I have my Gigabyte P34Gv2 still! And I use it for light gaming, websites, and video editing even 4kx60 video; it is my main pc for 7 years now! Still works like a beast! The battery puffed and I removed it at like year 2 or 3; so, this is my desktop, always plugged in and docked up (I have a Surface Pro to use for on the go). I have thought about getting a new laptop many times. But, I keep stopping myself. Because, why?!? This does EVERYTHING I need. And it does everything with lightning speed! Now of course, rendering times would be reduced with something newer. But, I don't make 10 videos a day (a 10 minute video takes up to an hour to render). I kind of want to see how long this thing lasts! Until I upgrade to an 8k camera, this thing does everything I need it to still, 7 years after I bought it for less than $1,300!
I try not to talk about pricing in my videos unless it's absolutely necessary to help the viewer understand the positioning of the product within the vendor's line-up. The reason for this is that I *always* include a link to where to buy the product under the video, so if viewers want to know how much it costs they can check there, and then they can evaluate the value proposition for themselves. Pricing changes all the time, so this solution is more future-proof.
Asus G46 is still my favorite 14" (aka portable) gaming notebook. Only con right now is the power (660m as its still last gen). To some they might say its a bit thick (it really isnt), but nothing can compete with the fan system on ROG asus gaming laptops in both temperature and noise (dead quiet, you hear the hdds before you hear the fans). All other aspects of notebook are excellent (speakers, keyboard etc.)
I recently bought a Gigabyte G3, and is pretty much identical in every single way except the GPU is a GTX 850M and the screen is 13.3 inches. The model ID on the warranty and manual is P34FV2 so it must be a just a variant of the P34. I compared it to my friends p34 v2 and its dimensions and looks are exactly the same, though the G3 is cheaper and has a longer battery life. I couldn't find ANY information/reviews on it when I bought it so I'm just letting people know what its like.
MSI has my number. We only ask to keep loaner notebooks for a couple weeks, and I live like 10 minutes from the local rep so he could even drop it off. I'm so busy these days that if companies don't reach out to me about stuff I can't run around chasing them for it unless there's overwhelming demand from the viewers.
I went ahead and bought this as soon as it became available, took a bit of a risk but your video makes me even more confident in my purchase. Love the laptop !
I've got the later model "P34K V3" ( i7 4720HQ + GTX 965m) from 2015 partially based on this video(itself and Razer Blade were still the only two 14-inch gaming laptop back them), and it is fully retired earlier this month. I played lots of video games; tried to install Windows, Android x86, Linux, OS X(didn't work), OpenWrt; and learned how to edit photos and videos on it. It has been through so many ups and downs with me, totally worthy.
Something you may consider would be side by side comparison charts in for major competitors. Like in this video a chart detailing the important specs of the Razer and the P34G side by side. May be more work than you wish to put it, but could add some more professional look and appeal to the videos. Great job as always bro.
just a update bought this 2nd hand mint con as a quick replacement for my p34 im over the moon this laptops a beast paid £220 2nd hand if anything this is better then my £1500 one just shows you dont always get what you pay for this one feels alot sturdier runs like butter all same features its awsom!!!
hmmm you've convinced me Linus with this laptop. Heat is the biggest issue with laptops by far and I think gigabyte has finally did the write thing by inserting more heat sinks.
AUoptronics MVA is my fav LCD technology. AU will be making IGZO based MVA and AMOLED in the coming months and years! YAY! Now those displays will kick ass!
This is the perfect laptop for someone who is going to university and wants to game every once in a while, but at the same time isn't willing to compromise on the screen. MY GOD DO I HATE TN PANELS. I am actually considering buying this !!! Please review the p35k as well :))
Most laptops, if not all, that include a dedicated GPU throttle on battery, simply because the GPU pulls more amps than the battery is designed to give. My G73 with its 460m drew 110w from the wall. The battery was a 72Wh battery. It simply could not power that at full performance.
14" and 17" are two different games in the same ballpark.. there are some instances that you have to buy a large bag for a 17" laptop to fit and be portable.. on most cases 14" pretty much fits in most bags thats why it is referred to as super portable..
I Wish there were more large notebooks that have the trackpad on the right, i hate accidentaly touching the trackpad while gaming on a notebook! The original razer blade seemed awesome because of the right-located trackpad!
