I'm actually disappointed that the entry-level budget notebook category isn't included. I got a refurbished Lenovo IdeaPad about half a year ago because it had Ivy Bridge (HD4000) and Core i5-3210m (2.5GHz, up to 3.1GHz turbo), and it plays League of Legends at normal/default settings at 60fps and Starcraft 2 on Low settings (also at 60fps I think) just fine. All at 720p.
Basically, any entry-level notebook with Ivy Bridge HD4000 or higher and a non ultra-low voltage CPU frequency is a serious contender for playing moderately demanding games at low settings.
Sadly, a line has to be drawn somewhere. Everyone will have their opinions as to where that should be. Personally, having to run low settings at a paltry 720p is not a gaming notebook by name whatsoever, it's just a notebook that happens to be able to play some games at crappy resolutions. Its like calling a surface a gaming notebook because it's docked and I can play flash games on it.
Yes, I am surprised this didn’t make it into the list.
I am eyeing this machine to replace my G73JH (which has aged surprisingly well), but I wish they made a SKU with the GTX780m and the 120 Hz panel available.
I did: "So with that said, I started looking for GTX class GPUs – though I should note that the Y510p is available in SLI form as well, which should be slightly faster than the GTX 760M/765M in most cases (as long as a game scales well with SLI)." I suppose I could have made a bigger deal of it, but personally I'm not super interested in SLI on any laptop -- too many drawbacks (including battery life and not always scaling well in performance).
that is true, but it is also DDR3 ram on the 750m and lower end architecture (vs DDR5 on 760+ and much more pixelshaders,etc.) but it does offer some unique flexibility. but also kills battery.
Battery life on the Y510p is 3 hours even if you disable SLI or take out the Xdock. And this is on a Haswell CPU. Most of the criticism of this laptop is heat and batterylife.
I did mention it in the GTX 765M section. Unless I explicitly say "I probably wouldn't get one of these" (e.g. MSI GT60/GT70), anything listed is a reasonable option in my opinion. Figuring out which one or two I think are "best" in each category is inherently subjective, so if you like the AW14 more than the P34G or W230ST, by all means go for it.
I'll give a shoutout to the ASUS N550JV too since you can get a 1080p IPS Matte panel on it (the DB71 submodel), you aren't stuck with the glossy touchscreen or a crappy TN matte. I think for someone wanting a really nice screen that is matte, it's a great option.
Yes that is true, there have been issues with throttling, but I've read that re-pasting solves those issues. (apparently there may have even been wax left on by accident that contributes to the problem, allegedly). Also many resellers of the n550jv will offer inexpensive repasting options (20-35$), but yeah hopefully they can solve that better in the future. But there are also a lot of other brand laptops on the market that are susceptible to throttling as well...
The N550JV was the first laptop I considered purchasing and would absolutely consider it if they improve cooling and add a 770m option. 750m is too dated, even the lenovos are getting the 755s. Anything under a 760 really doesn't make sense investing in if gaming is priority.
I have n750jv,the laptop is cool as it get's,even in full load.It's ice cold.And it's the same for n550jn Here is some heat marks for n750jv http://img.benchmark.rs/47885/temp-min.jpg
To be fair, there isn't exactly a nice neat data table. In fact, I'm not sure you should be knocking him for missing something...
"X550LB-NH52, currently selling at Newegg for just $580. For that price, you get a Haswell ULT i5-5200U processor, which should be fast enough for any current gaming workloads. More importantly, it comes with a GeForce GT 740M graphics"
"X550LB-NH52 – Intel's i5-4200U is faster than AMD's current Richland CPU cores, and the GT 750M"
Well, which is it? A mysterious 5200U with a 740M, or a 4200U with a mighty 750M? Neither! A 4200U with a 740M. :-P Plus that was a Black Friday-esque sale. I just checked Newegg and not ONLY is it out of stock, it's $660 now (again?). You need to scour a bit more. Best Buy has had A8-5550M machines locally for a while now for $400 (17" 1600 x 900). That's not a Black Friday gone in an hour price, they were selling them a week ago and still are. They're not going to knock your socks off but they can't be beat for the money. There's almost always a comparably equipped 15" or 17" AMD machine in that price range, if you look around. So if you really want to mention APUs... mention them for what they are. Budget machines with better graphics than anything in that price range.
One last thing, the A8-5550M is very close to the 4200U in threaded workloads. In some cases I suspect it might very well be faster, but I haven't had time to really dig through benches. I assume my check in in the mail. Thanks!
In general use, even ULV Ivy Bridge and Haswell will beat the Trinity and Richland mobile APUs -- mostly because clock for clock, they're much faster. If you have a specific workload that benefits from heavily threaded cores, AMD can pull ahead, but such code is pretty esoteric and I'm not going to make a recommendation for a laptop for code that 99.9% of people probably never use. That's part of why I don't recommend the HP either, at least not for a gamin laptop -- not only is the A8-5550M not particularly fast for gaming, but a 17.3" laptop that's more for light workloads just doesn't make much sense to me. Not that there aren't some people that will like it, but it's not the thing that I would go out of my way to recommend.
