The Gigabyte P35X v3 Review: Slim GTX980M Gaming Laptop
by Brett Howse on April 23, 2015 8:00 AM EST
Gigabyte has refreshed its P35 series to include the latest NVIDIA GPUs, and the P35X is the top model in their 15.6 inch lineup. Gigabyte has the lightest GTX980M gaming laptop available, with the P35X v3 coming in at just 2.3 kg (5.07 lbs) thanks to the all-aluminum chassis. At just 20.9 mm (0.82”) thick, it is a fairly portable laptop considering the components inside.
Buyers should not be short on computing power. The P35X comes equipped with the Intel Core i7-4710HQ processor, which has a TDP of 47 watts for the four cores to play in. The base frequency is 2.5 GHz with a turbo of 3.5 GHz. Optionally, you can opt for the i7-4720HQ, which is 100 MHz more of both base and turbo frequency, or Gigabyte is even offering the i7-4860HQ which is 2.4-3.6 GHz and comes with the Iris Pro 5200 GPU. The GTX980M is top tier as well, with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory available. System memory is a solid 16 GB, which is plenty for any gaming scenario and also a good amount for doing things like virtual machines or the like. Storage is likely not going to be a problem either, with the P35X coming standard with two 128 GB SSDs in RAID0 as the system drives, and an additional 1 TB 7200 rpm hard disk for extra storage. The P35X even has an optical drive as an option, but the optical drive can be removed to save weight, or an additional storage drive can be used instead, meaning the P35X has room for four drives!
Gigabyte P35X v3 compared to 14" ThinkPad
A lot of that comes down to the large body of a 15.6 inch laptop. Although a 14 inch and 15.6 inch laptop sound like they are pretty close in size, in reality a 15.6 inch device is significantly larger in every dimension. This opens up a lot of space for things like extra cooling, additional storage, more ports, and much more space for the keyboard of course, so the P35X features a number pad on the right side.
Below is a table of the specifications of the P35X for reference.
| Gigabyte P35X v3 Specifications | |||||
| Processor | Intel Core i7-4710HQ Quad-core + HT 2.5 - 3.5 GHz, 6MB Cache, 47W (As tested) Intel Core i7-4720HQ Quad-core Eight-Thread 2.6 - 3.6 GHz, 6MB Cache, 47W Intel Core i7-4860HQ Quad-core Eight-Thread 2.4 - 3.6 GHz, 6MB Cahce, 47W |
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| Memory | 8 - 16 GB DDR3L-1600 dual-channel (16 GB tested) | ||||
| Graphics | Integrated GPU Intel HD 4600 (20 EUs, 400-1200 MHz) Intel Iris Pro 5200 (i7-4860HQ model) (40 EU GT3e, 200-1200MHz) Discrete GPU NVIDIA GTX980M GM204 1536 CUDA Cores, 1038 MHz + Boost, 8 GB GDDR5 |
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| Display | 15.6" 1920x1080 IPS LCD 15.6" 2880x1620 IPS LCD (Panasonic) (As tested) |
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| Storage | 128/256/512GB mSATA SSD 128/256/512GB mSATA SSD + 500/750GB/1TB/2TB 2.5" HDD 5400rpm/7200rpm 128/256/512GB mSATA SSD + 128/256/512GB mSATA SSD + 500/750GB/1TB/2TB Optional Fourth Drive Tray if DVD is removed |
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| Optical Drive | Blu-Ray RW Drive DVD RW Drive |
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| Networking | Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 2x2:2 802.11ac 866 Mbps plus Bluetooth Realtek Gigabit Ethernet |
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| Audio | 2 x 1.5 watt speakers plus Woofer Dolby Digital Plus Home Theater |
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| Battery/Power | Li-Polymer 75.81 Wh 180W Max AC Adapter |
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| Left Side | Lock Slot Ethernet 2x USB 2.0 Headset jack with SPDIF Microphone jack SD Card Reader |
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| Right Side | DC Input VGA Connection HDMI Port 2 x USB 3.0 Mini DisplayPort |
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| Back Side | Exhaust Vents | ||||
| Operating System | Windows 8.1 | ||||
| Dimensions | 15.16" x 10.63" x 0.82" (WxDxH) 385 mm x 270 mm x 20.9 mm |
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| Weight | 5.07 lbs / 2.3 kg | ||||
| Extras | 720p HD Webcam Backlit keyboard |
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| Pricing | $1999.00 and up | ||||
As you can see, the P35X is a well configured device, with 802.11ac wireless, a large battery, and plenty of ports. This laptop has almost every port that has ever been available on a laptop, with Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, mini DisplayPort, HDMI, VGA, a SPDIF headphone jack, and a SD card reader. The word kitchen sink comes to mind, but there is plenty of real estate to add the ports, so it is hard to complain about them being there.
