Gigabyte P35Xv3-CF1 / CF2 / CF3 / CF4 / CF5 Thin 15.6″ Gaming Laptop with Nvidia 980M

With its 15.6-inch screen size and 0.8″ thin profile, the Gigabyte P35X v3 gaming laptop competes head to head against notebooks such as the Lenovo Y50, HP Omen, and Acer Nitro. But, the Gigabyte machine is way more powerful than all the listed counterparts, since it has the top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M graphics card instead of the usual mid-range GTX 860M.

The 980M version Gigabyte used in the P35X v3 has whooping 8GB of GDDR5 video memory, which is the largest amount among laptop-use graphics cards and is an overkill for the modern PC games. For non-gaming power-saving use, Nvidia Optimus technology allows switching to the basic Intel HD 4600 graphics integrated in the main processor. The notebook relies on the 4th Gen Intel Core “Haswell” processors – the i7-4710HQ or i7-4860HQ, which are among the fastest notebook CPUs ever.

The Gigabyte P35X v3 comes with either Full HD 1920×1080-pixel or 3K 2880×1620 display resolution, while IPS technology is standard. Touchscreen is not supported.

The keyboard has adjustable LED backlight and specially highlighted WASD keys. The trackpad is buttonless.

The P35X v3 is more robust than the aforementioned counterparts in terms of storage, too. All known configurations ship with a 1-Terabyte 7,200rpm hard drive plus one or two mSATA solid state drives. In addition, the notebook’s optical drive bay can be populated with an additional 2.5″ hard drive or solid state drive instead of default DVD writer. You can use 2.5″ SSD instead of the default HDD, too.

RAM department isn’t so robust. It has two SODIMM slots, so maximal supported RAM amount is 16GB using two 8GB modules. On the other side, bigger 17.3″ mobile gaming rigs usually have four SODIMMs for up to 32GB RAM. However, 8 and 16 GB should be enough for gaming and everyday use.

Since the components in the laptop are very powerful and can run hot under heavy load, Gigabyte had to implement an advanced cooling system. Supra-Cool system consists of dual heat pipes plus dual fans for the processor and graphics.
With all these components and its six-cell battery plus DVD drive, the P35X weighs in at 5.1 pounds, which is really light for a fully-featured gaming notebook.

Gigabyte has also managed to squeeze in a subwoofer besides stereo speakers. Other notable features are a built-in web camera, four USB ports, HDMI and mini DisplayPort video connectors, SD card reader, dedicated headphone-out and mic-in audio jacks, 802.11AC Wi-Fi, Gigabit LAN, and Bluetooth.

The currently known configurations start at $1,999, so it’s a lot more pricier than the Nvidia 860M-based notebooks starting at slightly above $1,000.