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English => Reviews => Topic started by: Redaktion on July 07, 2015, 10:42:00

Title: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Redaktion on July 07, 2015, 10:42:00
A much needed refresh. Gigabyte's newest redesign throws Broadwell into the mix for some impressive results. Find out why the P55 is one of our favorite notebooks to come from Gigabyte thus far.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigabyte-P55W-V4-Notebook-Review.145911.0.html
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Vitaly from Ukraine on July 07, 2015, 19:48:39
thank you, guys. Great rewiev I was expecting for. Recently, I'd ordered this notebook from newegg and was looking forward for a deep analysis from professionals. I should say, I'm fully satisfied with results.
One remaining question is - do it has an overclocking potential to reach the results of 980m? With max from fan speed, of course.
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: MOFO on July 08, 2015, 03:10:39
It's a shame you need max fans to get full performance of this laptop, overall seems like a decent package, the screen should also be a bit brighter.
Good review
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Aryeh on July 08, 2015, 07:17:18
It was written somewhere here that 3D Vision isn't supported, although I never used it, but when I updated to the latest Nvidia driver, a 3D Vision shortcut showed up on my desktop, just saying.
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Allen.Ngo on July 08, 2015, 08:54:46
Quote from: Vitaly from Ukraine on July 07, 2015, 19:48:39
thank you, guys. Great rewiev I was expecting for. Recently, I'd ordered this notebook from newegg and was looking forward for a deep analysis from professionals. I should say, I'm fully satisfied with results.
One remaining question is - do it has an overclocking potential to reach the results of 980m? With max from fan speed, of course.

Hello,
Overclocking will not get you very far here unfortunately. Core temperatures are already close to throttling even on maximum fan speed. If you want overclocking potential, the Clevo P750ZM can get you a lot further.
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Single Channel RAM?! on July 08, 2015, 22:26:18
I think it's crazy that they're selling this notebook with only one stick of RAM, ie Single Channel RAM Configuration.  As you can see the performance of the CPU suffers greatly in the Physics test in 3DMark11, so much so that the new i7-5700HQ is only producing the same Physics score as my ancient i7 2630QM from 2012 in my M17xR3 notebook.  Just add another stick of RAM to make it Dual Channel (RAM is cheap!) and that will elevate CPU performance by a great margin.  Strange that they've skimped on the RAM when they've bothered to include a new generation good i7 CPU - it's like equipping your race horse with a 16 stone (101kg) jockey!
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Gary on July 09, 2015, 08:54:42
Why do you think that adding colour stripes and pointy corners is the mark of style, do you see macbooks with coloured stripes and dragon logo's ?

Please don't rate notebooks based on aesthetic tastes because you obviously have none.  Leave your subjective opinions out of the reviews and they would be much more valuable.

Now, on a technical matter... please do be more precise about HDMI, with the latest range of 4k tv's being cheaper than 2k monitors there is a lot of interest in using these tv's as monitors, but it seems still a confusing minefield of technical miss matches.

Eg  Does the notebook support 4k monitors at 60hz?... does it need a display port to do this? Does it need HDMI 2.0?, does the GPU need to be GTX 970 or above?,  do only  desktop GTX 900's support 4k?.. cuurently searching the internet gives a mishmash of opinion and half-truths. 

Your techincal resources should be able to give us the real facts regarding this significant display development.

PS, could you also consistly give the angle the notebook screen folds out to.

My old Sony z1 used to fold almost 180 degrees... this was great as I could share my screen with others across a table and even more usefully, I could lower it below the sceen of a desktop monitor so I could use both without the notebook screen blocking the view of the desktop screen.

Some screens only fold to 120 degrees making them a severe impediment to working with two screen.

Yes I could get a monitor stand but please remember you are reviewing notebooks and we are not always working at our own desk.

Thanks, love your hard facts, not your aesthetic judgements.. leave subjective opinions to the end users..
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Allen.Ngo on July 13, 2015, 06:40:00
hello,

the HDMI port is 1.4a, which supports up to 4K at 30 Hz. Gigabyte has also confirmed with us that 3D Vision is not supported here.

Display angle is greater than 120 at roughly 135.
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Ablab on July 13, 2015, 13:49:24
I wonder about the harsh criticism of fan noise. 52 dB is reached by most gaming notebooks under heavy load. In fact I hardly recall any reviews on this NBC site showing less than 50 dB under heavy load, not even weaker multimedia laptops. And my personal experience with multimedia laptops ist, that most games fully stress them out causing max fan noise...

