Gigabyte P37X Notebook Review

If you're looking for the thinnest and lightest 17.3-inch notebook with GTX 980M graphics, then the P37X will certainly deliver. Its thickness of 22.5 mm is less than half of the popular Asus G751 and its weight of 2.8 to 2.9 kg is rivaled closest by the much less powerful Acer Aspire V17 Nitro at 3 kg. If anyone is counting, the MSI GS70 and its GTX 970M graphics is half a millimeter thinner and about 100 g lighter than the P37. Otherwise, most gaming notebooks in this size category are usually in the 3.5 kg range or heavier. The slim profile on its own doesn't look very impressive at first glance, but the difference in size is remarkable when the Gigabyte is placed sitting next to the MSI GT72 or Alienware 17.

Beyond the thin looks, the chassis has a very basic matte dark gray appearance with no special surfaces or accent marks to really make it stand out. It has a very barebones aesthetic as if the chassis was produced by Clevo. Visually, the aluminum lid and body look very similar to the smaller P34W. The base feels thick to prevent any major twisting or depressions, even down on the center of the keyboard, and the small hinges are taut up to the maximum angle allowed. The lid itself could have been more rigid as it can still be twisted side-to-side without too much effort. It's overall a strong case, especially compared to the lesser build qualities of the Lenovo Y70 and Acer V17 Nitro.

Keyboard

The full-size chicklet keyboard (35.5 x 10.5 cm) provides very good and relatively quiet tactile feedback with no responsiveness issues. Travel is satisfactory and a bit better than on the Y70, but could still be a bit deeper as it's a hair shallower than the keyboard on the Eurocom X8. There are no dedicated auxiliary keys as there are on the MSI G Series.

A column of macro keys sits on the left hand side of the keyboard similar to the Alienware 18. The five customizable keys (labeled G1 to G5) can be cycled through five different sets for a total of 25 different macros. We especially like the location of these keys as they can be easily and quickly pressed with the left hand while on the WASD keys when gaming. This is in contrast to the Chimera CX-9, which has its macro keys out-of-reach and above the keyboard instead. The macro keys here are a bit smaller and softer compared to the main QWERTY keys, so there is certainly still room for improvement.

Touchpad

The touchpad is an adequate 10 x 7 cm, but the available surface area for cursor movement is actually less than it appears at about 10 x 5.5 cm because the bottom section of the touchpad is reserved for mouse clicks only. There is no texture or surface separation between the touchpad and mouse keys, so controlling the cursor can be a pain as it will frequently start and stop as you glide across the entirety of the touchpad surface. Responsiveness is fine otherwise, but some kind of separation between the tracking and non-tracking surfaces would aid in ergonomics.

The mouse clicks themselves are uneven between the left and right click keys. The left click feels more satisfying with a more tactile and firm auditory response compared to the spongier right click. Both sides could definitely use more depth though, especially compared to the superior touchpads on the G751 and newer Clevo models.

Color space reproduction is very good at 78 percent and 58 percent of sRGB and AdobeRGB, respectively. The coverage is a least 10 percent more than budget TN panels for both standards and is equivalent to expensive IPS panels aside from those found on professional mobile workstations like HP ZBooks or Dell Precision models. Colors are also about as wide as competing Asus G751 and Aorus X7 models at over 90 percent overlap.

Further color analyses with an X-Rite spectrophotometer reveal accurate grayscale and colors out-of-the-box. All colors have very low DeltaE deviations and are generally more accurate the lower the saturation level. Yellow and Orange colors are represented least accurately compared to the other colors, which is again similar to the Lenovo Y70. Calibration efforts resulted in very marginal improvements across the board.

Outdoor visibility is better than expected due to the relatively high brightness, low DPI, and matte display to reduce reflections. However, such a large display requires an even brighter backlight than what is available, so users will still be limited to working under shade and away from direct sunlight. Additionally, no matter how thin a 17.3-inch notebook can be, it will always have a large footprint that will be difficult to comfortably handle outdoors for long periods of time.

