Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Laptop: i5 3230M 2.6GHz CPU, 6GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI, 15.6" LCD (1920x1080), Backlit Keyboard, WiFi N, 6 Cell, Win 8 $900 + Free ship
 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6834312438

Lenovo main website does not offer Dual GT650m SLI

But Newegg does


Spec:

Graphics Card: Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI Video Memory 2GB
WIN 8
Core i5-3230M 2.6GHz
15.6" (FHD 1920 X1080)
6GB DDR3
Hard Disk 1TB

when you click into the images , you won't see DVD/CD rom
So this Y500 does come with "DUAL graphic card"

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Laptop: i5 3230M 2.6GHz CPU, 6GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI, 15.6" LCD (1920x1080), Backlit Keyboard, WiFi N, 6 Cell, Win 8 $900 + Free ship
 

Newegg has a great deal on a Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Laptop featuring 1080p LCD & Dual NVIDIA Geforce GT650M video cards. Price is $900 + free shipping. Thanks kyfelix

Specs:

• Core i5-3230M 2.6GHz CPU
• 6GB DDR3 Memory
• 1TB Hard Drive
• Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI
  • HDMI & 2x USB 3.0
• 15.6" LCD (1920x1080) w/ Webcam
• Backlit Keyboard
• WiFi N + Bluetooth 4.0
• 6 Cell Battery
• Windows 8

This post can and should be edited by users like you :)
 

Photos do show SLI 650M, right side of laptop is Ultrabay, in photos you can clearly see 650M heatsink instead of DVD drive. Listing is very clear that this is SLI.

Extra 650M for vanilla Y500s is $229, also requires separate A/C adapter - keep this in mind if you decide to buy the Y500 elsewhere.

i7 version available for $1050. [newegg.com]

SLI Game Optimization

*** If you search Google for GN34/GN35 for Y400/Y500 laptops respectively, you can find 650m ultrabay addon for as low as $135 ***!!

looks like good price... but why no one respond and no TU....
Could anyone enlighten me what I am missing here o.O?

Battery life is only 3 hours....

Anyone know if this have a CD/DVD drive on it??

Gotta look for a very nice laptop before summer for a year overseas trip since I can't carry my super PC out of the country, it's like 40 pounds! Should I wait till April/May times or go for this.... hmm....

I think you're better off waiting and looking for in on lenovo's site and picking up the dual sli there.

I think this laptop has been as low as $850 (plus possible cashback) but those did not include the sli. Those models have included more ram (16gb, I think) and a caching ssd (16gb as well). It was not clear if the caching ssd could be replaced with a larger msata ssd that could be used as a separate os drive or as a main drive.

http://slickdeals.net/f/5779990-L...p-Discover

I am curious if the 650Ms use gddr5 or ddr3. Somehow, I suspect it is ddr3.

GT 650m SLI only available on DDR5.....

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVID...953.0.html

It uses the flexible UltraBay design like Thinkpads, in this case the UltraBay is occupied by the second GT650M to form the SLi. It can be swapped out for a DVDRW or an additional fan.

If it's like any other Lenovo machine it should just be a standard mSATA port and you are free to drop a 128GB mSATA SSD in it.

How is it cheaper for discover card? Is there a coupon or something?

Deleted..

99.99% sure newegg made a mistake on the system spec. Never heard of Lenovo's laptop comes with SLI configuration.

update: notebookcheck.com confirms the Y500 does have SLI configuration

Searching 'Lenovo Y500 (59359560)' comes up all single GT650M. No SLI listings on other retailers websites.

Since this unit Equipped w/ Dual NVIDIA Geforce GT650M SLI, it won't come with DVD/CD rom...

DVD/CD rom is not listed under the details on NEWEGG..

SO this must be SLI

Prove:
Single Graphic card vs Dual Graphic card:

Single Graphic Card: DVD±R/RW listed
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6834310625

Dual Graphic Card: DVD±R/RW Not listed under both detail and description
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6834312438

Well, if this unit come with single graphic GT650m.
you can argue with newegg states this unit come with "Equipped w/ Dual NVIDIA Geforce GT650M SLI"
we are talking about DUAL not SINGLE
It's easy to return and get refund from Newegg than dealing with LENOVO CS...

Looks like all of their Y500s state SLI. The i7 quad version of this laptop might be a better deal. It does state the additional video card is included.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6834312439

I don't see any way they could mistakenly list "Dual" in the item name, and also error in stating that it's "Equipped w/ Dual NVIDIA Geforce GT650M SLI." That is a highly unlikely scenario.

That is absolutely true. Lenovo's CS sucks. The last time I wanted a refund, I had to wait an entire month to receive it (they absolutely refused to cancel the initial order), even though they had the product back at their warehouse for 2 weeks. Barring some incredible deal, that I would be absolutely comfortable with keeping, I will never order from them again..

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SKUSea...RQH1h3aLzg

mwave shows it as single similar pricing.

You can see it installed on Newegg's photos.

This is a really great deal, the second 650M is pretty expensive (>$200) when bought separately from Lenovo. In addition you need to buy a higher capacity A/C adapter that the SLI version comes with.

I can confirm via the pictures on the Newegg listing that this is the SLI version - otherwise you would see a DVD drive on the right side.

If you can deal with the i5 this is a great price, otherwise maybe the i7 for $1050 and SLI is better.

I own the Y500 and replaced my DVD drive with a simple caddy and an SSD, but the mSATA slot is great for an SSD as well, either as a boot drive or for caching.

Lenovo has their OEM version of Expresscache (SSD Caching) that runs great on this model. I can confirm it works on any SSD installed in the system. I wrote a simple guide for getting that going if you own this model and are curious: http://forum.notebookreview.com/l...cache.html

What would be better for laptop gaming? SLI 650M or a single 675M?

lenovo isn't IBM.

Sounds like it'll be way too hot... damn.

extremely hot deal

talking about the GPUs :lmao:

1920 x 1080 !!!
HDMI !!!!
Bluetooth !!!!
52fps @1366x768 on Sleeping dogs!!!

