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Portable Pete J’s Gigabyte P35X v6 review

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Pete J, 12 Sep 2016.

  1. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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    Pete J’s Gigabyte P35X v6 review

    Introduction

    Anyone who’s been following laptop GPU developments recently will be well aware of the astounding advances made. Nvidia have really surprised everyone with the performance available, deciding to discard the ‘M’ suffix and effectively putting the full desktop chip in. The general consensus is that the mobile versions now only suffer an approximate 10-12% decrease in performance compared to the desktop versions, which is absolutely insane when you pause to think about limitations laptops are subject to. Following on from this, I decided it was time to sell my trusty Gigabyte P34W v3, which had been used as my main work system (i.e. 40 hour weeks) for the last 18 months without slipping up once, and replacing it with something newer. Originally I was looking for a 14” laptop with a 1060, but after looking over the figures, the performance increase from a 1060 to a 1070 was too hard to ignore, particularly when looking at resolutions above 1080p, which even 14” laptops are moving on from (1440p being the next logical step). To put it into perspective, a mobile 1060 has roughly GTX 970 levels of performance, whereas a 1070 is within spitting distance of a 980Ti, ~60% better. Think about that for a moment: something the power of a 980Ti, in a laptop that doesn’t necessarily have to be the size of a small house. Personally, I find that absolutely mind blowing. As such, I was willing to go for a slightly larger laptop, which meant access to a higher resolution screen, therefore justifying more power.

    I had also been thinking about getting into VR ever since my extremely positive experience at Gamescom and had started laying out plans for a small VR rig: however, the power now available in a laptop rendered the idea somewhat redundant. Even a 1060 now exceeds the recommended requirements for VR (formerly a 970) and in the event that I wanted to try and make a mobile VR rig, a laptop would make far more efficient use of a backpack battery - in fact, with the battery pack I have in mind, a 1070 equipped laptop would last an estimated minimum of 1 hour 42 minutes (assuming a constant power draw of 180W, which is probably higher than it would be) whereas a PC rig drawing ~360W would last ~35 minutes. If the power draw was 160W, the battery would last 2 hours in theory! However, that’s a project for a rainy day, which may be rendered moot by wireless support that is being done, as well as MSI about to release the VR One.

    The laptop

    My last two laptops have been from Gigabyte and they have always impressed me with their low cost yet durable build quality, as well as being as small as reasonably possible and having an understated appearance as opposed to the tacky, blingy look associated with all things gamer. I perused their new range of laptops, looking for the smallest chassis that would support a 1070, which was the P35X v6 - a 15.6” machine. Important specs below:

    • NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 GDDR5 8GB
    • Intel® Core i7-6700HQ (2.6GHz-3.5GHz)
    • DDR4 2133/2400MHz – Up to 32GB
    • 2 x M.2 SSD slots (Type 2280, supports NVMe PCIe X4 & SATA)
    • 1 x 2.5” SATA
    • 1920 x 1080 IPS display (UHD optional)
    • 3 x USB3.0 (Type-A), 1 x USB3.1 (Type C)
    • 1 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x Mini DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x D-SUB
    • LAN: 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet
    • Wireless LAN: 802.11 ac (a/b/g/n compatible)
    • Bluetooth: Bluetooth V4.1+ LE
    • 75.81Wh Battery Capacity
    • Dimensions: 385(W) x 270(D) x 20.9(H) mm
    • Recommended for VR

    [​IMG]

    A couple of important things:

    1. The P35X v6 can have an optional UHD display at extra expense. I found that 1080p was perfect for my previous 14” laptop: indeed, my work colleagues would often comment on how fine the pixel pitch was when I was showing them something. Having UHD displays at home, I’ve found that UHD is actually an inconveniently high resolution to work with (at least in my field). Besides, for gaming, the 1070 would have so much power that very high antialiasing levels could be applied - also, ingame text would probably be impossible to read at such a fine pixel pitch for UHD. After mulling it over, I realized that the upgrade was a comparatively small extra cost (and included a DVD drive upgrade - see below) so thought ‘ah, why not’. I imagined I could run the display at 1440p (or could I? Read on…) without seeing any blurriness and it would also allow me to display the visual output from the Vive on the laptop screen.
    2. An optional Blu-ray drive can be installed, also at extra expense. Again, originally I didn’t see the point of installing a Bluray drive since I wasn’t planning to watch films on the laptop - hell, I’d be using Amazon Prime if I did. The presence of a disc drive was an unexpected bonus anyway - how the hell did they fit it in there?! However, for the sake of an additional £100, this was included with the UHD display upgrade, so why not?