If I were you, I would be more interested in the Clevo W230ST based notebooks, they are 2cm thicker at the backside's feet, but offers GTX765M, and compatibility with regular thickness 2.5" HDD (and a standard 7200rpm too!), and is generally $300 cheaper without thermal throttling issues...
As I was checking out the price, I found the 15.6" version that has an all black design, 12 gigs of RAM, and a IPS display for a couple hundred more than this one!
Awesome review! i actually am considering this or the Razer blade 14". If the power brick on this was a bit smaller i wouldve been sold on it haha, and also if they replaced the plastic bits with a metal material so it has a bit more of a premium feel. Over great laptop and i am leaning more towards this than the blade!
Add a touch screen, better speakers with beats audio, displayport, all metal construction and dedicated left and right click buttons, would be perfect.
looks awesome, but I prefer desktop replacements, I never play games away from a wall socket, in fact, the few times I used a laptop, I couldnt stand not having it plugged in. If i ever need to search something on the internet on the go, I've got a phone. but thats my personal preference, I'd still recommend this laptop to others
How well the baby beast throttles it's power consumption at idle would be the most important factor for me; worthless if the battery is always going to be dead. With chips like Haswell and Nvidia graphics, I suspect it's very good at it.
The 15 inch version of this laptop (Gigabyte P35K) has the option of a IPS panel, since that was the only problem you found in the P34G you might wanna have a look at it. The graphics card is also better (765M) along with having an additional bay slot for another hard drive. ...actually you probably wouldn't review it since it's pretty much the same laptop, just 15 inch :S.
An important criterium for me when buying a laptop is that you can't accidentally obscure the air intake with your legs if you use this laptop on top of your lap. This thing has its air intakes on the bottom instead of on the back like the Blade does. That's a disadvantage in my book. That said, I do like it. Is there a 17-inch version?
i5 4670K Any Z87 motherboard that costs between 120 and 150 dollars Samsung 840 or Crucial M500 SSD with 120-240 GB Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD Asus/Gigabyte/MSI/Sapphire aftermarket Radeon R9-290 graphics card (coming around the end of the month) Seasonic M12ii 520W PSU Fractal Design R4 case 2x4GB or 2x8GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM (1.5V or lower) Should land you around the 1000-1200 dollar mark depending on if you have a microcenter nearby for the motherboard+CPU bundle.
Please linus swich the termameter cabal. Its aperent that several parts of it are exposed and thus rendering the thermaeter pointless because it will take the tempeter from the closes spot. I used to work on experamental trucks where we had hundreds of thouse on each truck and the way we checkt the cabals was to look if they were damiged and if they were we would hold it on the spot and if the temp spiked we changes the cabal.
The only thing that this machine is missing is a touch panel. While working with windows 8/8.1 is just fine using methods like startisback, it is a dream to use with a touch panel. The only gaming capable laptop with a touch panel on is a customized toshiba satellite, and then you can only get up to a 750m.
I like alu construction on tech, like my HTC One and my MacBook Pro. But, since alu is a heat transferring material, it can get very hot. My MacBook has a i5 with Intel HD graphics, when that thing gets hot, It get really hot! Plastic on a gaming notebook, yes please! Gigabyte did a great job on this one!
Linus, what would you recommend for a good gaming laptop? This video sparked my interest in getting one, although I would rather have performance over portability with mine. (And if possible the ability to run Windows 7 instead of 8 on it)
The lack of bottom chassis fan access sucks and I don't understand why manufacturers don't give easy access to the fan assembly as it's the most prone part to fail in a notebook.
You should consider reviewing the MSI GS70 Stealth, it is bigger, but still very thin and with it's 17' display a competitor to the Razer Blade Pro, only cheaper.