The 675mx is faster (mx are based off kepler)
The 675m is not faster (m are based off the older fermi, these laptops came out in october to get the win 8 launch date, the kepler models were not ready yet)

THIS IS dual GPU, It has the ability to have 2 gpus using the "ultrabay"

Seems like a decent deal. If it were a 17in I'd jump on it.

what a letdown. i thought this was core i7.

you should put Core i5 in the title.
I can't tell what it is even by hovering over the link preview.

heard this batch of the y500 sucks with trackpad problems

Nvidia has two generation of gpus with the 600 series. Kepler (the newer chip) and Fermi (the older chip).

Kepler and Fermi are very similar gpu designs. Kepler is made on 28nm and is Fermi version 2, while Fermi is 40nm and was the original design. GPUs made on lower processes generate less heat and use less energy (thus better battery life if all things are simple), and allow a gpu company to more calculation units in the same area.

Kepler to get much better battery life and due to have lots of extra space due to new manufacturing process purposefully doubled the amount of shaders and kept the shader clock the same speed as the base clock. On the old design fermi the shader clock was twice as high as the base clock for manufacturing costs were more important than heat and battery life.

Thus a 40nm fermi with 192 shaders at 600 mhz base 1200 mhz shader performs almost identically to a 28nm kepler 384 shader 600 mhz base 600 mhz shader.


Kepler
GeForce GTX 650M 384 shaders at 790Mhz base+shader clock
GeForce GTX 660M 384 shaders at 835MHz base+shader clock
GeForce GTX 670MX 960 shaders at 600MHz base+shader clock
GeForce GTX 675MX 960 shaders at 600MHz base+shader clock
GeForce GTX 680M 1344 shaders at 720MHz base+shader clock
GeForce GTX 680MX 1536 shaders at 720MHz base+shader clock

GeForce GTX 650M SLI 768 shaders at 790Mhz base+shader clock

Fermi
GeForce GTX 670M 336 shaders at 598MHz base clock + 1196 MHz shader clock
performs like 672 kepler shaders at 598 MHz base+shader clock
GeForce GTX 675M 384 shaders at 620MHz base clock + 1240 MHz shader clock
performs like 768 kepler shaders at 598 MHz base+shader clock

Now the 670mx and 675mx have 25% more shaders than two 650m. Yet the 650m sli has 31% higher clock speed. Thus if the game supports sli and has good scaling the 670mx and 650m sli perform about the same. If the game does not support sli you will get more than double the frame rates with the 670mx solution.

For more info go read the reviews on the y500 on notebook check or read the reviews on other notebook gpus.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

If it was me there is no question I would prefer the 670mx solution, but lenovo purposefully went with the 650m sli solution for it cost them less money to buy those gpus from nvidia as well as it is easier to cool two 45w gpus vs one massive 75w gpu (thinner laptop with two seperate cooling areas vs thick laptop with one cooling area.)

thats quad core

675M. SLI is usually only a 30% performance increase compared to having a single card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6834312439
I7 version

because it makes sense for a dual SLI GT650m to last longer than 3 hours weighing at under 6 and a half pounds.

I wonder how it does it compare to m14x i7 q3610, gtx560m?

cheap one doesn't mean good stuff, how about Lenovo quality ? any one pls

If I were to buy this (and I am very tempted), I would replace the hard drive with a SSD. Does anyone know how much I could get for the 1TB 2.5" HDD?

beats it

Saw on some other forums that installing an SSD on this system (minus the SLI) had problems. So just tread carefully.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobi...844.0.html

This is a tempting deal, I've been looking at the y580 with the 660m for some time at around the $900 price point but didn't feel that was enough gpu. Notebookcheck has the 650m SLI benchmarked just above the 670mx and just below the Radeon 6970.

I have no experience with this particular model, but we use Lenovo Thinkpads exclusively at work and don't have too many issues (so long as you're using Windows). Linux is a bit sketchy on them, especially if you have a system with the Intel/nVidia switchable graphics.

I bought my father in law a Lenovo Ideapad a couple of years ago for xmas, and it's still going strong. He's not a power user by any stretch, but he does use it regularly.

I would never order direct from Lenovo though, they have a bad rep for customer service (at least on the ordering and fulfillment side of things). Buying them through a reputable 3rd party like NewEgg should be fine.

since it has SLI card obviously will beat it. But my real question was do newer games benefit from SLI? when it comes to games i5 vs i7?

I just got m14x r2 and saw this deal. I love the portability of alienware but the 15.6" is not bad either.

theres a quad core version if it really matters and alot of games nowadays support sli and alienware is not portable compare to this. dual core vs quad core only matters in games that support 3 cores or more

1GB Hard Drive

You mean TB right?

I bought a similar model, the 580, and I bought a new SSD... I had so many problems trying to get the OS over I just ended up using a different Windows 7 key. I'd advise against it if you want to use the OS that comes with it.

The only thing I don't like about it is the processor is not a I7 QM processor. SLI is nice and all but slow processor could bottleneck.

I5 3230M is only a dual core. It would be nice if they did a I7 3610QM quad core instead.

What issues did you have in migrating the OS? Serial keys?

If you are used to buying your laptop at Bestbuy or some regular store , this IdeaPad is built slightly better than almost all the laptops sold at Bestbuy.

But keep in mind that ThinkPads are the best built computers from lenovo.

If you want a quality laptop , you shouldn't be looking at a gaming laptop but a mobile workstation instead.

Gaming laptops have decent parts but the quality isn't impressive if you are used to quality products ( HP 8770W , Precision M6700 , Panasonic ToughBook line , etc. )

Most consumers don't buy high quality laptops. Sometimes mobile workstations can be used for gaming but they tend to be much more expensive.

UEFI :(. Basically did not like it at all, and the OS is some "OEM Version" that can't be activated on anything else. They include NO installation CD or material, so basically you can only restore from Windows 8 itself.

OEM Windows 8 is worse than Windows ME! I:eek: I cant believe I said that.

