Gigabyte p34w v4 thoughts?

I am definitely getting one. If you have an edu email account you can get 15% off at the razer site.


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No I mean, what is it? lol

edit: ohhhhh the razer power adapter! Yeah haha. Sure, go for it. If you're traveling then it's nice to be able to keep the weight down as much as possible.

 

I would really like a Razer power adapter and not even because I travel a lot. I just want one because I'm not a fan of the breezeblock that comes with the P34.

Does anyone know of where I can get one apart from going to Razer? Razer wants silly money (£100 in the UK, strangely can't buy the laptop though..)

 

damn, in germany you can't order the razer power adapter... could anyone buy one for me, preferably with -15% edu email acount and send it over? would be super thankful and put some extra bucks on top of the bill. thanks!

 

Got my v4 in as well, 1080p version. Let Xotic do the repaste and the upgrade to 16MB ram, have a samsung evo 850 500GB SSD to swap for the 1TB hdd. They were out of stock on it for a couple weeks, but with the v3s also out of stock and nothing else fitting the bill in terms of price/performance/professional looks I waited, so far glad I did.

I should mention, Xotic's customer support people were also great to work with, kept me updated constantly, tried to help find other options if time became a crunch, etc. Definitely recommend them.

So far, I've be very impressed. Build feels solid, no chassis flex, keyboard doesn't budge, track pad is level, has a good feel. Both the keyboard and trackpad got knocked in some reviews (well, v3 reviews) but they are definitely an upgrade from the old HP envy I had before this. Have been too busy with work to put it through any benchmarks or serious gaming yet, hopefully will have some time this weekend once I get the new SSD swapped in.

Definitely interested in putting this thing through its paces, tonfilm's post on overclocking the vid card has my interest. Curious to see if gfx overclocked and cpu limited to no turbo can eek out a little more performance in actual gaming without hitting the throttling point, but in his synthetic benchmarks it looks impressive.

I will also say that I don't find the speakers to be that bad (i mean, they are small laptop speakers, use headphones) and I don't find the fans to be that loud, even under load (up to 6k RPM in gaming mode and performance power mode). The logitech cooling pad I have is still louder than the p34's fans, with headphones you don't even notice. Maybe I'll change my tune once I really push this thing, but they are non issues so far for me. Definitely happy thus far, more to come.

 

Nice. I can't wait to see the temps while under load.

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Two things:
1) a V5 with skylake is coming! http://www.t3.com/news/gigabyte-reveals-new-skylake-gaming-laptops-promising-beefy-battery-life
2) Doe's anyone tried liquid metal pad ? http://www.coollaboratory.com/en/products/liquid-metalpad/
Some reviews said that is the best cooling pad solution...

 

Got the SSD in, and ran through a 3dmark11 test for a baseline. No throttlestop or XTU or anything else installed yet.

Result was 9519: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/10258567

What are you all using to see real time temps during the test? Right as it finished the smart manager reported 55C gpu and 65C cpu. Fans did kick in pretty good during the physics test, still not what I would consider awfully loud though, definitely not loud enough to hear with headphones in. Need to run this with a second monitor in so I can watch the smart manager temps and fan speeds more closely. Or what utilities are out there that would chart temps/speed in the background?

Will do some more tweaking and playing with it tomorrow/through the weekend

 

yep after a proper re-paste 9500 is also the average i got. to see the temps you can use HWMon which has min/max or XTU which records a graph, but i think only for the CPU. would be interesting what you got during the benchmarks... you can read my temps in the P34W v3 thread for comparison: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/gigabyte-p34w-v3-phantasus-owners-lounge.772517/page-64

 

Is the razer power charger working in europ as in US it is 110V and in Eur it is 220v?

Anyone use this power charger on his P34 in europe here and share is experience?

 

you cant order it in germany, it looks like it's working on their site, but as soon as you put it in the cart you end up on an empty page.
but sure, it will work, all modern power adapters will work with 110 or 220 volts, you just need a cable for you wall connector.

if you find a way to order it, please tell me. i've asked over in the razor section of this forums whether someone from US could order one for me, but there was no response... i wonder what they fear... its just ordering and putting another address on it.

 

FYI, firestrike score, again baseline, 6863

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8472086

 

... That isn't how ordering works when something is not allowed to be shipped to another country. Go use a website service where you open an address with them and then order things to it. There are a few reputable ones.

 

Does anyone here have a v4 in hand? Perhaps who also had a v3? Does keyboard/touchpad flex?