Processor

The Core i7-4720HQ performs well in synthetic benchmarks with no artificial throttling implemented. Results are similar to the P34W v3, which uses the same CPU in a smaller 14-inch chassis. Multi-core performance is slightly better than the popular desktop i7-2600K and about 10 to 15 percent slower than the current i7-4940MX champion according to CineBench R15. Single-threaded performance according to Super Pi is also again very similar to the i7-2600K despite running at half the TDP (47 W vs. 95 W) and at much lower base frequencies. Compared to the Ivy Bridge generation, the CPU is most similar in performance to the i7-3840QM.

More technical information and benchmarks on the i7-4720HQ can be found on our dedicated CPU page here.

System Performance

Synthetic system performance benchmarks place the P37X alongside other high-end gaming notebooks like the P25X v2 and MSI GE62. Its PCMark 7 score could have been a little higher as it just barely edges out the iBuyPower Chimera CX-9 (6302 vs. 6290) despite the latter having a much weaker GTX 860M GPU. RAID 0 performance, which greatly affects final PCMark scores, is relatively slower on the P37X and prevents the notebook from reaching higher numbers on paper.

Subjectively, the operating system and applications respond instantaneously with no major latency issues similar to other SSD-based notebooks. Multi-tasking is incredibly smooth for both games and everyday browsing.

GPU Performance

Synthetic graphics benchmarks place the P37 alongside the similarly equipped Asus G751 with healthy performance gains over the GTX 970M and the previous generation GTX 880M. Perhaps notably, 3DMark 11 results are close to the Eurocom X7 and its AMD Radeon HD 8970M CrossFire graphics while demanding far less power.

Gaming Performance

Performance in games from the GTX 980M is pretty much second to none in the mobile field without resorting to SLI solutions. All tested games can be played on maximum settings at 1080p with average frame rates close to or above 60 per second. There are a few exceptions and we recommend checking out our dedicated GTX 980M page here for more comparisons and benchmarks. Results are in line with other notebooks carrying the same GPU with no outliers or stability issues unique to the system. Frame rates are roughly 20 to 25 percent higher than the P34W v3 and its single GTX 970M.

The Aorus X7 Pro and its GTX 970M SLI can run games up to 30 to 50 percent faster or even higher in the case of Thief, so anyone not satisfied with a single GTX 980M can certainly look into dual GPU solutions.

We stress the notebook with synthetic benchmarks to observe for any stability or throttling issues. First, with just Prime95 active, the i7-4720HQ CPU is able to maintain a steady 3.0 to 3.2 GHz clock rate or 400 to 600 MHz above the base clock rate. Core temperatures are maintained in the 80 to 90 C range. Next, with just FurMark active, the GPU drops to 848 to 873.3 MHz with temperatures reaching a maximum of 80 to 82 C according to GPU-Z. This is below the base clock rate of 1038 MHz for the GTX 980M, though memory remains consistent at the maximum 1252 MHz.

Full stress with both Prime95 and FurMark active will throttle both the CPU and GPU. Under these conditions, the CPU will settle in the 800 to 1300 MHz range while the GPU will run in the 873 to 974.5 MHz range. CPU and GPU temperatures never go above 90 C and 83 C, respectively. When taking into consideration the base 2.6 GHz speed of the CPU, the throttling here is extreme.

We run a more realistic stress test with Unigine Heaven 4.0 to better emulate gaming stress. Under these conditions, the CPU is able to maintain a clock rate of about 3 to 3.4 GHz for the first few minutes before falling to the 2 GHz range. Turbo Boost benefits then become sporadic thereafter. On the other hand, the GPU performs extremely well and will run at 1126/1252 MHz core/memory without ever dropping. CPU and GPU temperatures peak at about 90 C and 77 C, respectively. The Turbo Fan feature will only drop core temperatures by a couple of degrees further.

Gaming performance decreases very slightly overtime. By running the Metro 2033: Last Light benchmark ten times in a row, average frame rates can be observed falling from 63 FPS on the first run to 61 on the second and 59 on the third before leveling off at 58 FPS on the final run.

Running on battery power will severely limit gaming performance. A quick 3DMark 11 run on batteries returned a Physics and GPU score of 6811 and 6540 points, respectively, compared to 7545 and 12655 points when on mains. The CPU and GPU are throttled accordingly to as low as 800 MHz and 670.8 MHz, respectively. VRAM takes a hit as well to 799.2 MHz.