If you're looking for a cheaper slim gaming laptop alternative, look at the Dell latitude 3450-2862. It's got a lower resolution and it's a bit thicker, it's also got 'just' a dual core i5 but the gpu is only slightly worse (HD8850m) and it will benefit from mantle later on. Best of all it's just €650 here in the Netherlands :D
Been looking to get a laptop for a long time. Should be able to get one in the Feb/March time frame. This is one of the top contenders. I though about the Clevo 230st but worried about the screen being too small. This will be used for school mostly and will be replacing my aging hp desktop with gaming duties. Just want something portable that I can take wherever I go and not have to be stuck at a desk. I am thinking 14 inches is a good size for me ( I am a smallish person lol). I have looked at most of the 15 inch models around ( Sager, Lenovo, and Gigabyte) and if you want something portable, you have to sacrifice something on the GPU side. I dont really game that much and the games I play (MMOs and Racing games) dont require a ton of GPU horsepower.
good review Linus been thinking which one to get between the razer blade 14 and the gigabyte p34g and it looks like I will be going with the gigabyte p34g especially since you can add a storage drive, have a nicer 1080p screen and here in Australia the p34g is 1000$ cheaper than the blade 14 so good job Gigabyte
MSI also has a competitor to the Razer Blade. Some better and worse features on that one but about the same thickness and also has the MacBook Pro aesthetic that I like. Unfortunately, none of these have the super solid feel of a MacBook. The screen and body flex and they're not as durable.
linus... thanks for driving home points like the importance of matte screens and benifits of high quality panels. some people have thick skulls and pea sized brains.
Great review Mr Linus ! I'm really into that laptot, but being that small i'm worried about the noise it might produce. I've read somewhere that the fans are cheap. Does it gets actually loud at full load, and at casual using ? Would be of great help to decide if it's a good investment.
a better question would probably be: do the compact and lightweight features of the s7 outweigh the benefits of this laptop? I don't really care about touch screen, so I was thinking this laptop.
"Not really a laptop" because the bottom is at 40°? The bottom of my old dell latitude D630 runs at up to about 80° if I'm playing oblivion and I don't just not mind it, I actually really like the warmth it gives off and kind of miss that with my chromebook.
I have my Gigabyte P34Gv2 still! And I use it for light gaming, websites, and video editing even 4kx60 video; it is my main pc for 7 years now! Still works like a beast! The battery puffed and I removed it at like year 2 or 3; so, this is my desktop, always plugged in and docked up (I have a Surface Pro to use for on the go). I have thought about getting a new laptop many times. But, I keep stopping myself. Because, why?!? This does EVERYTHING I need. And it does everything with lightning speed! Now of course, rendering times would be reduced with something newer. But, I don't make 10 videos a day (a 10 minute video takes up to an hour to render). I kind of want to see how long this thing lasts! Until I upgrade to an 8k camera, this thing does everything I need it to still, 7 years after I bought it for less than $1,300!
I try not to talk about pricing in my videos unless it's absolutely necessary to help the viewer understand the positioning of the product within the vendor's line-up. The reason for this is that I *always* include a link to where to buy the product under the video, so if viewers want to know how much it costs they can check there, and then they can evaluate the value proposition for themselves. Pricing changes all the time, so this solution is more future-proof.
I've had my p34g for a couple weeks now...It's amazing!
Asus G46 is still my favorite 14" (aka portable) gaming notebook. Only con right now is the power (660m as its still last gen). To some they might say its a bit thick (it really isnt), but nothing can compete with the fan system on ROG asus gaming laptops in both temperature and noise (dead quiet, you hear the hdds before you hear the fans). All other aspects of notebook are excellent (speakers, keyboard etc.)
It'll be up tomorrow. There's an audio sync issue that I caught while I was reviewing it tonight :(
I recently bought a Gigabyte G3, and is pretty much identical in every single way except the GPU is a GTX 850M and the screen is 13.3 inches. The model ID on the warranty and manual is P34FV2 so it must be a just a variant of the P34. I compared it to my friends p34 v2 and its dimensions and looks are exactly the same, though the G3 is cheaper and has a longer battery life. I couldn't find ANY information/reviews on it when I bought it so I'm just letting people know what its like.
MSI has my number. We only ask to keep loaner notebooks for a couple weeks, and I live like 10 minutes from the local rep so he could even drop it off. I'm so busy these days that if companies don't reach out to me about stuff I can't run around chasing them for it unless there's overwhelming demand from the viewers.
I went ahead and bought this as soon as it became available, took a bit of a risk but your video makes me even more confident in my purchase.
Love the laptop !
Okay the orange on the wallpaper of the laptop is seriously outstanding!