About to pull the trigger on a v4, would like to know if the keyboard flex is as bad as people say about the v3.

 

There is a very slight amount of flex to the keyboard, if you look closely while pushing on it pretty hard. Under normal typing it is very solid. The trackpad is likewise very sturdy, there is a little bit of flex to the buttons at the bottom of the trackpad. So far I have not found sturdiness to be an issue at all with the v4s. You can't twist it and get the chassis to flex, keyboard and trackpad are very solid and comfortable. I have no issues with it sitting level or anything like that. Definitely don't let issues with keyboard/trackpad decide whether you get one or not.

 

Thank you! Definitely going to get it now. Thanks for review/feedback on the unit as well, looks like I'll get it with the thermal paste which would be beneficial

 

The laptop base does flex, but not in a way you expect. a lot of people have problems with wiggling bottoms on these laptop series which causes the laptop to slightly rock on a flat surface. This is caused by the bendling of the laptop chassis when transporting it a lot. I dealed with this as well. In the end the final straw for me with dealing with issues with this laptop. Got it refunded. It's not a sturdy as it might appear in the beginning. The laptop has no internal frame between the aluminum upper and plastic under shell. It is also something Linustechtips mentioned in the review on yourube of the V3 version which is identical in terms of the chassis used.

 

the aorus line is built very similar in design with a 3 layer bottom but the middle part is magnesium. i guess it is pot metal on the vents, good target for replacement

but its the aluminum that flexes the top with the palm rest it is not a unibody and could bend.

the bottom removable panel is plastic but convincing metal looking plastic.

 

i just got the p34w v4 a couple of days ago. i've updated to windows 10, things are working great. all drivers seem to be working, no errors in device manager. FYI you'll have to read instructions unlike i did to figure out the audio driver requires the smart manager v3.
i think my only question is that does having the intel graphics 5600 help? i tried disabling it in device manager thinking that it would redirect everything to the nvidia card. but afterwards when i went to the nvidia control panel it gives the error "you are not using a display attached to a nvidia cpu". i guess that means i have to keep it enabled. i don't understand why.

 

Still issue exit in v4 which rinnesh mention it ?

 

When I went to windows 10, the wireless adapter wouldn't work after a cold boot. But it would work after a restart. So after some googling, i found that you have to disable some services. For mine to work I followed the instructions:
click start, type msconfig, go to the "services" tab, sort by service name, and disabled two called "intel proset/wireless registry service" and "intel proset/wireless zero configuration service"

now it works everytime! awesome!

 

Got the Razer Blade power adapter now. It works perfectly in Germany with 240 Volts and form factor is just awesome...

 

Where did you get it as it is out of stock at the razer store since a while ?

 

alright - basically bought it - then left it to my buddies to help me switch in a samsung 850 evo 2tb and a 1tb samsung 850 msata, i work in furniture - and have a ton of photography and videos and huge emails that i keepon the computer and only on occassion, when i want to game - it's good to know the power is there when i want it! anyhow - getting everything working (to the way i want it) hasnt been smooth sailing. i travel a lot - and the weight is acceptable, and am really happy with the razer blade power adapter, had to switch the head out for it to work in china - (i spend a lot of time in china) the extra storage space is great to have - but for what little gaming i've been trying to do - the device hasnt performed well, cant seem to get the right nvidia driver , and battery life - is not what i read - but i am still trying to diagnose that - still reading through the p34v3 forums to look for a good battery program to assess properly the state of my battery, it goes within 1 hour and 30 at most, even on power saving etc.. anyhow - for someone who was justifying the buying of this laptop for the ability to have 2 harddisks, whilst being light enough to carry around whilst having some gaming power under the hood when i want it - so far - my old asus 32vd is still the more practical... more to come when i fully diagnose this computer - oh and office 2016 completely kills the computer - i get bsod's after i launch outlook.... so back to office 2010...
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...s/ed4db953-47b0-4fbb-9837-553e6f44541e?auth=1
apparently it affects this chipset that the p34v4 has.

excuse the long post, been trying to update everytime i found something right or wrong, but for some reason i keep on getting locked out of notebookreview - china and their firewalls!

 

Use HWinfo to check the health of your battery. My experience is though that due to heat the battery life steadily decreases quickly. Experienced this within 3 months and I returned it. Razer Blades have the same issue.

