Confused: Cannot game on Y500 on battery?

Ok, so I've been reading up on the Y500 and thinking about making the purchase but I have a couple of concerns and need advice.

So the Intel 4000 graphics is disabled on this machine, and my understanding is that the GT650 dual / GT750 GPUs don't work on battery power.

So does this mean that you cannot play anything requiring more than flash graphics unless the notebook is plugged in to the wall?

Either I'm an idiot (which is entirely possible), or this is a silly design flaw that defeats the purpose of "portable gaming". I hope I'm just an idiot because this laptop is as close as I've seen to the features I want and price point.

Can someone set me straight??

 

Yes. You can only game with the battery plugged. I think it's like that with all gaming laptops (like my M11x). Technically the game will run but since the power needed to run the gfx card is not enough, you will take a huge hit in FPS.

This is how it is with all discreet graphics. Anyone correctly me if I'm wrong, just going by my experience.

 

To add to what orangedrink888 said, technically YES it is possible to play on battery, you still use the GPUs. But is it optimal.... KIND OF. So for a short answer YES you can, but like orangedrink said you will take a big hit in fps. For example, on my MSI GT60 i can play Far Cry 3 with very smooth FPS on high. Once I unplug it, i only have decent FPS on low. But that's also a very intensive game. Now say you wanted to play something like Counter Strike or Left 4 Dead, those games will run fine on battery because they don't require a whole lot from the GPU.

 

This is correct

Also it is very unhealthy for your battery to game while not on AC power. Laptop batteries that drain this quickly will get worn very quickly.

 

Thanks for the quick replies guys. That makes sense, I just thought that there were NO graphics capabilities while on batt. I'm talking Plants vs. Zombies or some other pap while sitting at the airport.

One more question if I may-

I'm having a difficult time deciding between the 650 SLI set-up vs one 750. Would any of you offer an opinion as to difference between GT650 SLI vs one GT750? Is the SLI configuration that much better than the single 750 graphically speaking and I wonder if the battery life is significantly improved going from 2 GPU set up vs. one?

 

yeah you can play plants vs zombies on battery. if plan on playing graphics-heavy games like crysis and you want to hit the highest, or close to, graphics settings possible, then get the SLI. there's a 750m sli now, better pick that.:thumbsup: not much difference on battery life sli or not, really depends on what you are doing. also, you can easily disable the 2nd gpu if you want.

 

Well for one id advice to not go with the 650m sli at all. If you really want to only buy a single 750m you can buy that for now and then later on if you would like you can buy the other 750m ultra bay for an sli setup. But if your going to do that you might as well just buy the already assembled 750m sli just like dronelebeau said above.

 

Approximate performance numbers (on default clock speeds):
1x GeForce 650M: 3dMark11 ~2800
1x GeForce 750M: 3dMark11 ~3350
2x GeForce 650M: 3dMark11 ~3850
2x GeForce 750M: 3dMark11 ~4400

So yes, 2x GeForce 650M in SLI will outperform 1x GeForce 750M. But all other things being equal, get the laptop with 1x GeForce 750M, because you have an upgrade path in the future by buying a 2nd GeForce 750M at some point. If you buy a laptop with 2x GeForce 650M today, you're already at a dead-end.

If your definition of "portable gaming" is playing PC games on a subway or airplane, then I think you'll be disappointed. You're not going to get more than about 2 hours of gaming out of even the longest-lasting laptop (from either lightweight power-efficient laptops that rely on integrated Intel HD graphics, or 17" gaming-powerhouses that have massive batteries). On top of that, most PC game design assumes keyboard+mouse or gamepad, and are not enjoyable with just a keyboard + trackpad.

The current definition of "portable gaming" is a laptop that is relatively easy to move from one desk to another desk (e.g. a road warrior playing games in the hotel at night, or a college student that brings a laptop between home/school on the weekends). And in that regard, you're looking at about 3.5lbs at best without AC charger weight.

 

I only get 2931 in 3dMark11 with my 750M. I wonder if I am doing something wrong. I have overclocked it a little and was able to get around 3100 or so (and a few fps in Tomb Raider) but would love to get 3350 stock.

