Looking for an upgradeable barebone with a 120Hz display

[№1 Toxic Shitter]

My budget is ~2500 USD. I'm torn between assembling a PC and buying a laptop.

My main requirements:

 

* 120Hz+ 1080p monitor. 17+ inch.

* Upgradeable. CPU, GPU, storage. Replaceable mobo would probably be out of the realm of possibility.

* Initial specs of 6600k + GTX1070, 16 gigs of RAM, solid cooling.

* Weight and noise levels are not a concern.

 

The main reason I'm considering an upgradeable barebone instead of building a PC is that I don't have a lot of space for a tower + monitor, plus portability is nice since I move quite a bit.

[R1sky]

In my optinion, the best you can get is Clevo P870KM/KM1. It is DTR (desktop replacement) system featuring LGA 1151 socket for desktop processors up to i7 7700K and dual GTX1080 MXM GPUs. The body of laptop is massive and incredibly heavy, but on the other side you will get unmatched performance compared to any other laptop while having the ability to replace ANY component = GPU, CPU, memory, heatsinks, just anything you would ever need. I can't think of any other laptop featuring full-blown desktop processor, for example top-of-the-line laptops from other manufacturers such as ASUS GX800, MSI GT83VR, Acer Predator x21 (price of all of them ranges in multiples of your budget, so one would assume top notch performance) use only i7 7820HK - laptop processor with significantly inferior performance compared to i7 7700K and it is even soldered to motherboard = no possibility to upgrade in future!

 

Clevos are custom made laptops (you can configure just every parameter of the system according to your needs and budget) offered by many resellers across the world, here is a link to list of resellers, however, I would strongly advise you to make an order from Prema mod partner shop (full list can be found here - https://biosmods.wordpress.com/partner/ ) as they have possibility to flash fully unlocked Prema BIOS into the system. This BIOS will give you full control over the system just like on desktop; this is again something that no other laptop brand can offer.

 

 

Bottom line:

I am owner of Clevo P870DM2 (i7 7700K, single GTX 1080), what is a predecessor of KM series. The difference between DM and KM models is motherboard:

   - DM model features Intel Z170 Chipset, with updated BIOS it supports Kaby Lake processors (I already replaced i7 6700K with 7700K), however, it doesn't support new Optane memory

   - updated KM model features Intel Z270 Chipset with full support of the new technology

My system with single GPU arrived with T-shaped heatsink for GPU that I replaced with vapor chamber heatsink used for dual-GPU configurations + replaced stock thermal pads on the heatsink with more expensive ones. I also delidded the processor to significantly reduce its temperatures. Now at 100% load, my stable GPU temperature at 50% fan speed is 71°C. CPU temperature is a bit higher (78°C), but only because I didn't have enough thermal interface material (TIM) left, so the thermal connection between CPU IHS and heatsink is not sufficient at this time. After I'll fix this issue, I expect the CPU temperature to also hover around 70°C. As you can see, the cooling performance has enough headroom even for overclocking of desktop components packed within (sort of) laptop body