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HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2016: Editor's Choice - Part 2

By Team HardwareZone - 27 Feb 2016

Best Gaming Notebook

Best Gaming Notebook

2015 was certainly a great year for mobile gaming. Not only did NVIDIA's G-Sync technology finally make the leap to mobile displays, the company also managed to cram their GeForce GTX 980 desktop GPU into certain high end gaming notebooks. On top of that, the release of Skylake processors with new energy efficiency technology meant that notebooks can last longer on the go as well.

With all these technologies falling in place, 2015 saw a number of formidable gaming notebooks that were in the 15-inch class as opposed to the usual case where only the best in technology appeared on 17-inch class notebooks. For once, true gaming notebooks need not be bulky machines like those of the past. To mark this change, for this year, our gaming notebook category will only focus on the best of the best 15-inch gaming notebooks that have a high-end GPU onboard. The notebooks were then judged on performance, portability, features, and value to determine the winner.

Nominees: 

 

  • Acer Predator 15
  • Aftershock S-15 (2015)
  • Alienware 15
  • Gigabyte P35X V5
  • Lenovo Ideapad Y700
  • MSI GS60 Ghost Pro

 

And the winner is...

Gigabyte P35X V5

While 2015 saw some notebooks equipped with the  new mobile version of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 GPUs, none of our finalists had the desktop GPU in it as we were going for 15-inch machines. Instead, we focused on portable machines that had the power to game hard, but can still be easily transported when required.

Of the six machines that made it to the finals, none fit the criteria more than Gigabyte's latest refresh of their venerable P35X, the P35X V5. The P35X V3 was one of the finalists for last year's best gaming notebook, but it's only this year that the refreshed model clinched it. The Gigabyte P35X V5 is nearly the perfect gaming machine. It has a 15.6-inch Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) display, an Intel Core i7-6700HQ (2.6GHz, 6MB cache) processor, 16GB DDR4 RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M (8GB VRAM), and a 256GB SSD with 1TB HDD for storage. Those specs combine to make the machine a truly formidable gaming beast, only surpassed by the best of the high-end machines (which are 17-inch or larger).

On top of that, the Gigabyte P35X V5 comes with a whole host of connectivity options. It has multiple USB 3.0 ports with a single USB 3.1 Type-C port. While it's sad that it's not a Thunderbolt 3 port, it's still a boon to those who have USB Type-C devices. Other connections include a single HDMI, mini-DisplayPort, D-Sub VGA and a card reader. It also comes with a Blu-Ray writer and has Dolby Digital Plus Home Theater certification to power its audio output. Best of all, the notebook is one of the lightest machines in the shootout - it's just 2.4kg. All these attributes combine to make the Gigabyte P35X V5 one of the most versatile 15-inch gaming machines you can buy right now.

Here's a quick snapshot of its performance from our shootout:-

Scoring Breakdown
Model/ Criteria Acer Predator 15 Aftershock S-15 (2015) Alienware 15 Gigabyte P35X V5 Lenovo Ideapad Y700 MSI GS60 Ghost Pro
Design 8.5 7.5 8.0 8.5 8.0 8.5
Features 9.0 7.0 9.0 8.5 7.0 8.5
Performance 8.5 8.0 8.5 8.5 7.0 8.0
Value 8.5 9.0 8.0 7.5 7.0 5.0
Mobility 6.0 8.0 6.0 8.5 7.5 9.0
Overall 8.0 8.0 8.0 8.5 7.0 8.0
Price S$3,498 S$2,158 S$3,796 S$3,399 S$2,399 S$3,399

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of individual product evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

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