Performance and Battery Life
For the purpose of this review, Gigabyte sent in a P25W laptop configured with the Core i7-4700MQ processor, 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory, a 3GB GeForce GTX 770M graphics card and a single 128GB LiteOn mSATA SSD.
Starting off the benchmarks, Cinebench examines the multi-core capabilities of the Core i7 processor and there are no major surprises. Despite potential throttling issues, the chip is mighty fast.
PCMark 7 tests multiple facets of system performance, and the Gigabyte P25W proves to be quick in all departments. It's bested only by XMG's P503 Pro, which if you remember came armed with an even-faster Core i7-4800MQ chip and a premium Samsung 840 PRO SSD.
The Gigabyte P25W and XMG P503 Pro both make use of the same GeForce GTX 770M GPU, and both deliver similarly impressive results in the 3DMark 11 benchmark. The small performance gap between the two can be attributed to CPU clock speed.
Playing Just Cause 2 at 1,366x768 with medium quality settings can be a challenge for most Ultrabooks, but this is light work for gaming laptops and the P25W has no difficulty churning out in excess of 100 frames per second.
Gaming Performance |
||
|---|---|---|
| Game | Quality Settings | Average FPS |
| BioShock Infinite | 1,920x1,080, Medium Quality | 72.1 |
| 1,920x1,080, High Quality | 63.3 |
|
| 1,920x1,080, Ultra DX11 Quality | 34.9 |
|
| DiRT Showdown | 1,920x1,080, 4xMSAA, Medium Quality | 104.4 |
| 1,920x1,080, 4xMSAA, High Quality | 87.2 |
|
| 1,920x1,080, 4xMSAA, Ultra Quality | 35.7 |
|
To better stress the laptop's hardware, we've tested two modern games - BioShock Infinite and DiRT Showdown - with varying degrees of image quality at the P25W's native 1,920x1,080 resolution. Gigabyte's machine continues to cope well and is able to keep above the desired 30 frames per second when playing either title with ultra-quality settings. Dialling-down to high quality is the best way to achieve a buttery-smooth 60fps.
Here's a turn up for the books. We expect our gaming laptops to lack longevity, but in our video rundown test - which entails looping a 720p movie clip with 50 per cent screen brightness and all wireless radios disabled - Gigabyte's machine kept going for almost a full six hours. That 86Whr battery is proving useful indeed.