The X550LB at $660 is still a good buy incidentally, at least in my opinion, which is why even when it was listed as out of stock I didn't remove it from the list, though now it's an "honorable mention" rather than a primary recommendation.
Jarred: Thank you for the article. Under the P34G portion of your mainstream section, the word “Package” should changed to lowercase; and in the Clevo portion, the word “Cleo” needs a “v”. I'm looking forward to your full P34G review.
The Dell Latitude 3540 has an amazing performance/price ratio. It's got a Radeon HD 8850m, about as good as a GTX 750m, and a 1080p screen for only $780 at the moment, $120 less than the Lenovo Y510p! I bought one and I'm awaiting its arrival now. I'm quite excited.
My problem with the 3540 -- and pretty much anything that uses and AMD dGPU -- is that they're now all using Enduro, and IMO Enduro still has issues. It's not unusable, but every time I go back and retest updated drivers on the Alienware M17x R4, Enduro makes me grumble. I didn't explicitly call AMD out as I feel a little bad beating up on the losing team. On desktops, I think AMD GPUs are quite compelling, but I haven't had a great AMD dGPU laptop experience in some time. The price performance value is there, but the headaches with drivers and Enduro are worth far more than $100 to me.
From what I've read the videocard itself because the bottleneck on that laptop, i think its more similar to a 730m; I'd really reconsider getting nvidia, especially if you are considering getting a gsync monitor for external use.
According to game-debate.com the Radeon HD 8850m is about 20% faster than the Nvidia 730m , 15% faster than the 740m and only 1% slower than the 750m. From a gaming perspective the only slight downer regarding the Dell Latitude is the ULV processor which can hold back the performance a bit in certain games as detailed in the notebookcheck.net review
Most of the higher end laptops are going to be close to 1000:1, and really even 800:1 is sufficient -- it's not like contrast that's twice as high is really twice as good, as there's a point of diminishing returns. I find the speakers on the ASUS G750J line are decent as well. But having not tested the X70 I can't really say if it's better/worse overall.
Man I still have a hard time getting over just how great of a deal the Y410p is for a budget gaming or workstation notebook. i7-4700MQ, GT 755M GDDR5, 900p screen, 1TB HDD+24GB SSD, wireless AC, and 4-5 hours of battery life with Optimus in a 14" 5.5 lb package all for just $800 ($780 with the Barnes & Noble Gold discount) is pretty much untouchable within a few hundred dollars by any other brand save for Lenovo's own Y510p. The i7 is a great little chip for content creation tasks, e.g. photo/video editing and 3D rendering, and the GT 755M is a very highly-clocked GK107 part and not a shabby GPU at all. Gaming-wise it seems to be a great complement for the 900p resolution.
It's disappointing to see the lack of IPS displays and proper (non-caching) SSD's even in laptops over $1000. These things seem to be becoming more common in Ultrabooks for around that price, and I'd thought there was a premium there because of the form factor (smaller/thinner = harder = more expensive). Sure you may have an extra/larger dGPU in there but shouldn't it balance out?
For that matter I don't understand how you can have a high-quality 7" 2560x1440/1600 IPS display in a <$300 tablet but in 15"+ laptop (which should be easier & therefore cheaper right?) it's seemingly impossible. Is this less a price/production concern and more to do with Windows' terrible DPI scaling prior to 8.1?
Also disappointing, the lack of choice of AMD APU options (not in this article, just in general), particularly with the higher-end A10's and no discrete GPU, particularly in the UK. Hopefully Kaveri is enough of an improvement to get taken a bit more seriously.
I too want awesome displays, they aren't available at the prices you name, nor is your thinking correct about how display prices work.
"high-quality 7" 2560x1440/1600 IPS display in a <$300 tablet" Name one. Displays at that resolution are usually in the 10" range, or higher price bracket. The ipads with 2048 x 1536 IPS, and start at $400, and higher resolution tablets are even more expensive.
"15"+ ... which should be easier & therefore cheaper right?" No. There is a concept called economy of scale which is the result of breaking down costs over many units. Tablets are high volume items, laptops are not.
It is a price/production (part technical), and market supply/demand concern. The apple and ultrabook lines have shown some people do want better displays, but laptop sales are price sensitive and low volume. Phones and Tablets have shown to be near consumable, and high volume. Physically smaller displays are also easier to produce than larger ones. Those major factors, economies of scale, technical / physical difficulties, market demand / supply @ low prices high volumes, make small tablets and phones much more available to consumers, and laptops not.
Pity I can't have that dream laptop just yet at a price I'm able to pay, but that's how the world works. Pick your priorities and adjust joy to what aligns best with your needs... like an adult without power to change the world. However by all means, if you're able to make the world better with higher quality displays, do so.
I'll concede the point about tablets, economies of scale and that my pricing may have been off, and QHD being a pipe dream for now (though I'm less concerned with price and more with being able to find a non-apple option). But as far as gaming laptops go, a niche-ier market selling luxury items to a maybe more well-informed audience, and that some laptops do seem to manage to have IPS screens at similar sizes/resolutions/price points, you'd think more companies would offer a variant/upgrade to IPS for those willing to pay a bit extra over the non-IPS version. The maybe-maybe not way the market is now just seems kinda weird.
