Mythlogic Pollux 1613 / Clevo P157SM Review

Mythlogic Pollux 1613 / Clevo P157SM: Much Improved

The last round of Ivy Bridge notebooks often felt like most of the vendors were simply phoning it in with hardware and component upgrades but no fundamental changes. Alienware had the M17x R4, which was identical to the R3 other than the chipset, CPU, and GPU options; most of the Clevo builds fell into a similar state of affairs. With the Haswell laptops, most things have remained similar to the previous generation Clevo notebooks, but at least my biggest complaint (the keyboard layout, and in particular the 10-key) has been addressed. Couple that with cooling that gets the job done much better than the MSI GT70, and the only real drawback is lower battery life than some alternatives, and potentially the aesthetics; both of these are typically not primary factors for gaming notebooks.

Note that the carbon fiber adhesive from Mythlogic tends to scratch easily.

After seeing CPU temperatures hit 95C+ on the MSI GT70 with the GPU only a few degrees behind (on three different MSI GT70 notebooks), it’s clear that a single cooling fan isn’t going to handle all the heat of a high-end gaming notebook – at least, not without higher fan RPMs and/or a larger fan. For the P157SM, maximum gaming temperatures hit 65-80C on the CPU and 70-81C on the GPU, depending on the game. Stress testing with a CPU intensive application running alongside a game actually lowered the GPU temperatures slightly (68C max after more than an hour) while the CPU got hotter and topped out at 88C. That’s still warm, but we’re looking at a 10-20C delta compared to the GT70 in our stress testing. And again, I’ve confirmed the MSI temperatures that Dustin saw with two additional GT70 notebooks, so it’s not a fluke.

Since you’re likely to buy a big and bulky gaming notebook for the purpose of playing games, performance and cooling have to be two of the most critical factors – price, features, aesthetics, and other aspects all still play important roles but they’re generally not at the same level. This is where the P157SM delivers, and Mythlogic offers up a nicely customized build that hits all the right notes. The touchpad could have been better, but with a bit of tuning in the settings panel it’s not bad – just a bit less responsive than I’d like. The keyboard layout is also mostly good, with my only complaint being that I’m accustomed to the Fn key being on the left hand, and the touchpad being off-center from the space bar means I’m more likely to inadvertently brush it while typing (which is easy to overcome by disabling the touchpad via the Fn+F1 shortcut.

As far as the component choices go, this is also the type of configuration I’d recommend for most high-end users, with potentially a 1TB HDD for storage of larger files that don’t need fast access times (like movies, images, music, and possibly games depending on your own personal preference). The i7-4700MQ doesn’t seem to be quite fast enough to really get the most out of the GTX 780M, but at maximum detail it’s mostly splitting hairs – unless you’re a professional StarCraft II player, in which case the extra 10-20% increase in frame rates that you can get with an upgraded CPU might be worthwhile. Given the overall price, I’d be inclined to upgrade to the i7-4900MQ, or maybe just the i7-4800MQ, but it’s all relative. As for the storage, I’m sold on having a 512GB class SSD for your OS and “important” applications; some people would be fine with a 256GB or even 128GB OS drive coupled with a larger HDD, but I have enough applications and other items that I prefer more. And I love the fast WiFi speeds of 802.11ac, not to mention the fact that you’re less likely to have 30 networks contending with each other in urban environments…though it’s too bad the Intel adapter seems to lose the ability to communicate over 5GHz on occasion, requiring that you turn the WiFi off and then back on (Fn+F11).

The only real question – and one I don’t have an answer for yet, though Dustin is working on the review – is how the Alienware 17 stacks up to the new Clevo offerings. It will cost more, that’s for certain, but if it has a better display with similar cooling performance, there will be users that will prefer the Alienware design. What I do know is that Clevo trumps the MSI GT70 this round, and I hope all the decision makers and engineers start paying attention to cooling on systems that need it. It’s not enough to simply stay below Intel’s maximum rated temperatures, especially on a new notebook; it should be well below the 100C mark, as dust and other factors will only make things worse over time.

How does Mythlogic compare against other brands that have been around longer? If I take the baseline of an i7-4700MQ, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, GTX 780M, and a high gamut LCD as the configuration of choice, they do pretty well – particularly if we toss in the free color calibration. With that configuration and 802.11ac WiFi, the Pollux 1613 will run $2250. XoticPC with a 3% cash discount and their summer sale will run $2230, but you have to get a 2.5” SSD as the largest mSATA option they have is 256GB. Sager is basically the same, but they give you 16GB RAM for $2284. AVADirect has 512GB mSATA options, but they (currently) require a 2.5” drive as well; anyway, pricing there is currently $2367. There are other vendors as well, but pricing is all pretty similar to the ones I’ve already mentioned. My experience in communicating with Mythlogic over the course of the review was great, and they were always quick to respond to questions, but I can say the same for most of the boutique notebook vendors. Given that pricing is competitive and in many cases better than some of the alternatives, Mythlogic is definitely worth a serious look for anyone buying a new gaming notebook.