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  • TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link

    They probably cut down the memory because notebook GPUS always come with stupid amounts of memory. R5 250 with 4GB, anyone?

    I mean, the 965m is an undercloked 960. Show me a game that NEEDS 4gb of ram to run that won't play like a slideshow on said settings. The gpu isn't powerful to warrant 4GB.

    Same with the 970m. Most games use 1.5-2 gb at the most, many use far less. The only way to exceed frame buffer is to crank the settings all the way up, then crank AA to 16x or higher. Which makes no sense because

    A. Any game that uses more than 3GB of memory with that level of AA will most likely be unplayable on the 970m, regardless of video memory

    B. You don't need 16x AA on a laptop screen. It's too small and high rez for AA to make sense. If you want to crank the settings to 11, build a desktop. Laptop GPUS are not powerful enough for such settings to be playable.
  • webdoctors - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link

    I thought 4 GB was enuff for anybody? Isnt the flagship AMD GPU with HBM memory shipping with only 4 GBs?
  • e36Jeff - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link

    That's partly due to the restrictions of HBM 1.0 and not being able to support more than 4GB. They almost assuredly gone with 8GB had it been feasible.
  • xthetenth - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link

    4GB on a desktop 960 is already making a difference over 2 GB. It's not that 4 GB is needed but 2 GB isn't always quite enough.
  • zodiacfml - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link

    Simply because of the display resolution. Though it can be connected to an external 4k display, gaming would be unlikely but productivity related use.
  • jasonelmore - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link

    i can get a 15" alienware for cheaper money with the same specs... hmmm.. is that 2" worth it?
  • DanNeely - Thursday, February 25, 2016 - link

    Are you gaming on the laptop screen regularly or is it normally plugged into an external monitor?

    For Mid-level gaming laptops the 17' form factors biggest advantage is the screen size. For higher end systems it has more thermal head room, but that's mostly a benefit for dual GPU gaming.
  • Hrobertgar - Thursday, February 25, 2016 - link

    My 3 month old Alienware 15" has been a disaster - very long laundry list of problems that should be unfathomable on a normal laptop - let alone a gaming rig. Supposedly they are going to have me ship it back to the depot where it will presumably be rebuilt. If the Gigabyte laptop actually functions - maybe its worth the cost...
  • yannigr2 - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link

    How nice. The person who thinks that AMD users are stupid and makes decisions based on cheap prices and aesthetics, not performance, writes for Anandtech now.

    You should also explain how that integrated 512GB SSD is 128GB or 256GB in those two models on newegg. So maybe this is not standard? But who cares. Not to mention that those laptops have a three storage system( 2+1 if you replace the BlueRay), not two(1+1) as you make it look like in your article.
  • yannigr2 - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link

    http://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shi...
  • SilthDraeth - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link

    Thanks for posting that. What a fricken joke. I have bought AMD for the last decade, because almost universally, the performance has been good enough, and the cost savings even better. I have also been in a position to sell to "regular" people. And trust me when I say this, none of them even know the difference between AMD or Intel. They are to focused on Dell, or HP, or Toshiba, etc. And those that do know the difference, make decisions based on performance to price, and value, or they go full HAM and buy the greatest and fastest regardless of manufacturer, which means only the bench marking, is what matters.
  • epobirs - Monday, February 29, 2016 - link

    The lack of USB 3.1 on any of the A ports is disappointing. Type C devices are still not very common but I've already got a USB 3.1 SATA 2.5" enclosure with an SSD in it that performs quite nicely at close to the limits of SATA itself. Needing an adapter to use it or other Type A port items that can take advantage of the bandwidth would be an asset for this line of machines.
  • DanNeely - Monday, February 29, 2016 - link

    I've seen a few other products that have done the same - just one 3.1 gen 2 C port - and never got it either. AFAIK the controllers supporting 3.1g2 all are dual port so only using one of them's never made any sense to me.

    If it's Alpine ridge and the intent is to enable TB3 on it in the near future I could maybe see logic behind it though. IIRC alpine ridge has 4 upstream PCIe lanes and sends 4 downstream in TB3 mode. That means the TB3 connection could potentially bottleneck the controller; not running a 2nd USB3.1 port off it could make sense from an avoiding resource contention standpoint I guess. OTOH that's nerfing something that could be useful to a lot of people for something likely to only be used by very few.

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