Review Clevo W670SJQ (Nexoc M731) Barebones Notebook

The Taiwanese gaming expert Clevo was pretty adventuresome with its W670SJQ barebone in terms of design (the construction follows a more classic design). Even though the plastic surfaces have a glossy finish, they do not really attract a lot of dirt. At least subjectively, you can only see the fingerprints at a closer inspection.

Compared to the more powerful W370SS barebone (Nexoc G728II with GTX 860M), the W670SJQ is around 8 millimeters thinner, but weighs pretty much the same. Almost 3.1 kilograms are neither very heavy nor very light for a gaming device. If you prefer a compact chassis, you should either get the MS-1771 chassis from MSI (GS70, Schenker XMG C703, Medion Erazer X7611) or a smaller notebook. The 15-inch barebone sibling W650SJ (Schenker M504) only weighs around 2.5 kilograms.

The M731 is decent in regard to the stability. Except for the lid and the optical drive, which can be – typically for notebooks – pushed in or twisted, respectively, the chassis is pretty torsion-resistant. Clevo should definitely improve the hinges, despite the firm construction (you need both hands to open the lid), they cannot prevent display bouncing during vibrations.

Build quality and the quality of the materials are average. Nothing speaks against a purchase if you can live with some small issues (some gaps are not consistent). Nobler solutions would be the Asus N750 and HP Envy 17, for instance.

Software

Similar to the German notebook rivals Schenker and One, Nexoc does not install any bloat ware. The Windows installation is completely clean.

Scope of Delivery

The Bavarian manufacturer is also very restrained in terms of accessories. Quick start guide, driver DVD and Nero 12 Essentials: That's about it, although there is obviously also a battery (6 cells, 326 grams) and the power adaptor (120 Watts, 462 grams).

Warranty

Nexoc grants a warranty of two years, which can be extended to three years for an additional 65 Euros. A 72-hour service (12 months, +20 Euros) and a Pickup service (24 months, +25 Euros) are available as well.

Contrary to the W370SS barebone, the W670SJQ is equipped with an illuminated keyboard (two stages). The white background lighting is not very bright, but using the keyboard in dark environments is still no problem.

The chiclet keyboard also leaves a decent impression in the other categories. Thanks to the small spacing, the 15 x 15 millimeters large keys appear very clear. Clevo reduced the size of the 0 from the numeric keypad to include normal sized arrow keys. Otherwise the layout is pretty standard, which cannot be said about the other barebones (see P170SM or P177SM).

Great: As usual, you can control several features via Fn-combinations, for instance the touchpad, the display, the sound, the webcam or the wireless module. Typing experience and acoustics seem to be okay, although there is still room for improvement. All in all, the keyboard gets a good rating.

Processor is either a dual-core or quad-core model from Intel's Haswell generation. Although a dual-core from the i5-series would be sufficient for the GeForce GTX 850M (more on that later), Nexoc decided to equip our review unit with a powerful high-end CPU.

Considering the six MB L3 cache and the clock of 2.8-3.8 GHz, the Core i7-4810MQ is one of the most powerful CPUs in general. Similar to its smaller (and usually significantly less expensive) siblings, the 4810MQ is manufactured in 22 nm. The TDP is specified with 47 Watts, which is around 30 percent above the dual-core versions.

Another important component is the integrated graphics card. The HD Graphics 4600 is not really fast compared to the GTX 850M, but it helps improving the power consumption with simple tasks like office, video playback or web browsing. Clevo included the support for switchable graphics for this purpose.

The GeForce GTX 850M is based on Nvidia's brand-new Maxwell architecture. 640 Unified Shader are similar to the GTX 860M, but Nvidia reduced the clock.

The big performance difference is mainly caused by the memory type. The GTX 850M usually only has DDR3 instead of GDDR5 video memory, which, in combination with the small interface (128-bit), can result in performance limitations. The amount of memory itself is sufficient; 2,048 MB should be enough for a while.

Although some specifications remind us of the predecessor, the GeForce GTX 850M does not have a lot in common with the GT 750M. Main difference is the significantly higher number of shaders. Nvidia equips the GTX 850M with around two thirds more CUDA cores (hardly comparable because of the new architecture). The manufacturing process on the other hand did not change: 28 nm are the current standard for graphics cards.

