Lenovo Y510P SLI review

[sgt_dawg]

Hello,
I am new to DigitForum and this will be a review of my Lenovo Y510P SLI.

Specification:
i7 4700MQ
8GB RAM
1TB HDD
GT750M SLI
FHD Anti-glare Display
No ODD
Windows 8 64bit

Appearance
This laptop looks absolutely AMAZING!!! especially those Red Backlit keyboard.
It resembles like the Y500, hence Y500 users wont probably find anything new in the overall appearance.
The display is very bright and it is a non-glare screen.
View attachment 12088

Keyboard and Touchpad
This laptop features backlit island-style keyboard with red gloss.
The keys provide good tactile feedback and feels good while typing.
Due to the inclusion of Numpad, Lenovo shrank Enter,Right Shift and Backspace key which you will get used to it soon.
The Synaptics Trackpad is flawless and glides smooth.
View attachment 12089View attachment 12090

Ports and Sound
The IdeaPad Y510p has a standard selection of ports, including a VGA, Ethernet, HDMI-out and two USB 3.0 ports on the left, and a headphone jack and microphone jack and an Always-ON USB 2.0 on the right.
Left:
View attachment 12093View attachment 12095
Right:
View attachment 12092
Despite the small sized speakers, Lenovo has provided Dolby Home Theater-certified JBL speakers.
Trust me guys this is the best laptop speaker ever in this range.
It easily beats Dell's Waves MaxxAudio and HP's Beats speakers.
View attachment 12096

Performance
CPU:
It performed well when compared to my desktop(2nd gen i7 2600k) and scored 15317 on geekbench 2 compared to 13668 on my desktop.
View attachment 12097
PCMARK7 scores of 4711
3DMARK scores of 4697 in performance presets View attachment 12091

GPU:
The GT750M SLI handles most of the games thrown at it.
Played Battlefield 3 with everything maxed out on Ultra and getting 30+ frames. At High settings getting 55+ frames.
Fifa 2013 with seamless frames. Will benchmark with other games soon

HDD:
The model which i got was a 1TB HDD with no SSD caching.
The 5400RPM HardDisk was the only setback i found and it really insults the True potential of this machine.

Heat ,System noise and Battery life
Even during intense gaming, the laptop is quite and one could hardly hear the fan noise.
The Heat production is evident if one plays games. The far left side of the laptop feels warm and near the trackpad too.Max temp during benchmarks and intense games (CPU 85-89C and GPU 87-90C). It is better to use a laptop cooling pad beneath. I use Deepcool N200 cooler (500-650Rs).
Battery life is short in the SLI version of the laptop.As there is no Optimus in SLI version.Got a decent 3 hour backup while surfing net,multimedia playback with WiFi always ON.
Don't even imagine the battery life during gaming. I can hardly get 1 hour 20 mins. It was due to the SLI as it sucks more juice out of the battery.

Verdict
Very good CPU and coupled with a pair of nvidia 750GT.
This would be a beast if Lenovo included an mSATA port.
Harddisk is slow.
But Haswell+GT750M SLI+FHD antiglare+JBL speakers made the difference.
Budget gamers can go for this machine.
I got this machine from Seattle for 1098$ during the 60Rs/$ period so it was a great bargain for me
P.S I'm an Arsenal fan View attachment 12094
Cheers!

 

[arvindrao15]

how much is it priced in India?

 

[vijju6091]

Welcome to TDF
Good little review

 

[rhyansy]

SLI poses a lot of problems. Better stick to normal NVIDIA single graphics!

 

[seamon]

SLI poses a lot of problems. Better stick to normal NVIDIA single graphics!

Not at all. With the recent driver updates, Micro-stuttering is almost gone for Nvidia and scaling is top notch(upto 97-99% in Crysis 3 and other AAA games)
It's so much cheaper than a single equivalent card. 1 lakh vs 1.5 lakh.

 

[rhyansy]

Not at all. With the recent driver updates, Micro-stuttering is almost gone for Nvidia and scaling is top notch(upto 97-99% in Crysis 3 and other AAA games)
It's so much cheaper than a single equivalent card. 1 lakh vs 1.5 lakh.

If that's the case, how come SLI has not becoming more common? A lot of brands currently do not offer this set-up because of compatibility issues.

 

[seamon]

If that's the case, how come SLI has not becoming more common? A lot of brands currently do not offer this set-up because of compatibility issues.

Incorporating SLI is much more difficult than simply putting a single GPU. For the low end, a single GPU is much better than SLI. SLI also causes space issues as it takes twice the space of a single card, requires 2 heat sinks and leaves no space for a DVD/Blue Ray drive. It is only viable for the high end where SLI is quite common. Unfortunately "high end" is not released in India. Not a single laptop exists which is SLI ready in India. The gaming laptop market has not developed here yet. In the US, there are tons of SLI laptops. For instance all the Alienware 18 laptops are SLI ready, they don't come with a single GPU. Aorus X7 is SLI ready which is one of the thinnest 17" laptops. Sager/Clevo also makes 17" laptops with SLI.

There are no compatibility issues, nowadays with the newest drivers SLI is getting better and better. Earlier in the 320 drivers SLI ran Bioshock Infinite with 80% scaling on both GPUs. Today I tried with 335 driver and Bioshock Infinite is showing 99% scaling on both cards.

 

[rhyansy]

Incorporating SLI is much more difficult than simply putting a single GPU. For the low end, a single GPU is much better than SLI. SLI also causes space issues as it takes twice the space of a single card, requires 2 heat sinks and leaves no space for a DVD/Blue Ray drive. It is only viable for the high end where SLI is quite common. Unfortunately "high end" is not released in India. Not a single laptop exists which is SLI ready in India. The gaming laptop market has not developed here yet. In the US, there are tons of SLI laptops. For instance all the Alienware 18 laptops are SLI ready, they don't come with a single GPU. Aorus X7 is SLI ready which is one of the thinnest 17" laptops. Sager/Clevo also makes 17" laptops with SLI.

There are no compatibility issues, nowadays with the newest drivers SLI is getting better and better. Earlier in the 320 drivers SLI ran Bioshock Infinite with 80% scaling on both GPUs. Today I tried with 335 driver and Bioshock Infinite is showing 99% scaling on both cards.

I guess you're argument is really positive for SLI technology going forward for high-end gaming laptops. High-end laptops are not common in India as there are so many barriers with electronics certifications and stuff. It just doesn't make sense for those gaming laptop brands to sell in India if it's just a few units a year. Do you think there are any solution on how to make this happen?

 

[seamon]

I guess you're argument is really positive for SLI technology going forward for high-end gaming laptops. High-end laptops are not common in India as there are so many barriers with electronics certifications and stuff. It just doesn't make sense for those gaming laptop brands to sell in India if it's just a few units a year. Do you think there are any solution on how to make this happen?

buying gaming laptops instead of high end desktops is the only solution but I doubt anyone is going ti do that as desktops are much more VFM.