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The choice of a 1080p display is a sensible one as the GTX 970M inside would not be able to power games at 4K with fluid frame rates. As it stands, the P55W can take on any title out there right now.
Games benefit from the P55W's bright display. It's matte, rather than glossy, and holds up very well under strong lights and is even clear enough to be used outdoors. That said, despite being an IPS display, the display's viewing angles are only average. Games look fine when viewed head-on (as they will be most of the), but saturation quickly fades as the angle becomes more severe.
Benchmarks
Here's how the Gigabyte P55W v5 performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
- 3DMark: Cloud Gate: 21,526; Sky Diver: 19,130; Fire Strike: 6,590
- Cinebench CPU: 675 points; Graphics: 62.34 dos fps,
- GeekBench: 3,798 (single-core); 13,511 (multi-core)
- PCMark 8 (Home Test): 3,407 points
- PCMark 8 Battery Life: 4 hours and 27 minutes
- Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (1080p, Ultra): 54.61 fps; (1080p, Low): 114.90 fps
- GTA V: (1080p, Ultra): 22.64 fps; (1080p, Low): 132.62 fps
The P55W's benchmark scores reflect a machine that's primed for 1080p gaming, and in cases the results only just fall short of what can be achieved with Nvidia's more powerful (and costly) 980M.
Take the Acer Predator 15, for example, which scored 67 fps in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor's Ultra benchmark compared with the P55W's 55 fps. Gigabyte's machine lagged slightly behind in 3D Mark's Sky Diver test, racking up a score of 19,130 compared to the 21,829 achieved by the Predator 15.
Translating that performance into gaming ability, you can expect to have to dial down a graphical setting or two on the P55W - an acceptable compromise considering the money that can be saved versus picking up a 980M-equipped machine.
That said, the 970M isn't quite powerful enough to do games justice at 4K, and if you're considering picking up an external monitor to play games in Ultra HD then you would be better served by a dual-GPU model such as the Aorus X7 Pro v5.
Battery life is surprisingly good, lasting well over four hours in PC Mark 8's benchmark. This is a laptop that you could take and use to get some work done, particularly so thanks to its impressive keyboard which makes typing a pleasure - a rarity for a gaming keyboard.
Compare runtimes to some other models such as the Alienware 15 (3 hours and 17 minutes) and Schenker P506 (3 hours and 11 minutes) and the P555W really shines.
