Review: Medion Erazer X7817x Gaming Notebook
Category : Notebooks / Tablets
Published by Marc Büchel on 27.09.12
With the Erazer X7817x, Medion has a new high-end gaming notebook in its portfolio, that features very aggressive pricing. It comes with a brand new Intel Ivy Bridge quad core CPU and NVIDIAs latest GTX 670M mobile GPU. You also get a FullHD, 17.3 inch display and we can just say that we want to crack on and check out what it feels to play and work with this beast.
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On the following pages we will show you the strenghts and weaknesses of the Erazer X7817 Gaming Notebook from Medion.
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Preview
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Specifications / Chassis
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3610QM |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium |
| Chipset | Intel HM77 Express Chipset |
| Memory | DDR3 1333 MHz, 4 x SODIMM, 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) |
| Display | 17.3'' Full HD, 1920 x 1080 |
| Graphics card | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M (Fermi), 2 GByte GDDR5 |
| Hard drive | 80 GB SSD (2.5'') 750 GB HDD (2.5'') |
| Network | 1 x Gigabit LAN 1 x WLAN 802.11n |
| Video Camera | HD Web Camera |
| Connectors | 1 x Microphone-in jack 1 x Headphone-out jack 3 x USB 3.0 2 x USB 2.0 1 x eSATA 1 x RJ45 LAN jack 1 x SPDIF out 1 x HDMI 1 x VGA |
| Audio | Built-in Speakers with Subwoofer and Microphone |
| Battery | 7800 mAh, 86.58 Whrs |
| Dimensions | 428 x 288 x 55 mm (W x D x H) |
| Weight | 3.82 kg |
Châssis / Design / Build Quality
As soon as you take the Erazer X7817 out of the box you'll see that this is one hell of a gaming notebook. No wonder it weighs 3.82 kilogram and it therefore leaves lasting impressions. Nevertheless one solid state drive and an additional hard drive, a high-end mobile GPU, a quad core CPU, 16 GByte memory, a 17.3 inch FullHD dispaly and a powerful cooling solution do need some space and therefore cause some additional weight. As a matter of fact the Erazer X7817 can produce way more than 100 Watts of dissipation power power and therefore the cooling is very important. Medion decided to put GPU and CPU underneath the speakers close to the display. The CPU can be found on the left side and the GPU has been placed in the middle of the device. Furthermore there is one radial fan which blows hot air out of the case. The entire cooling solution is very efficient and keeps the temperatures low and even the noise level is on a reasonable level.
A closer look at the materials show that this notebook is made from plastic entirely. As a display couver you'll find a metal imitation. A rather cool feature are the two V-shaped bars which come with a blue backlight. Except for the writings the Erazier X7817 is kept in black completely which suits a gaming notebook well.
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Display / Input Devices
Display
Medion equipped the Erazer X7817 with a 17.3'' display that features Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. Furthermore the display comes with LED backlight. We liked that it wasn't a glare type display which is why there are no reflections when your in a brightly lit room. Really good were the colors and the contrast ratio. Also the brightness is on a very good level with an average of more than 240 Candela per square meter. But not only brightness and contrast are very good, the display also offers very good viewing angle stability. Even if many people stand around this notebook everybody will be able to read or see content of any kind.
Input Devices
The Erazer X7817 Gaming Notebook comes with a full-size keyboard and a number pad next to it. Basically the keyboard is much alike an Apple keyboard. The key drop is well chosen and the pressure point leaves a good impression. Unfortunately the keyboard is bending a bit while typing. The keys themselves come with a smooth surface. This is another indicator for a high build quality. Since this is a gaming notebook we would have loved to see the arrow key place separately between the keyboard and the number pad.
Centered, below the keyboard you can find the touchpad. Fortunately this has not been integrated into the material of this case and offers a left and a right key. The touchpad also offers scrolling functionality which does a really good job. We have to say, except from the buttons the touchpad is very good. Unfortunately it takes quite a lot of force until the buttons release.
