How We Tested
A gaming-oriented laptop should be evaluated principally on its gaming performance. To that end, we pull out Battlefield 4, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Thief, Metro Last Light, Tomb Raider and Grid 2.
All benchmarks were run plugged in to the wall using our custom Windows 8 power profile. The screen was then calibrated to 200 cd/m² before the same tests were repeated on battery power.
Synthetics
Swipe to scroll horizontally
3DMark | FireStrike: Graphics, Physics, Combined Modules |
---|---|
PCMark 8 | Home, Creative, Work Modules (Accelerated), Storage |
SiSoftware Sandra | Memory Bandwidth Module |
Gaming
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Battlefield 4 | DirectX 11, 100-sec. Fraps "Tashgar", Ultra Quality Preset, 1920x1080 |
---|---|
Grid 2 | DirectX 11, 120-sec. Fraps Built-In Benchmark, Ultra Quality Preset, 1920x1080 |
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor | DirectX 11, 40-sec. Fraps Built-In Benchmark, Ultra Quality Preset, 1920x1080 |
Thief | DirectX 11, 70-sec. Fraps Built-In Benchmark, Very High Quality Preset, 1920x1080 |
Tomb Raider | DirectX 11, 45-sec Fraps Custom Tom's Hardware Benchmark, Ultra Quality Preset, 1920x1080 |
Metro Last Light | DirectX 11, 145-sec Fraps Built-In Benchmark, Very High Quality Preset, 1920x1080 |
Productivity
Swipe to scroll horizontally
7-Zip | Version 9.30 alpha (64-bit): THG-Workload (1.3GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5" |
---|---|
Adobe Photoshop CC | Custom OpenCL-based Workload |
Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 | iray Workload |
HandBrake CLI | Version: 0.99: Video from Canon EOS 7D (1920x1080, 25 FPS) 1 Minutes 22 Seconds Audio: PCM-S16, 48,000Hz, 2-Channel, to Video: AVC1 Audio: AAC (High Profile) |
LAME MP3 | Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s) |
TotalCode Studio 2.5 | Version: 2.5.0.10677: MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1kHz, 2-Channel, 16-Bit, 224Kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV |
Battery Life
Wireless Networking
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Ixia IxChariot | Version 7.2 Build Level 107, TCP Throughput |
---|---|
Passmark WirelessMon | Version 4.0 Build 1009, Signal Strength |