I've got the later model "P34K V3" ( i7 4720HQ + GTX 965m) from 2015 partially based on this video(itself and Razer Blade were still the only two 14-inch gaming laptop back them), and it is fully retired earlier this month. I played lots of video games; tried to install Windows, Android x86, Linux, OS X(didn't work), OpenWrt; and learned how to edit photos and videos on it. It has been through so many ups and downs with me, totally worthy.
I gave it a try for video editing. The fans were too loud so I returned it.
oh no, I saw your video and it was pretty loud. What do you think you will get as a replacement?
If you get it let me if it is loud.
Dave Dugdale Hey Dave, the v2 got a SIGNIFICANT fan upgrade; it is more then acceptable for noise ;)
I've been reading feedback very closely and tweaking the style of the videos to what I feel like viewers want to see from me.
It's getting better. We feel like we've made enormous strides in that department over the last few months.
Something you may consider would be side by side comparison charts in for major competitors. Like in this video a chart detailing the important specs of the Razer and the P34G side by side. May be more work than you wish to put it, but could add some more professional look and appeal to the videos. Great job as always bro.
I like how linus is a little more aggressive nowadays.
more personality and straight to the advantages and disadvantages
I understand. Great job on the reviews. Been subscribed to you since your 480p video days. Keep up the great reviews:)
just a update bought this 2nd hand mint con as a quick replacement for my p34 im over the moon this laptops a beast paid £220 2nd hand if anything this is better then my £1500 one just shows you dont always get what you pay for this one feels alot sturdier runs like butter all same features its awsom!!!
Digging the casual look.
Looks like a stealthy gaming notebook.
yes, this what i need for portable gaming and workstation for studying any media stuff
I always love watching your videos, they're so great for information/advice :D Thanks man.
"Oh, C'mon!!!" Love it!
Ive been waiting for this review^
hmmm you've convinced me Linus with this laptop. Heat is the biggest issue with laptops by far and I think gigabyte has finally did the write thing by inserting more heat sinks.
AUoptronics MVA is my fav LCD technology.
AU will be making IGZO based MVA and AMOLED in the coming months and years!
YAY!
Now those displays will kick ass!
This is the perfect laptop for someone who is going to university and wants to game every once in a while, but at the same time isn't willing to compromise on the screen. MY GOD DO I HATE TN PANELS. I am actually considering buying this !!! Please review the p35k as well :))
I actually really like the combined up/down arrow keys, I find them faster to play games with.
Could you review the Y410p by Lenovo, it's pretty amazing how cheap it is for what you get.
Most laptops, if not all, that include a dedicated GPU throttle on battery, simply because the GPU pulls more amps than the battery is designed to give. My G73 with its 460m drew 110w from the wall. The battery was a 72Wh battery. It simply could not power that at full performance.
it's very nice ,thanks for the review Linus
Could you do a review of the v2 version? Or at least a quick rundown of the improvements/drawbacks? Thanks.
Exciting to see how advanced gaming laptops are becoming, now all we need is for their prices to come down
Subscribed! Your Vids are amazing!
The Blade's screen is a horrendous, glaring flaw in an otherwise amazingly beautiful (near-perfect) design.
Linus? You ROCK!!
This laptop appears to be a mystical beast. Wish I had one.
14" and 17" are two different games in the same ballpark.. there are some instances that you have to buy a large bag for a 17" laptop to fit and be portable.. on most cases 14" pretty much fits in most bags thats why it is referred to as super portable..
what are ur thoughts on the V2 ... ?
I Wish there were more large notebooks that have the trackpad on the right, i hate accidentaly touching the trackpad while gaming on a notebook! The original razer blade seemed awesome because of the right-located trackpad!
That I agree with you. Had to drag my Gateway FX7809 everywhere back in the days.
If I were you, I would be more interested in the Clevo W230ST based notebooks, they are 2cm thicker at the backside's feet, but offers GTX765M, and compatibility with regular thickness 2.5" HDD (and a standard 7200rpm too!), and is generally $300 cheaper without thermal throttling issues...
Great video as usual. One thing you forgot to include is the battery life.
how's battery when not gaming?
Hey Linus I just wanted to say since you're interested in Star Citizen on the 26th of November all the limited ships will be for sale!
