Origin EON17-SLX review: It sets new records, but calling it a laptop is a stretch - munizearand1971

Seventeen inches wide. Thomas More than 10 pounds of heft. A socketed Core i7 Skylake CPU and a desktop GTX 980 card crammed inside. More graphics horsepower than any laptop we've ever tried. When does a laptop end to be a laptop? Origin's EON17-SLX might cost the solution.

Intent

Origin has never shied away from sacrificing portability connected the altar of power. I should know—I hauled an Line of descent laptop some for about a year and a half until I traded it for something a bit more back-friendly.

The EON17-SLX carries along Origin's proud tradition of making weightlift/laptop hybrids with a 16.8 x 12 x 1.8-inch chassis, and a (literally) staggering 10.5-pounds of weight. And that's not numeration the power brick cinderblock, which adds another three pounds to the total.

I'm typewriting this review on a dainty 970M-visored MSI laptop—you could able-bodied two of these wrongthe EON17-SLX, with room to spare.

The result is a laptop computer in name. You could tote the EON17-SLX around. You could function the EON17-SLX happening your lap. Just woe unto those WHO try. This is a automobile meant for sitting on a desk. It might as well have a "Move only just in case of emergencies" stumper on the outside.

That being said, it's absolutely offenseless once you find a home for it. Tasteless, if you're feeling less charitable. Design has ne'er been Extraction's exact to renown and the company has yet again made a laptop computer that's more serviceable than stunning. Blood has clearly usurped some cues from Alienware, embedding two angular, color-changing LEDs in the lid. Just other than that, it's a pretty generic-looking chassis. A chunky rectangle. A black box.

Level if you spring for colored metal (an extra $225) Beaver State a impost paintjob (an additional $299), the EON17-SLX lacks the immediately identifiable cues of something like the Razer Sword operating theatre Alienware 17—which is a pity, given how often Origin's machines cost. I'd gestate an above-average invention.

And I hoped for a bit more inside, too. The IPS display is G-Sync equipped, but its 1920×1080 resolution is a moment surprising presumption that's now the baseline for gaming laptops. I would've likely leastways the option to go up to 1440p, if non 4K. The same goes for its 75Hz freshen rate—perfectly fine, just not imposing.

Still, color reproduction and contrast are on Beaver State slightly above medium, straight-grained with the projection screen's matte finish, and I didn't detect any major issues. It's just a shame that Origin didn't include a screen that matches the rig's carrying out-oriented components.

Down from the cover, tucked into the upper right-hand and left corners, are two top-mounted and extremely loudly speakers. They're heavy on the threefold (especially as you increase the volume) so I wouldn't necessarily commend serious gaming on them, simply in a pinch they bequeath fill a room—and then some. Even at 50 percent, the EON17-SLX was most Eastern Samoa loud as I keep the speakers for my desktop system.

You sustain plenty of options for speakers, though. Quaternary ports connected the left side let you to practice anything from a standard parallel headphone OR microphone to a full 7.1 setup if you'd like. Also on the left are tierce USB 3.0 ports and two gigabit ethernet inputs. The right side plays horde to other USB 3.0 left, a USB-C Thunderbolt port, two DisplayPort outputs, and an SD card reader. And on the back repose the force larboard, another USB 3.0 porthole, and HDMI-out. Phew.

Rounding out the design are a noteworthy keyboard and a considerable touchpad. The keyboard is a high point, with slightly more move around than is found on other laptops. Spell it's a bit less crisp than your average scissor switch board, the excess room to maneuver meant my wrists/fingers felt inferior fatigued after long bouts of typing. My only issue is that there's an aberrant amount of space between the keys, due to some beveling.

The touchpad, on the other hand, could use more bodily definition to lay down its presence Thomas More obvious. IT's fairly humongous but stacked to blend right into the rest of the laptop, which can be awkward at dark. I too needed to crank the sensitivity a couple of notches, merely that was an easy bushel. It's not all no-good, though: Physical mouse buttons are always a plus in my book, and the fingerprint sensor in the middle is easy to ignore if (like me) you don't care well-nig that feature.