Can't you use an Acronis imaging program or something similar and clone the HDD and restore it onto the SSD ( and then do the SSD optimizations)?

Lenovo had issues with fulfillment when they were still using part of IBM's distribution system. Now they are completely off that crappy back end IT, there has been major improvements already and should be even more over the next few months.

What's wrong with IBM's distribution system?
Did I miss something?

Didn't try that, was too lazy to put both in my Desktop and do that, and Windows 7 for free was hard to pass up :)

You have to set UEFI back to legacy bios mode to install Windows 7.

No you can't because UEFI will automatically boot Windows 8 and attempt to repair any changes you made that can damage your operating system or boot changes.

Why not just purchase from the lenovo website? It's cheaper, better specd and comes in i7.. Color me confused.
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrar...D9B20ED2FB

Because this comes with SLI Nvidia 650m. Basically 2 video cards over one.

Add a second GPU?

Ah, I see now. My bad :)

It's GDDR5.

i hate anyone who makes a new computer without a solid state drive

Fiance got this during their 2-week or so Black Friday sale for the same price after tax. I got a U310. She's loving hers. Zero complaints.

Unless you are going to pay a premium for that MSata SSD companies going have to make a profit somehow.

how is this a deal? DUAL GPU... must have like a 45minute battery life.

Don't see this as a deal. Sorry.... and I love to game.

I have a 670m... I wonder which is faster?

From the benchmark I saw 650m SLI is faster than 670m, but if games have poor SLI profile or none at all then 670m. Poor SLI profile will bring poor results and no SLI profile only utilize 1 gpu.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVID...953.0.html

Whatev, there are 256gb ssd's all over sd for like $160, so i refuse to believe they're worth the ~$400 upgrade price that most computer manufacturers are charging

I have an Asus BEAST 17.3"... i7 3rd gen, 670m, two harddrives (OS on SSD and the other is 1TB), all this for 870.00 about four months ago (purchased befoer black friday).

I just don't see this being a deal.... sorry.

I purchased this laptop around Christmas -- important information below!

There is a major touchpad problem with the Y500. There is a ~100 page thread on their forums about it here [lenovo.com]. Basically, the touchpad on certain models randomly fritzes out and becomes totally unusable, and the solution is almost always to reboot.

This problem may or may not be fixed, but even after Lenovo acknowledged the hardware problem, they continued to ship units known to be defective.

The touchpad is also generally crap. It is the cheapest feeling piece of plastic you coud imagine, and the click action is loud and unnatural, like the board game Trouble. You can even feel the touchpad bend as you press down. It also has about a millimeter of give to it that makes it emit a tapping noise every time your finger lifts and then lands again as your navigate with the clickpad.

This device does not support Optimus. Even though the computer does contain both the nVidia card and the integrated Intel card, they've totally bypassed the Intel integrated card. You cannot utilize Optimus to save power and you cannot use WiDi because of this.

The keyboard is nice enough. The screen is better than some I've seen on other recent laptops, but it's still way worse then my Dell Studio from 5 years ago. The display cannot tilt back very far, and the hinge is more flimsy than I'd like. The speakers are the nicest I've heard on a laptop -- even beats the new Dells with their separate subwoofers. I'm sure there are better, but these are very nice.

Battery life was about 5 hours on normal usage.

I think there's only one USB 3 port -- keep that in mind.

The overall build quality is a bit shoddy. The touchpad, the hinge.... The lid on mine doesn't close evenly -- there's a slight gap on the left side. There's also a bend in the machine which is noticeable when the lid is close and leaves a gap in the middle. I can't tell if that's intentional or just poor workmanship. There's a seam that runs along the top of the base (the keyboard area), which attracts dust and crumbs and I've heard the gap in the seam increases over time.

Overall, it's good specs for the price, if you get one with a working clickpad. If you can live with the worst clickpad you'll ever use, and if the small things (like no Optimus, bad display hinge, mediocre display quality, and only a single USB 3.0 port) don't bother you, then it's a good laptop.

I'll try to answer any questions you might have.

That is different, that is using the hard drive sata port for SSD. Most manufacturers will use MSATA SSD then put in a hard drive for additional storage.

MSATA SSD are extremely expensive compared to SATA SSD.

For those that keep talking about the processor being a problem.. Stop. It won't affect gaming. (maybe 0-4 fps), not worth the extra $150 for an i7.

Wrong. That processor will bottleneck on CPU intensive games. For GPU intensive games it won't matter. You might see a hit on major RTS game and several newer games like Mechwarrior Online.

I give the battery life 10 seconds.

For anyone considering buying a Lenovo Windows 8 laptop, then replacing the HDD with an SSD and wanting to move Windows 8 over, I recommend you read this thread here [eightforums.com] to do it. That is the "official" solution that we found when I made a thread here [eightforums.com] and realized that there didn't exist a solution for my problem yet. That was due to the newness of Windows 8 though. However, it's still a pain to deal with, and the problem stems from Microsoft not giving us the installation discs.

Man. The amount of ignorant rant and complains on this topic is pathetic. You do not get a gamin laptop for long battery life but never the less, this has 3 hrs battery.

mSata aren't extremely expensive.
http://slickdeals.net/f/5837034-C...-Superbiiz

And i5 is more than enough, games are not cpu bound. Unless you need to transcode video or do some serious number crunching, you don't need an i7. It will only make the battery life shorter.

As for build quality, Y series isn't the premium line so don't expect it to be great.

is the i7 good deal too? no one seems to be mentioning it.

This is the cheapest Gaming laptop ever...

Always plug in while gaming :)

How does this compare to the Dell deal posted here ?

This is still sort of expensive, but with these graphics cards in it, I could take this lappie camping and cook bacon on it--probably for at least 45 minutes until the battery wore out....

I recently got the y500 from lenovo direct. Better specs than this version and I paid $950 a few weeks ago.

