Gigabyte P27K Review: Notebook 17″ with Maximum RAM & Storage Upgrade Options

One more option for a 17″ gaming notebook with a mid-range VGA but with very wide upgrade options. The Gigabyte P27K, especially the one we received directly from Taiwan, is armed with super specifications. Pemmzholics can see the specifications as we wrote below, from there the marketing of Gigabyte Taiwan wants to socialize the advantages of this P27K in terms of its upgrade options. Then how much benefit do we get from maximizing the RAM and storage area, especially in the barebones that both equip the GTX765M. Well, in this review, the Pemmz RnD team will compare it with the ASUS ROG G750JW and Xenom Shiva which “coincidentally” have the same barebones but when we tested using components below the P27K.

Specification

OS	Windows 8 Pro
CPU	4th Generation Intel^® Core™ i7-4900MQ Processor (2.8GHz 8Mb, 47W)
Display	17.3″ Full HD 1920×1080 LCD
System Memory	20GB DDRIIIL 1600, 3 slots (Max 24GB with core i7 family)
Chipset	Mobile Intel^® HM87 Express Chipset
Video Graphics	Intel^® HD Graphics 4600 NVIDIA^® GeForce^® GTX 765M GDDR5 2GB (NVIDIA Support^® Optimus™ Technology)
Storage	Support Triple-storage System 256GB mSATA SSD + 2x 750GB* 2.5″ 9.5mm HDD 7200rpm
Keyboard Type	Full-sized Backlit Keyboard
Optical Disk Drive	Super Multi DVD RW
I/O Port	USB(3.0)2, eSATA/USB(3.0) Combo1, USB(2.0)*1, HDMI, D-Sub, RJ45, Mic-in, Earphone-out, DC-in jack, S/PDIF Out, 9-in-1 card reader
Audio	2 Watt Speaker*2, Microphone, Sound Blaster™ Cinema
Communications	LAN: 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet Wireless LAN: 802.11b/g/n Bluetooth: Bluetooth V4.0
Webcam	2.0 Megapixel
Security	Kensington Lock
Battery	Li-ion 8-cell, 5200mAh, 76.96Wh
Dimensions	413(W) x 277.5(D) x 17.5~48.8(H) mm
Weight	~3.2kg (w/ODD and 8-cell battery)

Design

The addition of angular lines on the cover design makes the appearance of the Gigabyte P27K seem more assertive. The dark orange color seems to be meant to support the curve of the line to make it stand out. When the lcd lid is opened, the metallic dove black color dominates every corner of the casing from the LCD frame to the upper and bottom cases, this makes the orange color on the front cover of the LCD no longer visible.

At the bottom of the LCD lid, you can see the words GIGABYTE which at a glance looks like it is engraved on the surface of the LCD frame, even though the manufacturer only uses the “screen printing” system. At the top of the frame, you can see a 2.0 Megapixel webcam complete with a mic.

Workstation Design

The workstation section also gets a re-design allocation as shown in the photo above. The design of the power button and GPU priority shortcut that forms a prism reminds the team of the button design on the ASUS ROG 2021 edition.

Not bright enough for a room with lights, but very helpful if the surroundings are suddenly very dark, for example, a blackout :D — Not bright enough for a room with lights, but very helpful if the surroundings are suddenly very dark, for example a blackout

Ports & Communications

For a 17.3″ notebook, what the Gigabyte P27K brings, especially the ports and connections, is complete. Data transfer business by cableThe P27K provides a total of 4 USB ports (including an e-SATA/USB combo port), a DVD-RW Drive, a 1 gbps LAN port and a 9-in-1 card reader. As for wireless communication, pemmzholics can use WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0.

it takes a little effort to access the D-Sub Port which is next to the charging port.

To present the screen display to wider media, the Gigabyte P27K is equipped with a standard HDMI port and D-Sub which is still often needed by modern projectors though. Unfortunately, the D-Sub port is not equipped with a lock that functions to hold the cable when connected.

Upgrade Options

Even though the GPU is not upgradable, other parts are very free to be maximized

Core i7 4900MQ
This processor series is the second highest series that can be applied to the Gigabyte P27K. On it, there is actually a core i7 4930MX series from the Extreme series which is still possible to be applied to the P27K with a little touch of modification. While the core i7 4950HQ and 4960HQ which provide Intel Iris Graphics, are not supported by the H87M chipset on the P27K.

