Eluktronics Mech-17 G1Rx (Tongfang GK7CN6S) Initial Review

[Mnky313]

Some background:

I've been rocking my M6700 and Custom SFF AMD PC for a while now and both have always had their fair share of issues but I was really happy with the performance of them for the most part.
Between my laptop's ruined battery and weird problems caused by the custom GPU and it's age (oh and the dock being trash) I decided to start searching for a new machine to be my daily laptop, I don't want to get rid of this precision but I need something I know won't just randomly die or require hours of troubleshooting.
I looked around on eBay until I stumbled upon an auction about to end for a Mech-17 with the 2070 Max-P and 9750h, I was looking for anything on a good deal that met my weird requirements (listed below) and this fit just about all of them.
I also decided to switch over to it completely and probably sell or trade the parts from my desktop because the laptop is just as fast if not faster in just about everything.

Requirements I need for a laptop (I know it's weird but I use laptops as desktop replacements so...)

The ability to hook up 2 1080p HDMI monitors and 1 1080p 144Hz Displayport monitor (+HDMI for an Oculus Rift if possible)
at least 2 M.2 NVMe slots (one for the SSD and one for eGPU eventually or second SSD if I can't get the eGPU to work)

17 inch screen, I had a 15.6" laptop but much prefer the 17" ones.
lots of the USB connectivity
Ethernet (I use it too often)

 

Pros

Port selection
Doesn't have Thunderbolt but other than that it has strong I/O even for a 17" machine, it might not have as many USBs or display outputs as my docked M6700 but it still has 2 USB 3.0 type As and 1 Type C (and 1 2.0 type A) as well as an HDMI 2.0 and 2 (Mini) Displayport 1.4. Also has gigabit ethernet and 2 audio jacks

Performance

My model is equipped with the 2070 Max-P, performance is almost on par with the desktop 2070 because of Eluktroboost (from what I found it's a hardware mod that allows for more power draw than stock Nvidia cards allow)
Firestrike

(https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/48322466)

Firestrike Ultra

(https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/48328939)
The 9750h has a power limit (1 & 2) of 100W! which is insane but mine is having a weird spread in temps between cores (some cores are sitting at 95c while other are only in the mid 70s), mine also has liquid metal so I wonder if it has shifted off of part of the die slightly or something else. I'll probably re-apply more liquid metal at some point but for now it's fine.
Features

Kind of similar to port selection but it also has some nice to haves like a 144hz screen, large trackpad and mechanical keyboard (some people report mixed feelings about it but I actually really like it) and it has a numpad

The screen is great, the colours are way better than my old 120hz TN equipped M6700. Sadly there is no fingerprint reader however there is a windows hello equipped camera which works really well. It can unlock within a few seconds even when I'm sitting like 3 feet from the machine while it's on the desk.

Cons

I don't really have that much to complain about, mine doesn't have the smaller battery with a 2.5" hdd mount but that is an option. One con I do have is the price of parts, I'm used to dell business machines where the battery is a like $30 part but I can't find the smaller battery on eBay and directly from Eluktronics it's $115+shipping so I just got a 4TB external drive for basically the same price. Other than that, their support has been really nice to my questions about parts and about the weird spread in temps.

 

That's it for now I believe.

 

[Mnky313]

Update before I get rid of it.

It was a good machine, I didn't have very many complaints. Mine has a weird issue where is randomly forces hibernation because it thinks the battery is dead (just running the command line thing to disable critical battery hibernate fixes that though). 

This is my first experience with liquid metal and it didn't seem to last at all... I'm already having issues with the CPU thermal throttling and heating up the cooler enough to cause the GPU to reach it's max temp as well. 

I much prefer the fingerprint reader to windows hello (but that's just a preference thing) because I keep having problems where it sees me and 'unlocks' but just sits at the login screen telling me to dismiss the login screen and never turning off the displays... (and I've had it unlock right after I lock it as well).

Also it's not a huge deal but I was kind of disappointed by the GPU clocks (~1650Mhz), even though the set clock was just over 2000 because of temp and power limit the card only ran around 1650MHz. 

I'm mainly just getting rid of it because I need upgradability and am tired of buying a whole new laptop every time I want to upgrade something (yes I know a desktop would be better but again, I also love the idea of having all my crap on one PC instead of trying to search through both computers looking for a project I was working on or forgetting to install a game on the laptop, etc.)