 

Good stuff rinneh Hwinfo looks an awesome program- I installed smart battery quite useless - it says wear level is 6.6% and current voltage is 14.589v I am on windows 10 power saver with brightness at 50% and at 44% battery remaining - it says I have 32 mins left - I have outlook open - 1 excel file - 71 background processes running - 7 total apps open - seems puny 32 mins ... Another buddy mentioned something about discharging completely then recharging but I recall reading somewhere the newer batteries have no "memory" or something of that sort will try anyway and post back

 

Not sure if anyone has this same problem - haven't used the laptop a bit but already seeing these marks ...

 

Weird my nvidia in the Hwinfo program says it only has 1024mbytes? Will reinstall driver to see if that's the case really strange

 

I think that has something to do with the gpu being disabled at that moment due to the optimus system. But your tuntime seems to be terrible. I would check all background programs to be honest. 6.6% isn;t that much to cause such a short battery life. I had around 4 hours on WIndows 8 and could stretch it up to 5.

 

So i uninstalled all NVIDIA graphic drivers - there are 4 of them that were installed,
reinstalled only the geforce experience, and it downloaded - 358.50, installed it, and still i cannot even open up the nvidia control panel in control panel, nothing happens - but when i go to task manager i can see it running in the background.... very annoying - and for some reason i cannot open up the main gigabyte website! so frustrating - and today - the wear level is 7.5 so there is something definately going on
am on windows 10 anyone got any suggestions?

 

Found out why I couldn't get onto the gigabyte site - it was the VPN that I was using.. Anyhow downloaded the driver - uninstalled the old one - and still no luck... Nvidia control panel still refuses to open
Btw the driver version on the gigabyte site is 353.40

 

Download display driver uninstaller, run it in safe mode, use it to remove every trace if nVidia in your computer, and you should be good to go. I do this for every driver update and I've never had a display related issue since.

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Turns out the graphic card is shot- am sending in for rma hopefully this doesn't take too long ... And hopefully by just switching back the harddisks everything will just work the way it was before ! Back to the old laptop for now

 

This is apparently a serious, reoccurring problem with the P34W and a reason I will not ever buy another gigabyte product.

 

Not only the P34W unfortunately. Also some P35W users experience these issues.

 

Hi everybody,

I see a lot of people complaining about build quality (rinneh's signature is a most welcome example). How long is RMA in general for this laptop ? Has anyone had a problem with after sales because of repasting ? I'm trying to estimate the hassle this laptop is to decide whether I should go for it...

Gerry

PS : Below is just some context in case some generous people have advice for me

Spoiler

(This will look a lot like a post that needs to be on the "Help me choose" sub forum, but it's actually a lot oriented towards this machine in particular, since when I posted on that forum Eason (once again, thanks !) told me about this laptop)

I've been looking this thread almost since its creation, wondering whether I should get one P34W laptop or not.
I have a dying (totally broken hinge, may affect the screen soon), slightly old refurbished laptop from a gaming POV (2nd Gen i5 + 520M) and I want to invest in a gaming laptop (to play AAA games at FHD for at least 5 years, not necessarily at "OMG" level of preset) with a small form factor. I'm a debuting PhD student, so a P34W is basically the maximum money I'll eventually be able to put in this laptop.

 

DOnt expect this laptop to live for 5 years. The battery degradation is an issue due to the heat generated near the battery itself. I have seen multiple examples of hinge problems, I have had multiple laptops myself with an uneven base, which couldd be short term fixed by reseating the bottom panel. However after transporting it multiple times in my laptop messenger back it returned to its uneven form.

I have seen multiple examples with the 970M just " disappearing". etc

The RMA process really depends the country you live in. I live in the Netherlands and Gigabyte doesnt have a laptop repair center here. I just returned it to Amazon and felt it was not worth the hassle. Got an Alienware 15 instead. Its bulkier yes, heavier too. But I feel more confident tha tthis machine would at least live 3 years without major issues. 5 Years is a bit much for any gaming laptop to stay up to par in terms of specs. Gigabyte is unfortunately just too small and spareparts are not easy to come by if something is going wrong. I would love to redesign the chassis for them to make it more long lasting.

 

So I am told there is nothing wrong with the hardware of the product.... I will check when I get it back and report back

 

Hi all
It is not possible for me to read all posts here but let me ask a question.
Shall I buy P34W v4 or P34W v3
Which one is better to choose?
At last posts comments are like v4 is not good with graphic card and battery issues.

 

I suggest waiting for V5 to ship in December. It improves on every aspect of the laptop besides the GPU.

