P34G v3 news

Another update :

2) So no p34w v2 before 2015 ? mmmhhh I asked.

3) We should know more soon about the 150w being enough or not with the 970m

 

Don't be worried about the PSU; they will obviously equip one that can supply the laptop with the power it needs. That is the job of the engineers, leave it to them

 

The engineers have been wrong on the Clevo model for example, so I guess only a detailed review will tell.

 

The ETA on Xoticpc states Early December so who knows lol

 

Is is newly added or is it the ETA that they guessed many months ago?

EDIT: It has said december since october

 

It was early nov a week ago. And then then when they changed the P35 one to Nov 25th they also changed this one from early nov to early dec.

 

Got bad news. Was informed that Gigabyte will be using 3GB instead of 6GB for the GTX 970M of P34.
Not sure about P35.

 

I just got the following message from my local vendor whom I pre-ordered from : "We just received an email from GIGABYTE that the P34W v3 will use 3GB GDDR5 VRAM instead of 6GB VRAM, the reason is that 3GB is a lot cooler than 6GB."

Price was not reduced too =\

edit: ^ probably same vendor as mine haha

 

Isn't 3GB vRAM enough for 1080p anyway? But I it is a bit dodgy without a price reduction.

 

Should not make a difference due to 1080 for one panel but it looks horrible for marketing. It has LESS vRAM than the previous model. This is a huge marketing sin...

 

I'm sure a lot of thought went into the decision. They probably found that because of the P34's small form factor the 6GB 970m just ended up getting too hot and throttling. I'd rather have 3GB and no Thermal Throttling than have 6GB and a laptop melting to my desk. I wonder if the Aorus X3 will follow the same suit. It will be interesting if they're both 3GB 970m's

 

I don't think that they will use the 3GB version unless they are really lazy/stupit because the X3 could cool an 870m to about 87 degrees celcius the heat problem was more on the cpu side. Also if they wait until broadwell to upgrade it then there shouldn't be any heat problems at all (unless broadwell turns out to be as hot as haswell) Then i would also like to see a 15 inch version (X5?) with 980m if the p35x can keep temps in the low 90's, because the cooling system of the aorus machines is to be very good.

 

Yeah, If possible i'd love to see an X3 with a 980m. That would be mad XD

 

A 1080p framebuffer at 16.7 million colors is only 6 MB.. (Typically you need 2-3 framebuffers - one that's being displayed, one being drawn. If you have vsync on, an additional one queued up to be displayed.) The models themselves are just lists of triangle vertex coordinates, so rarely go over a few dozen MB (any modern video card trying to draw a GB of triangles will choke). So even 32-64 MB of VRAM would be enough for 1080p.

The vast majority of VRAM is used to store textures. Screen resolution has nothing to do with it other than increasing the useful max size of a texture. The texture packs for a modern game can be several GB or tens of GB. And while the game does not load all those textures simultaneously, it does have to uncompress them and store them in VRAM in bitmap form (as well as generate lower-res versions of them if you have mip mapping enabled, which is nearly always).

Still, unless you're running ultra-high resolution textures, even 3GB is probably overkill. All this VRAM has mostly been a marketing thing. A client of mine a few years back asked me to put together a flight sim rig. I opted for the 580GTX with 3GB of VRAM instead of the normal 2 GB because he mentioned wanting to run it with the highest res textures. After it was built, I checked and even with all of xplane's highest res textures loaded, it was only using about 1.2GB of VRAM. I imagine things have crept up over the years, but not that much - 1080p is still pretty much the standard.

So I actually consider 3 GB more than enough, and 6 GB was overkill put in only because of marketing. In that respect, I think this is great news that they are reducing the amount of VRAM. Now the laptop will use a little less power and run a little cooler when gaming.

 

I completely agree with this

 

Real good info there Solandri,

On a side note, would it be worth waiting for the P34G v3 (if the 960m variant is announced) instead of the P34W v3? Perhaps it may have a Broadwell CPU chip for even more battery life. Right now the P35W v3, which is most likely to be around the same price point as the P34W v3, which is $2400 here in Australia.

 

Regardless of whether 6GB VRAM are an overkill or not, Gigabyte will be liable for a major PR blunder if they opt for the 3GB version.
GPU specs with 6GB for the P34W v3 have already been announced on their press release, as well as by their approved vendors.
If they opt for the 3GB version on the final product, it may be seen as a design or manufacturing flaw.
Hoping to hear more (official) information on this model hopefully over the next week or two.

 

Edit: that is "P-R blunder" and not page ranking NBR automatically replaced the text.

 

But there are many reports of stuttering even on their GTX 780 Ti 3GB due to not enough VRAM.
Selected games offcourse.

