Reviews - XMG P303 Pro

[HEXUS]

Clevo W230ST arrives on UK shores as the XMG P303 Pro.

Read more.

[imshimaru]

on seeing the back open my first thought was that the cpu and gpu share 1 heatpipe and fan. This kind of engineering led to GPU throttling for heat reasons on some of the smaller alienwares. I'm not sure they could have squeezed an alternative in but it my be worth more investigation if you're tempted by this.

[CampGareth]

on seeing the back open my first thought was that the cpu and gpu share 1 heatpipe and fan. This kind of engineering led to GPU throttling for heat reasons on some of the smaller alienwares. I'm not sure they could have squeezed an alternative in but it my be worth more investigation if you're tempted by this.

They have one heatpipe each, but they are linked. There's a similar setup in my laptop which is the 11.6" predecessor to this one and I can tell you that these things run hot! Even now I've applied a bios that undervolts the GPU (so less heat generated) I'm getting temperatures of 80-90C on the CPU when it's under full load. I don't know what the GPU did run at but now it tends to top out at 65-70C.

Unfortunately on release Clevo systems seem to have issues, for instance I bought this about a year down the line from release and it's had about 50% extra battery life added through bios updates, along with a smoother fan profile and better performance as it doesn't disable turboboost on the CPU when the dGPU kicks in. Heck we even found an IPS display for it since 11.6" TN LVDS displays are pretty naff.

The turboboost thing isn't an issue on this particular Clevo, and you can undervolt the CPU a little since this is a Haswell system, but you'll be waiting a while until the fan profile and battery life get improved.

[johnnyringo]

I also have the previous iteration like CampGareth, the w110er. All of his points are spot on. The weakest part, which the new w230st addresses (the screen) sounds great. CampGareth- where did you find and IPS for the w110er? I thought the video connection prevented a different type of screen? would LOVE to swap out for a nice 11" matte IPS. then this little beast would be close to perfect!