NEW Gigabyte P34 V2

Thanks for the great suggestion, a second power adapter is a must to me - and a smaller one than the stock model at that.

 

So, I'm the guy who posted this on Amazon review about the mCube Slim 95 for the P34G v2. you can read the full thing here: Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Gigabyte P series P34Gv2-CF2 14-Inch Laptop (great review also by Yu-jin Chia, who recommend Codi 100w adapter). The reason I chose the mCube is because I'm cheap , you can get the mCube on Amazon for $34 while Codi cost $70.

However, it seem to me that I've found the limit to the mCube 95w which I feel like you should know. It will not be able to keep up with the P34gV2 if you're playing games AND charging the battery at the sametime. I found out about this after launching The new Order while charging via the mCube at 45% battery level, the mCube shut itself off right after the level loaded. I had to quit the game, unplug the adapter, wait about a minute and plug in back in so that it start to function again. On the other hand, it had no problem charging the battery OR supply enough power while you game (with battery charged or at around 95% or above). To be honest, I don't know if the Codi adapter will do the same thing being only 5w stronger, but at more than double the price of the mCube, I take the mCube over and over again.

One thing I didn't see people mention is how fast the battery charges on the P34G v2. It charges from almost empty around 10% to 90% in less than 75 minutes (mCube & OEM power brick), the last 10% took a while Ionger like another 60 minutes, but I was impressed by the charging speed. The battery life is good, great even for a gaming laptop. I get close to 5hrs by choosing the power saver profile, turning off bluetooth and selectively use wifi (actually use LAN whenever possible). I've done a lot of searching around for the large battery version of this laptop but the fact is that the 63whr version is very rare. I've opened up the laptop and the battery is easily replaceable. I will be keeping a eye out for the big battery on the Chinese supplier sites, and upgrade to the bigger battery once it becomes more readily available.

 

I am considering purchasing this laptop for college and had a quick question: how is the trackpad? I have heard some pretty bad reviews, which is the only reason I've held off on purchasing it. Right now I have a MacBook Pro and I don't think I've ever used a mouse with it (even for gaming).

Is the trackpad good enough to get by with? I like using my laptop on unsteady surfaces like my bed and couch.

 

My previous PC was a Surface Pro (gen1) with Type cover, so I thought the touchpad on the P34G v2 is great. In reality, you really can't compare it with Macbook level of touchpad integration with the underlying OS. Gigabyte did a good enough job so gesture works fine (like pinch to zoom and 2 finger scroll). However, you will KNOW from the beginning that integrating touchpad gestures in Windows (desktop mode at least) is an afterthought.

In term of the physical implementation, the touchpad is not in the center of the laptop (10.5cm from the left bezel, 13.5cm from the right bezel). It is aligned with the space bar so the placement does feel natural. I like the size of the touch area, which I feel is enough for the 1080p screen (then again, I came the Surface touchpad, which was teeny tiny). My problem with the touchpad is the buttons. Since gigabyte integrated both mouse buttons into one piece of plastic, sometime the click doesn't register if you pressed to close to the center of that plastic piece. The best way to make sure all clicks register is to make sure you press as far as possible on the left or the right edges. It's a small compliant, not a deal breaker.

In all, I like to think the touchpad is good enough for school work, I used it with office and it's fine. Coming from a macbook, you will probably think it sucks, and your certainly wouldn't want to play FPS or RTS with it. You have to bear in mind that you're buying this laptop mostly for its graphics capability and portability. The fact that it has a damn good keyboard and decent touchpad are just bonuses.

 

I'm happy as long as I can get by using office/browsing the web and such with it. Thanks for all the info!

Now I just have to make a decision... I'm not too much of a heavy gamer so I was sort of reluctant to chose a "gaming" laptop, but from what I hear it is pretty well-rounded.

 

To be honest, if I wasn't in the market for a light weight gaming laptop, I wouldn't have gotten the P34G v2. If you don't need to play latest games on high or ultra, there's no need to give up the battery life and light weight of an Macbook. I seriously considered the 2014 MBA13, MBR13 and the upcoming MBA12. While I don't know the GPU for the upcoming MBA12, The HD5000 in MBA13 or the HD5100 in the MBR13 are good enough for most games at mid/low setting. Both are cheaper than the P34g V2 and offers good performance and great battery life, and it's something you're familiar with, you know you're not giving up on features you've grown accustom to. I think you just need to upgrade your Macbook rather than jumping over to the P34GV2

 

Well I definitely do want a Windows laptop for college. While I do currently have a Macbook, I still prefer windows.

Also, let me clarify: I am not a heavy gamer in the sense I do not play video games super often. However, I do enjoy playing some of the more resource intensive video games which is something I definitely can't do on this Mac with its Intel 3000 graphics card.