As I was checking out the price, I found the 15.6" version that has an all black design, 12 gigs of RAM, and a IPS display for a couple hundred more than this one!
Awesome review! i actually am considering this or the Razer blade 14". If the power brick on this was a bit smaller i wouldve been sold on it haha, and also if they replaced the plastic bits with a metal material so it has a bit more of a premium feel. Over great laptop and i am leaning more towards this than the blade!
Add a touch screen, better speakers with beats audio, displayport, all metal construction and dedicated left and right click buttons, would be perfect.
looks awesome, but I prefer desktop replacements, I never play games away from a wall socket, in fact, the few times I used a laptop, I couldnt stand not having it plugged in. If i ever need to search something on the internet on the go, I've got a phone.
but thats my personal preference, I'd still recommend this laptop to others
How well the baby beast throttles it's power consumption at idle would be the most important factor for me; worthless if the battery is always going to be dead. With chips like Haswell and Nvidia graphics, I suspect it's very good at it.
The 15 inch version of this laptop (Gigabyte P35K) has the option of a IPS panel, since that was the only problem you found in the P34G you might wanna have a look at it. The graphics card is also better (765M) along with having an additional bay slot for another hard drive.
...actually you probably wouldn't review it since it's pretty much the same laptop, just 15 inch :S.
V2 review coming soon I hope?
Jay P Theyre tunning on Valve time.
Or 34w is the v2 and im retarded.
AHVA is a actually an IPS/PLS panel from AUO. Advanced Hyper Viewing Angle...
An important criterium for me when buying a laptop is that you can't accidentally obscure the air intake with your legs if you use this laptop on top of your lap. This thing has its air intakes on the bottom instead of on the back like the Blade does. That's a disadvantage in my book. That said, I do like it. Is there a 17-inch version?
Hmm , i like it apart from the arrow keys, that,s a big issue for me as i am a left handed mouse user
+Tony L same
Please please please cover the wireless card when doing laptops. So important to make sure it's a good wireless performer and supports dual-band.
Nice vid Linus. I didn't know Gigabyte made notebooks. smooth..more competition is better for all of us.
i5 4670K
Any Z87 motherboard that costs between 120 and 150 dollars
Samsung 840 or Crucial M500 SSD with 120-240 GB
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD
Asus/Gigabyte/MSI/Sapphire aftermarket Radeon R9-290 graphics card (coming around the end of the month)
Seasonic M12ii 520W PSU
Fractal Design R4 case
2x4GB or 2x8GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM (1.5V or lower)
Should land you around the 1000-1200 dollar mark depending on if you have a microcenter nearby for the motherboard+CPU bundle.
Please linus swich the termameter cabal. Its aperent that several parts of it are exposed and thus rendering the thermaeter pointless because it will take the tempeter from the closes spot. I used to work on experamental trucks where we had hundreds of thouse on each truck and the way we checkt the cabals was to look if they were damiged and if they were we would hold it on the spot and if the temp spiked we changes the cabal.
Love the Companion Cube :)
The only thing that this machine is missing is a touch panel. While working with windows 8/8.1 is just fine using methods like startisback, it is a dream to use with a touch panel. The only gaming capable laptop with a touch panel on is a customized toshiba satellite, and then you can only get up to a 750m.
I like alu construction on tech, like my HTC One and my MacBook Pro. But, since alu is a heat transferring material, it can get very hot. My MacBook has a i5 with Intel HD graphics, when that thing gets hot, It get really hot! Plastic on a gaming notebook, yes please! Gigabyte did a great job on this one!
the GS70 stealth is a 17in laptop the p34g is a 14" built to be really light at 1.76 kg while the gs70 weighs at 2.6
Love how Linus is getting into the internet trend slangs such as "dem XXXX".
It should be a setting in the bios that will allow you to switch between them.
This looks great!
Linus, what would you recommend for a good gaming laptop? This video sparked my interest in getting one, although I would rather have performance over portability with mine. (And if possible the ability to run Windows 7 instead of 8 on it)
The lack of bottom chassis fan access sucks and I don't understand why manufacturers don't give easy access to the fan assembly as it's the most prone part to fail in a notebook.
to LinusTechTips: Throw Fraps on in the corner so we can get a feel for FPS performance. How about it?