I just picked up the i7/SLI GT650M/8GB RAM/1TB HDD from Frys for 1049 and so far it's amazing. My only complaint is the front side edge of the laptop is sharp, if you have a tendency to rest your wrist there it will not be comfortable. Other than that, the screen is incredible, it's fast as hell, plays anything I need it to, and the speakers are highly underrated. I came from a 12" laptop before so it feels huge but I am sure it's the same size as most 15.6" computers. No DVD drive. Runs Quiet. ALSO I haven't noticed much heat. The left side vents warm but the top side doesn't get hot.

But you have to think, for 100 dollars more, you get an i7..............

last thing...I actually do have a complaint, but I never use it so it slipped my mind:
the trackpad is poo. I don't know if it's broken or supposed to be that sensitive. The Windows 8 gestures work fine and most of the time you can navigate fine with it, however sometimes when you go to use the click, it jerks the cursor around. That's not fun.

Put an SSD on it than you'll see how faster it gets. No SSD kind of kills the deal for me.

larger laptops are cheaper for similar specs. less design requirements.

I will definitely get one later. Have more uses for this 1TB HDD than a laptop. But that will come later. There's a model with a 16GB MSATA (and double the ram, i7) for 1150... not worth it to me at that price

Wow, I didn't know SLI was an option in laptops. Must be drawing close to 140W total power with both of those running. Guess that's why it requires additional powersupply...

Thanks OP! Recommended it to friend who was looking for a desktop replacement.

So....tempting...

Must resist!

Definitely not a mainstream option. I remember when Dell for all of oh, 6 minutes, had a super hot deal going on one of their SLI notebooks back in 2008 or 2009. The thing was pretty damn powerful compared to most other machines out there, but it was also a farkin brick monster.

EDIT: This one's rated at 6.4lbs, which really isn't half bad. If it's built to last through at least 2-3 years of moderate to heavy gaming, I'd have to give kudos to Lenovo's engineering department.

Could someone please comment on the quality of the touchpad on this one? Does it register random palm swipes? Who's 2-finger scroll?

In the future then the graphics card is outdated, will we be able to put in a new graphics card in the laptop in the ultrabay making this laptop upgrade able for graphics in the future?

Thank you, thank you. I'm so sick of people saying an i5 won't cut it... I've done testing w/ both. You won't notice a difference in gaming. :hug:

NO GAMES ARE THAT CPU INTENSIVE YET TO NOTICE MORE THAN A 0-4 fps difference. GPU is always the bottle neck on laptops.

The mobile gpu is only 5% better than the Radeon HD 5850 (desktop card). This i5 cpu is PERFECT. It'll run cooler, and save money.

Replaceable graphics card have been around for a few years on a few select notebooks. I don't see replacement options being mainstream TBH.

Not great. It works but......you know. Mouse is recommended.

which laptops?

ASUS GAMING LAPTOPS?

Sorry, forgot to address 2 finger scrolling:
that actually works fine. Win8 gestures work fine, too. Just the jerking cursor when you go to click. If you tap the touchpad to click, you're fine, but if you're used to using the buttons beware, because they're too sensitive on the touchpad component.

Probably not... Because it'll still have the main gpu in the system.

Other than Crysis, there has never been any game that didn't run smoothly because the cpu was too weak. Case in point, AMD APU. I can run SC2 on an e350 system and the cpu is slower than Atom.

Oh, the only time you need CPU for gaming is when you want to play 20 flash games on FB concurrently, then you will want an i7. LOL.

Is this faster then the 2920xm ?

No. Doesn't work that way. Sadly, with gaming laptop, you have to replace it with a new one once it get too outdated which is the reason why most ppl

Not quite true. He's talking about the graphics card in the ultrabay which you can upgrade if you choose to. The ones that are on the motherboard are generally not upgradeable. The only question is how well will the upgrade work alongside the other chip already in the laptop.

I have the i7/650M version of this laptop, and let me tell you this thing is beautiful.

Also, the 650M is possible to overclock to 670M speeds, I've got mine at 1100/2900 where the original base clocks are nowhere near that.

Nice deal on from all accounts is a great cheap gaming laptop.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Revi...585.0.html

See my earlier post about general touchpad quality and one major issue.

It does register things like two-finger scroll. I did have issues with it registering random palm swipes, but that might be a driver issue and something that can be turned off. The touchpad is generally crap quality -- feels cheap, loud, the plastic bends easily, has to depress quite far to register clicks, and models manufactured before a certain date may have a known hardware issue where the touchpad altogether freaks out and becomes useless until reboot.

That's going to be a deal-breaker on my end. :/

Been debating between keeping my HP Envy 15t-3200 or getting this this one. The Lenovo's GPU blows past the 7750M plus I don't need a DVD drive. I even installed Windows 8 with zero hassle using a USB drive on the HP. Unlike with the other Envies of the past, my current one's touchpad is actually not half bad. If two-finger tap for right-click had a higher success rate, I'd say it's even better than the typical Mac's.

Probably not a big deal for most gamers who go purely keyboard+mouse. I would probably recommend this to a buddy of mine who's most def not a touchpad guy.

I've heard great things about the Envy.

I forgot to mention the annoying problem of the cursor moving when you press to click. Most touchpads handle this well and won't move the mouse as you click the touchpad, but the Y500 has a major problem with the cursor moving drastically when you try to click. This may or may not be fixed with the newer models using Synaptics touchpads, but it was enough that I couldn't stand using my Y500 and absolutely had to send it back.

all this on an i5, this is a bait

Backlight Color
 

Sorry. I would just like some clarification.

Is the backlight LED red or is it just the the regular white color? I'm seeing red keyboard and non-red keyboard versions of the same model and I'm wondering which comes with this laptop?

The specs are great and the price is amazing. This might be the small nudge that I'll need to make up my mind. Red is my favorite color :P.

It's red. Well, actually I think the keys are red, so yeah, you get red light. It is quite nice.

But read my other comments -- the touchpad is absolutely horrendous, even if you get a "working" one. It's bad enough that I was visibly agitated after trying to do work on the laptop for a couple of hours.