That said, I would definitely go with a cheaper laptop with better battery life if I could find one, but all of the laptops I researched that were good in these categories would have sucked for gaming. The best option I found was the Asus N550JK which would have been perfect for me had it not been less portable

Thanks for being honest

 

Def not trying to talk you out of the P34G v2. I think it's a great laptop. While it doesn't have the battery life or the design of a MacBook, it is by far the lightest 860m based laptop you can buy. I think a close second, cheaper 860m option you can consider is the Clevo W230ss (Sager NP7338), it's a little bit heavier at 4.6lbs (vs P34G v2's 3.6lbs), a little thicker (just over 1inch), but the overall footprint is smaller being a 13.3 inch screen. I believe the w230ss is also a maxwell based 860m with 2gb GDDR5. It does in fact offer a better battery life than the P34G v2. It also has more internal and external upgrade port available to you (3x usb3, 2x msata slots). The w230ss is also cheaper, starting just a hair below $1k@XOTIC PC. With the P34G V2, we're paying for the lightness of the design (I don't think you can find any other 850/860m laptops that weight less). But is it worth the extra $500? For me, Yes.

 

I spent the longest time trying to decide between this and the W230SS. I guess I'm just trying to find excuses to pay the extra $500 for the thinner, sleeker design! (Though with my configurations, the price difference is around $300 on Xotic PC).

I'll give it some more thought. Thanks again for the unbiased advice!

EDIT: Speaking of the battery, I heard you could get a larger battery that would take up one of the hard drive slots for this laptop. Is that available on Xotic PC? Or do you know where/if I could buy it separately?

 

There is the 61Wh battery, which doesn't take up the hard drive space. I saw it on mysn.eu, I don't know if they sell spare batteries though

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Oh I see. On their website they do say that the laptop may come with a 63.64Wh battery that replaces the 2.5'' hard drive. I just emailed them regarding whether or not this will be available in the U.S.

 

Well, I have no use for the big graphics card other than maybe the occasional CUDA software I might come across. There is just no alternatives out there any more that use a proper CPU. It's all about the stupid ULV processors.
And a proprietary Mac - which is no alternative to a proper IBM PC - is no different in that regard.
Is there any notebook out there that uses a normal CPU that is not a gaming notebook? I used to buy workstation laptops ever since, but they have been discontinued by every manufacturer and left the field abandoned to the gaming notebooks. It's a sad situation out there.

 

Alright so I have an update on the battery life. With the brightness at 20% (still visible indoors due to matte screen) and it set at power saver and the fan on stealth; I got 4 hours and 43 minutes (Browsing internet and Microsoft word)
I am VERY impressed by this. This is with shadowplay off to force the GPU off.

As for OC scores of the GPU, I need your help! Get me a working modded BIOS for this laptop and those videos will come
I have Crysis, Far Cry 3 and 4, watch dogs, GTA 5 as well as MANY other games to film, Just get me that BIOS!

 

Have you contacted Prema? He could probably unlock the bios.

 

Got my laptop, so far only two issues (but so far happy with it)
Huge power supply:

http://www.quickesthosting.com/~spirit/p1.JPG
Keyboard not 100% level

http://www.quickesthosting.com/~spirit/p2.JPG

*Not sure why image loads upside down here, works fine in firefox directly to the image.

Here is the before and after pcmark (upgrade ssd and memory)
Before:

After:

 

I'm assuming you aren't from the U.S. if you got the bigger power supply? Or are they all that big?

EDIT: Whoops, I was thinking battery (you can tell I pulled an all nighter last night). I saw your post from a while ago about also looking for the extended battery in the U.S. Did you ever find anything?

 

Great News, this really is superperb for a Notebook with this specs!
But what di you mean by shadowplay?
BTW:
Thanks for all the great Vids!

 

Shadowplay is part of the Geforce experience software that allows you to record your on screen display to share with others. They just recently updated the program to allow desktop recording and so if the program is running it'll default to the GPU being on.

 

Nope went with whats available, at a place where I have a line of credit large enough for the purchase: GIGABYTE P34GV2-CF2 Gaming Notebook Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz) 8GB Memory 1TB HDD 128GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M 4GB GDDR5 14.0" Windows 8.1 64-Bit - Newegg.com
*Would have bought at xotic but the line of credit I was able to get from paypal was only 2/3rds what I needed, and the terms are better with newegg anyways. Paying it off with next year's tax refund

 

I kinda doubt you have Far Cry 4 ?!?!?!

 

I'm not too experienced with purchasing laptops, but what happens if the battery dies? Gigabyte says they don't sell replacements batteries, so what would you do?

Also, a basic question about hard drives if anyone can answer: I hear this laptop comes with a 128gb SSD and a 1TB hard drive as well. How do two hard drives work together on a laptop? Could I buy a 2.5 inch Samsung SSD and replace the 1TB hard drive with it (assuming I didn't just customize it like this at XOTIC PC) without it blowing up, or windows getting removed?

