Origin PC Shows Off High-End Notebooks and the “Not-a-Steam-Machine” Omega

CES now over, which means for a lot of the editors we can finally sit down and write about some of the stuff we saw during the week. If you follow me on Twitter, you were able to see a bunch of the products I looked at in pseudo-real-time, but Tweet limitations mean there’s often far more to be said. So rolling back to last Wednesday, let’s go over my meeting with Origin PC.

This was the first time I was able to go hands on with the new Clevo laptops. The designs have been updated since the last generation, with some minor to moderate tweaks in terms of aesthetics. Perhaps more importantly, they Clevo ditched the awful (IMO) trackpads from the last generation, so there’s no “tribal tattoo” this time.

For the mainstream mobile segment, Origin was showing the Clevo P650SG, which they call the EON15-S. It’s the update to the P150SM more or less, with support for up to GTX 980M. This is still running Intel’s HM87 Mobile Haswell platform, but of course standard voltage and quad-core Broadwell hasn’t launched yet so that’s to be expected at the high-end. The CPU is the i7-4720HQ, and the chassis has support for two M.2 SATA drives (or two M.2 PCIe drives) along with two 2.5” drive bays.

Origin also says the laptop has “4K gaming support with 4K Ready external display”; 3K and 4K 15.6” displays are available on the market, but for now it doesn’t appear Origin will be offering the EON15-S with those; I believe the included 1080p display was wide viewing angle at least, which is likely sufficient for most users. I didn’t have a lot of time to really get a feel for the laptop, but while the keyboard looks pretty much unchanged the touchpad was much more responsive than the last P157SM that I tested, and it is using a Synaptics touchpad. The new EON15-S is also 36% thinner (1.13”) and 25% lighter (5.5 lbs.) than the previous model, which is a welcome change.

For those who are looking for extreme performance, Origin PC has two new notebooks that have desktop CPUs, including support for the Devil’s Canyon i7-4790K. Origin calls these the 15.6” EON15-X and the 17.3” EON17-X, and they use the Clevo P750ZM and P770ZM, respectively. Overclocking is apparently supported, but only up to 4.5 gigahertz – though that is on all four CPU cores. Of course battery life will take a hit, with or without overclocking, so these are very much transportable laptops rather than something that you could use unplugged for a long period of time.

Other features are similar to the P650SG: dual M.2 PCIe drives with dual 2.5” drives for HDD/SDD use. The laptops all support four SO-DIMMs for up to 32GB RAM, and Origin plans to ship 1080p IPS displays in these systems (though it might take a bit longer to get in sufficient supply of the 17.3” IPS displays; the model they showed was still using a TN panel). Also note that all three models have dropped support for optical drives, so if you need an optical drive you’ll have to look at other options. The EON15-X measures 1.4” thick and weighs 7.49 lbs. so it’s not exactly light, but it is a reduction compared to the previous model. EON17-X meanwhile sees some larger changes, reducing the thickness by 37.5% (1.52” thick now) and it weighs 8.59 lbs. All of the EON notebooks also support full color configurable RGB zoned backlighting.

Origin also carries MSI based laptops now, with Origin PC branding. They had the new GS60 based notebook on display, the EVO15-S, sporting the GTX 970M. This model was also equipped with a 4K 3840×2160 panel, which is one step up from the 2880×1620 model I reviewed last year. I don’t expect cooling and battery life has improved much since the 870M MSI variant I tested, though it’s possible firmware tweaks have helped. Regardless, this is still a nice looking notebook and the 970M should offer more performance with perhaps slightly lower power requirements.

All of these notebooks are available for order now and should ship in the near future. Origin PC systems tend to cost a lot of money and they list the starting price at around $1850; that includes the 980M on the new EON15-S, but that’s with 8GB RAM and a 500GB HDD. A single 480GB PCIe SSD and 16GB DDR3-1600 (and no HDD) will result in a price of $2406. As for the EON15-X, the base price includes the 970M and an i5-4460S, which seems pointless as anyone after a desktop processor will probably want something significantly faster than mobile options. With a 980M, 16GB RAM, 480GB PCIe SSD, and an i7-4790K, the price jumps to $2874. The EON17-X is slightly more at $2906 with the same components, though again note that the display at this time isn’t an IPS panel.

In short, Origin PC provides a premium laptop experience for dedicated gamers that have enough cash to afford the fastest systems. Origin does offer some free aesthetic alterations to their notebooks at least (multiple colors are available for the top cover) and they provide lifetime 24/7 US-based phone technical support for customers. Laptops that support overclocking also receive “free” professional tuning, though I personally am hesitant to recommend overclocking of any laptop as they already tend to run hot and loud with this level of performance; YMMV.

One final item to quickly mention is the upcoming Origin Omega. This was previously supposed to be a Steam Machine when Valve first launched the platform, but delays to the Steam Machine platform (ostensibly due to controller modifications) have delayed that long enough that many companies are choosing to ship the PCs with Windows. That’s the situation with the Omega, a system with support for liquid cooling and up to two GTX 980 or Titan Black GeForce cards in SLI. Pricing will depend heavily on the configuration, with availability planned for this quarter.

