The Gigabyte P35X v3 Review: Slim GTX980M Gaming Laptop
by Brett Howse on April 23, 2015 8:00 AM ESTDisplay
The P35X is offered with a 1920x1080 resolution as standard, and the optional upgrade is a 2880x1620 Panasonic unit, which is what is installed in this review unit. As an IPS display, it offers great viewing angles, and the 8 bit color and full RGB stripe help with color. Gigabyte has gone with an anti-glare coating on this device, which seems to be popular in this segment.
In the above image, you can clearly see the anti-glare coating which gives a bit of a muddied look to the individual pixels. At 194 pixels per inch (PPI), the P35X offers a great compromise between the really high PPI devices like the Razer Blade, and the 141 PPI of the 1080p panel offered in the base model. As a gaming system, being able to run games at the native resolution of the panel is certainly a good thing. On the desktop, Windows automatically chooses 200% scaling for this panel, but it is pretty easy to use it at 150% as well. Those with even better eyes can likely go as low as 125%, opening up quite a bit of desktop real estate.
To measure the output of the display, we turn to SpectralCal’s CalMAN 5 software with a custom workflow, and to measure brightness and contrast ratios, the X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter is used. Testing color accuracy of the display is done with the X-Rite i1Pro spectrophotometer. As with our battery life testing, we do our testing at 200 cd/m².
Brightness of the P35X is excellent, coming in at almost 400 nits. With the combination of such a bright display and the anti-glare coating, there is almost no scenario where you will struggle seeing the display. Black levels are not class leading, but overall contrast ratio is still a very respectable 1137:1.
Grayscale is also quite good out of the box, with the P35X just over the ideal target of 3.0. There are only a handful of devices which have outscored it out of the box.
Saturations are also quite good out of the box, but blue and magenta is oversaturated when targeting the sRGB colorspace. At 100% saturation, all of the colors except cyan and yellow are close to dE of 6. So even though the overall average is quite good, it is not perfect or linear in the error levels.
Gretag MacBeth is a more comprehensive test, and the dE falls to almost 4. Still, for an uncalibrated result, the P35X is one of the more accurate displays we have seen, although it is still some ways off the most accurate ones such as the Razer Blade’s IGZO panel.
Calibrated
Calibration really helps out on the grayscale results, bringing them under 1.0, and a smaller boost is seen in all of the other scores as well.
The Panasonic display in the P35X is very good, and out of the box scores are of the sort that most people will be perfectly fine with it. It is a full 8-bit panel, and has good color reproduction out of the box. The resolution is great too, with sharp text and images, but as a gaming system I think the compromise of high resolution versus gaming performance should favor gaming performance, and the P35X has delivered here.
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Darkstone - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
If a 17" gaming rig throttles, than i suggest sending it back to wherever it came from. These systems are build for maximum performance, and i expect no less of them. Do not forget that the situation grows worse over time when the system builds up dust.I'm honestly amazed that throtteling is seen as even remotely acceptable. All the manufacturer has to do is follow the TDP guidelines of the components in question. If they pair an 45W CPU with cooling specced for 35W, its their fault.
nerd1 - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Now most systems throttle under 100% CPU and GPU load because a) people want slimmer and lighter machine b) typical gaming scenario are not that demanding. Most games are developed for multi-platform and consoles are notorious for having crappy CPU power.wykd - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Go play some GTA5 and take a look at CPU usage. It will easily max out all cores on my i5-3570k.xKrNMBoYx - Monday, April 27, 2015 - link
That's one game and so far it seems to happen to CPUs that have only 4-Threads. The game seems to use more than 4 threads a bit better than older games plus the game did put some serious load on CPUs (which was supposedly fixed with a patch) but wasn't as much of a problem with CPUs with more threads.Kutark - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
Agreed. Honestly if you're looking for that level of gaming in a notebook you should be looking at the 8-10lb 1-2" thick ones, you're basically using it as a desktop replacement at that point. Going for a super thin notebook with top end hardware is a recipe for disaster as far as thermals.Hell i have a ~1" thick 17" with an 860m and it will occasionally throttle, and it has a very well designed cooling system.
Whats the point of having a superbadass CPU/GPU if its throttling it every time you load a game up.
Thats like having a Porsche that limits you to only 5 seconds of 100% throttle then backs it down to 60% throttle because of heating issues. Nobody in their right mind would buy a porsche that can't perform at the tops of its game all the time.
DCide - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Your statement looks weird to my ears.Ikas - Sunday, May 3, 2015 - link
It truly is a shame such a great overall package is ruined by the extremely loud fans, sure gaming laptops run hot and loud but this takes it to a whole other level.kyuu - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Why do you need to use more than one game to test the thermals?meacupla - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
I, for one, wouldn't mind trading off battery size for better and quieter cooling in a system like this.If I had one of these, most likely, I'm just going to play games on it when it's hooked up to a wall outlet, so I really don't see much point in having good battery life over better cooling and acoustics.
nikaldro - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Then just buy a desktop AND a low power notebook?