Wait for haswell to come out guys. Haswell will have a pretty significant igpu performance increase which will reduce the need for an external video card. Ergo reducing power consumption on laptops.

That being said, if you are looking for a laptop TODAY, then this is a decent deal.

haswell only for ultrabooks?

Four months ago the Asus G75VW was $999 with a 660M, and that was via Microsoft store and Best Buy... without ADW protection or Global warranty support. Neither model included any SSD drive. :shake:

You're either trolling or misleading people by not mentioning you used gift cards or store credit in order to get it below $999

In regards to the Lenovo with SLI 650M's. This is a nice deal. :)

Does Lenovo state this battery life based on the notebook running at "high performance"?

I doubt that. I'm not sure how Optimus handles switching when there's an extra card, but I don't see it getting very good battery life, even on the lowest performance settings.
Congrats on the personal space heater. :bounce:

That's what I thought, until I used the thing and it actually runs very cool. Of course boosting it up to ridiculous clocks is going to get it hot, but 75c is the most I've seen with it. For extended gaming I'd recommend a cooling pad, but otherwise this thing is usually cool/cold to the touch.

Not too sure about the SLI version though.

OK, I need help. I have been in the market for a high-end PC replacement that is still "laptop friendly" to use for heavy photography and videography. I would like to run the msata or install an SSD... But I do not game...

The things I'm worried about after reading this thread is this. Does it run too hot to use as a laptop? Does it require two power supplies for the second gpu? Is this more than I need...?

That is pritty flipping cool!

You likely wouldn't need this kind of graphics power. You'd probably be better off with Quick Sync [anandtech.com] if you're doing a lot of encoding and transcoding with video.

Is the i7 version worth 150 more or should I stick with i5 for gaming performance?

it would be nice if there were some benchmarks on the i5 version. I would like to know if the i5 runs cooler and has better battery life than the i7, as well as gaming performance.

I have really been torn for a couple of months now between a few different laptops, Lenovo, MS or Sager. There were a couple of times I was on the brink of getting a Y580 or GE60/70.

Now there is this deal coming at the same time Gentech has the GX60 with a $100 instant rebate at $1099. I know it has the crappy AMD A10 cpu but it has that monster of a 7970m.

Very interesting laptop deal offering SLI, never seen this on a slickdeal laptop before. Pretty sweet configuration being slightly better than GT 660m in performance. But the CPU should have been an i7 at $900. Maybe most of the time it won't be noticeable to be an i5. So nice deal for those interested in SLI graphics for games.

I'd probably prefer the earlier deals with i7 and single GT 660m, bluray, ssd... if I had a choice.

A VGA port? Really??

Don't know too much about laptops, but could you install both a msata ssd or its one or the other for this laptop?

This is probably a silly question but how can you tell if the touchpad is the Synaptics version? Does it look different or is it mentioned in the specs somewhere?

No dude, we are back in 1997... 1GB HDs are in again. :lmao:

This is much faster than a GT660m. The GTX660m is just a higher clocked GT650m. This beats GTX670m in review.

I'm trying to get a slickdeal here... I doubt I'll find that technology on sale anytime soon?

I don't need the perfect computer, just a good deal on a 90% solution. I just can't tell if the SLI thing is gaming only? And if it really has to use two power sources?

It was an i7, 16GB of RAM and with a mSATA but only a single GPU. I was looking at the same machine but decided not to order it.

This is a great machine.

Anyone receive theirs and confirm that the SLI is included and not a misprint/wrong photo?

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Intel's Quick Sync is built into their CPUs, or, in this case, iGPUs (HD 4000). It is often faster than even the high-end dedicated GPU solutions for video encoding/transcoding, and is now gaining more support. I'm saying that if you don't game, any laptop with HD 4000 would probably suffice. Of course, you might need to search a bit for one with a screen resolution that suits your purposes.

If you're both talking about the same config, then "better" is relative It's not going to perform better if you're looking to play games, although the headroom in CPU, RAM, and an mSATA would help with general performance.

Whether or not you can encode using multiple GPUs depends entirely on your graphics program -- but the answer is almost certainly yes.

what about those compared tot he GTX 670m? That's what I've got in my MSI GT70, just trying to get a feel for if it's worth getting the smaller laptop, since the MSI gt70 is gigantic (my portable office)

edit:
so the 3gb gtx670m is crappier than the SLI dual cards in this laptop?

Why not?

I tried to do the newegg chat to ask if this actually has sli but i could not get it the work. The description really goes out of its way to say it has it so you should be fine.

How did you get this deal? I'm looking to replace my DV7 with something more powerful and yours fits the bill. Please advise.

Sadly, miniPCIx specification was out long ago, but laptop manufacturers simply don't want to take advantage of it because it's better if they can just sell you a new system instead of allowing you to upgrade the old one.

There's no way of telling until you get it. In theory, if it's manufactured after the end of November (I think), it should have a Synaptics touchpad. But over in the Lenovo forum on this issue, the people who got replacement laptops were still being sent defective units which also had to be sent back.

Enough time may have passed now that they're no longer shipping defective units, but again, there's no way of knowing what they'll ship to you, and people have even tried explicitly requesting one with Synaptics and have been told there's no way to make sure of that.

Eh a review on the lenovo site says the hard drive is one of the crappy samsung spinpoint m8's. These are the worst and they will eventually fail. I am currently dealing with seagate now trying to swap out my failed M8 (it failed within a few weeks). I have officially lost all interest in this lappy. Too bad, sli seemed neat but cruddy trackpad coupled with cruddy hard drive, good luck.

I'm usually a big fan of how lenovo designs their laptops, but this one looks ugly..

I just got the Asus n56vz and it's a great laptop... this is actually $100 cheaper than the Asus and has better gaming performance. I might just pull the trigger for this... although I kind of want the surface pro... To game or not game... That is the question.

So what do you guys think? i5 Y500 dual 650m sli at$ 900, i7 version at $1050 or MSI GX60 with A10 + 7970m at $1100?

From what I can see specs for everything else looks similar. Is it worth the extra $200 for the crappy cpu + monster gpu in the GX60?

Depends on what you want to do, I guess. the 7970M is better than the 650 Sli, plus no microstuttering, etc. If you want to game, get the 7970M.

As for cpu portion, it probably goes A10 < i5 <<< i7. A10 might beat the i5 on heavily threaded stuff. I don't think the A10 cpu power would matter much for gaming except for heavily cpu intensive games.

It would be interesting to see if the gx60 has enduro and can switch off the 7970m tio the A10 gpu, that would be nice for battery life. I am not sure it does.

it would be stupid to buy a gaming notebook. IMO get a $150 android tablet and a $650 gaming desktop. Great battery life and awesome performance

First off... you think you know it all???? because you don't. 2nd... I did not get it from BB or Microsoft. 3rd... the version that I got does have the 660m not a 670m (im bad).

4th... I got it for $825 (includes 5% cash back because of my credit card) and I put in a 64GB SSD which I got for $50... hence the price of $875 with a SSD.
5th... yes, mine is refurbished and it only came with a 90 gaurantee and my last laptop was also refurbished and still working fine (5 years later).

OK... global warranty support? You need that????


Just wait.... it will come. I promise.

p.s.
Mine was refurbished and read the post above.

LOL refurbished! Where did you get it, threadcrapper? Compare a refurbished computer to a new computer. Come on now. ;)

I need to know the exact model number for your laptop to tell which video card you have. MSI has used the 670m and 670mx so I can't tell you which card you have without the exact model number. GT70 just tells me the case used and nothing else

• That or go to desktop
• right click on desktop and choose Nvidia Control Panel
• go to help and choose system information
• it will say your model number of your video card under items on the left side
• on the right side it will tell you the number of cuda cores (think calculation units).

This laptop is faster than 670m if the game support sli.
This laptop is about the same speed as the 670mx if the game supports sli.
This laptop is much slower than both 670m and 670mx if the game does not support sli.

STAY THE HELL AWAY from the a10+7970m.

The cpu limits the performance of the 7970m by a very large margin.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/651...nity-video

Or compare the game benchmarks from the same website
MSI
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Revi...283.0.html
Lenovo
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Revi...585.0.html

I have to agree, for mid level graphics chips, you won't see any difference between Intel or AMD-powered systems, but when you get to the higher end video cards, the AMD CPUs really are a huge bottleneck.

This is only true for mid level graphics cards. For high end configs like these, the CPU makes a big difference. Also, A10 <<< i5 <= i7. i7 doesn't really bring anything to table for the huge majority of games, since they rarely support more than 2 threads. Generally, a dual core processor with higher refresh rate stomps CPUs with more cores but lower refresh rate. The A10 is more along the lines of an i3 processor, which is fine for maybe a single 650M but anything faster than that will be severely hindered.

[QUOTE=pyro;57452232so the 3gb gtx670m is crappier than the SLI dual cards in this laptop?[/QUOTE]

Not at all. The performance of the two setups is estremely close. Also, not all games take advantage of an SLI setup. Generally, a single faster video card is better than an SLI setup, unless you're upgrading, then the convenience and price makes it worthwhile to go SLI.

Dollar for dollar, I'd prefer your laptop over this any day. I want a 17in and nothing less.

I appreciate the help. But I'm a little confused by your post so I'll restate my question.

I am trying to find a slick laptop that is strong enough to handle heavy multi-tasking especially when doing photo and video editing. A previous poster suggested the Intel 4000 with Quicksync would be better for video transcoding/encoding. I would say I'm doing 70/30% photos over video and I am more interested in real-time usability while editing, not necessarily how long it takes to encode the final product.

I'm hoping I can find a machine that does the above very well but is still quite usable for everyday use with heavy multi-tasking with things such as browsing/video playback/data transfer....

If you're not concerned about the length of time it would take then frankly, anything new on the market right now will do just fine. This system would probably be overkill for such a minor requirement.

OK well I suppose being able to edit video does involve transcoding real-time while you edit.... I doubt if I picked up an i3 with integrated Intel 3000 graphics I would be satisfied (having just returned one).

Put another way, how would this GPU benefit a non-gamer like me?

Earlier you stated your laptop has the 670M, and now you admit it only has the 660M... which is even slower than two 650M's in SLI. :nod:

You now clarify the laptop was refurbished, which you can't compare (price-wise) to a brand new sealed set with a full 1yr warranty.

Yes, some people do need Global support. It's nice to be able to get free repairs while on vacation abroad.

Whether you bought from from Best Buy is not important. You probably got it from Newegg or another reseller of refurbs. The 660M refurbished model you have most likely ends in BBK, which means it was originally purchased from Best Buy and then later re-certified and sold to Newegg. (or wherever else you bought it from)

I was right that your price included a discount adjustment by a 3rd party. (your credit card)

I rest my case, your initial post was very misleading.

? Why are you even asking this question? It has HDMI. I do not even own a monitor or tv that takes VGA anymore... Why not use that port for something like thunderbolt?

36% of the people on newegg bought this laptop :laugh:

:bounce::bounce::bounce:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Revi...585.0.html

According to the review build quality and keyboard is mediocre, touch-pad poor, decent (for a laptop) glossy screen, looks like 2GB GDDR5 versions of the GT650m and when SLI is properly functioning it operates as fast as a GTX670MX (faster than GTX580m GTX670m or GTX675m). Decent noise levels for a gaming notebook, decent (for a laptop) speakers. Heat was a little bit of an issue, under max load the i7 throttled to 2.4GHz (max 90c) and one of the GPUs wasn't being used...but it seems fine with normal gaming. Got 3 hours in their internet battery life test.

i dont think you've ever dealt with pictures from a real camera. My cannon T4i 18MP images will absolutely bring my i5 laptop to it's knee's when doing anything in photoshop or apatature. DSLR's photographers need Quad Core's with Hyperthreading.

Because YOU are not in the majority.

Presuming the application you're using for encoding supports GPU offload (most do), it's essentially like having an extra 2 CPUs in the system.

You're right, I'm not printing out a lot of wall-sized photographs, so I don't spend a lot of time with 18MP pictures.:lmao:

As a photographer would you be looking elsewhere then, ie. not this deal? I ran with someone else's advice that I didn't need more computing power and ended up returning an i3 already.

Is it definitely CPU over GPU or should I still focus on dedicated graphics also? I will be doing video editing as well.

The i7 version of this deal is a quad core/hyperthreaded. I don't know if the price is super slick, but wouldn't that make it the perfect PC for my application?

Does this computer's SLI require a second power cord?

I don't think you would get that much benefit from this configuration. It would likely be underutilized.

I wouldn't go that far. GPUs are good at one thing, parallel computations. CPUs will still be better at serial computing. Off-loading tasks doesn't mean that they will perform at the same level of a CPU on those tasks. SLI also doesn't necessarily equate to double the performance.
I would say that you should have at least purchased an i5. Also, the HD4000 is significantly better than an HD3000. You should try one before passing further judgment. I don't think a dedicated GPU would necessarily be of much use for you. You would be better of getting an SSD and more RAM with the money you would save by not concerning yourself with a dedicated GPU.

It may be better, but I don't know that your particular usage would stress an i5 enough for you to require a bump up to an i7. That is your choice, of course. The power brick should be able to provide the necessary power. It is unlikely that an additional power source would be required.

I am NOT saying that I AM the majority. While speaking to that exact criticism, I think the majority would buy something more cost effective.

I am saying, however, that with all things considered a VGA port is a stupid shortcut that devalues the laptop....

I will let you have the last word because I am out of popcorn and really just don't give a sh!t.

So by your understanding of business -- it makes more sense for them to omit a VGA ports because it devalues a laptop more due it being a "shortcut" versus including a VGA port and thus allowing a larger majority of the population to actually use it?

The i7 would definitely be a better setup. With encoding you'll definitely make use of the additional cores, while also allowing the system to be used fairly fluidly, presuming no IO contention. I disagree with the guy that recommended an i5 over an i7. He also asserted you wouldn't get twice as much performance from the dual GPU setup, which is in fact exactly what you would get. If the cost is less of a concern for you than the performance while encoding, I feel you would be happier with the i7 version of this laptop, not to mention you'll have an optical drive readily available to you, as well.

if you have the money and hope for a solution immediately, the other configuration would probably make you happier.

I did not suggest that an i7 would not provide greater performance. I am suggesting that he spend his money elsewhere, where the real bottlenecks would be, especially the hard drive.

That is completely untrue. SLI would NOT offer twice the performance. Dual-GPU configurations rarely scale that linearly. If you look at these charts from NotebookCheck, you will see that going from a 650M to a 660M is a 12% boost, and from a 660M to a 670M is 17%, from a 670M to a 675M is 19%, and from a 675M to the this 650M SLI/670MX is a final 9%.

(112/100) * (117/100) * (119/100) * (109/100) = 1.6997 ~ 1.7 => 70% increase in performance

650M to 660M [notebookcheck.net]
660M to 670M [notebookcheck.net]
670M to 675M [notebookcheck.net]
675M to 650M SLI/670M [notebookcheck.net]

I really, really appreciate the help from both of you guys. I have been looking for quite a while. I'm on the fence because as you both of pointed out, this is probably a bit more than I need. I just have not seen many 15" Full HD, quality performance notebooks since I started looking just prior to Black Friday. Granted there have been a few, but I've missed out going back and forth...

The option of adding an mSata drive (driving the price even higher....) would be a better solution for me than a dedicated SSD anyway, from a storage standpoint.

Rep'd guys. Thanks...

actually if you make the correct math, performance increase should be 70%

112/100 * 117/100 * 119/100 * 109/100 = 1.6997 = 1.7 => 70% boost!!

Isn't it odd that the regular price is only $999 ? With those specs, it seems like it should be higher.

It's odd that you want to pay more.

:lmao:
:confused: Why would you divide by 100, and then multiply them..? They're already percentages.. The charts show % increase or decrease in performance in terms of +/-%, so if there was a chart that showed them on the same scale, the 650M SLI configuration would be +57% over a single 650M..

Hey, I'm all for the deal ... great price, great specs. It just seemed a bit odd.

He's actually right. For example, let's consider a fictional benchmark starting at 1000:

650m = 1000
660m = 1120
670m = 1310
675m = 1559
SLI = 1699

650m to 660m = 12% increase. 660m to 670m = 17% increase. 670m to 675m = 19% increase. 675m to SLI = 9% increase.

650m to SLI, however, is 70% increase [(1669-1000)/1000*100%]

Ah, right. I was just taking the relative percentages, and didn't regard the underlying raw data. Makes sense. Still not double the performance, of course. I will go correct my post.

Can anyone more knowledgeable about hardware help me out?
So at first glance, to me this seems like an amazing deal. But noticeable qualms are the HDD RPM and maybe the processor (I don't know much about i5 vs i7). In fact I don't know too much about hardware in general but it seems like having two GPUs would make this very powerful for gaming. Because I couldn't find a similarly spec'd one on the Lenovo site I don't see any reviews for how it performs on the latest games. Is this laptop worth it?

Yes, this is a fine deal for ultra powerful entry level gaming. It has a upgradable sli GPU which is a very rare feature on gaming laptops. There are no complaints about the 1080p and i 5 ivy for this price since the I 5 and dual core I 7 are largely the same chip with very minor differences.

It's actually cause these are junk with really bad problems that are simple to fix but lenovo wants to get rid of their defective inventory . Just google touchpad problems for y500

how does this deal compare to a deal last year that I missed?
http://slickdeals.net/f/5549826-L...ows-8-900?

I have the Y500 - the build quality is okay, pretty much what you'd expect or maybe slightly better, considering the price.

Really powerful machine, it couldn't be much faster than it is.

