Lenovo Ideacentre AIO Y910: the perfect cockpit for gamers

With the advent of the NVIDIA 10th series of video cards, the phrase "gaming laptop" has erased grins from the faces of cool desktop users. Mobile video cards simply ceased to give in to their hot brethren from large cases. However, even if you have such a cool device, like the Y910, about which we recently wrote , you cannot take one away from a laptop. He remains a laptop. Perspectives for upgrading - unless the RAM (and even then not always, return my 2007th), yes the data storage system. A completely different thing - a monoblock.




Or not another? Imagine a truly powerful, not inferior to most gaming "personalok", flagship beeches, and even more so wretched consoles computer that fits into a normal (perhaps a little thick) monitor case. Price, features and diverse Vendor lock-in managed to scare you? Well, Lenovo AiO Y910 should dispel these fears.

Candy bar as a class

In its modern form (with an LCD screen and a good filling), the popularity of candy bars has gone from apple devices. Neat design, aluminum, white plastic, good matrix, that's all. But here's the problem: the last five years, the functionality of the products of this company has increasingly been sacrificed for design, or for the thickness of the gadget, if in a simple way.
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In addition to Macs, there are a number of business models running on Windows and Linux, some of them are very interestingly designed, easy to maintain and upgrade, but this kind of work station didn’t fit into the mainstream of this kind.

Many professionals who are ready to use such power and pull up several thousand evergreens on a working PC will prefer a full-fledged desktop with server stuffing and more performance, or reduce the budget without losing work efficiency - in the end, money can always be spent on a second monitor or convenient armchair.

Of all the uncovered user segments, there are those who need a gaming or just a high-performance PC, but at the same time, for a number of reasons, the usual system unit is not satisfied. And among this kind of devices for a long time, there was simply no really interesting one.

Modern iron

The Intel + Nvidia bundle has been synonymous with high performance with moderate heat generation for several years, and as long as the new AMD processors and video cards do not reach the shelves and do not confirm the theses that were voiced from the presentation scenes, everything will remain so. It is natural that the already released device uses a proven solution from the processor architecture Skylake + video card based on Pascal.



If you abstract from the K-series Intel'ov, designed for further acceleration, the modern i7 and i5 fit in 45-50 watts of heat pack. A monoblock is not a laptop, no one will carry it around, the weight doesn’t play a role, the thickness and the space occupied in the backpack are the same, which means there is a place for a complete cooling system. There is no need to bother with processors operating at lower voltages and frequencies; there are no compromises between performance, heating, and battery life. Even a two-year-old processor with a head is enough for games, and modern Intels are fast, cold and perfectly suited to the role of the heart of a gaming PC.

The main joy of manufacturers in 2016 is the transition NVIDIA from 28 NM to 14/16 in video cards based on Pascal architecture. This upgrade drastically reduced power consumption and heat dissipation, and a number of improvements inside the crystal and the function of automatically increasing frequencies within a given temperature and voltage made it possible to squeeze simply indecent performance at 1 watt of heat.

The term “mobile video card” in the understanding of greens ceased to exist, full-featured desktop chips began to be used in laptops and compact devices, which simply do not “chase” as well as their desktop brothers with a hefty cooling system.

The performance of the remaining parts has not changed much, the only new product in the past few years is NVMe SSDs, which have thrown out an outdated SATA instruction set, which was designed to work with classic hard drives, and provided the system with the most efficient interface for working with such devices. .

Lenovo Y910 AiO

At the monoblock, there are several ready-made configurations that are available for order: for different budgets and needs. They, of course, differ in that they can be replaced: with a processor, video card, RAM, and disk capacity, but common features do not disappear anywhere.



