Thoughts about the Clevo N960TD (Or this particular build ft. RTX 2060)?

Markus L. · February 27, 2019

I've been looking to buy a new gaming/workstation laptop and after several hours of research (and a fun attempt at communicating with the German dell customer support - who legit wasn't able to speak English and only knew broken German - meaningless tangent tho), this was the most compelling build I could come up with:

Barebone: Clevo N960TD (Link)

Display:

16,1" Full HD 1920x1080 IPS 144Hz Matte | 72% NTSC

Graphics Card:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6 | VR-Ready

Desktop Processor:

Intel Core i7-8700 | 12MB Cache | 3.20~4.60 GHz | 6C/12T | TDP 65W

Thermal Compound:

Repasting CPU | GPU with IC Diamond 24

Memory RAM DDR4 SO-DiMM:

16GB ( 2x 8GB ) DDR4 2666MHz RipJaws | HyperX | Vengeance

1. Disk SSD M.2 2280:

1TB Samsung 970 Evo SSD M.2 | PCIe 3.0 x4 | NVMe | R/W 3400/2500 MB/s

2. Disk SSD ( Optional ) M.2 2280:---

3. Disk ( Optional ) 2,5" SATA:---

Optical Disk Drive ( Optional ) :---

Wireless LAN + Bluetooth:

Intel Wireless AC 9260 | Bluetooth 5.0 ( for General Use and Professionals )

Battery:

1x 62Wh Battery Pack Removable

Adapter AC:

1x 230W

The entire thing will cost me around 1886 Euro (~2144$ at current exchange rate), which is significantly cheaper (I'm talking 400+ bucks difference) than anything comparable I found from lenovo, dell, msi, asus, hp & Co. I'm mostly going to be using this for Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Blender and also some gaming, which is why I went for the fast SSD and pretty costly GPU. It also leaves plenty of upgrade options for storage and RAM if necessary.

But there's one problem - I haven't been able to find much in the way of reviews or opinions on this barebone. Does anyone have this model or a similar rebranded one and can share some experiences? I'm especially concerned about the thermals, since these tend to be a weak point in smaller laptops. If you have any other thoughts or advice on the build, that would also be much appreciated.

That turned out rather long; thanks for sticking with me and have a nice day.