A few more words about the automatic overclocking: As you can see in the right screenshot and in the Temperature section, the GTX 850M always works with its maximum clock (the tool GPU-Z shows 1,084 MHz). We used the preloaded driver version 332.35.

Similar to the Nexoc G728II, the M731 also has a combination of an mSATA SSD and a 2.5-inch hard drive. Let’s start with the solid state drive, which is once again provided by the company Mushkin.

Unfortunately, the Atlas MKNSSDAT240GB shows the same issues that we already determined in the review of the G728II. The performance varies a lot depending on the benchmark run. We suspected an hardware error in the case of the 17-inch sibling, but the SSD gets very hot even during light workloads (more than 60 °C according to CPUID HWMonitor and HDTune) and the status LED of the M731 is red as well, so we think the drive may suffer from insufficient cooling. Maybe Nexoc should change the SSD manufacturer.

To reduce the temperatures (keyword fan activity) and achieve the highest results, we stressed the CPU and the GPU before the final benchmarks. Almost 396 MB/s for sequential reading and 204 MB/s for sequential writing are still average at best. It is the similar situation with the access times: 0.158 and 0.344 ms, respectively, are clearly beaten by most rivals. AS SSD only determined an overall score of 479; good solid state drives manage at least 700 points.

Our review unit is also equipped with an SSHD, a hybrid drive. Thanks to the flash memory and the large capacity, the moderate speed (5,400 rpm) of the Seagate ST1000LM014 does not have such a big effect on the performance compared to conventional HDDs. Hybrid drives have to get used to the system before they achieve their maximum performance, which is also supported by CrystalDiskMark. The sequential read speed, for instance, jumped from 68 to 86 MB/s after three benchmark runs; the sequential writing performance on the other hand immediately climbed to 110 MB/s.

The M731 handled our gaming benchmarks pretty well. The performance of the DirectX-11 chip is usually not sufficient for maximum details and 4x MSAA, but high settings and 2x Anti Aliasing are often smooth – even in the native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels (the »High« benchmarks were performed with 1366x768 pixels). We recommend a lower resolution for more demanding titles like Crysis 3, Hitman: Absolution or Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Our chart below the verdict shows that it does not really matter if you use the GeForce GTX 850M with a dual-core or a quad-core processor, and the subjective advantage or disadvantage, respectively, is very small if the frame rate should differ.

Overall, the DDR3 version of the GTX 850M is around 4 % faster than a GTX 765M and 80 % faster than its GT 750M counterpart. However, the M731 cannot keep up with GTX 860M notebooks; the Maxwell sibling has an advantage of up to 70 % in games (average: +36 %).

Temperatures are decent for a gaming notebook. We can measure up to 49 °C at the left side of the case under maximum load, but an average result of 39 °C (top) and 35 °C (bottom), respectively, is reasonable.

The latter attribute also applies for idle operation. After an idle period of two hours, the notebook leveled off at around 31 °C. The M731 would have got a better rating if the palm rest was cooler (up to 40 °C).

A look at the components shows that the CPU is once again hot-headed. HWMonitor indicated around 90-95 °C during the stress test, despite the deactivated Turbo Boost. The GeForce GTX 850M only warmed up to 83 °C.

The gaming device is powered by a 6-cell battery with 62 Wh that provides reasonable but not very long battery runtimes. Around three hours DVD playback with the maximum display brightness should be sufficient for most movies.

The Reader’s test of Battery Eater, which just simulates the reading of a text document, determined a runtime of almost 4.5 hours. Using the maximum brightness and more demanding applications results in a runtime of two hours at best.

All things considered, the Nexoc M731 is a reasonable and conveniently fast all-round notebook that can fill the gap between multimedia and gaming.

Both gamers and movie enthusiasts will be happy about the high-contrast display. We also have to praise the efficiency of the GeForce GTX 850M, Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture once again shows a very balanced performance. Furthermore, you get a nice background illumination for the keyboard and a comprehensive maintainability.

The rating of the M731 in other areas is just average. Besides the port layout and the touchpad, the manufacturer could improve the sound as well as the battery runtimes, and not every user will like the glossy plastic chassis.

Barebone manufacturer Clevo will have to improve some details if they want to compete with the best devices on the market. Possible alternatives, if you can sacrifice some performance, would be the Asus N750, HP Envy 17, Dell Inspiron 7737 or Samsung Chronos 770Z7E.