist has chosen is based on Nvidia's Pascal generation. While the GeForce GTX 1070 with 8 GB of GDDR5 VRAM is also suitable for 2560x1440 pixels, the GeForce GTX 1060 with 6 GB GDDR5 VRAM is make with Full HD in mind. Our test unit is equipped with the cheaper DirectX 12 chip. At first glance, the 3D performance was as expected. Both in 3DMark 11 and in the Fire Strike test from 3DMark 13, the Defiance IV was a few percent faster than the Acer V17 Nitro and Razer Blade Pro. Notebooks based on the GTX 1070 are 24% (Max-Q) and 50% (Non-Max-Q) faster.

Unfortunately, the Defiance IV slipped up during our long The Witcher 3 benchmark, which runs for 60 minutes at 1920x1080 pixels and maximum details. Like the 15-inch barebone equivalent P950HP6 (Guru Fire KS), the PA71HP6 case cannot keep its clock rate steady during maximum GPU load. However, in this case it is not the GPU, but the CPU that throttles, which is rather peculiar. Instead of reaching a clock rate of 2.8 to 3.8 GHz, the Core i7-7700HQ only manages 16 - 2.8 GHz during some 3D applications, which has a varying impact on performance.   

Of 10 tested games, five showed a lower frame rate by about 10% than on other GTX 1060 laptops (Star Wars Battlefront 2, Need for Speed Payback, Assassin's Creed Origins, Destiny 2, The Evil Within 2). In FIFA 18, the drop in performance even reaches 25%. Games that use hardly any processing power and/or are limited to the GPU (Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Call of Duty WWII, Elex & The Witcher 3, for example) all run at normal frame rates.

The GeForce GTX 1060 has no throttling problems. Thanks to automatic GPU overclocking, which is similar to Intel's Turbo Boost, the actual clock rate is often a lot higher than the base clock rate of 1455 MHz. The Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark, for example, measured an average clock rate of 1680 MHz, which is very decent. The GPU-Z render test of the GTX 1060 showed up to 1900 MHz. Due to the problems with the CPU, we cannot understand how Clevo can offer this barebone with a Core i7-7820HK and GeForce GTX 1070, as this combination tends to throttle even without 3D load.

With or without instable clock rates: This CPU/GPU combination is a good starting point for the Full HD display. Although it only rarely reaches 120 Hz at high settings, most games are still displayed smoothly. The Defiance IV only reaches its limits during very demanding games at maximum settings.

If you do not want to make any compromises concerning image quality, you should take a look at notebooks with the GeForce GTX 1070 (Max-Q) or the GTX 1080 (Max-Q). Particularly the GTX 1080 might be worth a 120 Hz screen, as long as it is not in QHD or UHD.

The notebook becomes very loud under load, however. 46 dB (The Witcher 3) and a maximum of 50 dB (stress test) are above average and force sensitive users to resort to headphones. But all things considered, system noise really is OK.

The temperature situation inside the case is interesting. According to the HWMonitor tool, the GeForce GTX 1060 only reaches 78 °C (~172 °F) under full load, while the Core i7-7700HQ reaches between 90 and 98 °C (~194-208 °F). The fact that the CPU does not throttle in this case (despite seemingly higher load) must be due to a bug. As soon as Prime 95 is activated, Furmark cannot reach the full GPU potential in some notebooks.

The sound quality is mediocre. According to our audio analysis, the 2.1 system, which is made up of two speakers and one subwoofer, can play highs quite nicely while there is still room for improvement for middle and bass frequencies. Subjectively, we were not particularly convinced by the device's sound as movies, games and music sound rather tinny and unbalanced. But this can be said for almost every gaming notebook. From our comparison field, only the Acer V17 Nitro offers noticeably better sound. The MSI GS73VR 7RG has the worst speakers, which are below what you would expect for that price.

Frequency diagram in comparison (checkboxes can be turned on/off!)

The graphics-switching technology means that the device requires a lot less power while idling. 9-21 watts is significantly less than the average consumption of a gaming notebook with G-Sync. Under load, the Defiance IV has very similar rates (88-160 watts) to the GTX 1060 competitors MSI GS73VR 7RG (88-161 watts) and Acer V17 Nitro (91-155 watts). The 200-watt power supply offers sufficient power.

The device has good battery runtimes thanks to Optimus technology. It lasted 4:56 hours while playing HD videos, which, for a powerful high-end notebook, is just as great as its 4:57 hours of surfing on Wi-Fi (average brightness). When the notebook is under very low load and set to the lowest brightness level, the 4-cell battery (66 Wh) can even last up to 7:37 hours - which is a decent result. When running 3D applications at full brightness, the 17-inch device needs to reconnect to the power supply after 1:54 hours, so gaming on battery is only limited. Performance dropped from an average 39 fps to 16-32 fps during the The Witcher 3 test and the frame rate fluctuated a lot.