SLI on lenovo Y410p

hi guys,

finally i’ve been able to post to my blog again after hectic months in the office.

this time I would like to post about new addition to my Y410p laptop that I’ve been reviewed months ago.

The GT755M ultrabay

why this deserved to be a special post?

because the ultrabay part, nvidia GT755M4 itself is pretty rare in these days.

it even got to a point where Y410p users were desperate and giving up on lenovo because the part is VERY VERY VERY hard to find. Only a few stores have this ultrabay part here in Indonesia.

for myself, I got the part in a shop located at Jogjakarta priced around $140 with the 170W adapter required to run the SLI. since I’m not in jogjakarta, I’m ordering it via one day shipping to Jakarta which costs me around $12 so in total I got SLI and adapter for $152.

you think that expensive? absolutely not! here in Jakarta and Bandung, the GT755M4 and the adapter cost $200-$350!

I don’t know why the prices have been different almost twice the price in jogjakarta, it’s same item, same warranty, just difference in location makes the price rose so high.

Performance

okay, I’ve spend more than $100 to upgrade my laptop capabilities to the limit, of course I’m expecting some difference in performance.

in benchmark tests of course there are improvements,

here are some screenshots of benchmark test I did after I install the SLI

 

Unigine Heaven Benchmark – after SLI

as you can see, after installing SLI, my laptop score on heaven benchmark almost doubled! and for info, this is my first rig that have SLI configuration. I never have any laptop or pc that uses crossfire/SLI.

 

 

Novabench score – after SLI

it gets better, the score on novabench for GPU is more than triple the single GPU score above.

and this is the 3D mark score :

 

 

I wont you with captioning each of the images on 3D mark because I’m lazy hehehe

oh and if you want the comparison maybe you should look at my post about y410p laptop

PROS & CONS

Pros :

+ Doubles (and in novabench case TRIPLES) the performance of my laptop graphics

+ it’s an ultrabay part, so it can be removed and installed without hassle

+ relatively cheap upgrade to get this major performance boost

+ helpful to keep my laptop play games for maybe 2-3 years to come

+ disabled Intel HD so benchmarking now runs smoothly and detects GT755M correctly. the same goes for dxdiag

 

Cons :

– Looking for any seller or shop selling this part in Indonesia is a NIGHTMARE

– different seller different price, I’m lucky to get these around $140

– SLI requires high power draw, so it must be used with 170w adapter

– the adapter is a monster adapter that so much heavy than original 120w adapter

– more chip = more heat. thanks cooler master, for your cooling pad products 🙂

– requires flashing vBIOS so that windows 8.1 can detect the 2nd card. (windows 8 family sucks)

– Battery life now just shy of 2 hours instead of 4 hours using single GPU.

Conclusion

The GT755M4 SLI is a great addition to my laptop, increasing performance without spending so much money or even changing laptop just to get same performance. for an addition of just $140 I can get a VGA from GT performance to GTX performance (yes I checked it on game-debate, GT755M SLI is a beast that performance just a shy 1% difference than GTX 860M maxwell in Y50)

the only drawback I’m noticing is my mobility. my Y410p now using 170w adapter that much much much bigger than 120w adapter, it’s pretty heavy to carry around in my backpack. and there’s also battery life issue using SLI. SLI draws so much power that my laptop only last 2 hours.tops. compare that to almost 5 hours when using single GPU.

In the end, GT755M SLI is a part that any gamers using Y410p or Y510p must have. but remember that you are sacrificing your mobility for more horsepower. so we may win in a sprint, but we will absolutely lose in a marathon.

 

well that’s all folks, any comment? question? write it down on the comments section 😀