I think it's also a matter of the GPU's. You don't see even the highest end 780M benchmarked at resolutions higher than 1920x1080 and there may be a good reason for that. Why make a gaming laptop with a great screen that won't be able to run games well in its native resolution?
The MSI GT60 3k series is only a 100$ difference for the 2880x1620p ips screen over a 1080p TN panel. The only one available right now is the 2099$ 780M version but there is an expected 770M version coming soon for ~1500-1800$, and I plan on getting it.
Thanks for the review also. One of the semi-mysteries to me is how the P34G wins the mid end. I know the review isn't up yet, but could you briefly comment on the P34G battery life? From the forums, it seems to be very poor compared to the other notebooks similar to it (Razer Blade, GE40, etc). I've been trying to pick a new laptop to pull the trigger on, and I had nearly removed the P34G from my list due to short battery life. Thanks!
P34G does okay on our Light load (around six hours), but it does seem to do worse on the Medium and Heavy loads. I'm okay with six hours, though, and it has a good display, good hardware, and feels pretty nice as well. The Razer and MSI both have a lousy display, but better battery life, so I guess you have to pick your poison.
Jared, any comments on the portability of the P34g? I was looking for a secondary gaming laptop that I can haul around with my work laptop for those business trips. The Blade would be tops except for that horrific screen as you mentioned. Looking for something I can fit into my laptop backpack that'll add a minimum of weight and still play most of my steam games at medium settings.
Thats why I feel the P35k is superior to the P34G. Its the same 1400$ price but you get 15" ips 765m versus 14" ahva 760m. P35k has much better battery.
NEED CORRECTION - asus has G750JH with 780M and raid 0 SSD (128+128GB) + 1TB HDD, blueray drive, Killer 802.11ac Wifi for around $2250. It also DOES NOT use optimus which is a big plus for many people (optimus is basically crap and you cannot turn it off with clevo I think)
The G750JH has Killer 802.11b/g/n. Killer has yet to offer an 802.11ac part.
Other than that, considering that the Alienware only offers a caching SSD (as an upgrade) and the G750JH has two 128GB SSD's on RAID, I'm mystified (as you seem to be) as to why the Asus didn't at least get the runner-up nod at the high end. It's been out for at least a month and seems to be getting good reviews. The price/value proposition seems much better than Alienware's and the build quality should be much higher than a Clevo or MSI (even though you can get both of those with better options).
I forgot to add, since the winner was a 15" laptop, that there seem to be serious heat concerns with the 780M running on 15" systems. You can find some videos of the insanely loud sound of fans for those configs on youtube.
Asus seems to have even better cooling than AW m17x (at least compared to last gen one) and has better prive/value than other heavyweight 17inch laptops. Lack of optimus can really help too.
Caveat is that both CPU and GPU are onboard - but upgrading CPU/GPU is not very practical anyways as it is risky and usually costs much more than just upgrade the whole system.
Optimus is rather helpful for extending battery. The early issues have been ironed out. Its nice to have the option. The Asus is a TN 1080p panel right? MSI gt60 3k is 2880x1620 ips panel and nearly same price.
I would like to add a note for the MSI GS70-002. This is an EXCELLENT rig for mobile gamers who want a big time experience in a thin and relatively lightweight experience.
I am in Sales and I travel across a large part of the US and often times I find myself in a hotel with not much to do. So I decided to sell an old MacBook along with a custom gaming PC and reinvest into a a gaming laptop. I needed something that was light, had a big screen, and was thin enough to easily fit in my bag. I also wanted something with serious horsepower.
The MSI GS70 clocks in at .85" thick (the same size or maybe thinner than a MacBook Pro), it is under 6lbs, and it has a full 1080p screen on a 17.3" frame. Solid aluminum body construction.
It sports an i7 4700MQ, GTX765M, dual 128GB SSD's striped for blazing performance, and 16GB of RAM. I find the anti-glare screen to be a lifesaver since I use it in so many various locations with wildly varied lighting... Not sure what the author meant by poor screen. I love it.
It was all about $1900 and Newegg is throwing in a 50" LED TV for $100 as a bundle (not sure if the deal is still on, but I got mine at the end of November). The TV is a cheapie no name brand, but for $100 it is a damn fine addition. Works just fine for connected gaming when I get home.
If you need a light, thin, full-sized gaming laptop you can't go wrong with the MSI GS70.
This. Jarred, could you comment on the gs70? I used to be in the same camp as you - I wanted a portable, as light as possible, 13-14". However, after I saw the gs70 I started doubting: maybe size is not the critical metric, maybe weight is. Considering the gs70 weighs about as much as several of the 15" options I'm basically getting more screensize per pound, well, if all else is equal I'm in.
It's worth mentioning that for the Dell laptops (including Alienware) most anyone can typically find a way to get a 10% off coupon code. This coupled with deals that appear occasionally can drop the price the Alienware laptop to similar pricing with the high-end Clevo based laptops - But you're getting the better chassis quality and warranty with the Alienware.