Gallery: Origin PC Shows Off High-End Notebooks and the “Not-a-Steam-Machine” Omega

AORUS Notebooks Updated with New X5 and X3 Plus

If you think the rather subdued (some might even go so far as to say drab or boring) Gigabyte gaming notebooks aren’t for you, the company has their AORUS brand to perhaps win you over. These feature much more aggressive styling and definitely go for the gamer vibe, with a black and angular “stealth” aesthetic. AORUS was launched last year as a high performance gaming notebook brand, and over the year we’ve seen a few updates. Initially consisting of the X7 model with SLI, AORUS has now been expanded with both 13.9” X3 and 15.6” X5 models. The latter is the latest and greatest, with some impressive specs as well.

The AORUS X5 starts out with NVIDIA’s new GTX 965M, which was rather quietly released at this CES on Tuesday. It’s basically a trimmed down version of the GM204 chip, coming in slightly below the GTX 970M in terms of performance but with a lower price as well. Except, the AORUS X5 has not one but two GTX 965M GPUs in SLI, pushing performance above the level of a single GTX 980M in some benchmarks. I’ll admit that I’m not really a huge fan of SLI laptops, as I’d rather have the best single GPU solution available before shifting to SLI, and the price isn’t really any lower than laptops with a single GTX 980M (e.g. Gigabyte’s own P35X v3). Still, for those times where SLI works as it should, there’s a bit of extra performance available and spreading the heat between two GPUs may have some minor benefits.

Perhaps more important than the SLI 965M however is the use of a 4K display, and an IGZO panel at that. IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) is a superior alternative to normal Zinc Oxide TFT LCDs. The basic summary is that IGZO generally allows for brighter and better images while using less power, but the cost is higher as well. Needless to say, the display looks quite stunning and while even SLI 965M might struggle to run a lot of games at native 4K with maximum details, for video and multimedia use in particular 4K can be great. Note that there is a non-4K display option as well, for those that don’t need (or want to pony up for) 4K.

The AORUS X5 weighs 2.5kg and is still only 22.9mm thick, which is impressive considering the hardware packed inside. The X5 supports up to three M.2 SSDs in RAID 0 with a 2.5” bay as well. It also has four SO-DIMM slots, supporting up to 32GB of RAM. MSRP ranges from $2299-$2799 depending on configuration. Availability however isn’t expected until Q2, 2015, so if you want the X5 you’re going to have to wait a few more months.

Stepping down a bit in size we have the other new AORUS, the X3 Plus. According to Gigabyte, this is the world’s lightest gaming laptop with a GTX 970M, and it tips the scales at just 1.87kg (4.11 lbs). That’s not actually a true statement, then, as Gigabyte’s own P34W weighs a bit less (1.71kg), but we’ll let it slide. As with the X5, the X3 Plus features an IGZO display, this time a 13.9” IPS QHD+ (3200×1800) resolution panel. It looks great in person, and with the slightly smaller chassis in many ways it’s the most compelling of the AORUS offerings. It also includes up to 3xmSATA SSDs in RAID 0 (and no HDD). Pricing is set at $2199 with availability set for this month.

Finally, the AORUS X7 Pro launched in late 2014, sporting SLI GTX 970M graphics. Other than the larger chassis and scree, most of the specs are similar to the X5 – three mSATA drives in RAID 0, a single 2TB HDD, and four SO-DIMM slots for up to 32GB RAM. Again I applaud the fact that Gigabyte has managed to source an IPS (or PLS or UHVA?) panel for the X7 Pro, as finding IPS 17.3” displays can be rather difficult. Gigabyte is doing the right thing with their high-end laptops by simply avoiding any budget TN panels, and I wish more gaming notebooks would follow their example. Performance of the SLI 970M should be faster than any other gaming notebook other than those with SLI 980M (Gigabyte claims 30% better performance than a single 980M), and with a weight of 3.0kg (6.6 lbs) this is lighter than any other 17.3” gaming notebook that comes to mind. The X7 Pro is already available with an MSRP of $2599.

All of the updated AORUS notebooks appear to use Intel 4th Generation Core i7 Haswell processors, though AORUS didn’t indicate which specific CPUs are being used. Given the dimensions, we’re probably looking at the HQ series of processors, but I’ve asked for additional details and will update this when I have them.

In addition to the AORUS laptops, Gigabyte is also making additional gaming products under the AORUS brand, including a keyboard, mouse, and backpack. Note that unlike the Gigabyte notebooks, AORUS laptops do not support NVIDIA’s Optimus Technology for switchable graphics – though that’s not an option for the SLI models. I believe that manual switching is available, and for gaming notebooks it’s probably not a huge deal. All of the AORUS laptops also feature a block of macro keys on the left side of the keyboard. We’ll hopefully be able to review some of the AORUS models in the coming months as they become available.

Gallery: AORUS Notebooks Updated with New X5 and X3 Plus