    So, with the laptop chosen, I had to find a vendor. In the past I’ve sourced from an American company, but the American keyboard was starting to grate - the ‘£’ sign actually gets used more often than you’d think! I bought the base laptop from Scan. However, I thought the default specs were a bit lacking, so upgraded the following (the hard way):

    • G Skill Ripjaws 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2400MHz DDR4 CL 16 switched out for: HyperX Impact 32GB Kit (2 x 16 GB) 2400MHz DDR4 CL14. I should point out that I didn’t know exactly what RAM was installed by default (I was expecting some 2133MHz cheap stuff) and if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to upgrade.
    • 1TB HDD switched out for: Samsung M9T 2TB 9.5 mm SATA 2.5 inch HDD.
    • 256 GB M.2 PCIe SSD switched out for: Samsung M.2 850 EVO 250GB SATA SSD. I later found out the default install drive was a Samsung 950 EVO, which had blisteringly fast transfer speeds. As with the memory, if I’d known exactly what the SSD was before buying a replacement, I would’ve probably left it alone. Ah well, I’m probably going to make a nice little profit on eBay with it and the 850 EVO does have slightly higher read IOPS. Truth be told, I doubt 99.9% of users currently need the raw power of PCIe SSDs anyway and I reckon it’s only in truly niche applications that their benefits come to light. Still, I know a hell of a lot more about M.2, NVMe and PCIe SSDs now, so the experience was worth it!
    • Added in: SanDisk 1TB M.2 SATA SSD - no frills bit of kit for putting my scratch drive and games on.
    • Windows 10 Home removed and Windows 10 Pro fresh install, which was a ballache since I had to research forcing Windows to allow me to choose Pro as an install option. Still, I’m actually glad that I know about this now.

    [​IMG]

    The 2TB HDD allows me to store all my data (literally everything I own digitally). The 1TB SSD I would set up as a dual partition scratch/gaming drive. Windows 10 Pro was installed as it allows more control compared to the Home edition. The 32GB RAM kit is a mostly frivolous upgrade, but the faster speed would help with some programmes I run for work and I thought ‘heh, 32GB RAM in a laptop is funny’.

    Comparing the laptop to my previous one (in broad terms), I’ve gained 46mm width wise and 30mm depth wise - thickness stays the same, but I also have an extra SSD and a DVD-RW drive (again, how on earth is there even room for it?!), as well as room for a numpad. The battery is also larger (61.25 versus 75.81Wh), which should yield an approximate 24% increase in battery life before taking into account architecture improvements, though the UHD screen might negate some of that additional battery life.Another thing I like is the keyboard. It’s quite responsive and has a nice feeling to it.

    [​IMG]

    The speakers were also surprisingly decent and loud. I didn’t buy the laptop for its inbuilt sound system (although it has a pretty decent onboard sound card built into the motherboard) but at full volume the speakers were overpowering my kitchen TV I had on while I was cooking. Nothing on a decent pair of headphones though.

    Temperatures, power and noise

    When I bought the P34W v3, I was under no illusion that a lot of high performance hardware was being crammed into a small chassis and it was likely that heat and noise would be compromising factors. Although the laptop was hot running and relatively noisy under load, I never encountered thermal throttling (at stock anyway) and for normal us was quiet enough for office use. My colleagues could tell when I was using it to do some dedicated number crunching though - nothing that couldn’t be blocked out by simply putting in my headphones! I also did plug it into a power meter at one point and I remember the P34W v3 pulling ~110W when running the Heaven benchmark. Both the GPU and CPU would hit 90C when under full load (i.e. dedicated stress tests) but did not throttle, which surprised me a little.