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Test setup
Regarding our notebook reviews we use a practical approach. To get a detailed impresson of the device the tester uses it to work with. In case of gaming notebooks it replaces the testers gaming PC during the time of the test. These methods allow us to provide detailed user experience to you.Regarding performance benchmarks - which are listed below - we don't go very deep. What we do, is that we use benchmarking software which over the years have established as standards for reviewing purposes. Furthermore the specific game benchmarks give insight to the playability of recent games.
Benchmarking Suite
- Futuremark PCMark 7
- Total Score
- Video playback and transcoding / Video playback Score
- Video playback and transcoding / Video transcoding - downscaling Score
- System storage - gaming / System storage - gaming Score
- Graphics - DirectX 9 / Graphics - DirectX 9 Score
- Image manipulation / Image manipulation Score
- System storage - importing pictures / System storage - importing pictures Score
- Web browsing and decrypting / Web browsing Score
- Web browsing and decrypting / Data decrypting Score
- System storage - Windows Defender / System storage - Windows Defender Score
- Total Score
- Cinebench
- 1 Core
- Multicore
- WinRAR
- Benchmarktest
- Futuremark
- Battery Life
- Load
- WLAN and Browser
- Idle
- Noise Level
- Load
- Idle
- Temperature
- Load
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PCMark 7 - Video Playback / Downscaling / Transcoding / Storage
PCMark 7 is a benchmark suite which consists of 20 different workloads. The following results reflect the PCMark 7's standard selection, which provides a good insight regarding overall system performance. For a comfortable presentation we chose to split the results onto three different sites.| Futuremark PCMark 7 | Score |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 4'448 |
| ASUS UX21E | 3'450 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 3'297 |
| MSI GT 780 | 3'805 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 3'720 |
| ASUS G75V | 3'109 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 3'074 |
| HP Folio 13 | 3'072 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 3'015 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 2'966 |
| ASUS G74SX | 2'500 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 2'261 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 1'693 |
| Video playback and transcoding / Video playback | fps |
| ASUS UX21E | 23.17 |
| HP Folio 13 | 23.13 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 23.12 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 23.08 |
| MSI GT 780 | 23.14 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 23.13 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 23.12 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 23.11 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 23.10 |
| ASUS G74SX | 23.04 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 23.01 |
| ASUS G75V | 22.86 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 22.62 |
| Video playback and transcoding / Video transcoding - downscaling | KByte/s |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 16'353 |
| ASUS UX21E | 15'227 |
| HP Folio 13 | 11'258 |
| ASUS G75V | 6'265 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 5'942 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 5'285 |
| ASUS G74SX | 5'251 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 4'948 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 4'912 |
| MSI GT 780 | 4'905 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 4'923 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 4'870 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 2'472 |
| System storage - gaming / System storage - gaming | MByte/s |
| ASUS UX21E | 16.51 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 14.85 |
| HP Folio 13 | 13.35 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 12.56 |
| MSI GT 780 | 14.40 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 13.83 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 7.93 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 7.21 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 7.09 |
| ASUS G75V | 4.80 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 4.46 |
| ASUS G74SX | 4.34 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 3.23 |
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DirectX 9 / Image Manipulation / Importing Pictures
| Graphics - DirectX 9 / Graphics - DirectX 9 | fps |
| ASUS G75V | 72.61 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 70.75 |
| MSI GT 780 | 50.55 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 50.37 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 49.74 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 47.51 |
| ASUS G74SX | 48.96 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 32.92 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 30.67 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 16.51 |
| ASUS UX21E | 14.00 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 12.61 |
| HP Folio 13 | 11.96 |
| Image manipulation / Image manipulation | Mpx/s |
| ASUS G75V | 10.59 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 10.35 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 9.13 |
| MSI GT 780 | 9.04 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 8.88 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 8.86 |
| ASUS G74SX | 8.80 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 8.72 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 8.72 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 8.66 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 8.19 |
| ASUS UX21E | 6.63 |
| HP Folio 13 | 5.07 |
| System storage - importing pictures / System storage - importing pictures | MByte/s |
| ASUS UX21E | 29.39 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 18.97 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 10.50 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 23.94 |