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how long did you have the Gigabyte in your possession before you returned it? what were the issues?


this is exactly the main concerns I have of purchasing electronics nowadays. poor quality and poor reliability. the Asus G series gaming laptop I bought 5 years ago got it's battery compartment shorted less than a year of having it. the Acer laptop I had last year started developing some screen pixel issues about half the year of owning it.

so this year, I had to purchase some costly store replacement plan for 2 years just to save the trouble of product failure for the Gigabyte I ordered. it does drive the cost more and higher, but atleast I can sleep better at night knowing I could get a new one for the recommended number of years which I think should be enough for it's generation.

the longevity of computers nowadays are much shorter than their predecessors due to the complex programming and advancement of games and applications. my 5 year old ASUS did a good job lasting 5 years of gaming before it could no longer keep up with the newer releases. although the GPU was ahead of it's time back then so it only makes sense. now I can't be too sure even if I have the latest GPU, I doubt that it would even last beyond 3 years before it is rendered obsolete or incapable of running the next generation of games.

anyway, if not for the inevitable cpu and gpu failure of the Asus, I wouldn't replace it just yet. it's been a great 5 years and time to retire the thing. if not for the battery compartment issue, I would have said it was the perfect machine. so I would say it was a good machine. thank you for the years.

 

That's simply not true though.

The 970m will easily last 5 years. It will be a rather obsolete GPU in 5 years, but due to the way the console cycles work, they will most definitely run PS4 & XBONE games in 5 years.

 

3 months only, replaced it 3 times in the beginning because of the uneven base. The frame is just too weak for daily commuting from home to the office and it didnt feel worth my money. Next to it I saw the battery degrading fairly quickly in those 3 months. Starting out with 1.7% wear and in the end it was around 6%. Probably because of the laptop running very hot while gaming. Luckily I could send it back.

Too bad though, really wanted to keep this machine because its form factor was great and In general I love the Gigabyte brand.

On what do you base this? The old generation of consoles had geforce 7800 level gpu's but 8 years later they still could run battlefield 4 on 720p with a steady 30fps framerate. A pc with a 7800 ofcourse couldnt. They always start to squeeze out every bit of performance out of a console later in its lifecycle. PC has a massive overhead. I do not see the 970m be quick for 5 years. It is already struggling to run AC Syndicate with all settings on high, fhd on 60fps (mostly is hanging between 45~50fps).

 

First off, the PS3 literally had a scraped ****ty version of the 7900GT. I'd say it performed less than a 7800 though, due to the massive lack of VRAM and the lower memory bus.

8 years later it sure as hell didn't run BF4 on 720p with a steady 30fps. Plenty of people reported FPS drops, as well as the fact that it wasn't 720p, but interlaced 360p. Not only that... If you were to compare the detail & AA levels to a PC, it would be the equivalent to the cheapest setup you could get on the market.

Regarding the AC syndicate, that's simply due to Ubisoft being so utterly bad at porting games to PC. I mean... Just look at how well the P34W v3 runs The Witcher 3. Everything on high, some settings on ultra, full HD, and I was doing 45-60fps. This is a gorgeous game, with amazing physics.
In fact, I'm playing AC3 at the moment, and it runs just as bad as AC Syndicate, despite being years older.

I don't think the 970m will be "fast" compared to newer PC setups in 5 years, but I think that's pretty obvious. It will however always be faster than the PS4, and the XBONE, and by a large margin too.

So in a few years, the 970m will be running new games on very high settings, with long draw distances, with low AA, full HD, and some advanced physics, while the PS4 & XBONE will be a scraped crappy version.

You cannot fake raw computational power... No matter how much you try, it's simply not possible, and the 970m is leagues ahead of the PS4 GPU.

The GPU in the PS4 is equivalent to a Radeon 7850, released in late 2011: http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PS4-Vs-Xbox-One-Vs-PS4-Benchmarks.jpg
and the 970m performs roughly 60% higher than the 7850. Sadly the PS4 only has 8GB of shared memory, while the smallest model of the P34 v3 has 8GB system ram, and 3GB VRAM.
This is also utterly ignoring the incredibly faster load speeds from the SSD in the PC, vs the super slow optical & harddrive in the PS4.

I'm not even gonna compare to the Xbone, as it performs even worse than the PS4.

