Gigabyte P35X v5
A delicate balancing act between performance, features, noise and heat.
For years, the gaming notebook arena was dominated by large and bulky systems that performed well, but were arduous to carry. Razer’s Blade line changed that, packing gaming hardware into a very sexy chassis. Now Gigabyte has upped the ante by including a GTX 980M instead of the less potent GTX 970M.
The result is almost a gaming laptop rather than a gaming notebook, though you probably don’t want to game with it on your lap. All that performance in a 21mm-thick chassis that weighs 2.4kg means it can get toasty under load — we measured surface hot spots in excess of 60ºC while gaming, though mostly at the back-middle (near the power button), where you’re not as likely to come into direct contact. The added size also allowed it to pass torture testing, albeit at a very audible 47dB.
If that was the only thing going on, the P35X would be a good option, but Gigabyte includes plenty of other high-end features. The display is a 4K IPS panel, and while that’s too much for the GPU at high/ultra settings, on a 15.6-inch display, there’s no arguing it looks crisp. There’s also a 256GB SM951 NVMe drive, a 1TB hard drive, and a 75.8Wh battery. Oh, and for all you holdouts who like physical media, they’ve even stuffed in a swappable storage bay; our unit had a Blu-ray combo drive, but it can be used for another 2.5-inch HDD/SSD.
When it comes to performance, the P35X v5 doesn’t disappoint — from storage tests to CPU performance to gaming, it handles everything as well as you would expect. The GTX 980M is about 20% faster than a GTX 970M, and battery life remains a respectable four hours, beating the recent MSI GE62 and ASUS G752VT by well over 50% in our rundown testing. And how about that modern SSD? It’s typically two to three times the performance of a SATA drive, reaching 2,254/1,249MB/s in sequential transfers.
Style-wise, the P35X is either a welcome break from the garish gaming notebooks, or it’s rather drab-looking. Compared to the Razer Blade 14, it’s nowhere near as sexy, and the casing is mostly plastic instead of machined aluminium. Keyboard backlighting is white LED only, and the keyboard itself is a little softer than we like. The touchpad is somewhat lacking, too, with integrated buttons that don’t always respond. Also, that 4K display isn’t G-Sync enabled, so while, in theory, you can play some games at 4K, in practice, you’ll mostly end up running them at 1080p.
None of these are major issues, though, and as an entire package, the P35X v5 is well rounded. The price is competitive, too, and the feature set is excellent — it’s amazing to see a thin chassis with all this performance that still elects to include a swappable drive bay. Some of these compromises are a forced choice, as well: you can’t have G-Sync with Optimus, so you either get G-Sync or improved battery life.
We like the P35X v5, and for some, it’s going to be a better gaming laptop than a bigger option from ASUS or MSI. Others will lust after the Razer Blade. If you’re looking for something with a bit more performance without added weight, the P35X is impressive.