Trying to decide between Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 and Y580

[Daniel Askew]

I am about to purchase a new laptop to replace my Dell XPS M1530 which recently died. I am looking for a high performance laptop and the Lenovo Y580 initially caught my eye. However, it is no longer offered in the configuration I want and at the price I want. I recently saw the Y500 reviewed and it is a worthy deal.
Below are the main things I will be looking for:
-1080p screen
-Fairly high end graphics card (I mainly play Far Cry 3, Crysis 1+2 and other FPS games)
-Optical drive
-minimum 1TB HD
-Backlit keyboard

I like the Y500's ultrabay feature to add a second video card or HD but it would be more convenient to have the optical drive because all of my current games are on DVDs. Lenovo is now offering multiple configurations of the Y500. Two of my favorite configurations ($929.00 and $1149.00) are from the following page: Y500 Configurations

How much faster will the 16GB RAM and SLI GT750M configuration be as compared to the 12GB and single GT750M? Will the single GT750M run the games I play with good frame rates? Also, is it possible to have Lenovo downgrade Windows 8 to Windows 7 for no charge? I'm just not ready to switch to Windows 8. I can do a clean install of Windows 7 if it is not possible to downgrade from the factory.
Thanks in advance for your help/advice!

 

[JD88]

Hello. I have the Y400 so I can answer some of your questions. First, the GT 750m is a solid card. I play games like Battlefield 3 and Planetside 2 on a mix of medium and high settings at 1366x768. At 1080P its going to be less, but those games still look very nice at the lower resolution.

The Y500 is a lot nicer in terms of feel and quality than the Y580.

Below are the benchmarks for the 750m alone and in SLI mode:


http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-750M.90245.0.html

http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-750M-SLI.91280.0.html

Let me know if you have any other questions about it and I'll answer them as best I can.

 

[Daniel Askew]

Does your laptop have an optical drive or SLI 750s?

 

[JD88]

Optical drive. I haven't picked up the second card yet. Haven't needed to.

 

[Daniel Askew]

Is there a way to install my games without the optical drive? I'm sure you could copy the contents of the disc to a USB drive but I don't know if the copyright protection would allow you to install it.

 

[JD88]

I'm not sure. A lot of games all you need is a product key and you can download the client straight from the company website. That probably wouldn't work for the older games though.

Another option is to pick up a cheap USB DVD drive.

 

[andrew_berge]

Depends on the DRM, i guess.
If you can make an ISO image of a game, all you need to do is create a virtual disk drive (using Daemon tools or something like that) and load the disc with that.
I tried this with AOE3, but copying the disc to an ISO failed every time no matter the software i used, i suspect it was DRM.

 

[olin9]

With the ultrabay you can remove the 2nd GPU and insert a DVD-RW within 5 sec.

Remove the battery flip 2 switches. It is that easy. Install your games and remove the DVD-RW. and add the 2nd GPU for SLI.

I have the GT650 SLI with the 1080 screen and i have not had any issues when using just one card. The 2nd card adds about 40% more power.

 

[Daniel Askew]

With the ultrabay you can remove the 2nd GPU and insert a DVD-RW within 5 sec.

Remove the battery flip 2 switches. It is that easy. Install your games and remove the DVD-RW. and add the 2nd GPU for SLI.

I have the GT650 SLI with the 1080 screen and i have not had any issues when using just one card. The 2nd card adds about 40% more power.

That sounds like a nifty idea but I would think it would be more hassle switching out the card for the optical drive and vice versa rather than plugging in an external optical drive. Plus, in my case I would be constantly switching out the ultrabay device, because nearly all my games are on discs. I think I will go with the SLI configuration because it is a lot of bang for your buck and then later use an external optical drive. Thanks for all your help guys! You will definitely see me in the future!

 

[olin9]

Most new game only need the DVD for the install(not including downloaded). Unless you install and uninstall all of the time you only need the DVD one time for each game.

 

[Daniel Askew]

Most new game only need the DVD for the install(not including downloaded). Unless you install and uninstall all of the time you only need the DVD one time for each game.

I know some of my games have required the disc to play so an external optical drive will be required in my case.

 

[Daniel Askew]

I could download a no CD crack as well. But I will still get an external drive just in case.

 

[Daniel Askew]

I have another scenario. In a forum I visit, someone is selling a MSI GT60 15" laptop with the following specs:
•Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor

•Windows 8 64bit

•15.6" Full HD Anti-reflective Display (16:9, 1920 x 1080)

•NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M discrete graphics with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM

•12GB DDR3 1600MHz system memory

•750GB HDD, 7200RPM

•Full-color programmable backlit keyboard by SteelSeries

•Killer Game Networking

•THX Certified Dynaudio Premium Sound Speakers with Subwoofer

•Blu-ray Combo Drive

The seller is asking $1250 for the laptop with above specs.
The seller will include a Crucial 256 GB M4 SSD as the primary drive, with the price bumped up to $1350. The seller also has a spare 180w power supply and downgraded to Windows 7. He forgot to back up the recovery portion of the hard drive so he had MSI send him the recovery discs.

How does the MSI GT60 compare to the Y500 in terms of gaming performance? Will the 750Ms in SLI be much better than the single 675M?

 

[olin9]

The GTX 675 would be close to the preformance of the GT 750 SLI. Is the MSI system used? I never buy used computer parts or laptops. The seller is dumping it for a reason.

The specs look good and I read on other posts that the MSI is a good laptop. I have never had one.