| HP Folio 13 | 21.98 |
| MSI GT 780 | 21.06 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 11.08 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 9.75 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 9.55 |
| ASUS G75V | 6.58 |
| ASUS G74SX | 6.30 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 5.96 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 4.74 |
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Web browsing / Data decryption / Windows Defender
| Web browsing and decrypting / Web browsing | Pages/s |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 15.65 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 14.82 |
| MSI GT 780 | 14.08 |
| ASUS G75V | 13.37 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 13.36 |
| ASUS G74SX | 10.66 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 10.63 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 10.26 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 10.21 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 9.80 |
| HP Folio 13 | 8.33 |
| ASUS UX21E | 7.94 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 7.30 |
| Web browsing and decrypting / Data decryption | MByte/s |
| ASUS G75V | 127.44 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 125.13 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 59.06 |
| ASUS G74SX | 55.94 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 54.14 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 48.14 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 47.63 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 47.22 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 47.20 |
| MSI GT 780 | 46.27 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 40.32 |
| HP Folio 13 | 39.58 |
| ASUS UX21E | 31.34 |
| System storage - Windows Defender / System storage - Windows Defender | MByte/s |
| ASUS UX21E | 5.38 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 5.16 |
| MSI GT 780 | 5.12 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 5.06 |
| HP Folio 13 | 4.99 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 4.65 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 3.29 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 3.22 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 3.11 |
| ASUS G75V | 1.43 |
| ASUS G74SX | 1.40 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 1.20 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 0.99 |
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Cinebench R10
| 1 CPU | sec |
| Intel Core i7 2600K | 145 |
| ASUS G75V | 156 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 159 |
| Intel Core i7 990X | 170 |
| Intel Core i5 2410M | 195 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w, Core i7 2630QM | 193 |
| Intel Core i7 2630QM | 199 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 205 |
| ASUS UX21E | 246 |
| HP Folio 13 | 253 |
| X CPU | sec |
| Intel Core i7 990X | 30 |
| Intel Core i7 2600K | 37 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 41 |
| ASUS G75V | 41 |
| Intel Core i5 2410M | 94 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w, Core i7 2630QM | 52 |
| Intel Core i7 2630QM | 52 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 105 |
| ASUS UX21E | 121 |
| HP Folio 13 | 123 |
WinRAR
| Integer Test | KByte/sec |
| ASUS G75V | 4'156 |
| Intel Core i7 990X | 4'131 |
| Intel Core i7 2600K | 4'108 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 4'097 |
| Intel Core i7 2630QM | 3'656 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w, Core i7 2630QM | 3'638 |
| Intel Core i5 2410M | 2'318 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 2'152 |
| HP Folio 13 | 1'981 |
| ASUS UX21E | 1'907 |
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Futuremark
| 3DMark 11 Total | Score |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 3'092 |
| ASUS G75V | 3'025 |
| MSI GT 780 | 2'025 |
| ASUS G74SX | 1'980 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 1'971 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 1'781 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 1'032 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 997 |
| 3DMark 11 GPU | Score |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 2'766 |
| ASUS G75V | 2'730 |
| MSI GT 780 | 1'814 |
| ASUS G74SX | 1'773 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 1'766 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 1'593 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 910 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 879 |
| 3DMark 11 Physics | Score |
| ASUS G75V | 7'771 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 7'587 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 6'318 |
| MSI GT 780 | 6'253 |
| ASUS G74SX | 6'208 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 6'093 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 6'006 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 5'941 |
Unigine Heaven
| Unigine Heaven Benchmark | fps |
| ASUS G75V | 18.3 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 15.5 |
| MSI GT 780 | 10.3 |
| ASUS G74SX | 10.0 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 9.8 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 9.0 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 4.9 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 4.8 |
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Battery Life / Power Consumption
| Battery life in load | Time |
| HP Folio 13 | 2h 48min |
| ASUS UX21E | 2h 26min |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 2h 03min |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 1h 50min |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 1h 48min |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 1h 19min |
| MSI GT 780 | 1h 04min |
| ASUS G74SX | 1h 02min |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 1h 02min |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 1h 01min |
| ASUS G75V | 0h 59min |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 0h 37min |
