Notebooks with adequate gaming performance *on battery power*? A myth?

ystig · 09-09-2012, 08:03 PM

I've been researching and shopping around for notebooks recently, with a mind towards purchasing a unit which balances portability and power, and allows for gaming on the go. I'm a long-distance train commuter (on trains which don't happen to have outlets), so I spend a *lot* of my life with only battery powered electronics to entertain me (or serve as a vehicle for doing work).

The problem appears to be this: while we have a fair selection of affordable 14" laptops, often with the 630M, 640M or 650M providing dedicated graphics capable of playing recent games, user experiences seem to indicate that throttling results in most of these units' dedicated graphics becoming more or less dead weight when on battery. Benchmarks like these show a fairly powerful unit slowing to a crawl on battery, for gaming purposes, with its dedicated graphics performing *worse* than mid-range integrated graphics. In my scenario, there is no reason for the dedicated graphics to exist at all, if this is the case. The Lenovo forums, likewise, seem to be full of people complaining of their Y480/Y580 being unusable for gaming purposes when not plugged in, and with no available solution.

So my question is, does anyone have experience with, or know of, a current notebook unit or configuration which actually benefits from its dedicated graphics while on battery? For my purposes, a unit's performance while plugged in (but only while plugged in) is completely meaningless. I have my own workstations at home and at work. I don't need to use a laptop any time when I've got an outlet. Is anyone building portable computers which can game portably?

MarkLuvsCS · 09-09-2012, 09:39 PM

I just thought I'd post my personal experience to help out. I have a Lenovo T530 with the quadro nvs 5400m (96 fermi cores) with a 3720QM cpu. I have a 9 cell battery that sticks out the back a bit, and a 9 cell slice. I was on battery power playing GW2 and it lasted about ~6 hours on the 9 cell + slice. I ran GW2 medium settings @ 1080p and had 40s for fps. Although I get about 15-20hrs while doing random stuff and surfing the net through wireless, it's not great for battery life while gaming, but I was definitely pleasantly surprised I could game for several hours without needing to be plugged in.

I purchased my machine for a workhorse with a beast battery life, and it has not disappointed. The laptop weight is about ~6.5 lbs with both batteries so it's not lightweight, but it still pretty portable laptop that works pretty well for gaming for hours or productivity stuff all day.

*Edit* I did spend more money than necessary on my system. It was about $200-250 for the quad core upgrade, $200-250 for 1080p, but all in all I spent $1400-1500 after tax, warranty, everything. I know cost is always a factor, but if nothing else it allows you to have some perspective on value vs. other laptops you're browsing. You could certainly get a T530 for quite a bit less. If nothing else the dual core ivy i5 + 1600x900 screen would drop it probably closer to $1000-1100 range, and thats with the slice battery which runs ~$150.

ystig · 09-12-2012, 10:14 PM

I quite appreciate the input, as that's some incredible battery performance while gaming, and GW2 is a very good high water mark at the moment. I'm finding it fairly difficult to come by reviews which assess gaming performance on battery specifically (this having been the major exception), so every bit of annecdotal personal experience regarding gaming performance on battery is helpful.

IntelUser2000 · 09-12-2012, 11:44 PM

http://shop.lenovo.com/products/us/t...t-series/t530/

9 cell (93.6 Wh)
9 cell slice (93.6 Wh)

That's total of 187.2WHr. So if we bring his figure to regular laptop sized battery of 63WHr:

6.8 hours light usage
1.68 hours gaming(assuming that he gets 5 hours now)

If you can live with the extra weight and cost, having a biggest battery is an option you can have now.