Well, I don't mean to sound ungrateful - Thank you for the article. Although you still missed one. The first time you mention the X550LB you say it's a 740M. Then a bit further down you say 750M when comparing it to AMD's iGPU.
I have seen some benchmarks. The 4200U is clearly better in most workloads - but the difference in threaded workloads isn't much. Certainly not nearly as big as it's single-threaded lead. Demanding games that don't scale well are getting rare. The only massive advantage is the discrete 740M, and even that doesn't use GDDR5 IIRC.
So yeah, for poor bastards looking for a sub $500 laptop that can do some gaming, I think the laptop I linked with the A8-5550M is worth a mention (even if it's just in the Budget guide). It's now $280 less than your X550LB. In the $400 range most people will end up with lesser AMD A4/A6 processors or lowend Intel CPUs with a weak iGPU. Another decent option was the Envy 15 you mentioned for $499 in your budget laptops guide. But that extra $100 pushes it too close to the other options. For something slightly slower you can even get a 15" Samsung Series 3 with an A8-4500M ($380).
I won't touch anything with "Acer" on it unless I had very compelling reasons. :P I will say that the Lenovo machines are very nice and I would buy a Y410p. I like Lenovo's offerings in general, actually.
What about the 8970M? I just grabbed the Clevo P157SM with it, and its 250 dollars cheaper and about 10-15% performance hit - Huge bang for the money. Its Equal or faster than the GTX680M in almost every benchmark. So far I'm extremely happy with it, With the exception of a bug with windows 8.1 coming out of hibernation.
Well, he did write this rather extensive article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6680/amds-mobility-c... but that was januari. It might be worthwhile to write an updated article, but he did write earlier in this thread: "every time I go back and retest updated drivers on the Alienware M17x R4, Enduro makes me grumble"
I would love to see a review of the Gigabyte P35K. It's slightly larger but they pack a much larger battery than the P34G which would make it much more travel friendly. It also has a 1080 IPS panel as well which should be much better than the displays Razor and MSI are using. I think it would be a very serious contender for one of the best portable gaming laptops.
The ASUS X550LB-NH52 is back in stock at Newegg for $660. At $580 I would have seriously considered it as a new laptop for my son, but not so sure at $660. Might as well go up another $70 and get the Lenovo Y410, better everything for not much more money.
Jarred, As always, I LOVE your notebooks reviews / comparisons. MSI has 2 unique offerings that I would love to see pitted against one another: **GS70 Stealth: 17.3” , 765M, 1080P Monitor, Dual Fans, 0.85” height **GT60 2OD-261US: 15.6”, 780M, 3K Monitor, Fans ?, 1.77” height
Specifically I would like to see how gaming with a properly cooled? 765M on a 3K monitor weighs in against a warmer 1080P on a 780M. Also, how does the subjective ultra-portable 17" compared against a beefy 15.3" impacts that decision knowing that this will be used as a desktop replacement that undergoes a great deal of traveling.
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Paulman - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
I'm actually disappointed that the entry-level budget notebook category isn't included. I got a refurbished Lenovo IdeaPad about half a year ago because it had Ivy Bridge (HD4000) and Core i5-3210m (2.5GHz, up to 3.1GHz turbo), and it plays League of Legends at normal/default settings at 60fps and Starcraft 2 on Low settings (also at 60fps I think) just fine. All at 720p.Basically, any entry-level notebook with Ivy Bridge HD4000 or higher and a non ultra-low voltage CPU frequency is a serious contender for playing moderately demanding games at low settings.
Paulman - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
Or by "included", perhaps I should say "at least mentioned" :Plukedaly - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
No gaming laptop can currently beat the ASUS ROG G750JM-DS71 in my opinion. /Luke from http://www.consumertop.com/best-laptop-guide/alloc - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
Yeah, should have included the my non-gaming HP laptop from 2007 with Intel GMA X3000 because it can run Minesweeper at 60 FPS at 1080p.heymrdj - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
Sadly, a line has to be drawn somewhere. Everyone will have their opinions as to where that should be. Personally, having to run low settings at a paltry 720p is not a gaming notebook by name whatsoever, it's just a notebook that happens to be able to play some games at crappy resolutions. Its like calling a surface a gaming notebook because it's docked and I can play flash games on it.Zenbook - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
You do have Asus G750JH and it has GTX780m.ydeer - Monday, December 2, 2013 - link
Yes, I am surprised this didn’t make it into the list.I am eyeing this machine to replace my G73JH (which has aged surprisingly well), but I wish they made a SKU with the GTX780m and the 120 Hz panel available.