Regardless of how cool the option you like and pocket, the following set of hardware will remain in the “base”:

Monitor

The 27-inch display with a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels and a refresh rate of 144 Hz is equipped with support for NVIDIA G-Sync technology. The resolution is chosen perfectly: FullHD by today's standards is not enough, and for a full game in 4k without compromise in all games, even the flagship 1080 is not enough. But 1080 and 1070 can cope with WQHD, and even solutions are simpler, although at high or medium settings.

Data storage

Hard drives of the "classic" 3.5 "format work faster than their compact notebook companions. Yes, and the available volumes can not but rejoice: up to 4 TB in" home "models and up to 10 TB in not the fastest, but roomy options for NAS.



The disk is mounted in a special frame, which is inserted into the most ordinary SATA III. If you wish, you can at least put the SSD with a second disk, however, you will have to mount it on tape: there is no smaller frame in the set. However, you still have the m2 connector: in some configurations, there is already an SSD, but no one bothers you to replace the 128 or 256 GB model with some 480-512 or 800-960 GB.

Inputs and Outputs

Network interface - WiFi AC standard module with 2x2 MIMO and classic Ethernet, combined by Lenovo software in a common high-performance combine. Special software can balance the load by sending lower-rank data over WiFi, and content sensitive to delays can be sent over a wired connection.



Add here a scattering of USB 3.0-ports, HDMI output and input (!), Which allow you to connect the "plasma" and use the monoblock as an external display, if the need arises; an optical drive (which you can change to a classic OptiBay notebook and install another hard disk or SSD into a monoblock); card reader - and it seems like everything you need for a long and successful life is. The question remains starting configuration.

Options

The basic version, available in the Russian Federation, is equipped with a good set of hardware: Core i5 of the 6th generation (4 cores with a frequency of 3.2 GHz + 6 MB of cache memory), 12 GB of RAM (4 + 8 GB of DDR4 with a frequency of 2133 MHz), NVIDIA video card Geforce GTX 1070 with 8 GB of video memory, 128 GB SSD-drive and 1 TB of the usual "hard" under any.

The flagship got a more evil hardware set: i7 of the same generation (4 cores, 8 threads, 3.4 GHz and 8 MB of cache memory), 16 GB of RAM (one plate), the top-end GTX 1080 video card, 256 GB SSD and 2 TB HDD.

Also in nature there are versions with i5, 8 GB of RAM, without a complete SSD and with a Radeon RX460 as a video (it hurts to have a good combination of price and performance of this card), but this option is not available yet. If such iron appears in the Russian Federation, it can be considered an excellent option for the subsequent upgrade - a brand new i7 in a year or two, 32 GB of memory and the flagship video card will allow you to play at maximum speed for more than one year.

Inner peace and compromise

The very idea of ​​a monoblock game sets for engineers a number of tasks that directly conflict with the concept of a relatively compact, quiet and easy-to-use computer. Of course, you can not bathe, take any motherboard from the top beech, cram it into one case with a monitor and voila: in front of you is a super-duper game machine, which in a couple of years will cease to please the owner. And you can do everything completely differently.

What's inside?

The fact that, in theory, the user may want to serve, change, or “bleed” (that is, everything except the processor) is hidden behind two false panels. Open them that with the instruction, that without - something else is an adventure. This is perhaps the main “joint” of the structure: yes, beautiful, yes, imperceptibly, but no convenience. On the other hand, are users often going to get in there? And even if not often - was it necessary to complicate the design so much?

The essence of the problem

Y-logo part-time button works, which sets in motion spring-loaded pushers that open the latch. These ones:



With one hand it is necessary to press on the right side of the "game", the second, breaking off the manicure and swearing loudly, you have to convulsively pick up the edge of the lid, on which there is no pocket, and what loops. But inside everything is very cultural.

Tehnarski beauty

Almost the entire right bay is given to the module that stores the video card. Inside there can be anything modest, like the Radeon RX460, or the NVIDIA GTX 1080 ber gun.