    I was expecting the same thermal and noise characteristics from the P35X v6, with ~150W power draw. During low level use (i.e. web browsing, document editing and video playing), the laptop pulled about 70-75W. During benchmarking, the laptop pulled ~150-170W, so pretty much what I was expecting. Noise wise, the P35X v6 is never silent - okay in an office but might (I stress MIGHT) get irritating in a completely silent room - though as I type this section, I’m in my kitchen, which is very quiet, and the fan noise is fine. Under load, things get a little noisy but still acceptable for an office environment in my opinion (I could have a phone call in a dead quiet room next to the laptop whilst running a benchmark), and certainly nowhere near levels that can’t be drowned out by some low volume music on headphones.

    Throttling was an issue though, for both the GPU and CPU. The GPU would occasionally bounce under its base clocks (hitting 90C), but in my testing I found that performance was only affected by one 1FPS at most, so nothing to worry about. It should also be mentioned that the GPU also boosted up to ~1835MHz (!) in some instances when starting a benchmark, before heat build up caused it to start reining itself in back to the stock value of 1442MHz. The CPU on the other hand scared me a little - temperatures could go up to 100C even during gaming and never really reached maximum boost speed, hanging around at ~3.1 to 3.3GHz. Still, the temperatures are within spec and the laptop survived an eight hour VR gaming session, so make of that what you will. It should also be mentioned that the area near the on button could get very hot - I reckon approaching 55-60C since it was on the threshold of being painful to keep touching. Even as I type this article up, the area is still very warm, perhaps 40C or so.

    Results

    First of all, Microsoft, SORT THE FECKING WINDOWS 10 RESOLUTION SCALING PROBLEMS! This caused me no amount of small problems with many things. I usually ended up turning scaling off but trying to work at native UHD on a 15.6” screen is...tiring.

    I was wondering how to compare results to published articles, when it dawned on me that I do have my own published benchmarks in the Maxwell Titan X versus the Pascal Titan X review I wrote a while ago. This meant that I could compare the results I found for the laptop against the Maxwell Titan X, which in turn would allow indirect comparisons from other published articles for the 1070. Please remember that the Maxwell Titan Xs I own are EVGA Superclocked variants, so probably have at least 4% extra performance compared to stock (1216MHz vs 1098MHz boost clock). Also, the latest driver available at the time were used for this review(372.70) - I’m not a professional reviewer, so don’t expect me to go back and retest everything!

    As per my previous review, all settings are run at absolute maximum (things like 8xMSAA etc). I did turn off effects that are completely useless such as film grain and chromatic aberration (ever want to set me off on a rant? Ask me about these two ‘features’). Besides, with VR headsets, chromatic aberration becomes even more annoying...I’m going to stop there otherwise I’ll be at this all day.

    I was planning to run benchmarks at 1440p as I had originally intended to run at this resolution since UHD at 15.6” is ludicrous, but for some reason it was not available as an option in any game. Even the Heaven benchmark defaulted to a 2560x1600 resolution when I selected 1440p. I was even unable to create a custom resolution through the Nvidia control panel. Hence, all results are at UHD. Suffice to say, 1080p performance is ludicrous for reasons that will become evident.

    [​IMG]
    Ashes of the Singularity

    This was the big surprise of the whole benchmarking affair. I did recheck to confirm what I was seeing. The 1070 leaves the Titan XM in the dust and is actually the equivalent of a Titan XP. I don’t even...maybe the newer drivers improved things? Utterly crazy. Still, to see the game running like it was on the laptop was jaw dropping.

    Batman: Arkham Knight

    A relatively solid performance, bearing in mind the consoles think 30FPS at 1080p is acceptable...Joking aside, actual gameplay typically sits in the low 40s - deactivating the more hardcore AA frees things up. Loses out a fair bit (~18%) to the Titan XM, performing similarly to AMD’s Fury/Fury X depending on circumstances. Still significantly faster than a 980 though!

    Crysis

    Again, a very solid 30 FPS, feeling nice and smooth during gameplay. Turn down the AA and you’re laughing.

    GTA V

    Although FPS is low, I’ve been able to play GTA V very well at UHD with a 980Ti simply by only having FXAA on for antialiasing. At these settings, the P35X v6 is able to hold a respectable 40+FPS in most circumstances.