davidthemaster30 - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
Might be worth mentionning that some y510p models have 750m in SLI for 1000$JarredWalton - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
I did: "So with that said, I started looking for GTX class GPUs – though I should note that the Y510p is available in SLI form as well, which should be slightly faster than the GTX 760M/765M in most cases (as long as a game scales well with SLI)." I suppose I could have made a bigger deal of it, but personally I'm not super interested in SLI on any laptop -- too many drawbacks (including battery life and not always scaling well in performance).WafflesVape - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
that is true, but it is also DDR3 ram on the 750m and lower end architecture (vs DDR5 on 760+ and much more pixelshaders,etc.) but it does offer some unique flexibility. but also kills battery.landsome - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
On the Y510p it's actually DDR5. And the Y410p gets the same SLI config.Morawka - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
Battery life on the Y510p is 3 hours even if you disable SLI or take out the Xdock. And this is on a Haswell CPU. Most of the criticism of this laptop is heat and batterylife.Meaker10 - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
The g750jh is the version of the 750 with the 780m.JarredWalton - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
Ah, missed that. Thanks! Text has been updated.ananduser - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
'Jaa 'rred, 'Jaa 'rred, 'Jaa 'rred, 'Jaa 'rred, 'Jaa 'rred, 'Jaa 'rred, 'Jaa 'rred, 'Jaa 'rred, 'Jaa 'rred ......Love these articles, I'm sure many readers are chanting along.
RoninX - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
I'm curious why the well-reviewed (by Anandtech among others) Alienware 14 didn't end up on this list. Is it just a question of price vs. performance?JarredWalton - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
I did mention it in the GTX 765M section. Unless I explicitly say "I probably wouldn't get one of these" (e.g. MSI GT60/GT70), anything listed is a reasonable option in my opinion. Figuring out which one or two I think are "best" in each category is inherently subjective, so if you like the AW14 more than the P34G or W230ST, by all means go for it.WafflesVape - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
My choices:low end - lenovo y410p (14 "tn 750/755m)
low mid - asus n550jv (15" ips matte 750m)
mid end - p35k over p34g (15/14 ips/ahva 765m/760m)
upper end - msi gt60 3k series ~2099$ - 2880x1620 screen (15" ips 780m)
Freakie - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
I'll give a shoutout to the ASUS N550JV too since you can get a 1080p IPS Matte panel on it (the DB71 submodel), you aren't stuck with the glossy touchscreen or a crappy TN matte. I think for someone wanting a really nice screen that is matte, it's a great option.Darkstone - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
The asus N550 has absolutely terrible cooling. There are reports of throtteling while gaming all over the internet.WafflesVape - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
Yes that is true, there have been issues with throttling, but I've read that re-pasting solves those issues. (apparently there may have even been wax left on by accident that contributes to the problem, allegedly). Also many resellers of the n550jv will offer inexpensive repasting options (20-35$), but yeah hopefully they can solve that better in the future. But there are also a lot of other brand laptops on the market that are susceptible to throttling as well...WafflesVape - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
The N550JV was the first laptop I considered purchasing and would absolutely consider it if they improve cooling and add a 770m option. 750m is too dated, even the lenovos are getting the 755s. Anything under a 760 really doesn't make sense investing in if gaming is priority.Zenbook - Monday, December 2, 2013 - link
I have n750jv,the laptop is cool as it get's,even in full load.It's ice cold.And it's the same for n550jnHere is some heat marks for n750jv
http://img.benchmark.rs/47885/temp-min.jpg
Alexvrb - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
To be fair, there isn't exactly a nice neat data table. In fact, I'm not sure you should be knocking him for missing something..."X550LB-NH52, currently selling at Newegg for just $580. For that price, you get a Haswell ULT i5-5200U processor, which should be fast enough for any current gaming workloads. More importantly, it comes with a GeForce GT 740M graphics"
"X550LB-NH52 – Intel's i5-4200U is faster than AMD's current Richland CPU cores, and the GT 750M"
Well, which is it? A mysterious 5200U with a 740M, or a 4200U with a mighty 750M? Neither! A 4200U with a 740M. :-P Plus that was a Black Friday-esque sale. I just checked Newegg and not ONLY is it out of stock, it's $660 now (again?). You need to scour a bit more. Best Buy has had A8-5550M machines locally for a while now for $400 (17" 1600 x 900). That's not a Black Friday gone in an hour price, they were selling them a week ago and still are. They're not going to knock your socks off but they can't be beat for the money. There's almost always a comparably equipped 15" or 17" AMD machine in that price range, if you look around. So if you really want to mention APUs... mention them for what they are. Budget machines with better graphics than anything in that price range.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/pavilion-17-3-laptop-4...$abcat0502000&cp=1&lp=1
One last thing, the A8-5550M is very close to the 4200U in threaded workloads. In some cases I suspect it might very well be faster, but I haven't had time to really dig through benches. I assume my check in in the mail. Thanks!
JarredWalton - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
In general use, even ULV Ivy Bridge and Haswell will beat the Trinity and Richland mobile APUs -- mostly because clock for clock, they're much faster. If you have a specific workload that benefits from heavily threaded cores, AMD can pull ahead, but such code is pretty esoteric and I'm not going to make a recommendation for a laptop for code that 99.9% of people probably never use. That's part of why I don't recommend the HP either, at least not for a gamin laptop -- not only is the A8-5550M not particularly fast for gaming, but a 17.3" laptop that's more for light workloads just doesn't make much sense to me. Not that there aren't some people that will like it, but it's not the thing that I would go out of my way to recommend.The X550LB at $660 is still a good buy incidentally, at least in my opinion, which is why even when it was listed as out of stock I didn't remove it from the list, though now it's an "honorable mention" rather than a primary recommendation.
gandergray - Friday, November 29, 2013 - link
Jarred: Thank you for the article. Under the P34G portion of your mainstream section, the word “Package” should changed to lowercase; and in the Clevo portion, the word “Cleo” needs a “v”. I'm looking forward to your full P34G review.JarredWalton - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
I blame the Acer S7 keyboard I used for typing -- it's a bit finicky at times for a touch typist. :-) But thanks for the edits!crunchykiwi - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
The Dell Latitude 3540 has an amazing performance/price ratio. It's got a Radeon HD 8850m, about as good as a GTX 750m, and a 1080p screen for only $780 at the moment, $120 less than the Lenovo Y510p! I bought one and I'm awaiting its arrival now. I'm quite excited.JarredWalton - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
My problem with the 3540 -- and pretty much anything that uses and AMD dGPU -- is that they're now all using Enduro, and IMO Enduro still has issues. It's not unusable, but every time I go back and retest updated drivers on the Alienware M17x R4, Enduro makes me grumble. I didn't explicitly call AMD out as I feel a little bad beating up on the losing team. On desktops, I think AMD GPUs are quite compelling, but I haven't had a great AMD dGPU laptop experience in some time. The price performance value is there, but the headaches with drivers and Enduro are worth far more than $100 to me.WafflesVape - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
agreedWafflesVape - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
From what I've read the videocard itself because the bottleneck on that laptop, i think its more similar to a 730m; I'd really reconsider getting nvidia, especially if you are considering getting a gsync monitor for external use.MartinUK - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link
According to game-debate.com the Radeon HD 8850m is about 20% faster than the Nvidia 730m , 15% faster than the 740m and only 1% slower than the 750m. From a gaming perspective the only slight downer regarding the Dell Latitude is the ULV processor which can hold back the performance a bit in certain games as detailed in the notebookcheck.net reviewpuremind - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
Could you mention a laptop with at least 1000:1 contrast on their screen and excellent speakers? Only the Toshiba X70/X75 comes to mind.JarredWalton - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
Most of the higher end laptops are going to be close to 1000:1, and really even 800:1 is sufficient -- it's not like contrast that's twice as high is really twice as good, as there's a point of diminishing returns. I find the speakers on the ASUS G750J line are decent as well. But having not tested the X70 I can't really say if it's better/worse overall.octiceps - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
Man I still have a hard time getting over just how great of a deal the Y410p is for a budget gaming or workstation notebook. i7-4700MQ, GT 755M GDDR5, 900p screen, 1TB HDD+24GB SSD, wireless AC, and 4-5 hours of battery life with Optimus in a 14" 5.5 lb package all for just $800 ($780 with the Barnes & Noble Gold discount) is pretty much untouchable within a few hundred dollars by any other brand save for Lenovo's own Y510p. The i7 is a great little chip for content creation tasks, e.g. photo/video editing and 3D rendering, and the GT 755M is a very highly-clocked GK107 part and not a shabby GPU at all. Gaming-wise it seems to be a great complement for the 900p resolution.lxgrant - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
It's disappointing to see the lack of IPS displays and proper (non-caching) SSD's even in laptops over $1000. These things seem to be becoming more common in Ultrabooks for around that price, and I'd thought there was a premium there because of the form factor (smaller/thinner = harder = more expensive). Sure you may have an extra/larger dGPU in there but shouldn't it balance out?For that matter I don't understand how you can have a high-quality 7" 2560x1440/1600 IPS display in a <$300 tablet but in 15"+ laptop (which should be easier & therefore cheaper right?) it's seemingly impossible. Is this less a price/production concern and more to do with Windows' terrible DPI scaling prior to 8.1?
Also disappointing, the lack of choice of AMD APU options (not in this article, just in general), particularly with the higher-end A10's and no discrete GPU, particularly in the UK. Hopefully Kaveri is enough of an improvement to get taken a bit more seriously.
Drasca - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
I too want awesome displays, they aren't available at the prices you name, nor is your thinking correct about how display prices work."high-quality 7" 2560x1440/1600 IPS display in a <$300 tablet"
Name one. Displays at that resolution are usually in the 10" range, or higher price bracket. The ipads with 2048 x 1536 IPS, and start at $400, and higher resolution tablets are even more expensive.
"15"+ ... which should be easier & therefore cheaper right?"
No. There is a concept called economy of scale which is the result of breaking down costs over many units. Tablets are high volume items, laptops are not.