Video cards up to two standard units and up to 26 centimeters long are supported. Connection is made through the most ordinary PCI-Express 3.0 x16, no adapters. The power supply is also absolutely ordinary, the video card has one desktop 6 + 2 pin 12-volt connector, and another one is just 6-pin. In total, they provide the video card with up to 225 W of power (another 70-75 W can be removed from the PCI-Express itself). To output the image, two connectors are inserted into the video card: one is DisplayPort, used for the main display and G-Sync support, the second is HDMI for output to the back panel of the all-in-one.

Next to the video card is hidden a small hatch for access to RAM: one 16 GB bar is already installed, the second connector is waiting in the wings.



The video card itself is packaged in a special metal casing, which is screwed to the seats of the “desktop” shank, and it, in turn, is fixed with a bracket to the case. Even when being transported (not just for everyday use), the video card is securely fixed inside, does not break the PCI-Express slot and cannot get out of it, and replacing it is no more difficult than a similar operation in a classic system unit.



In the left half (opening the same way, in a sadistic way) hid SSD and HDD. Here, everything is generally simpler than steamed turnip: unscrew a couple of screws, take out the old one, insert a new one.

In fact, the only major difference of this device from the classic "coffins" of gaming PCs is the format of the memory used: instead of the classic 288-pin DIMMs, SO-DIMM notebook modules are used, and there are only two of them. Considering the fact that rarely any game needs more than 10-12 GB of RAM, and SO MUCH memory is seldom involved in the work, two mobile modules of 16 each should be enough until the iron obsolescence is more noticeable than the “hunger” of programs available RAM.

And where is the power supply that feeds all this magnificence? And here he is:



Well here, here, you what, do not see?



It is hidden inside the main leg-stand, it is not noisy, warm air is thrown upward. However, due to the air flow, the casing very quickly accumulates static and attracts dust in some places, but these are trifles.

Impressions

For the year of commercials in 2012–2013, a special “wow” caused sensations from retin notebooks of one fruit company. We all know about these well-adjusted efforts at the opening, a wonderful screen, impressive (for such-and-such a little boy) sound, trackpad, and other-other-other things that all gray-haired men in turtlenecks tell us about every year. Y910 can be easily put on a par with such devices.

Hush stone

The first thing that pleasantly surprises us is the deafening silence when working without load: modern hardware from NVIDIA and Intel is easily bypassed by passive or near-passive cooling when browsing, watching movies and other similar tasks. The noisiest part in such cases is the hard disk. Whistles there, you know, with their pancakes ...

Smoother water

Tremendous fluidity in the movement of the cursor, with animations, moving windows and striking sharpness of the picture - of course, the merit of the display. Its matrix displays frames twice as fast as what we are used to (60 Hz simply became a standard in monitors with the widespread spread of LCD technology). Together with this smoothness comes a new experience of communication with the computer. Over time, you get used to the amazing accuracy of cursor positioning, the speed of appearance and change of the line when drawing with the tablet. It is difficult to talk about such things until you personally experience it, and not through stories and reviews, but it remains either to take a word or buy the 910th and drown in your own impressions. The main thing is to remember that after 120+ Hz there will be no way back; you will not like to play and watch movies on ordinary monitors.

More powerful than a hurricane

There is no point in discussing performance: when you are “under the hood” there is one of the fastest power processors of the past year (Intel Core i7-6700), working in conjunction with a PCI-Express SSD drive and one of the most powerful video cards of modernity, there can be no .



Then there is only iron for professional work with very serious tasks: six and eight cores with indecent heat generation, motherboards supporting 128+ GB of RAM and several video cards in a row. There are other budgets, tasks, and places all this happiness occupies, like the Toyota Tundra.

Gaming performance

A device with a game orientation is a sin not to experience in combat conditions. The new generation of NVIDIA graphics cards was recently disassembled on the GT , for those who read the sheet for ~ 40 kilo-characters lazily, select the key parts.



