Introduction I've noticed that laptops are starting to become quite powerful and fancied the idea of having a very small portable system that could do everything I wanted - that being poweful enough to run CAD and being able to play relatively easy to run games (think most UT3 based games) at a sensible speed. Initially it was just because I fancied having a new toy, but after thinking about it, I realised I could use a laptop that was better than my PC at work, with software I wanted installed on it (for example, Office 2003 instead of the newer versions). Additionally, I would always be able to carry a system with me as well as acting as a backup. Contenders for purchase The Gigabyte P34G v2 caught my eye. A lovely, small design that packs some serious grunt: i7-4700HQ 2.4GHz-3.4GHz GTX 860M 4GB Up to 512GB SSD (depending on region - UK probably limited to 256GB) Up to 1TB HDD (in addition to the SSD) 8GB RAM An alternative to the P34G v2 is the Razer Blade. Here's a list of advantages and disadvantages (according to me) of the Blade over the P34G v2. Advantages: Geforce 870M Thinner (17.8 versus 20.9mm) High quality touch activated 3200x1800 display Disadvantages: Much more expensive (~£2370 with a 512GB SSD, before shipping and import tax) 3200x1800 display No secondary drive Weaker CPU (may also have problems reaching top speed) Potential problems with importing No option to have Windows 7 installed You'll notice that I've included the high resolution display both as a positive and a negative. While I'm sure it'll look fantastic, truth is that a high end desktop system would struggle with quite a few games at that resolution, let alone a single 870M. I hate the thought of running at non-native resolution, so the 1080p screen of the P34G v2 is actually more tempting. Believe it or not, had the Blade been supplied with a 1080p screen, I may have gone for it instead as the 870M is surprisingly powerful at that resolution. As it is, an 860M will run most games at a decent framerate at 1080p barring the more excessive recent titles. Also, I'm not bothered about the touch aspect of the Blade's screen - I don't want to leave smudge marks on it after all! I managed to find an American company called Xotic PC that not only sold the P34G v2 at a very reasonable price but offered some interesting customisation options. So, in addition to the basic spec, I opted for the following upgrades: 512GB SSD (extra room for a game drive and a scratch drive) 1TB 5400RPM HDD (actually the default) 16GB CL9 RAM (just in case) Thermal paste upgrade (for overclocking the GPU) Windows 7 Professional (instead of Windows 8 by default) Xotic PC were a very nice company to deal with. They even remembered my request to only format a small partition for Windows, allowing me to create other partitions. The only downside of ordering from the USA was the US layout keyboard, but to be honest I really don't use the '£' symbol that much anyway! Benchmarking In regards to CAD, I use SolidWorks. This ran absolutely wonderfully. For gaming, see below. Edit: I forgot to mention that fpr all of the tests below, all settings were put to the best possible through the default menus (i.e. no tweaking) and were run at 1080p. Tomb Raider had FXAA enabled. I applied the overclock using Afterburner - only the core and memory clocks could be adjusted (no overvolting). The system managed an additional +135MHz on the core and +700MHz on the memory: note that the software wouldn't actually let me increase the core any further! Although this resulted in a small amount of additional heat and fan noise, I got around about a 15% increase in performance - not bad! I wish I could push the core harder as it had the most impact on performance. As it is, I reckon that an overclocked 860M has roughly the same performance as a 570 (or 480, or 295, or SLI'd 260s), which personally I think is absolutely incredible. Imagine what an 870M or better can do! I was hoping to deactivate hyperthreading as well as turning off a core in order to reduce heat but the BIOS is quite limited, so no CPU tweaking. Speaking of heat, it has to be said that the heat output during the gaming benchmarks was quite phenomenal - there was an audible fan noise (still comparatively quiet and certainly blocked out by in-ear headphones) and my desk became very hot to the touch under the air vents. Finally, I ran three further benchmarks with the power disconnected. See the results below - note that the stock values were used for comparison, though the overclock settings were left on. Battery life time was predicted to be about 40 minutes. As can be seen, the effect of running off the battery reduces performance by ~70%. At first, there was only about 10% performance loss but the GPU core clock speed would drop to ~300MHz when the battery got below ~85% Asus MB168B+ Mini Review All I'll say about this is that it's a fantastic bit of kit. If you've always wanted to be able to carry around a a very portable secondary screen with you, get it. It is connected and powered by a single USB3 connection and has no lag - I could quite happily use it to do CAD work. A really nice feature is the ability to physically place it in either portrait or landscape mode and the image will update automatically. Perfect for reading a PDF, Word document and the like. Xperia Z2 Mini Review It's brilliant! I have a 128GB card installed and have filled it up with a LOT of media after some clever video conversion - and still have plenty of room left! I actually get faster download speeds through it compared to my home connection (~2.5MB/s versus ~1.9MB/s) so I've upgraded my contract to unlimited internet and let my laptop tether to it. The screen is fantastic (5.5" full HD) and the phone has a huge amount of CPU and GPU processing power. I've yet to test its waterproofing but I can't be bothered to be honest - what if it DOES fail?! I'd rather leave it until some sort of accident happens. Final thoughts I'm very happy with my new purchase(s). Everything has surpassed my expectations. All the kit here fits snugly in my rucksack and barely impedes everything else I tend to carry. The only thing I would have liked would have been the ability to have a 2TB HDD but I can always swap the 1TB drive out when they come available. I always carry my 2TB passport drive with me anyway.