    Hitman: Absolution

    The 1070 actually beats the Titan XM here by about 10%. Again, drivers could be having an effect here, but wow! As is always the case, turn the AA down (not off!) and things start to fly.

    Metro: 2033 and Last Light

    I was expecting these games to be rather brutal to a mobile GPU, and they were. The games prefer the desktop counterpart, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, turn the antialiasing off and the games run smooth.


    Rise of the Tomb Raider

    What are you talking about, Pete? There are no RotTR benchmarks…

    I thought I’d just mention this. Those of you who read my article on the Titan X face off may remember me mentioning that when RotTR is maxxed out at UHD, the VRAM usage almost hits 12GB (!), therefore I thought this would be an unfair test what with the 1070 ‘only’ having 8GB. Don’t worry, the game runs nicely!

    Tomb Raider

    Same story as the Metro games.

    Unigine benchmarks

    The mobile GPU loses out to the full fat desktop GPU but given the synthetic nature of the test, I wouldn’t have expected the results to be so close (7-8%).

    Overclocking

    My P34W v3 was stretching its cooling ability to the absolute limit, so although I could overclock the 970M, it’d quickly throttle back to stock values - a shame, as the 970M showed an incredible amount of overclocking headroom if cooled sufficiently. I was expecting exactly the same behaviour with the P35X v6. Given I’d already seen the core clock throttling during normal use, I decided to ignore it and concentrate on memory overclocking (which is more beneficial for high resolutions anyway). I was well aware that it was probably not worth it, as the GPU would throttle back to account for the additional performance brought about by the memory overclock. I managed to get the memory from 8000MHz stock to 8900MHz (+450MHz in Afterburner).

    All this was rendered moot when for some reason Afterburner decided for some reasons that I couldn’t apply an overclock anymore (hence the missing results). Ah well, as seen from the results, overclocking benefits were debatable anyway, offering only a few percent at best (translating typically to 1FPS improvement - bid deal) and actually hurting performance at worst.
    Summary: you want to overclock a GPU on a laptop? Get one that actually has sufficient cooling (duh)! As I stated at the start, I never expected any overclocking headroom for this laptop. However, I have no doubt that with the appropriate cooling, the same overclocking potential will be seen as for the desktop version - perhaps even more so due to their low power, low heat generation binning.

    Conclusions


    The P35X v6 does exactly what I expect it to do. It is a laptop that can function as a gaming system but is also extremely portable. It also serves the nature of the programmes I use at work well - massively multithreaded affairs that only take a few minutes to run, or CAD. As such, anyone who wants a laptop that will function as a system that can game or crunch code for hours on end time after time will need to look at the large, bulky units - that’s what they’re there for.

    Now, let’s look at the whole mobile GPU versus desktop GPU thing. Looking at reviews, I think it’s fair to say that for the most part, a Maxwell Titan X is equivalent to a 1070 (as well as a 980Ti). From my results (and keeping in mind the fact that the Titan XM I have are factory overclocked), the mobile 1070 is for all intents and purposes equal to a Titan XM. I would like to just take a moment to say ‘HOLY FECK’! A laptop with a 980Ti/Titan XM/Full fat 1070 in?! This generation of mobile chips are incredibly powerful, no doubt. And all this with a stupidly low power draw and heat generation. Are we seeing the start of the eventual death of the desktop PC? I personally think that a laptop from the new generation could be a suitable replacement for an HTPC and/or console - buy a long HDMI/DisplayPort cable and have it sat next to you while you watch your film or play your game, with the added freedom of being able to pick it up and take it with you.

    One final comment I will say is that the P35X v6 handles current VR with contemptible ease: I think that in reality you can get away with less than the minimum specs, though I’ll discuss this at a later date.

    What next?

    Well, that’s the laptop situation covered until the next generation. I wonder what the next generation will be like? I would like to go back to a 14” chassis (I know, I’ve barely had this laptop for a while) but we’ll see what performance is like when that comes round. For now, the trade off in size for raw power balances things out, though I think I might’ve got away without using the pesky Windows scaling on the 14”.

    I will be reviewing the Vive soon - I hope to have the article up soon as I want to try a few things - some of them go beyond gaming. I’ll update this article with a link when I publish it.
     
    Last edited: 13 Sep 2018

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