With the release of Pascal architecture, NVIDIA engineers presented the world with a truly cool line of video cards. Compared to the previous cards, improvements touched several aspects of the new GPU: the technical process decreased (from 28 nm to 16 for older models and 14 for energy efficient middling), significantly improved the geometric part of the processor (added hardware support for multimonitor rendering and working with VR) and worked on pixel part (new algorithms for hardware texture compression). Also affected were the parts responsible for the load design and the output of finished personnel. In sum, they turned out to be very productive, cold and interesting products in terms of price-performance ratio. The results of the work on the architecture are noticeable both in games that squeeze all the juices from the old technologies, and in relying on the capabilities of the new graphics API monsters.



All settings were set to maximum, resolution - native 2560x1440 pixels, anti-aliasing - MSAA x4, NVIDIA proprietary technologies (for example, NVIDIA Hairworks) for the purity of the experiment were turned off. In the same “Witcher”, the included Hairworks can squander FPS in the city even on a bundle of two video cards: nobody has canceled clumsy implementations.

In those games where the average FPS was below the maximum 144 Hz sweeps, G-Sync technology was used to ensure smooth and comfortable conditions. Well, where the video card with brute force and cunning of the new architecture took this line, Fast Sync was included, not limiting the frame frequency, but reflecting only the last frame that was completely drawn. Such testing conditions are closest to the real settings that are used by players.

Crysis 1 (DX 10) and Crysis 3 (DX 11)

Testing the performance of DirectX ninth version makes no sense (it was relevant for XP, and in the yard, sorry, 2017). The first Crysis will answer for the old technologies, it shocked everyone with graphics ten years ago (DX10), the third part of the shooter will respond to the newer technology - you will not refuse it to the gluttony of the resources (DX11).



Crysis 1: Min 45 FPS, Avg 57 FPS
Crysis 3: Min 66 FPS, Avg 83 FPS

Battlefield 1 (DX11, DX12)

Battlefield 1 will evaluate the performance of a video card with one game engine in two modes at once: DX11 and DX12. The new version of 3D-libraries from Microsoft contains a new, low-level API, allowing more efficient use of the computing capabilities of the video card.



DX11: Min 85 FPS, Avg 110 FPS
DX12: Min 64 FPS, Avg 91 FPS

DOOM (OpenGL, Vulkan)

DOOM is being blown away for “open technologies” - OpenGL and Vulkan will play the role of high-level and low-level API set, respectively. I want to note right away that video cards with 4+ GB of video memory benefit from low-level APIs, while AMD cards show the greatest performance gains due to the architecture. NVIDIA, as usual, has its own path in everything.



OpenGL: Min 85 FPS, Avg 109 FPS
Vulkan: Min 90 FPS, Avg 116 FPS

Witcher 3 (DX11)

The overall effectiveness of the system is possible in three toys, which exploit available resources in different ways. The Witcher 3 is not a standard of graphics, but voracious and very capricious when playing on ultra-settings.



DX11: Min 40 FPS, Avg 83 FPS

GTA V (DX10, DX11)

GTA V is able to consume almost unlimited resources and shows almost linear performance gains depending on the available computing power, besides it allows you to compare performance on the same conditions using DX10 and DX11.



DX10: Min 37 FPS, Avg 61 FPS
DX11: Min 53 FPS, Avg 70 FPS

Overwatch (DX11)

Overwatch is a dynamic network shooter, demanding of reaction speed and, as a result, of a stable (and high) frame rate. Perhaps his graphics are not enough stars from the sky, but he has a balanced engine, from which it is easy to squeeze more than 60 frames per second, even on the middle gland.



DX11: Min 70 FPS *, Avg 140 * FPS
* - values ​​are programmatically limited in game settings, 70 FPS in the menu, 140 stable in combat. Such restrictions allow to achieve stable results in the game, the maximum FPS here is not as interesting as a constant, unchanged and not sagging in large batches.