Drasca - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
It is a price/production (part technical), and market supply/demand concern. The apple and ultrabook lines have shown some people do want better displays, but laptop sales are price sensitive and low volume. Phones and Tablets have shown to be near consumable, and high volume. Physically smaller displays are also easier to produce than larger ones. Those major factors, economies of scale, technical / physical difficulties, market demand / supply @ low prices high volumes, make small tablets and phones much more available to consumers, and laptops not.Pity I can't have that dream laptop just yet at a price I'm able to pay, but that's how the world works. Pick your priorities and adjust joy to what aligns best with your needs... like an adult without power to change the world. However by all means, if you're able to make the world better with higher quality displays, do so.
lxgrant - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
I'll concede the point about tablets, economies of scale and that my pricing may have been off, and QHD being a pipe dream for now (though I'm less concerned with price and more with being able to find a non-apple option). But as far as gaming laptops go, a niche-ier market selling luxury items to a maybe more well-informed audience, and that some laptops do seem to manage to have IPS screens at similar sizes/resolutions/price points, you'd think more companies would offer a variant/upgrade to IPS for those willing to pay a bit extra over the non-IPS version. The maybe-maybe not way the market is now just seems kinda weird.topdomino - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
I think it's also a matter of the GPU's. You don't see even the highest end 780M benchmarked at resolutions higher than 1920x1080 and there may be a good reason for that. Why make a gaming laptop with a great screen that won't be able to run games well in its native resolution?WafflesVape - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
The MSI GT60 3k series is only a 100$ difference for the 2880x1620p ips screen over a 1080p TN panel.The only one available right now is the 2099$ 780M version but there is an expected 770M version coming soon for ~1500-1800$, and I plan on getting it.
dubtail - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
Thanks for the article.Jarred, as for GTX 770m, what do you think about Gigabyte P25W?
mjnitz02 - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
Thanks for the review also. One of the semi-mysteries to me is how the P34G wins the mid end. I know the review isn't up yet, but could you briefly comment on the P34G battery life? From the forums, it seems to be very poor compared to the other notebooks similar to it (Razer Blade, GE40, etc). I've been trying to pick a new laptop to pull the trigger on, and I had nearly removed the P34G from my list due to short battery life. Thanks!JarredWalton - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
P34G does okay on our Light load (around six hours), but it does seem to do worse on the Medium and Heavy loads. I'm okay with six hours, though, and it has a good display, good hardware, and feels pretty nice as well. The Razer and MSI both have a lousy display, but better battery life, so I guess you have to pick your poison.Connoisseur - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
Jared, any comments on the portability of the P34g? I was looking for a secondary gaming laptop that I can haul around with my work laptop for those business trips. The Blade would be tops except for that horrific screen as you mentioned. Looking for something I can fit into my laptop backpack that'll add a minimum of weight and still play most of my steam games at medium settings.WafflesVape - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
Thats why I feel the P35k is superior to the P34G.Its the same 1400$ price but you get 15" ips 765m
versus 14" ahva 760m. P35k has much better battery.
nerd1 - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
NEED CORRECTION - asus has G750JH with 780M and raid 0 SSD (128+128GB) + 1TB HDD, blueray drive, Killer 802.11ac Wifi for around $2250. It also DOES NOT use optimus which is a big plus for many people (optimus is basically crap and you cannot turn it off with clevo I think)topdomino - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
The G750JH has Killer 802.11b/g/n. Killer has yet to offer an 802.11ac part.Other than that, considering that the Alienware only offers a caching SSD (as an upgrade) and the G750JH has two 128GB SSD's on RAID, I'm mystified (as you seem to be) as to why the Asus didn't at least get the runner-up nod at the high end. It's been out for at least a month and seems to be getting good reviews. The price/value proposition seems much better than Alienware's and the build quality should be much higher than a Clevo or MSI (even though you can get both of those with better options).
topdomino - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
I forgot to add, since the winner was a 15" laptop, that there seem to be serious heat concerns with the 780M running on 15" systems. You can find some videos of the insanely loud sound of fans for those configs on youtube.nerd1 - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
Asus seems to have even better cooling than AW m17x (at least compared to last gen one) and has better prive/value than other heavyweight 17inch laptops. Lack of optimus can really help too.Caveat is that both CPU and GPU are onboard - but upgrading CPU/GPU is not very practical anyways as it is risky and usually costs much more than just upgrade the whole system.
WafflesVape - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
Optimus is rather helpful for extending battery. The early issues have been ironed out. Its nice to have the option. The Asus is a TN 1080p panel right? MSI gt60 3k is 2880x1620 ips panel and nearly same price.PhoenixFlames - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
I would like to add a note for the MSI GS70-002. This is an EXCELLENT rig for mobile gamers who want a big time experience in a thin and relatively lightweight experience.I am in Sales and I travel across a large part of the US and often times I find myself in a hotel with not much to do. So I decided to sell an old MacBook along with a custom gaming PC and reinvest into a a gaming laptop. I needed something that was light, had a big screen, and was thin enough to easily fit in my bag. I also wanted something with serious horsepower.
The MSI GS70 clocks in at .85" thick (the same size or maybe thinner than a MacBook Pro), it is under 6lbs, and it has a full 1080p screen on a 17.3" frame. Solid aluminum body construction.
It sports an i7 4700MQ, GTX765M, dual 128GB SSD's striped for blazing performance, and 16GB of RAM. I find the anti-glare screen to be a lifesaver since I use it in so many various locations with wildly varied lighting... Not sure what the author meant by poor screen. I love it.