Still, I don't have much choice and will still go ahead with the P34W v3.
Hopefully developers find a way to optimize their games for PC with low VRAM GPU's.

 

I'm curious as to why the P34w v2 is going to be released so late. According to the Gigabyte rep in OCUK forums, it's not going to come until early 2015. But by then according to source ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 Allegedly Postponed To Q1 2015 Due To Strong GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 Sales ), GTX 960m will probably be released then and the real P34G V3 will come out!! D:

The p34g v3 might even have the broadwell, which means battery life!! I just wish I could fly into the future and pick one of these up.

 

http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_0/index.aspx
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 GM204 Review: Power and Efficiency | More Features: DX12, VR Direct, HDMI 2.0

sry, didn't understand this. It means, that hdmi will not work strait with discrete GPU?
in my AW m14x R2 I have a problem with gaming on TV via hdmi - a great delay. and mini DP connected to nvidia GPU is the only way to play on a big screen.

and so if there won't be a mini DP there won't be a TV gaming

 

Btw, I still hope that Gigabyte will still maintain using 6GB instead of 3GB.

Previous 3DMark leaked shows that they are using 6GB GTX 970M. Meaning that they have been using 6GB all this while, not just for marketing.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4710HQ,GIGABYTE P34V3

 

It's possible though it was exactly at time they were making those tests that they realized it was too hot

For comparison we also have leaked benchmarks of Asus GX500 with GTX 980M and there Asus folks later on told they had to go back to drawing board with this model because notebook was getting too hot. Thus delay till 2015 and possibly lower GPU there.

 

That's possible as well.

Hope someone can do a detail comparison on VRAM limitation(example : 3GB vs 6GB) on games(especially PS4 port), and VRAM temperature(example : 3GB vs 6GB) comparison.
This can be done by someone who owns the GS60 with 3GB and 6GB VRAM of the GTX 970M.

 

In the gs60 970m owners lounge thread (sorry don't know how to put a link in here with my phone) there were some results posted and it seems like there is pretty much no difference in heat output. Just check the last few pages.

 

Have a look in MSI GS60 with GTX 970M lounge here. We are trying to figure out exactly those questions

So far there were no tests of exactly the same MSI GS60 model with 3 GB vs 6 GB VRAM, only 3K screen with 3 GB VRAM and 1080p screen with 6 GB VRAM. But 6 GB VRAM didn't seem to be hotter, more the opposite (though the effect of screen resolution may be larger than the effect of VRAM).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi...t-pro-970m-owner-s-lounge-53.html#post9823717

For the effects of VRAM sizes on games, it's quite heated topic here on this very site, see for example endless discussions in 900 series Maxwell threads .

I personally would prefer 6 GB VRAM though 3 GB VRAM shouldn't be a tragedy. Overwhelming majority of GPUs out there still have less VRAM than that, so game developers will need to handle such situations (see e.g Steam HW survey). Games should be still playable, just maybe with less detailed textures or some stuttering here and there if you anyway select the highest possible textures.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey

This will be changing with time though, my guess most of new cards sold in 2015 will have 4 GB VRAM or more, so 3 GB is kinda unfortunate. I don't think any developer will dare to require 6 GB or 8 GB VRAM for quite some time, but 4 GB VRAM may happen.

Some games like Shadow of Mordor already appear to use more than 4 GB VRAM, though there don't seem to be any tangible penalties for having less, so could be just caching (game checks what's available and pre-fills it with data just-in-case).

We should keep in mind though, nobody knows what will be going on e.g. in 2 years, which would be still well within life-span of notebook, hence preference for 6 GB VRAM as future-proofing .

 

HDMI already works, the question is if version 2.0 will work.
The chipset definitely supports it and the reference drivers as well.

The board layout shouldn't be a problem, since there is really nothing additionally required on the hardware side. The pinout didn't change, only the frequencies were raised. So if Gigabyte doesn't actively disable HDMI 2.0 in BIOS or drivers it should work.

 

I honestly think (even as a proud owner) the p34 series is dead. Sager has come out with a laptop that just BLOWS it away... the NP8651

it's about 500$ less, a tiny bit thicker, 970m, same CPU/RAM. BUT here is the AMAZING part. Under full load GPU is 60 degrees... yes 60. This is due to the fact that they have set up 2 fans for GPU and a seperate fan/heatsink for the CPU. (Ie. the heat from CPU does not reach GPU and vice versa). The OC headroom on this is HUGE. I have no doubt it can be OC'd to beat the 980m.

 

Eh. It's 2lbs heavier, less portable, and the CPU gets really hot.

 

It's only cheaper because it uses the 3GB 970m instead of 6GB, has no SSD and no OS.
Once you add those costs in its the same, just a fair bit heavier.