Given that it has only 1 fan the cooling must be better than in the P35 series. I still don't like this rig... not sure why. I probably expected a thinner chassis and no DVD drive. This would have cause even more room for cooling and less weight.
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Derek on July 14, 2015, 22:30:36
I just got the P55W V4 and the article is incorrect in that the P55W V4 has an Intel Wireless-N 7265 and not an Intel Wireless-AC 7265. This means there is no wireless AC and no 5GHz support.
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Allen.Ngo on July 14, 2015, 23:57:13
Quote from: Derek on July 14, 2015, 22:30:36
I just got the P55W V4 and the article is incorrect in that the P55W V4 has an Intel Wireless-N 7265 and not an Intel Wireless-AC 7265. This means there is no wireless AC and no 5GHz support.

hi Derek,

i double checked and you are correct, the info has been changed to reflect that. thanks!
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: velo3100 on July 15, 2015, 16:16:15
Single channel ram on a gaming notebook seriously. This is not good as most gaming laptops have dual channel by standard. At least their maintainability is good.

I still wonder if portability of a laptop is worth it as it will be plugged in all the time and doesn't perform as well as desktops. Also the value of the laptop decreases by a lot.

Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Simon91 on July 16, 2015, 12:22:44
Is the optical drive replaceable with another HDD/SSD? I had a look around for HDD caddys but couldn't find anything. Would a caddy for a different Gigabyte laptop fit in here or is the design completely different?
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Daniel Bartus on August 07, 2015, 18:32:38
Hey, I just received my laptop, and everything works great on it.  But I noticed when gaming, my CPU temperature reaches as high as 94 degrees.  What could be the cause of this?  I have my fan speed set to 100 percent.  It doesnt seem to matter what game, even games such as CS:GO and the first Bioshock are causing temperature that high.  Where do you test your laptop?  Do you test yours while it's slightly elevated?  I have mine on a flat surface with no surrounding electronics to cause excessive heat.

Thanks in advance
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Fuskobot on August 10, 2015, 20:08:14
How quiet is during office use? Is it subtle enough to be used at an office/school?
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: San on August 19, 2015, 23:18:47
I agree with this comment! Is it too larger/loud to bring to a university? I'm talking about this specific laptop, I know there are better options as a university student but I have my eyes set on this one. Thank you!
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Jimbo on October 09, 2015, 19:36:24
Stop encouraging gaming notebook manufactures to make flashy designs.  I am so limited in the number of gaming laptops I can even consider already and Gigabyte appears to be influenced by this "criticism" by now adding orange stripes.  I can't open up my laptop in a business meeting with "Republic of Gamers" stamped across the top.  I need performance where it counts and understated looks for stealth.  Gigabyte is one of the few gaming laptop manufactures that seemed to get that.
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: itsuki on February 22, 2016, 12:16:45
Hi,

I bought this computer a few months ago, and I only can say that it is a good computer.

It was perfect for me, I was looking for a laptop, that makes a great deal between performance and mobility, you can easily play the newest games on High/extreme quality, but I will just recommand to buy a cooling pad with it, he can become pretty hot without any cooling system when playing some of the biggest games out there. While playing especially without the coolingpad, the computer can make a lot of noise, but it is not a problem for me, I even play on trains some times and finally you don't hear much, because people and train already making noise.

When viewing movies, coding or doing similar stuffs, the laptop can easily last for more than 5 hours. It will not make a sound, and neither being hot, he is pretty thin, and light so very good for mobility, he got a cd player, that's a great plus, most of other laptops proposing the same kind of laptop like MSI GS series doesn't have one, in fact it is the only one of the interesting laptops for mobility/performance with CD player I found.

This computer is really perfect if you need mobility while being able to make some very great gaming sessions. If you just occasionnally move with your computer just to switch rooms or play to a friend's house, I recommand to take an other computer with less mobility, and better performance.

I need to notice you that I got a problem with my laptop, a connector between the alimentation jack and the motherboard, got a bit burnt, probably because of too much intensity, so when I was playing game alimentation couldn't supply me enough power anymore for my graphic card, so the computer was switching between battery power/ line power while gaming, and I couldn't play more than 30min-1h to some games.

The support took care of this very well, didn't had to pay a thing to send them the computer, everything was taking care of, they said that it already happened to others, so they replaced the burnt part with a more strong one able to support more intensity. Now everything works fine again.

This computer is great, I love it,

Itsuki
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: MrMagoo74 on January 16, 2017, 11:12:59
 >:(
What a waste of fucking money. Don't waste your money on this laptop unless you are an advanced user.

Been without my laptop for 3 months out of 15. due to critical performance issues that required a full rebuild. Now having issues with driver updates that have crippled my game time.

still having heat issues and service response is a joke, don't waste your money on Gigabyte anything.

MrMagoo74
Title: Re: Gigabyte P55W V4 Notebook Review
Post by: Jigsy on November 28, 2018, 13:14:48
I have one of these, but the hard drive in it is now dying.

The maintainance screenshots show that it's easy to remove the panel, but how hard is it to swap the hard drive for a new one?

I'd consult YouTube, but there's no videos about this laptop.