Eurocom Racer 2.0 Review: Intel's Ivy Bridge Meets Nvidia's Kepler

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Are you tired of gaming notebooks that have to be tethered to a power outlet? We test Eurocom’s Racer 2.0 to see if its combination of a 22 nm Intel-based CPU and 28 nm graphics processor from Nvidia can help enable playable performance on the road.

Benchmark Results: DiRT 3, Metro 2033, And StarCraft II

From our more productivity-oriented benchmarks, we know to expect at most an 8% performance improvement from the Racer 2.0’s Ivy Bridge-based processor compared to Sandy Bridge.

We also know from experience that CPU performance has its biggest gaming impact at the lowest resolutions and detail settings, where the GPU is too lightly loaded to become a bottleneck. We’ll look for an impact attributable to the GPU as resolution and detail levels increase.

DiRT 3 presents somewhat of a problem for our analysis in that the GeForce GTX 675M appears most advantageous at the low resolutions where CPU bottlenecks should occur.

Crank up the detail levels, though, and the GeForce GTX 675M appears to be an equal to AMD's Radeon HD 6990M.The GeForce GTX 660M hinders the Racer 2.0 moderately at our highest quality settings, regardless of resolution.

The GeForce GTX 660M stumbles in Metro 2033, requiring 1600x900 at our lower detail settings to retain relatively smooth game play. The 675M pushes the Racer 2.0’s capability to 1920x1080 at the same detail levels, but the game really favors AMD graphics.

All configurations play StarCraft II proficiently, though the GeForce GTX 675M is notably better than its older competition. Regardless of its lower model number, the GeForce GTX 660M is more than sufficient for this title.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
39 Comments Comment from the forums
  • amuffin
    $2146

    WHAT!

    You could get a laptop with a 680M for that price! :ouch:
    Reply
  • azathoth
    I would have loved to see some Temperature readings on the GPU/CPU during usage. A lot of gaming laptops even whilst brand new can generate enough heat to be uncomfortably hot in some areas.
    Reply
  • xanagu
    9535607 said:
    $2146

    WHAT!

    You could get a laptop with a 680M for that price! :ouch:
    Seriously Tom? you can get a much better deal with 3610QM, 16GB RAM, 750GB HDD and 7990M for $1470
    Reply
  • Crashman
    xanaguSeriously Tom? you can get a much better deal with 3610QM, 16GB RAM, 750GB HDD and 7990M for $1470Remember Eurocom loves high-end CPUs and SSDs. Besides, why would I want 16GB in a notebook?
    Reply
  • xanagu
    cuz its a free upgrade?
    Reply
  • esrever
    Seems a bit too pricy. Battery life isn't good either, only slightly better than the other models. Also not really portable so why would people care that much about battery life?
    Reply
  • rorouni
    do they have one that supports stereoschopic 3d?
    Reply
  • uglynerdman
    u could get a clevo with a 680m for 1800. this whole article only recinforces my belief in buying a p150em even with a normal 670 installed itll still be better for the price. i find eurocom a lil over priced. xoticpc ftw
    Reply
  • uglynerdman
    i really dont get why xangu's comment was downrated and crashman's was uprated. its true you could get a better deal 1500 does get you a i7 3rdgen with 8 gbs ram and a 7970m. and saying that eurocom likes highend ssds and cpus? ummm.. im sorry are there different cpus available everyone sells all the intel i7 mobile quads. all the boutiques. Same with SSDs and hard drives. What has to stand out from a place is the build quality cooling slight performance difference > competitors and other bits to justify an inflated price. The battery life is always hovering around 4 hours max. not matter which model you have you still gotta plug in a power brick eventually. theres car adapters, plugs on greyhound and amtrak. heck airport seats have plugs nearby. the 670s can game unplugged for a few hours. a few more minutes on the 660? i feel the 660 should be in a ultrabook not a rugged sized notebook. Look at the size. it looks as big and heavy as its competitiors. Dont get me wrong i like eurocom they have some great stuff just, i dont see a noticeable difference to justify the price/performance of that setup vs other boutiques. Id really like to see a toms review of more clevos and msi customs/ does anyone offer superior cooling builds etc.
    Reply
  • uglynerdman
    xanagucuz its a free upgrade?while above 8gbs is nonsense for gamers if you like playing in a window and running other programs and doing other things such as uploading a vid coding a vid, doing other activities a lil bit of ram goes along way. i myself go out of the way to tweak my games to use 4gbs if they dont support it and multitask. Besides 16 gbs is usually about 40-80 bucks more > standard 8gbs. it has its uses unless ur solely gaming. 16 gbs is my standard. i have enough ram to abuse skyrim on ultra full of mods windowed while talking online watching a news feed and streaming video in another window and extra monitor.
    Reply