| Battery life browsing web on the WLAN | [en]Time |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 5h 19min |
| HP Folio 13 | 5h 14min |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 4h 32min |
| ASUS UX21E | 3h 41min |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 3h 32min |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 3h 11min |
| MSI GT 780 | 2h 46min |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 2h 24min |
| ASUS G75V | 2h 19min |
| ASUS G74SX | 2h 12min |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 2h 08min |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 1h 39min |
| Battery life when idle | Time |
| HP Folio 13 | 9h 42min |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 9h 17min |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 8h 46min |
| ASUS UX21E | 6h 40min |
| MSI GT 780 | 5h 26min |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 4h 42min |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 4h 33min |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 3h 35min |
| ASUS G74SX | 3h 33min |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 2h 51min |
| ASUS G75V | 2h 48min |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 2h 13min |
| Power Consumption Load | Watt |
| HP Folio 13 | 39 |
| ASUS UX21E | 64 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 76 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 81 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 116 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 128 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 139 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 143 |
| ASUS G74SX | 145 |
| MSI GT 780 | 148 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 150 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 159 |
| ASUS G75V | 185 |
| Power Consumption Idle | Watt |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 12 |
| HP Folio 13 | 14 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 17 |
| ASUS UX21E | 19 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 20 |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 30 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 30 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 37 |
| ASUS G75V | 39 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 40 |
| ASUS G74SX | 42 |
| MSI GT 780 | 46 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 55 |
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Noise Level
| Load | dBa |
| ASUS G74SX | 39.2 dBa |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 40.0 dBa |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 40.1 dBa |
| HP Folio 13 | 40.9 dBa |
| MSI GT 780 | 41.0 dBa |
| ASUS G75V | 41.4 dBa |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 41.9 dBa |
| ASUS UX21E | 43.6 dBa |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 44.1 dBa |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 45.3 dBa |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 45.9 dBa |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 49.0 dBa |
| Idle | dBa |
| ASUS UX21E | 31.7 dBa |
| MSI GT 780 | 31.9 dBa |
| HP Folio 13 | 32.6 dBa |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 33.2 dBa |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 33.4 dBa |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 33.5 dBa |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 34.0 dBa |
| Medion Erazer X7817 | 34.4 dBa |
| ASUS G75V | 34.5 dBa |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 35.3 dBa |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 35.4 dBa |
| ASUS G74SX | 36.4 dBa |
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Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| Generally the Medion Erazer X7817 leaves a good impression and it is a solid gaming notebook. We especially liked the big display with the very good colors as well as brightness. Additionally you get an excellent cooling solution with which you'll not have throttling issues. Although the Erazer X7817 draws more than 150 Watts under full load the notebook isn't too noisy. Medion really did its homework very well when it comes to the cooling solution. But the best thing about this notebook is the price. You get this very well equipped gaming notebook for CHF 1'499.- (est. EUR 1249.-), which is really aggressive. | - Display -Cooling - Price | ||
| Display / Input devices | + | - | |
| Medion equipped the Erazer
X7817 with a very good 17.3 inch display. The colors and
contrast ratio as well as the brightness were able to convince us. Altoghter it is
simply perfect for a gaming notebook. The keyboard could be of higher quality. We would have loved to see it not bending while typing. Furhtermore there is the touchpad which is not perfect. We like it's accuracy and the fact that multitouch functions have been well implemented but it takes to much force until the two buttons release. |
- Display size - Readability - Colors - 3D | - Touchpad Buttons | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| Equipped with a Core i7-3610QM quad core CPU that features eitght threads clocked at 2.3 GHz there is plenty of performance slumbering under the bonnet. Combined with the new NVIDIA mobile GTX 670M this notebook quite easily keeps up with the fastest models in our comparison lists, when it comes to 3D performance. But also regarding 2D performance there is plenty of performance thanks to the Ivy Bridge CPU. | - Gaming Performance | ||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you should be looking for a gaming notebook that comes with a very good big display that offers enough performance for gaming then the Erazer X7817 will definitely be a good choice. Furthermore there is this models exceptionally good price which can quite easily make you overlook the little issues with the keyobard and touchpad. For no less then CHF 1'499 (est. EUR 1'249.-) you get a really good device. | - Gaming Notebook - Desktop Replacement | ||
| Rating | |||
| The Medion Erazer X7817 Gaming Notebook receives very good four and a half out of five stars. | |||
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