It was all about $1900 and Newegg is throwing in a 50" LED TV for $100 as a bundle (not sure if the deal is still on, but I got mine at the end of November). The TV is a cheapie no name brand, but for $100 it is a damn fine addition. Works just fine for connected gaming when I get home.
If you need a light, thin, full-sized gaming laptop you can't go wrong with the MSI GS70.
/commercial
nerd1 - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - link
I remember the GS70 stealth was around $1599?Mil0 - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
This. Jarred, could you comment on the gs70? I used to be in the same camp as you - I wanted a portable, as light as possible, 13-14". However, after I saw the gs70 I started doubting: maybe size is not the critical metric, maybe weight is. Considering the gs70 weighs about as much as several of the 15" options I'm basically getting more screensize per pound, well, if all else is equal I'm in.mchart - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
It's worth mentioning that for the Dell laptops (including Alienware) most anyone can typically find a way to get a 10% off coupon code. This coupled with deals that appear occasionally can drop the price the Alienware laptop to similar pricing with the high-end Clevo based laptops - But you're getting the better chassis quality and warranty with the Alienware.Alexvrb - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
Well, I don't mean to sound ungrateful - Thank you for the article. Although you still missed one. The first time you mention the X550LB you say it's a 740M. Then a bit further down you say 750M when comparing it to AMD's iGPU.I have seen some benchmarks. The 4200U is clearly better in most workloads - but the difference in threaded workloads isn't much. Certainly not nearly as big as it's single-threaded lead. Demanding games that don't scale well are getting rare. The only massive advantage is the discrete 740M, and even that doesn't use GDDR5 IIRC.
So yeah, for poor bastards looking for a sub $500 laptop that can do some gaming, I think the laptop I linked with the A8-5550M is worth a mention (even if it's just in the Budget guide). It's now $280 less than your X550LB. In the $400 range most people will end up with lesser AMD A4/A6 processors or lowend Intel CPUs with a weak iGPU. Another decent option was the Envy 15 you mentioned for $499 in your budget laptops guide. But that extra $100 pushes it too close to the other options. For something slightly slower you can even get a 15" Samsung Series 3 with an A8-4500M ($380).
I won't touch anything with "Acer" on it unless I had very compelling reasons. :P I will say that the Lenovo machines are very nice and I would buy a Y410p. I like Lenovo's offerings in general, actually.
sudz - Sunday, December 1, 2013 - link
What about the 8970M? I just grabbed the Clevo P157SM with it, and its 250 dollars cheaper and about 10-15% performance hit - Huge bang for the money. Its Equal or faster than the GTX680M in almost every benchmark. So far I'm extremely happy with it, With the exception of a bug with windows 8.1 coming out of hibernation.Mil0 - Monday, December 2, 2013 - link
You can see somewhere here in the comments that Jarred basically has given up on Enduro. How is your experience with it?Dawgmatix - Monday, December 2, 2013 - link
Jarred has basically given up on AMD a long time ago.Mil0 - Tuesday, December 3, 2013 - link
Well, he did write this rather extensive article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6680/amds-mobility-c... but that was januari. It might be worthwhile to write an updated article, but he did write earlier in this thread: "every time I go back and retest updated drivers on the Alienware M17x R4, Enduro makes me grumble"Mil0 - Tuesday, December 3, 2013 - link
Found a more up to date article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7096/performance-ret... - still doesn't sound that good.Venegascna - Thursday, December 5, 2013 - link
I would love to see a review of the Gigabyte P35K. It's slightly larger but they pack a much larger battery than the P34G which would make it much more travel friendly. It also has a 1080 IPS panel as well which should be much better than the displays Razor and MSI are using. I think it would be a very serious contender for one of the best portable gaming laptops.codyormoe - Friday, December 6, 2013 - link
The ASUS X550LB-NH52 is back in stock at Newegg for $660. At $580 I would have seriously considered it as a new laptop for my son, but not so sure at $660. Might as well go up another $70 and get the Lenovo Y410, better everything for not much more money.Landspeeder - Monday, December 9, 2013 - link
Jarred,As always, I LOVE your notebooks reviews / comparisons.
MSI has 2 unique offerings that I would love to see pitted against one another:
**GS70 Stealth: 17.3” , 765M, 1080P Monitor, Dual Fans, 0.85” height
**GT60 2OD-261US: 15.6”, 780M, 3K Monitor, Fans ?, 1.77” height
Landspeeder - Tuesday, December 10, 2013 - link
Specifically I would like to see how gaming with a properly cooled? 765M on a 3K monitor weighs in against a warmer 1080P on a 780M. Also, how does the subjective ultra-portable 17" compared against a beefy 15.3" impacts that decision knowing that this will be used as a desktop replacement that undergoes a great deal of traveling.Muckster - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
Anandtech has always been a great source for guides. Is there going to be another DESKTOP Guide soon?Solatari - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
Would alienware with gtx780m, 8gb of ram, 4700mq work well? Which specs do you recommend upgrading if not? To be used for gaming only