Will the laptop boot off of the 128gb SSD or the 2.5 inch one, and what will it use when I'm gaming?

 

I'm not sure about if the battery dies. Best ask gigabyte (press them fr an answer) it's also possible that 3rd party batteries can come up on the market for this laptop.

As for the Hard Drive, do some basic reading on how computers work. I'm not saying it to be an , but it will help you in the long run. To directly answer your question; yes you could replace the 1tb hard drive with a XXXGb ssd. No it will not blow up. By default windows is installed on the default ssd so it will obviously boot onto that. While gaming, it will use whichever drive the game is installed on... If you install it on C:/ drive then it will use the mSATA (Assuming you didn't change the location of the OS). If you install it on the HDD, it will run off of that...

Note to all: The ssd should be used ONLY for OS+games(favorites)+programs(such as word) and the HDD should be used for media+games(you dont play that often)+anything else.
It is stupid to put media on ssd; wasted space!

 

Thanks! I will do some research on Harddrives as you suggested.

 

I used the program called Throttlestop. In the program there's a setting called set multiplier, and you just check that and set the clock multiplier you want. After that you just select turn on in the bottom right.

I'm not sure you'd want to do this with the info provided by other users here...it would appear the battery just isn't able to supply the power needed (according to other users). I probably wouldn't recommend running it long term on battery.

 

Welp... well I found a modded BIOS for the P34G see here.
It is not for the v2 specifically but the BIOS version on the bottom says 2.15.1236 which is the same BIOS as the one on the v2...
Should I risk it and flash the P34G bios? Would they be the same?
I think I'm gonna contact Gigabyte....

 

I got a few questions on how small the mCube 95W power adapter is compare to the OEM power brick. I've attached some pics here to show the size difference.



The mCube 95w can supply enough power to charge the battery if you're not gaming, or supply enough power for gaming with a charged battery. It will shut itself off if you try to charge the battery AND game at the same time.

 

I would not risk my $1700 laptop with it. The standard charger is 150W, you're trying to make it work at 95W. For that mCube, 95W is MAX (Not designed to run 95W consistent)
I really would not recommend this charger or anything under 150W. If you really wanted to, you could get the razer blade PSU. As long as it is 19.5V and at least 7.7 A it will work

 

Yeah, I see your point that I should be using the OEM brick to ensure the laptop run the way it does. But the whole point for this laptop for me was its portability. I live in Asia which means I don't have car, so every single ounce of weight matters when I'm on the bus/subway/walking in the 90f+ weather. I actually don't carry a power adapter at all when I'm going from home to work, I always have a power adapter at home (OEM) and one for work and travel. So I needed a second power adapter anyway and the mCube fits every requirement. As I've stated before, I'm cheap , otherwise I'd probably would've gotten a Blade 14. A Gigabyte OEM PSU is around $80, A blade PSU is $130, the mCube is $34 with a USB charging port, and a lot smaller (quite a bit smaller than the Blade psu also). I think you've made a mistake in your statement, the mCube slim 95w delivers 95w continuous power and can peak at 120w http://http://www.myinnergie.com/productdetail.php?productid=6.

I'd agree that there is a limitation of what the mCube 95w can deliver, but there won't be any damage to the laptop since the psu itself has overage protection and just turn itself off. To the laptop, it'll be no different than unplugging your laptop from power. Of course, to each his own, I gamed on the mcube 95 for about 2 hour with no issue, (battery charged of course). For me, it's a good, flexible and cost effective solution, it charge my other devices as well, so it's a good solution for me.

btw, thank you for the videos, it did help me making the decision on the P34Gv2.

 

Don't worry, if just the power isn't adequate nothing can happen to your laptop!

I've been operating Workstations that came with a 230W brick on 60W and 90W chargers and they are running just fine as long as you don't have them compute at capacity.

The only thing you could theoretically damage is the power brick - but only if it's designed badly. As mentioned the Innergie one shuts off.

And if you actually read the mcube's specs: 95W is the continuous rating!!! the peak is 120W.

 

So earlier I heard that Linux doesn't always run well on machines with "swappable" graphics cards like this one. I am a prospective computer science major, and understand I will probably be using both Windows as well as Linux in the future. Knowing this, do you guys think it would be a bad idea to purchase this laptop?

 

Don't get the 19v mCube, get the 19.5v one.
Innergie l mCube Plus l Stylish 95W Universal Adapter
Stock power supply is 19.5 volt http://www.quickesthosting.com/~spirit/p1.JPG

 

Yeah, that looks like a better choice, I prob should have gotten the mCube plus (130w peak is a def plus), oh well. It's cheaper too, only $30 on amazon. Voltage wise it doesn't really matter, both mCube plus and mCube slim are 18-21 volt compatible.