Gigabyte has made a great choice with the display as well. The 15.6 inch diagonal display has a 1920x1080 as the base model, or optionally you can go with the 2880x1620 version like the review sample that Gigabyte has sent. The resolution is not unique to this device, but it works very well for a gaming laptop. The resolution is not so high that you need to use really high scaling on the desktop, nor is it so high that the GTX980M will struggle excessively at this resolution when gaming. You may have to turn the resolution down a notch or two for some of the newest games, but as we will see in the GPU performance section, many games are very playable at the native resolution of the panel.
There is quite a bit of competition in this space, but if you are looking for a powerful and portable gaming system, the P35X has a lot to offer. On paper, it should be able to trade blows with any other 15.6 inch system, so let’s dig into the aspects of the laptop and see how it holds up under closer inspection.
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Hubb1e - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
If you like the idea of this laptop but are not sold on the total execution, the Clevo p650se should be on your radar. It has a thin design that is only a little larger than the Gigabyte but lacks the optical drive and adds more cooling performance. Build quality is comparable and quite good. I just got a Clevo p650se (from Sager np8651) with the 970m and it is decently portable for a gaming laptop with a top tier GPU. At idle it is almost completely silent with only a very slight hum from the CPU fan. The 2nd HD spinning is noisier than the fan in my Clevo and that turns off after a minute of use anyways. As an early member of SilentPCReview.com idle noise was important to me. Less important to me was load noise and this Clevo exceeded my expectations with only a mild hum from the exhaust (vsync is on reducing load). I can game easily without headphones on and don't notice the noise at all once in the game. As a Clevo notebook you can get it from several vendors which opens up displays from bad TN 1080p panels to full 4k IPS displays. I opted for the Sager which came stock with a pretty good 1080p IPS panel. Mine has some light bleed in the lower left corner, but is otherwise one of the best displays I've used on a Windows laptop. I wanted this Gigabyte in this review but after reading other reviews on it I decided I didn't want a noisy laptop. My Clevo has been great and I recommend it. Hopefully Anandtech can get their hands on one.Dr_Orgo - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
I have this laptops little brother, the Gigabyte P34G-V1. I've been quite happy with it. Howerver, these thin and light gaming notebooks aren't for everyone. I was looking for a work laptop that was small enough to bike to work with, but powerful enough to run modern games at 1920x1080 with good settings. I already have a gaming desktop that I use as my primary machine. I wanted a laptop to play co-op pc games with my wife at good enough quality. It serves that purpose quite well.Darkstone - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Are you really sure you've interpreted the cooling/frequency graph correctly? From the way i see it, the CPU is throtteling at 800mhz. 30 seconds into the test.This can mean 2 things, either the benchmark does not utilize the CPU beyond a very basis level, or the system is really throttling. In either case, the benchmark is completely unrepresentative.
I suggest running prime95 on a low priority alongside any game, carefully monitor the TDP of the CPU and the clock speeds of the GPU. The temperature can be, imo, mostly ignored. The clock speeds of the cpu can be completely ignored.
Brett Howse - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
The CPU Load is only 30%, so the CPU clocks down to keep temps down.Jon Tseng - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
The Gigabyte P35X v3 Review: Slim GTX980M Gaming Laptop"Slim" and "GTX980M" - two words I never thought I'd see in the same sentence! :-p
bennyg - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Slim, powerful, cool, quiet, reasonably priced. Pick a maximum of three.BMNify - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Excellent Slim gaming laptop, cheaper and better than Razer Blade too, And not to forget the most important point: Gigabyte actually sells their laptops worldwide whereas Razer is USA only !! Can't take any laptop manufacturer seriously who sells only in one country.meacupla - Sunday, April 26, 2015 - link
Well, razer does sell to Canada, but with expensive shipping + duties.I'm sure razer could prepay duties, like newegg does, but nope.
erple2 - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
I've been waiting a bit for this review. It looked like it checked all of the right boxes, and could be the replacement for my aging Envy 15t, at least as a portable gaming computer. I was hoping for better battery life than what this gives (just under 5 hours seems low), and a better keyboard. The trackpad on my Envy 15 is pretty bad (then again, every non-macbook pro trackpad has been pretty terrible IMO), but the keyboard is reasonable. It's battery life is terrible though at a whopping 90 minutes at idle on the desktop.Anyway, I wish they'd just get rid of the space the DVD drive takes up, and shrink the chassis more. Also, the more I use laptops, the less I like a number pad. I'd rather connect it up to a KVM switch if I really needed a number pad.
I dunno, it still looks like a pretty solid laptop, and isn't horribly angled like the kiddie laptops that have similar internals.
milkod2001 - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
i wonder if it would help dramatically with noise/thermal issues if they have implemented different notebook design approach: Starting from front very thin(2-3 mm) continuing to thick(up to 25mm).This way there would be enough space at the rear to implement better/bigger cooling system.
Plus it would be better for typing as laptop keyboard would face up the same way as any external keyboard.
Aslo trackpad completely removed for navigation only touch screen or external mice would be used.
Keyboard moved to front, made bigger for better typing experience and at the position where keyboard currently is now to have bigger speakers +small sub.