Nice review, Still personally think mobile gpus have not come along way. Still by your own estimates 2 generations of performance behind which in reality is a huge gap. Not to mension the cost a 880m equiped laptop will cost a small fortune. ( cheapest system with it in is from Asus I think and that system is over £1700, Which is frankly nuts) Unless you must have a portable gaming system theres better uses for the cash thats for sure.
@Rollo, I agree with most of what you have to say but I have to disagree about 'mobile gpus have not come along way'. Bear in mind the 860M is a mid class GPU and that the 870M actually delivers quite a lot more performance. The 870M and 880M can be seen as only being one generation behind. Anyway, the cards of two generations ago are still holding their own at 1080p!
if you set your keyboard as american international, and then do ctrl + alt + shift + 4 you can get a £
Just a quick update: I've been using this laptop much more than I thought I would - it's now my main work computer and I actually spend more time than I anticipated to play games instead of on my main rig. On a small note, I had to slightly decrease the memory overclock (+700 to +675) as I would get artifacting after a couple of hours. This has made no performance hit as the core clock OC is doing the brunt of the work as it is a comparatively low resolution. Positives: Astounding gaming performance - it actually seems to beat my main rig on a like-for-like basis (i.e. it gets better framerates at 1080p than my main rig at 4K) - for example, Crysis runs very happily at 1080p with 4XAA on 'Very High' settings and high res textures installed. Can run CAD and older games (e.g. Ground Control 2, Supreme Commander) very well off the integrated GPU (Intel 4400), having about 3 hours battery life with battery saving settings. Boots and shuts down STUPIDLY fast. Excellent sound quality. Decent speakers that allow me to watch a film in the kitchen whilst cooking. Negatives: A fair amount of games I've tried so far have issues running in full screen mode: however, this seems to be mainly the lesser known games; most of my favourite games have been fine. The Realtek kit seems to have compatibility issues with OpenAL, which unfortunately most UT3 based games seem to use - a shame as I was hoping to install Mirror's Edge (Borderlands 2 works provided you have it in 'windowed borderless fullscreen' mode). Not very quiet - you wouldn't be able to sleep with it on next to you if you're a light sleeper and the noise can ramp up greatly when playing intense games or video encoding - this isn't a problem with the in-ear headphones but it could be a problem if sitting next to someone in a library (not on a train though). Puts out a LOT of heat under load - the surface it is on will get quite toasty, as does the area near the power on button - it doesn't seem to affect stability though. The more I spend time with it, the happier I am that I bought it. I can recommend it hands down - a brilliant bit of kit.
Nice results for the 860M. An unlocked bios should allow you to squeeze even more out of it (Some chaps over at Notebookreview are pushing over 1300Mhz boost clock). My 780M will soon be running an unlocked bios which should see me clear of 1000/6000 at reduced voltages. Not too bad for a fully enabled GK104 in a laptop. I am really looking forward to what the proper Maxwell "980M" can do.
Just another quick update for those who were interested: First off, I installed Crysis 3 briefly to see how it would fare: the answer is surprisingly well! I was quite happily running and gunning on ultra settings (FXAA). I would guess that framerates were in the 25-30 range but mostly in the upper end of that range. I also found out the cause of some games having problems - it's a full screen issue which I'm guessing is due to the Optimus technology. I have found a workaround for games without a borderless windowed mode which is a little arse about face but it does work: 1) If the game doesn't have a windowed mode or allow your desired resolution to be set in windowed mode, use DxWnd to make the game in question run in windowed mode. You will probably have to edit the game's ini files to change resolution as the two games I've tried would crash when changing the resolution through this programme. You will also need to set the window size of DxWnd to native screen size (available in the options). 2) Use the Windowed Borderless Gaming app to make the window from step 1 run in a borderless window mode. The good news is that once you set up the above applications you can leave them running in the background and they will automatically kick in when you run any games in their saved list. I've been using it to play Unreal Tournament 3 and Mirror's Edge with no apparent loss in performance. Edit: Also I forgot to mention - my previous overclock on the memory was actually stable. Turns out the mod I was using for Crysis just happened to bug out under certain conditions.