You should consider reviewing the MSI GS70 Stealth, it is bigger, but still very thin and with it's 17' display a competitor to the Razer Blade Pro, only cheaper.
Might have to get that now ...
it varies according to your configuration + shipping location.
There is also MSI GS 70 which is quite nice like that P34 and Razer Blade.
BOOOOOMMMM!!!! 2:25
If you're looking for a cheaper slim gaming laptop alternative, look at the Dell latitude 3450-2862. It's got a lower resolution and it's a bit thicker, it's also got 'just' a dual core i5 but the gpu is only slightly worse (HD8850m) and it will benefit from mantle later on. Best of all it's just €650 here in the Netherlands :D
And what about MSI GS70 in comparison to this? I mean, the hardware is quite similar, what about performance?
Looks great. I dont want a laptop but if I did, this would be it!
blade / this the only super portable game laptop ? what about the MSI GS70 stealth ?
Been looking to get a laptop for a long time. Should be able to get one in the Feb/March time frame. This is one of the top contenders. I though about the Clevo 230st but worried about the screen being too small. This will be used for school mostly and will be replacing my aging hp desktop with gaming duties. Just want something portable that I can take wherever I go and not have to be stuck at a desk. I am thinking 14 inches is a good size for me ( I am a smallish person lol). I have looked at most of the 15 inch models around ( Sager, Lenovo, and Gigabyte) and if you want something portable, you have to sacrifice something on the GPU side. I dont really game that much and the games I play (MMOs and Racing games) dont require a ton of GPU horsepower.
Still hugely impressive for a laptop. Not to mention this thing is a 765M downclocked. OC this thing and you have a 560Ti in a laptop.
good review Linus been thinking which one to get between the razer blade 14 and the gigabyte p34g and it looks like I will be going with the gigabyte p34g especially since you can add a storage drive, have a nicer 1080p screen and here in Australia the p34g is 1000$ cheaper than the blade 14 so good job Gigabyte
MSI also has a competitor to the Razer Blade. Some better and worse features on that one but about the same thickness and also has the MacBook Pro aesthetic that I like. Unfortunately, none of these have the super solid feel of a MacBook. The screen and body flex and they're not as durable.
Thanks Linus
linus... thanks for driving home points like the importance of matte screens and benifits of high quality panels. some people have thick skulls and pea sized brains.
great information Linus, just what I needed thank you!
Linus, check out the Maingear Pulse. It's slimmer, a bit faster than this with a 765M. The price is a bit high though.
Great review Mr Linus ! I'm really into that laptot, but being that small i'm worried about the noise it might produce. I've read somewhere that the fans are cheap. Does it gets actually loud at full load, and at casual using ? Would be of great help to decide if it's a good investment.
7:50 in line with Linus' analogy I'm going to be living inside a fire over the summer here. Hopefully i will survive.
There is also a P35K with SSD- & 16GB Ram- option and a GTX 765M
Linus please review the Clevo w230ss/Sager np7338! It's extremely similar to this notebook and I believe you'll like it very much :)
Woah! I did not expect that! Great, but pricey.
a better question would probably be: do the compact and lightweight features of the s7 outweigh the benefits of this laptop? I don't really care about touch screen, so I was thinking this laptop.
got to consider the amount of space it takes in your bag, even with a mini itx board, for when you board a plane.
That looks like my Asus S46, but mine isn't a beast in specs and I sure would like an 1080p screen...
Really nice review
I am very impressed with this laptop.
This looks very nice. I wonder if you can get one without the 760.
Another slim gaming lap tops is the msi gs70 stealth
"Not really a laptop" because the bottom is at 40°? The bottom of my old dell latitude D630 runs at up to about 80° if I'm playing oblivion and I don't just not mind it, I actually really like the warmth it gives off and kind of miss that with my chromebook.
Even though it might not be considered a very portable gaming notebook. Have you had the chance to look at the MSI GS70? If so what are your thoughts.
He should review the Gigabyte P35K Ultrablade. Thinnest 15 inch gaming laptop.
Such laptop
Many keys
So performance
Wow
Another gaming laptop is the :DELL inspiron 15 touch screen
Can u plz make a video out of that laptop?!?