I have the single 650M and it overclocks really well without ever getting much hotter than ~60C. Pretty impressive. Compared to laptops I've owned the in the past the cooling system is really well designed. For one, it doesn't vent much out the bottom - so you don't necessarily need a cooling pad like so many older laptops (e.g. the Dell M1530).

Great laptop for the price. Expect to use an external mouse. I have the newer model with the Synaptics trackpad that isn't broken, but it's still a cheap POS and uncomfortable for any extended use.

and that's all she wrote!;)


pretty much summed it up there.. still unless your going for a customizable laptop.. this is a good alternative.

I've been looking at gaming notebooks for about a month now. I was on the fence about the Y580, or the Clevo 151em. Keeping in mind the benchmarks for the i7 version of this machine with 650SLI at Notebookcheck, which ends up averaging to somewhere between the 670m and the 675mx, I decided to give the i5 a try and have ordered it. At $900, even if I lose a few percentage points from having 2 cores instead of 4, this thing has to be the best value in the ~$1000 price range.

When it arrives (it's already shipped out), I'll come back with some benchmarks for you guys.

My guess is, it's a far better deal.Go here [notebookcheck.net] and scroll down to the gaming performance section. The i7 with the 650SLI using Lenovo's SLI drivers performs very well. Not all games can take advantage of the SLI, but the ones that do, do so in a way that's surprising. If you go here [notebookcheck.net] and compare the 650SLI (the Y500 is the only one in existence) to the 675mx, 670m, and 660m, you'll see just how well it does.

For example, Far Cry 3. The i7 Y500 with SLI runs neck to neck with the 675m i7 for Far Cry 3 at high settings and outperforming it on medium and low.

Since the CPU gaming performance difference between the i5 and the i7 isn't that big (when they have the same graphics card), the loss in linked benchmarks can't be that big. This thing should be able to easily run all games in medium to high settings.

I have a Y500. It's a great little gaming machine. Two qualms (if they even quality) I have with it:

1) Touchpad - Very flaky hard to use. But, I use an external mouse for most of my games anyways. So, complaining about the touchpad is like complaining about a cup holder in my car.

2) Palm rest - It has a very sharp edge and is very uncomfortable to use after a while. They should've rounded it off a little more. I think if I took some sandpaper and rounded off the palm rest edge I wouldn't feel like my wrists are resting on a knife blade.


Other than that, the system performs great. Playing Battlefield 3 at ULTRA settings, I'm getting an average of 50 FPS.

Can anyone who buys this let us know if these have the old trackpads or if they have the new trackpads

Look at what I just stumbled upon, Amazon price matching this newegg deal:

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Idea...enovo+y500

the i7 version is only 125 more now....

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Idea...B00ATANUT4

Correct me if i am missing something but amazon lists sli and a review for the i7 confirms it. Plus if it sucks you can easily return it. I am officially in for i7 version. Got free Amazon credit to waste.

can anyone confirm is the i5 one is the same exact one on NewEgg?

I am looking at the i7 models and am wondering if it is worth the extra money to get 16GB up front knowing I will upgrade from 8 to 16 anyway as well as the 16GB SSD? Is the 16GB SSD that useful or would I want to upgrade that to something else? Trying to decide which route would be cheaper and easier as I have never had an SSD and am not sure how easy it would be for me to add one to a system that came without.

I didnt think it was worth the price increases for a hard drive I will likely want to swap out within a year anyway and memory I can eventually find a deal on. Any reason you need more than 8gb? I've been running 8 in my Dv6 and it rarely uses more than 22%. Yep, I still run widgets on Win7.

The part number is the same. And the Amazon description says the sli thing a couple times. The review for the i7 pretty much tells me these are what newegg has. Specs and part numbers jive, even the lone testimonial. On Amazon I see the for the i5 is lists first available Feb 3, 2013, so perhaps these are newer stock with the better touchpads.

That is a fair question and I should think about it a bit more before I take the plunge. I don't know why I think I need 16GB over 8GB. :shake:


Will you add an SSD to your Y500 or just replace the slow HD with a faster one?

Probably a stupid question...don't shoot me down. The GPUs are not upgradeable, right?

But Amazon has tax, and there is no way a Lenovo will be complete crap. It probably has minor issues. Read the most helpful reviews.

There is no way a Dual 650m can run too many graphics-hungry games at high settings with satisfactory frame rate.

Does NewEgg charge tax for California? I'm assuming yes..

Looks like Lenovo.com has this with i7 processor and same video for $819 after eCoupon.
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrar...D9B20ED2FB

No SLI on this one and it isn't 1080p resolution...... too bad so sad

Real world testing with games downloaded from Steam say that you are wrong. Additionally, there are more than enough user reports that verify this. A simple Google or Youtube search for the SLI Y500 shows quite clearly people playing games like Far Cry 3, Battlefield 3 and Borderlands 2 with High settings on an SLI y500 with an i7. The very post you posted this as a reply to contained all the evidence you needed.


Assuming this is a stock Y500 Mobo and case, there should be an empty mSATA port that's easily accessed from the bottom. That 16GB SSD is very likely just a mSATA flash drive. You should be able to put one post purchase. I'll know in a couple days, I've ordered the i5 version and it's on it's way.

Google is your friend. Yes, there is a way to play AAA games on Dual-SLI 650M on high setting. Even most AAA games on ultra settings.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M Dual-SLI
Far Cry 3 (2012) med.: 88.8 fps --high: 42.6 fps
Battlefield 3 (2011) med.: 71 fps--- high: 55 fps
Dishonored (2012) low: 128.5 fps --med.: 128 fps-- high: 123.3 fps--- ultra: 95.8 fps

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M SLI - F [notebookcheck.net]ramerate on AAA Games


NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M (Non Dual-SLI)- Lenovo Y500
Battlefield 3 (2011) low: 63 fps--med.: 42 fps-- high:33 fpsNVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - NotebookCheck.net Tech [notebookcheck.net]

Far Cry 3 (2012) low: 53.6 fps--med.: 46.5 fps--high: 28.3 fps

I stand corrected.

The original post that you replied to specifically cited and linked to that same info he posted.