So all in all: when you grow really tired of your P34 v3, just plant it under your TV, attach 2 controllers, and use it as a gaming machine (you can even install steam machine on it)

 

What you are saying is simply not correct and here proof to back it up http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-battlefield-4-current-gen-face-off

My mistake it isnt running on 720P but 704p aka 720p with slight borders. Its constantly hitting 30fps with some drops. That on such an old console is impressive. No matter how you try to turn it and it is even a multiplatform title. It is a well known fact that games specifcally optimized for a system perform much better. Consoles have hardly any overhead while pc's have fairly high overheads with John Carmack even stating up to 50% overhead in some cases. To quote him

"A lot of it's driver overhead issues, where there's so much that we do in the game, all of this dynamic texture updating where on the console we say 'alright, we've got a new page of data', we put that page in and update the page table that points to that.

"On the console that may just be a matter of writing it to memory, it's like 'here's the texture, let's calculate exactly where this part of the page table is' and then we just poke it right in there,"

Assassins creed syndicate is running fine on PC's but it is a fairly heavy game in terms of effects and calls to the CPU. THe Witcher 3 is a beautiful game and one of the best looking ones out there. But the effects are less heavy.

Ofcourse a PC is faster in terms of raw speed. the problem is that hardly any game on the market is optimized for just 1 setup. It has to run on millions of different setups and this causes performance loss and overhead. So yeah a PS4 is specced lower and now the games run better on the 970m in general. This will change though in a few years. The 970m will not keep up for all that time.

 

honestly, it is pretty much asinine to compare pc specs to gaming console specs like the PS4 or XB1 nowadays. it is pretty much stocked knowledge in terms of technical spec comparisons that a PC rig is always miles ahead in comparison to a PS4 or XB1. as to why games on the PS4 or XB1 seem to handle the performance at a good level is having more to do with how the game is ported on the platform and some modifications and reduction on the visual quality to meet the needs of the game. remember how and why watchdog got delayed and why it looked different? also why Arkham Knight was a big mess on the PC? it's not because the PC specs is insufficient but rather the game was not fully fixed and optimized for the system. in the end, it's also about the gaming development as well.

 

Its not just that develoeprs etc already stated that there are massive overheads in place to make everything compatible on the PC that causes a lot of wasted potential. Ofcourse a pc is still faster with even those overheads. But the PS4 for example will be squeezed more and more the coming years to stay competitive just as the PS3 has doen in the past.

 

Yes there's overhead. PC's have an OS that is used for a wide range of things, but to claim that it is 50% is absolutely ridiculous. It might be 5-10%.
You quoted John Carmack, but that's a quote from way before GPU architecture got standardized.

If you think that these gen consoles have some form of unique alien GPU, you're wrong... They literally have the same GPU's as their console counterparts, only with a lower memory bus, less ram, and a lower clock rate.
I'm not saying you can't optimize performance, merely saying that you can't double it... Which is very much what you seem to believe.
To claim that optimizations on the PS4 will lead to a 60% increase in performance, is absolutely absurd.

It's funny that you use the PS3 as an example for a consoles case, because it's probably the best example of just how ****ty, and how much consoles are holding back video game development. I don't think a scraped "low setting" BF4, botched physics, with a cap on max players, FPS, and almost everything else.

If you find that impressive, that's up to you. I however find it a massive shame, and it almost always results in the bottom being lowered, as well as the top. You can't fully optimize upwards, as well as downwards.

AC Syndicate, Arkham Knight, Watch Dogs, and plenty of other games are great examples of how bad building for the bottom, then scaling it up is.

Point is: The PS4s GPU is so far behind the 970m, that the only way it beats it, is if you optimize for the PS4, and are super sloppy with the 970m.
Perhaps in 4-5 years you might see similar performance due to mass optimization, and lower optimization towards such an old architecture - but then we are talking about a 5-6 year old platform, and development for that really shouldn't be a thing.

Imagine if Apple still had to support the iPhone 3GS, how much it would hold back the forward thinking and future prospects of the software capabilities?

 

that's right. the point that rinneh is saying that such thing was true let's say circa PS2 where home console gaming was still going at it's peak. that changed as GPU changed and evolved more for the PC over the years and PC gaming became more mainstream no thanks to FPS games. as the gaming market grew and expanded, games now became more universal rather than exclusive to home consoles. this is where the problem arise with concerns to optimization and customization.

 

Anyone know what the form factor is on the Intel AC 7260 card? I'd like to replace the craptastic POS. So far its the only thing about this laptop I don't like.

Considering the following:
http://www.amazon.com/AzureWave-AW-CE123H-Bluetooth-Half-Size-PCI-Express/dp/B00HRFS1GQ if its PCI Express minicard

or

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VQF1IHW...TF8&colid=15X3ULMH537JR&coliid=I1ATS5WB49U909 if its M.2