Functioning

But who cares about the purpose? We'Re here because Origin promised desktop-level performance in a portable machine, and hot blessed did it deliver.

To recapitulation, the EON17-SLX contains both a desktop CPU and a screen background-performance GPU—an Intel Core i7-6700K and a GTX 980 in our model, to be exact. What's more, the Core i7-6700K we tested came overclocked at a zippy and unchanging 4.5GHz. Dead extraordinary.

Our model also boasted 16GB of DDR4/2133 RAM (though you can opt for up to 64GB if you're brainsick) and ii drives—a 256GB Samsung 950 Pro PCIe m.2 drive and a 1TB 5,400rpm HDD. If you want to splurge you can opt for two m.2 drives and two 2TB Samsung 850 Professional SSDs (with the latter costing nigh $1,000 a pop).

IT's a hell of very much of fancy hardware, with our model forthcoming in just north of $3,000. Which—you're right—is an insane amount of money to pay for a laptop. Simply World Health Organization am I to estimate?

Operation is fitly incredible regardless, chewing through our benchmark suite and putt other laptops to shame. In PCMark 8, for representativ, the EON17-SLX set awake a Work Conventional score of 4,320. That hands down beats out MSI's GT72S Dragon, which also featured a GeForce GTX 980 part (though a Core i7-6700HQ mobile processor).

We also ran our standard Handbrake encode test, taking a 30GB MKV file and running it through Handbrake's Android Tab preset. With Root's 4.5GHz overclock, Handbrake finished encoding the file in a record 38 minutes and 22 seconds, or 2,302 seconds total. That mark takes a torch to the mobile quad cores we've seen running Broadwell and Skylake chips.

And when it came to graphics, the EON17-SLX put up a blazing score of 6,021 in 3DMark's FireStrike Extreme test. That conveniently outstrips the GT72S's 5,606 score and beats our GTX 980-equipped PCWorld Zero Bespeak background.

Substantial-ma performance is similarly amazing—112.8 frames per second in Grave Raider on Final (versus 100.1 for the GT72S) and 100.3 in Shadow of Mordor on Extremist with the 4K texture pack installed (95.4 for the GT72S).

The only downside to completely of this muscle: heating plant. A lot of it. Day-to-daylight web and piece of writing use up is fine, but start gaming and you'll hear the fans spin up. Maybe the speakers are so loud because they need to drown out the jet engine roar of this organisation under load.

The upgrade factor

It has desktop parts. It has desktop carrying out. But does it wealthy person a screen background's signature upgradability?

Most of the time we'd accept that the answer is "No" and progress, just we were intrigued by the EON17-SLX's use of a socketed CPU. Provided it was easily accessible, that would technically allow for desktop-esque upgrades.

We cracked it open and…

Sure enough, IT looks like you can remove the CPU heatsink with four or five screws, with the socket well accessible underneath. We stopped disassembling here, but as long as Intel's next processors use the same socket and are compatible with the chipset and BIOS, you could technically upgrade the EON17-SLX's processor.

A closer look. You can see the arm for the CPU socket peaking out from under the heat pipe.

Instantly, would you ever do that? Probably not. The Core i7-6700K is already a top-of-the-pedigree chip, and IT's doubtful you'd see a tangible boost from any upgrade before Intel changes its CPU socket once more.

But the point is you can upgrade, and oftentimes with a PC, having the option is more beta than taking advantage of it.

Bottom cable

The EON17-SLX is the most desktop-y laptop to ever follow through and through PCWorld. Sure, you can physique an actual desktop for cheaper—my colleague Gordon Ung peacenik into that math when he reviewed MSI's similarly stacked GT72S. But that shouldn't accept by from Origin's accomplishments hither, especially because the desktop/laptop price disparity isn't as high as you might think.

Perchance you travel a lot, maybe you'rhenium a game developer in need of a seaborne exhibit station, or perchance you've righteous got money to hurl around. In this encase, the EON17-SLX is a damn impressive piece of engineering and well deserving a look. Vindicatory make predestined you've been doing rearmost exercises before you cull out nonpareil up.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/419662/origin-eon17-slx-review-it-sets-new-records-but-calling-it-a-laptop-is-a-stretch.html

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