Edit* it also comes with 8GM RAM instead of 16

 

Thanks. Just read the thread. If only Gentech could do a side by side detail comparison.

It's going to suck big time knowing that your new powerful laptop can't play games with all the eye candy turned on.
I wouldn't mind reducing the resolution to get a playable fps.
But if your VRAM is low, even lowering the resolution might still give you stuttering since it helps only a little on the VRAM usage.

Looking at GTA V gampelay, I'm guessing that it will eat up a lot of VRAM just like Watch Dogs. Probably more.

 

The CPU runs much, much cooler. (same CPU with a dedicated cooling system instead of shared.)

The 3gb vs 6gb GPU doesn't matter. Both will not bottleneck your laptop on a 1080 panel. If you however are working with multiple monitors, THEN yes, it makes a difference. Since I am not gaming on 3 monitors, 3gb is sufficient. It does not have an ssd but you can put one in for $100. As for RAM, I originally had 8gb in mine then upgraded (through a free promotion) to 12gb and there is no real-world performance increase. Again, if you do heavy graphic work and multiple monitors, this may differ for you. As for the OS, if you know where to look, windows pro 8.1 is free.... For a 400$ difference I really think it is justifiable. The much, much cooler temperatures allow the GPU to be OC'd alot; not so much in the p34 series. Also for once, A sager/Clevo doesn't look boring and boxy; I actually quite like the design.

 

Have you read the notebookcheck review of it? The thing is a furnace.

 

That's awkward... That's a different laptop.... Look at the back. The NP8651 has 2 vents; not 1. That review you sent is a TOTALLY different laptop

 

Both laptops have 2 vents... If you look closely they each have a vent in the back and a vent on the side. They're the same laptop.

 

Nope, it's the same one. Clevo only has one new thin chassis (well, actually two variants, GTX 980M models get slightly thicker chassis than GTX 970M models).

Check HTWingNut's video review (2 minutes mark):



It just looks like two vents in some photos / renders, but it's not, it's just a design thing:

 

Check here man.

"Just jumped on a quick BF4 session:
Battlefield 4 Firestorm Ultra 1080p CPU 77C / GPU 60C, avg FPS = 73"

 

That's really weird... Scroll down here and check out the picture with the vents... It shows two red exhaust vents...

 

There are 2 vents only for GPU afaik, and NBC got high temps due to high pixel density + iris pro 5200

 

The p34g does not compare with the NP8651.

The former one is 14", 1,6 kg, and very thing, with a better battery than the Sager. (61 Wh vs 60 is nothing, but the 14" should draw less power than the 15").

They do not compete at all. You cannot even judge the cooling system of the v3 yet, which should be good at least for the GPU.

 

+1

They're two pretty different laptops, I don't think I would even consider the sager as a thingaming laptop.

 

Disappointed this won't make it to the UK until early next year.

Hopefully this'll be the last bit of waiting before taking the plunge.

 

2015 ? What the hell !

 

Overclockers UK Forums - View Single Post - ** NEW GIGABYTE ULTRAFORCE 9xx SERIES LAPTOPS!! **

Worth the wait though!

 

Yeah I saw this after digging a little bit. It's unbelievable though !
Many resellers are still announcing early december which would be fine for me but 2015 without precision is crazy.
All resellers should have been contacted to remove the product at least. ( I pre-ordrered it in France )

Maybe for christmas ... !

 

It's getting even worst .... : Any news on the Gigabyte P34W with GTX 970m? - Overclockers UK Forums

" but these wont be on our shores until early part of next year. Cant be exact at this stage, but more than likely Feb/March."

 

I do wonder why the 15.6" model is available now yet the 14" model will be out until in another 5-6 months. I think I can wait though, as long as it's before 2016. I may as well wait for a GTX 1070m with Sky lake while I'm at it.

 

Probably to lower stock on the current 14'' model, if the new one becomes available the older one will probably not sell that much.

 

Excellent strategy, they'll probably loose some client with this strategy. If this is true ( the link I provided announces also the aorus X3 for 2015 but ETA 21/11 on this link : Aorus X7 Pro V3-CF1 17.3" LED TFT, Intel Core i7-4870HQ, 16GB DDR3, 2x256 SSD RAID, 1TB HDD, Dual NVIDIA GTX 970M SLI - Windows 8.1 [X7 V3-CF1] )

 

Well that's ridiculous - suddenly the p35 is more tempting than having to wait at least 4 more months.

Then what - broadwell version will be announced?

I should have known better - ever since gigabyte launched their first iteration of the u2442, every similar 14" laptop has been up to half a year delay by the time stock is available in retailers. In some cases even longer.

I wish they would get on top of timings for future product announcements and releases.