 

The first run of the GT750 cards have buffer and cache issues not to mention poor QC and cooling paste so glad I waited for the second batch. Getting 3349 Stock from just one 750 card no over clocking nothing by disabling the second SLI card. Lenovo in China identified alot of Thermal paste issues which is why some early 750's are kinda slow or run hot, the fixed that in the second batch with higher grade thermal paste mine from the looks of it is perfectly applied im not gonna separate them. but looks good.

Plus you can tell the heat sink pipes just look beefier,and the fans are higher quality not so much whine just a gentle gust or air. Compared to my buddies, SLI 650 my SLI 750 is next to silent.

 

You've made this claim in a few posts now. Mind taking pictures of that "improved" cooling system and showing us what your maximum CPU and GPU temperatures are in 3DMark 11 or Battlefield 3/Far Cry 3/Crysis 3? So far everyone else has been telling me that the cooling system is exactly the same and the refreshed model runs hotter due to the voltage increase.

 

This is the reason I returned mine. My old m11x if on high performance will only last about an hour but it won't take a hit on fps. The battery can deliver the needed power on that laptop. I wish I hadn't sold it to buy the y400 that I sent back. I sent it back because it felt flimsy and it was kind of too big though. I didn't think it was going to be as big

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

You should get the Razor Edge Pro gaming tablet.

 

If you're looking for small portable gaming, I think you want the Clevo W110ER.

It's an 11.6" gaming laptop, running a Core i7 Ivy Bridge CPU, and a GeForce 650M GPU. It's known by several names by different manufacturers / OEMs, such as the Origin EON11S, Maingear Pulse 11, etc. They are all the same base laptop, with the only real difference being the color & branding of the outer shell.

It's a pretty decent machine, and by far the most powerful gaming machine under 14".

That is a horrible idea.

Razer Edge Pro is overpriced by about 40% - 50% for its performance. It's not actually very portable at all, since it still weighs ~2.85lbs for just the base unit. And it is not useable as a standalone PC gaming machine, because the keyboard dock isn't available until Q3 2013.

I think the Razer Edge Pro is a good concept. But it will be completely superceded by Haswell-based Ultrabooks in Q3 and Q4 2013.

 

Well he said he wanted a laptop that doesn't downclock the GPU on battery and as far as I know the Razor Edge is the only mobile device with a gaming-grade discrete GPU that fits the bill. The Clevo W110ER is just a smaller and overpriced version of the Y400/Y500.

 

... I'll leave this one for someone else to correct you. Too easy.

 

Your opinion about whether I'm right or not doesn't matter because it has no relevancy to the OP which is laptops that have good gaming performance on battery. I don't know why you seem to always want to be right but this remark just reeks of narcissism.

 

I'm waiting on a 11" gaming laptop with the newer gt750m cards and if possible, the new haswell chips from Intel which should come out June 3. The new hd46000 integrated graphics is said to be the equivalent of a gt650m GPU so I'm anxiously waiting.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

no internal gpu at this time can match the 650m. it has 384 shaders compared to a measly 20 eu's of hd4600. a 630m maybe, but not higher than that.

 

At max load, with CPU fully un-throttled (running at close to 56W, 53W on mine), and both GPU running at max load at 1.15V at 1250MHz, the 170W power supply DOES NOT provide enough power for the laptop.

I have problems with the battery started discharging halfway when I am running benchmark (small FFT prime95 + Uningine Heaven). Even when playing Bioshock Infinite I had this problem. Have you seen before, negative charge rate on the battery because the laptop was sucking so much power from the power supply that it started sucking power from battery.

The 3630qm only lets me drop the power to 36W at its lowest though. With full load, 36W lets the CPU runs at 2.6GHz. At 45W, full load the CPU runs at 2.9GHz. At about 53W, the CPU boost fully up to 3.2GHz.

I bought the Alienware 240W slim adapter on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QE190E/ref=pe_309540_26725410_item), which has 7.4mm x 5.08mm tip. To convert to 5.5mm x 2.5mm which is what we have on the Y500, I bought this cable ( http://www.bixnet.com/cntx75.html). One could also cut the cable and replace the connector, but when there's close to 10A of current flowing through it I don't trust my soldering.

 

Same here; that I have noticed. However, is it safe to use a higher PSU other than the one that came with the Y500? I'd love to do the same, but I'd like to know the risks before doing so.