Lenovo Y500 SLI gaming notebooks starting $900

[EliteRetard]

$900 GT650 SLI w/ i5-3230 6GB 1600MHz 1TB 5400RPM Win 8 15.6" 1080p HDMI USB3 Back-lit Keyboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834312438

$1050 adds i7-3630 and 8GB RAM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834312439

$1150 adds 12GB RAM and 16GB SSD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834312440

$1250 adds 16GB RAM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834312441

 

[gorcorps]

This came up in the notebook forum. Does anybody know how the SLI performs here? It sounds bananas to me to have SLI in a notebook, but it may not be as powerful as it sounds.

 

[lkailburn]

wow nice prices!

 

[DesiPower]

PC gaming... Laptop... dont really add up IMHO, but pretty powerful machines!! sweet!

 

[EliteRetard]

Seems like an interesting product, especially at the $900 level. Not to common to find a 1080p gaming notebook that cheap. Looked for a review and found this:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-IdeaPad-Y500-Notebook.87585.0.html

According to the review build quality and keyboard is mediocre, touch-pad poor, decent (for a laptop) glossy screen, looks like 2GB GDDR5 versions of the GT650m and when SLI is properly functioning it operates as fast as a GTX670MX (faster than GTX580m GTX670m or GTX675m). Decent noise levels for a gaming notebook, decent (for a laptop) speakers. Heat was a little bit of an issue, under max load the i7 throttled to 2.4GHz (max 90c) and one of the GPUs wasn't being used...but it seems fine with normal gaming. Got 3 hours in their internet battery life test.

Edit: Looks like a comparable performance 670MX laptop runs at least $1200, so this seems to offer a lot of bang for the buck (at the $900-1050 range). Sager/Clevo units haven't been known for their high quality builds either, so I don't know if there are even any trade offs here, other than the SLI itself (may have micro-stutter or not function in SLI cutting your speed in half).

Edit: Looks like performance may be comparable to a desktop GTX560ti.

 

[Throckmorton]

The screen is only 220 nit... that's abysmally dim. For comparison, the Samsung Series 7 17" is 300 nit.

 

[Roland00Address]

The screen is only 220 nit... that's abysmally dim. For comparison, the Samsung Series 7 17" is 300 nit.

Your info is wrong. The average max brightness of the screen according 259 nits according to notebook check who reviewed this specific laptop with the lowest of the nine sections was 240 nits. The highest section is 290 nits.

Just because laptops use the same panel does not mean they have the same lighting.

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Furthemore samsung series 7 17" doesn't tell a whole lot about your laptop there are different models of samsung series 7 and they will have different screens. Furthermore manufactures have been known to switch panels for monitors for the same model or a 3 month referesh down the road.

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What is far more important is how accurate the color, the real contrast ratio, and the viewing angles. While still a tn panel, the 1080p tn panel used in the y500 and y580s not a bad tn panel achieving very close to srgb and having a 450:1 real contrast ratio, for comparison the alienware m17r4 panel is about 580:1 for contrast ratio.

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If sli doesn't work at all you are getting about 75% of the performance of the gtx650 normal desktop card (note I did not use the ti in this example).

If sli scales perfectly you are getting about 85% of the performance of the gtx650ti desktop card (note in this example I did use the ti).

Use these numbers and multiply the correct percents to get an idea
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/681?vs=680

 

[Macgyversite]

Go to cyberpowerpc.com You can config a Laptop that performs a little better than this. thats not SLI.

www.notebookcheck.com USA . You can find ways of checking mobile videocard performance.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

 

[ElFenix]

the main problem with this laptop is that optimus doesn't work. so when you're not gaming, you're still powering the GT650m. so battery life is pretty terrible. also, the ultrabay apparently doesn't accept batteries either (remember bay batteries? those were awesome).