 

Has anyone tried undervolting? If yes, did it make a difference in temps/battery/fan noise?

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Don't do that. Contact Gigabyte. Generally speaking, this would be a bad idea: the system bios contains hooks which interact with the video bios, and these can differ between cards. A system bios can even contain the actual video bios in the case of a laptop (I believe). If you do contact Gigabyte, mind asking them for a VT-d enabled version of the bios? I'll be doing the same shortly, but the more who ask the more likely they are to help us out.

I believe you found the thread where someone modified the bios and posted a guide. I haven't tested that bios yet, but I'm pretty sure they just enabled the context menus and not the actual functions (IE it doesn't do what it says): many of the functions are confirmed to not do anything, and at least one person bricked their machine.

 

Ohh, that 19V vs.19.5V makes so much difference, LOL. I went with the slim, it is smaller and perfectly enough, with underclocking I'm well under the 95W consumption.

 

What did you under clock, the CPU? If so, by how much. I'm going to undervolting my CPU soon and I'm guessing if you under clock it you can undervolt it even more.
How much can I under clock before the CPU starts hindering my GPU in game performance?

 

For CPU use Throttlestop, it offers undervolting and clocking. I'm about at 500MHz lower clocks with significant lower voltage as default. I wish if someone would come with a bios to disable two CPU cores, I would rather use 2 very fast cores, than four slower.

 

What's the difference between Intel XTU and throttlestop, and which should I use for CPU mods like this?

 

UPDATE: Working with Prema now on a custom BIOS; with some luck, we will match (maybe beat) the 870m

Wish me luck!

 

Congrats Sebi! Woud have advised to look over to techinferno forum. I've read many times, that the user 'svl7' makes these vBios mods. But if prema makes that too, great. I'm very excited to see your results.

Good luck and have fun!

P.S.: Are you gonna use the turbo fan setting for OCing? You described some time ago, that your auto fan setting didn't change the fan speed to maximum and let the temps rise to around 90°C...?

 

Good point about the fan. That's an issue Gigabyte really needs to fix. I am hoping I am able to make a custom fan curve with this BIOS. That way I can make it the best I can. Once any component hits 85 degrees, I will have it ramp to 100% as it should
The thermal compound should also help out

 

How is the build quality of the p34g v2?i saw some people gpt quite a bad build quality

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The build quality is good. NOt excellent, but far from bad (considering you don't get a lemon).
Only negatives I have is the touchpad buttons. They have very little travel and since it's one piece, it's awkward to precisely use. Everything else (to mee) seems fine. The keyboard is one of the best I've used on a laptop. Matrials feel great, hinges very sturdy. With this machine, you are prioritizing power/portability over finesse and build quality.

 

I saw all ur videos and thanks to u im really considering this laptop, after all this time is there any paint gone on the body like the other guy in this forum had? Im really hesitating between this and p35w v2 since in my place right now (china) its only 200 dollar difference

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Hey, have any of you guys found a place to purchase the 64Whr battery for this? I ordered the notebook with the smaller battery from Xotic PC, and would like to switch out the battery once I pull out the HDD.

 

No notice in any paint fading. As for the P35W v2, EXCELLENT point! For me also, the price wasn't too different. Here is why I picked the P34G v2 instead.

• Better portability - Lighter and smaller size
• Color - More resistant to smudges/fingerprints
• Maxwell - This is the biggest factor; if the 870m existed in Kepler then I'd go for it for sure. Kepler runs MUCH hotter. With the 860m Maxwell, it can be overclocked to match the 870m. The amount that the 870m can be overclocked is very small in comparison
• Popularity - Sounds lame but fact is the p34g v2 is better selling. As such, forum support, parts availability and general information is more widely available

Hope this helps you with your decision

 

Can someone please post whatever numbers are printed/stickered on the batteries? We then could search for those and maybe find some Chinese source to order that part from.

I'd buy this laptop if I could get the 61Wh version with 2.5" HDD. But I can't find this offered anywhere in US/Canada. Only in Europe and it's quite a bit more expensive there. They call it the CF3 version.

 

I have EXCELLENT news

My BIOS is now unlocked (HUGE thanks to Prema)
I can now set the GPU clock to max +549mhz (basically infinite; anyway it will not be stable at anywhere close to that xD)

Time to beat the 870m!!!
Time to test new games!!!
Time to see the TRUE power of this laptop!!!

You guys excited, I sure am! School's out in a week; expect daily video's then

 

Great newss, just tell us the result asap as im gonna make my choice between this and p35w v2 based on ur result cheers

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That is cool. Would it be possible to disable two CPU cores also with that bios or it just goes for GPU clocks?