Origin EON17-S Gaming Notebook Review: Opening A Can Of RAID

Performance – Synthetic 3D, Game Benchmarks – Conclusion

Performance – Synthetic 3D

As usual, we’ll start our gaming tests by looking at synthetic performance using 3DMark 06 and 3DMark 11. 

Let’s take a moment here to really look at these results. The main competitor I’m interested in bring to your attention is the ASUS G75V. That laptop had a Nvidia GTX 670M, which proved to be competent, but not absolutely amazing. The GTX 675M is basically the same part with higher clock speeds and some more cores – and those additions really make the difference.

Performance in 3DMark 06 rose about 26% and in 3DMark 11 leaped about 28%. These improvements are enough to make the Origin EON17-S the quickest laptop we’ve ever ran through these benchmarks. 

Does this translate into incredible real-world gaming? Let’s find out.

Performance – Real World Gaming

First up is Dawn of War 2: Retribution. This older title should be no problem for a laptop like the Origin EON17-S, but let’s see just how little of a problem it is.

What we see here is a clear increase in perform. Any of these high-end gaming laptops can handle this game without much issue, so there’s effectively no difference between them in-game.

Now let’s move on to Just Cause 2.

I’m not going to spend too much time with Just Cause 2 because, as you can see, we’re now bouncing off the game’s built-in framerate limit. This games does not want to go over 60 FPS. While I could probably find a way to fiddle around this limit, this game is no longer proving a challenge to either the CPU or GPU of many new systems and there are other, more relevent games that could take its place.

Let’s move on to Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

This game runs extremely smoothly on both the ASUS G75V and the Origin EON17-S no matter the detail settings (we use default) and there’s not much difference between the laptops. This is the only game where that is the case, so I re-tested several times to confirm, and verified that power management settings were not coming in to play. 

Still, the Origin wins, even if the margin is not as large as in other games.

Now let’s have a look at Skyrim.

This is perhaps the most significant win for the Origin EON17-S. At all detail levels the Origin and its GTX 675M is much quicker than the ASUS G75V and its GTX 670M. The impact of this is most noticeable in Ultra High detail. Both systems run the game smoothly, but the game feels just a touch more responsive and fluid on the Origin EON17-S.

Finally, let’s wrap things up with Battlefield 3.

And once again, the Origin EON17-S pulls ahead. I don’t think there’s much need to analyze this heavily – this system simply has better hardware and, as a result, scores much better than other laptops we’ve tested.

In fact, this is easily the fastest laptop we’ve ever reviewed, and it is most likely quicker than any other configuration on the market. If you want the best mobile gaming performance currently available the Nvidia GTX 675M seems like the way to go, though I still recommend dropping the Extreme Edition processor.

Conclusion

The Origin EON17-S is, from a performance standpoint, one hell of a piece of kit. What sets the laptop apart is not the Extreme Edition processor or even the GTX 675M (which is fast, but also obtainable elsewhere). No, the real honors should be given to the pair of Corsair hard drives. It’s incredible how quickly software loads on this machine.

Of course, most other companies will let you configure solid state drives in RAID 0, as well. But they usually don’t let you replace the optical drive with a mechanical hard drive or offer a third hard drive option. That’s where the EON17-S stands out. You can enjoy insane speeds and still have plenty of room for your files.

Now you might be thinking – so what? SSDs don’t make games run at higher framerates. That’s true, but load times are often part of the experience of gaming, and many modern games have serious load times to contend with. Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, takes ages to load off a mechanical hard drive. 

Our review unit does cost $3500, and that’s a lot. But if you take away the Extreme Edition processor, which is completely unnecessary for gaming, you end up at $2500. And if you adjust the price to compensate for the high-end GTX 675M graphics option, you find that the EON17-S isn’t much more expensive than the ASUS G75V and is a smashing deal compared to the Alienware M17x or M18x. 

That’s not to say the Origin EON17-S is flawless. Although the company is now offering a unique lid design, it’s still relying on a fairly simple mass-produced chassis. The look is just okay, build quality is so-so, and the user interface isn’t the best. The cheaper ASUS G75V feels like a more cohesive package and is more enjoyable to use on a day-to-day basis.

If maximum performance is your goal, however, I can’t come up with any reason not to buy the EON17-S with RAID0 solid state drives and a GTX 675M. It’s insane what this laptop is capable of. Frankly, I’m a little jealous, because this laptop easily outperforms my desktop. Maybe it’s time for an upgrade.