Display

Such a powerful filling can be used not only in games, but also in working with photography, video and three-dimensional models, which means that the display must meet not only the needs of gamers, but also reliably transfer colors, have a uniform and rebuilt backlight, and generally behave decently, after all, a monoblock is not from a cheap series, and the manufacturer is not some kind of nouneym.

The only option that satisfies the demands of both audiences is to use a relatively fast pseudo eight-bit IPS-matrix. Actually, it is this module that is installed in the Lenovo Y910 display - the maximum frequency is 144 Hz, G-Sync support and flicker-free backlight make it possible to achieve good color reproduction, low delays and not to stumble over V-Sync at a high frame rate (after all in the top version is GTX 1080), albeit in 6-bit + FRC mode. One shot - two birds with one stone.

Bonuses

The attentive reader may have noticed that there is not a word about the two aspects of the work of the monoblock. Who noticed the webcam in the photos and did not see a line about the sound - well done. Fortunately, there are no dirty tricks here, the magic words “Harman / Kardon” and “Intel RealSense” subtly hint that in these aspects the AiO Y910 is all bundled up. ;)

Sound

There is absolutely no sense in comparing the capabilities of stereo speakers built into such a compact case with some home theater or even a regular pair of “sticks” of the MicroLab SOLO level: another class of devices, the sound strongly depends on the shape and materials of the case, the diameter of the membrane and the pile of others parameters. Most of these properties clearly conflict with the form factor of a laptop or a monoblock, but even in such cramped and unnatural conditions, engineers manage to squeeze low frequencies, clean tops and a pleasant, almost undistorted voice from thin devices.



As part of the gaming and film capabilities to a monoblock and its sound part is difficult to find fault. Yes, I want to have a small margin in the low-frequency range, but in the current version it's pretty damn good: you run the same toy on a monoblock and a nearby PC with a dedicated sound card and external acoustics, and a total difference in the timbre of shots, voices of heroes and sounds of nature are not observed.

Camera

Intel RealSense is a software and hardware system that allows you to perform real miracles using the usual webcam. Definition of the depth map, three-dimensional scanning, work in conditions of insufficient lighting, recognition of objects, gestures, facial expressions and faces ... well, this thing has a lot of opportunities that are just beginning to be implemented in software.



You can indulge in basic demos in the embedded application, while the advanced use of features requires specialized software. Basically, this camera is now used by various games for children, tied to the repetition of movements and character animation in accordance with the actions in front of the screen, and all sorts of background replacements during video calls. With the separation of the main object from the environment webcam copes well, the main thing is that there is enough light. The latter is especially critical if you use it to 3D-scan an object and turn it into a textured model.

Here, unfortunately, it was not without drawbacks: the webcam comes out of the upper part of the display, but nobody took care of the adjustable tilt angle, as a result it is not very convenient to adjust to its field of view. A spoon of tar, so to speak.

Particulars

In fact, there are a lot of pleasant little things in a monoblock. The build quality is at a height, the internal structure is a matter of respect. Many fastenings are thought out, technological holes and recesses are provided where it is really needed, the cooling system of the processor and video card are also worthy of praise. Hot air is collected from the back panel and ejected up above the display. Engineers have even introduced a foldable “hanger” for headphones. It looks fine, but it copes with its responsibilities one hundred percent.



The stand does not swing, the angle of inclination is set with the same perfectly adjusted force that opens the covers of premium laptops. There is just as much friction as you need: no arbitrary position changes with comfortable adjustment by pressing one finger.

Issue price

The cost of a monster in the Russian Federation begins with a quite adequate 139,000 rubles. For this money you get a real PC, with an easy upgrade of almost all modules: from hard disk to processor. Well, the fact that it is impossible to replace what they tried to do so that they did not want to change. After all, who said that the all-in-one PC should be a “large stationary ultrabook”? Rather than an easy-to-maintain and high-performance workstation hidden in the monitor?