The Gigabyte P27K has excellent storage options, 1 for the m-SATA slot (under the keyboard), 2 2.5″ SATA ports that can accommodate a hard drive with a capacity of up to 1TB per port. For the unit we reviewed, Gigabyte provided an m-SATA SSD with a capacity of 256GB as a system (OS) partition plus 2 750GB/7200 rpm WDC HDDs dedicated as a DATA (Massive Storage) partition.

m-SATA 2 Next is the RAM part. Gigabyte P27K, supplied 3 pieces DDR 3 RAM slot that can accommodate up to 24GB pc 1600MHz (by installing CPU core i7Quad Core>). In the unit we tested, Gigabyte also provided 3 pieces of RAM at once (2 pieces of 8GB RAM and a 4GB RAM).

Performance

Well, in this Gigabyte P27K performance test, the team compared it with the ASUS ROG G750JW which has been around for a long time with the option of a GTX765M GPU plus core i7 from the Intel Haswell family. However, the G750JW and other G750 series are not recommended in terms of upgradability. Well, this is where the P27K comes to provide options beyond CPU and GPU performance.

Some screenshots of synthetic benchmarks.

The team has tried to maximize all parameters to chase a score of 17000 in Performance 3D Mark Vantage mode as information on the website. But updating drivers and optimization tricks that the team did didn’t help much. The highest score for the Performance preset on the 3D Mark Vantage that the team got was only around the 15000s. This reminds the team of the app GPU boost which is usually present in the Gigabyte P series. Unfortunately, on the P27K, this feature is absent. Judging from the comparison table in the previous round-up article, the Core i7 4900MQ CPU on the Gigabyte P27K looks the most superior in the 3DMark 06 test (15.4%) compared to core i7 4700HQ on ASUS ROG G750JW and faster 26.6% compared to the core i5 4200M on the Xenom Shiva.

If the strength of the core i7 4900MQ on average, it is about 10% superior to the core i7 4800MQ, 15% superior to the core i7 4700HQ and 26% compared to the core i5 4200M, now for the performance of 20GB of RAM in dual channel mode on Gigabyte The P27K is capable of providing a performance increase of 35% compared to the system on the G750JW which only uses 8GB of RAM. Although this does not apply to all activities and is only an assessment from the side of synthetic benchmarks, it can be an important reference that maximizing system memory is a wise step to improve computer system performance.

Battery, Power Consumption & Power Adapter

Based on performance per Watt testing, the 8 cell battery on the P27K is very good at supporting technical performance outside of gaming. The power consumption of the i7 4900MQ and GTX765M, is still too big to handle the battery with a maximum power of 76W. Optimus will directly handle GPU performance when the source from PLN is released.

Power consumed by P27K when Ci7 4900MQ and GTX765M are full load.

Remember the previous Gigabyte P25W review? In the P25W sales package, Gigabyte also includes an adapter with a much smaller capacity than the required capacity. Well, the adapter that was included in the P27K unit that was sent to us is also exactly the same specification. And from the test results by giving full load to the CPU and GPU, the power consumed by the P27K almost touched 140Watt. FYI, the power adapter has a capacity of 120Watt which means it works 16% heavier. In theory, the average manufacturer’s default power adapter does have an efficiency above 90%, but still in this adapter signal will work harder.

BEPro P27K

With spacious barebones dimensions, the battery capacity of 8 Cells (Li-polymer, 5200mAh, 76.96Wh) is not something that is difficult to apply to the P27K. Here the performance of the Gigabyte P27K default battery is actually quite good, but still inferior to the ASUS ROG G750JW default battery. The battery management ability of a computer system also affects this test point, so it can be said that ASUS is a little more perfect in terms of battery management.

Conclusion

As a 17.3″ gaming notebook, the Gigabyte P27K offers a wide range of upgrade options to make up for its shortcomings on the custom GPU side. For those of you who don’t have a problem playing games at 720p resolution, you can rely on the GTX765M on the Gigabyte P27K, even though the full-HD resolution is not optimal.

Many features of the type of software that usually exist in the P series are not included in this P27K. Smart Switch is the only feature that can be found on the P27K unit that we reviewed, you could say, for the on windows feature, the P27K lags far behind the P34G series, let alone the P25W.

Pros: