Gigabyte P34W Gaming Notebook
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,416 words · ~7 min read
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the world of technology is always an arms race and often an unpredictable one
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I mean look at phones first we wanted smaller then we wanted flips then we
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wanted touchscreens and now we want bigger and bigger with an appetite for
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massive black phones that can't be wait
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what gold phones okay well this video is
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about a laptop anyway which wait golden laptops all right you lost me there this
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is a non- ridiculous black laptop with more horsepower than my son's Tri
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bicycle the Gigabyte p34w
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V3 fractal design listens in the Define
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R5 case was made with feedback from you
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the PC community so click wherever you want to learn more how about here and
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here now I was obviously being fous in
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the intro there the specs alone tell us that today's featured item is designed
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for a different customer than Apple's new Macbook inside the 21mm thick
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chassis you'll find a quad core core i7 4720 HQ that turboed to 3.0 to 3.1 GHz
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under a sustained four core load for me up to 16 gigs of DDR3 memory up to 512
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gigs of MSA SSD storage and 2 tabt of
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hard drive base storage an Intel two spatial stream AC wireless card that I
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had connected at up to 780 megabit per
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second and managing 42 to 45 megabytes
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per second transfer speeds from my server man Wi-Fi has come a long way and
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a dual Graphics solution comprised of Intel HD graphics 4600 and a GTX 970m 3
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gig graphics card yeah you heard me right this popy packs a serious GPU
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punch for Gamers on the go removing the bottom reveals gigabytes dual fan Supra
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cooling branded cooling solution that they've been using to make thinner
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gaming devices under their own branding and their premium a brand for about a
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year now it's pretty simple in principle intake at the front and strategically
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along the bottom to keep the wrist rest and gaming Keys cool with heat pipes
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carrying that heat to the back where it can be exhausted without making your
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palm sweaty I just wish it was a fair bit quieter it seems like gigabytes fan
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profiles could use some tuning here since the fan ramps up at even a mere
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sort of 10 to 20% CPU load immediately
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upon beginning my physical tour here I realized that my comparison of this
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compact gaming notebook to Apple's latest and greatest MacBook was even
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more inappropriate than I initially thought the p34w has actual ports on it
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specifically a power in HDMI out SD card
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reader and two USB 3.0 ports on the right and a lock a real Tech powered
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gigabit Ethernet port VGA and two more USB 3 ports and a headphone and
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microphone combo Jack on the left flipping this puppy open reveals the
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1080p IPS screen with a couple front facing which is nice for loudness but
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decidedly laptop grade speakers under it
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I'm happy to see this compared to a TN panel but it should be noted that not
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all IPS displays are created equally
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motion blur and processing leg we non-issues here from using it but
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contrast is noticeably unexceptional and there's some Wicked backlight bleed
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along the top and bottom edges on dark backgrounds on my sample the keyboard
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and touchpad are similarly unexceptional and while I appreciate the separate
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buttons and solid tracking for the touchpad the plastic surface is
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something I'd like to see gone on any laptop over $1,000 and while the
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keyboard is well laid out with a nice bright backlight it and the wrist rests Flex
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far too much to deliver a satisfying typing experience which is actually a
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complaint I have about the general build quality of this notebook the screen and
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hinge feel robust so I wouldn't expect any breakage there but it seems like
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Gigabyte sacrificed all the space inside
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the main chassis that would normally be allocated for structural support to the
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gods of thinness and lightness I played
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with the p34 W's bigger cousin back at CES and told Gigabyte that if they sent
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me anything with that kind of flex to it I was going to call them out on it and
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while this one is not as bad as that one I'm going to call him out on it anyway
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what's the point of making a computer out of metal if it bends more than a
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plastic shell would have anyway but some people buy four bang for the buck and
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are willing to be a little careful with their fancy piece of Machinery so let's
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have a look at gaming performance then shall we at high details with very high
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textures Forex txaa and motion blur disabled at its native resolution of
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1080p the GTX 970m in our thin and light
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Gamers Delight here manages a whopping
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76 frames per second in my standard Crisis 3 runs pretty impressive that is
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until you let the laptop sit for a while on a hard flat surface have the GPU
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throttle weigh the truck down to 671 MHz
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at 87° and lose a solid 25% of that
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performance yes this baby thermal throttles but the good news is that it's
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not as severe as that bricks gaming computer we checked out a while back and
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not enough that Gigabyte would have been better off simply putting a low grade
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less power hungry part into their design like they would have in that case and
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there are some other positive takeaways too battery life is in line with what
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I'd expect from a gaming notebook at 2 hours and 40 minutes in the PC Mark work
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suite and overall I think Gigabyte has actually done a swell job of targeting
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Their audience presumably the traveling gamer who may have to hook up that VGA
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port to a boardroom projector from time to time with a rocking spec list at a
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reasonable price compared to this time not Apple's MacBook gold or whatever
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they're calling it but something like the razor blade which has similar specs
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and a much higher price tag because that's the decision buyers will
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ultimately have to make settle for throttling and weaker craftsmanship or
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pay the significant premium product tax
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for what is essentially thicker metal from a brand like apple or Razer or even
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Gigabyte's own aorus for that matter
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speaking of paying a premium why would you pay a premium for your mobile
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carrier ting.com is the mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and
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customer satisfaction and charging a real price how do you focus on customer
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service well when you call them for example you don't talk to a robot or an
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automated menu you actually get put through directly to a real person also
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you only pay for what you use the average Ting bill is only $24 per month
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per device so what you do is you go on their site that's lin.com you fire up
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their savings calculator and you actually just enter okay well here were
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my last few bills here was my usage and it spits out a number that says hey this
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is how much you would pay if you switched over to Ting if you've got a
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contract they'll pay 25% of your cancellation fee up to 75 bucks not to
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mention that if you use our link that's Linus doing.com you'll also get $25 in
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service credit or 25 bucks towards a new device as well so I think that's pretty
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