Current Events > Planning to get a new gaming laptop. Could use some advice.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Posted this on the PC board too, but this place is so much faster and there's a lot of knowledgeable people here.

So my current laptop is about 7 years old and is just an outdated piece of crap that struggles to so much as play a video on Twitter anymore. It's well past time I got a new one.

I'd like to get a laptop because I work nights and they're incredibly boring, so it would be amazing to bring my laptop to work for gaming/surfing/netflix/etc. to pass the slow hours. I've been using my phone for a while but, well...there's only so many times you can play Candy Crush for 5 hours of a 9 hour shift before you go insane.

The thing is I know a lot about software. I understand how to set up and maintain a computer, keep it virus-free, and generally running as smoothly as possible (this laptop is 7 years old, after all). But I really don't know the first thing about hardware. Especially when it comes to what's available and what's good-for-the-price when it comes to laptops.

Does anybody have any suggestions? Companies I should seriously consider? I used to hear that Alienware makes great gaming laptops, but that they're kind of the Apple of the market in that you pay a premium because of the brand when you could get relatively the same thing at much cheaper from someone else. Is that still true? Who else should I look into?

I'm thinking my budget will be around $1500, maybe up to $2000 if it's really worth the upgrade. I'm also thinking 17-inch screen, and obviously playing current games stable at high quality is a must. I guess suggestions for a decent mouse would be helpful, too. The one I've got is wonderful for web browsing, but probably not exactly ideal for gaming use. Nothing too fancy needed there, though, just something with decent precision/speed and maybe a little more than just 2 buttons and a wheel...
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...just build a pc for 1000 and buy a cheaper laptop. Whats wrong with you?
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ASithLord7 posted...

...just build a pc for 1000 and buy a cheaper laptop. Whats wrong with you?

There's several reasons I don't need or want a desktop right now. Not the least of which is that I have nowhere to put it. So any advice on my question or just more "lol >gaming >laptop >pick one"?
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ASithLord7 posted...

...just build a pc for 1000 and buy a cheaper laptop. Whats wrong with you?

Did you read the topic at all? Literally says he wants to bring it to work.
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I always refer people to xoticpc.com for laptops.
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Pics_nao_plz posted...

ASithLord7 posted...

...just build a pc for 1000 and buy a cheaper laptop. Whats wrong with you?

Did you read the topic at all? Literally says he wants to bring it to work.

Did you read my post at all? Literally said he can get both for that price
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bluezero posted...

I always refer people to xoticpc.com for laptops.

Thanks. The site definitely looks like it'll be helpful.

Any suggestions or pros/cons to the various brands? Asus/Sager/MSI/etc.?

I'm trying to do a bit of research myself of course, and it sounds like pretty much everyone agrees that Intel i7 is pretty much obligatory in terms of chipset, and NVIDIA is head and shoulders above AMD for graphics cards. But nobody really explains why?
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AMD is fine, the Ryzen is solid, and the 580 is a good mid-range card.
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ASithLord7 posted...

Pics_nao_plz posted...

ASithLord7 posted...

...just build a pc for 1000 and buy a cheaper laptop. Whats wrong with you?

Did you read the topic at all? Literally says he wants to bring it to work.

Did you read my post at all? Literally said he can get both for that price

Yes, and then I can use that piece of shit budget laptop to play Candy Crush on a bigger screen! YAY!

-_-
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Aristoph posted...

I'm trying to do a bit of research myself of course, and it sounds like pretty much everyone agrees that Intel i7 is pretty much obligatory in terms of chipset, and NVIDIA is head and shoulders above AMD for graphics cards. But nobody really explains why?

AMD(for CPUs) hasnt had a competitive high-end CPU in years. They were way behind on desktops(in absolute performance) and what few competitive chips they did have were VERY power hungry compared to Intel. That translated very poorly to mobile, so i7s became the de-facto CPUs to get in high-end laptops. AMD has a solid new CPU line on the desktop(Ryzen) but they haven't moved it to mobile yet, so i7s are still the CPU to get(for now).

AMD GPUs actually have a similar story, except they at least were competitive in absolute performance on desktop. But power consumption was much higher than Nvidia, and so what they could shove into a laptop was much more limited. AMD also hasnt released a high-end GPU in a couple years, but the power consumption wouldnt have let them put anything good in a laptop anyway.

So basically AMD kept throwing more wattage at their hardware to keep up on desktops, while Intel and Nvidia kept reducing power draw while simultaneously improving performance, which is why they offer high-end laptop parts while AMD is basically non-existent outside of budget laptops. For desktops AMD is still fine(Ryzen is great, their GPU line is good unless you want high end, etc) but for laptops they just haven't had anything worth buying on the high-end so for your budget you should just ignore them for now.
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Ahh, makes sense. Kind of the AMD = Jeremy Clarkson "MORE POWAH!" versus NVIDIA = James May "Let me do some tuning" method. XD

So far, here's what I'm thinking would be ideal:

Screen = 17" matte screen, minimum 1920x1080 resolution, preferably higher but not the first priority, and 4K is really not necessary.
CPU = KabyLake i7-7700HQ
RAM = 16GB
GPU = GTX 1070 [8GB]
STORAGE = PCIe SSD with a 1TB hard drive,

Questions:
1. Would a 128GB SSD be enough or should I go for 256? That might be my first cut to get into budget. And is PCIe significantly better than others like M.2 or NVMe?
2. I've heard that the upgrade from the Skylake i7-6700HQ to the KabyLake i7-7700HQ is fairly marginal. Is that true and is it worth the price hike to get the KabyLake? Or would you recommend a different one altogether (like a -6820HK)?

Thanks for all the help so far, guys. I know I'm probably asking some pretty basic questions here, but I've never gotten into the hardware side at all so I'm trying to learn on the fly.
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Aristoph posted...

1. Would a 128GB SSD be enough or should I go for 256? That might be my first cut to get into budget. And is PCIe significantly better than others like M.2 or NVMe?

Depending on the SSD, it shouldn't matter that much. It won't likely be your limiting reagent in terms of speed of the SSD, if that makes sense. In some desktop SSDs, sure, but not in a laptop.

As far as how big the SSD should be, that really depends. Are you okay just having your OS on it (and your OS should be priority #1 for what should be on the SSD without any hesitation), or do you want more games on it? There is a SIGNIFICANT drop in load times from HDD to SSD, so it comes down to whether you're okay with not having that (it's not a big deal with well optimized games, for example).

Aristoph posted...

2. I've heard that the upgrade from the Skylake i7-6700HQ to the KabyLake i7-7700HQ is fairly marginal. Is that true and is it worth the price hike to get the KabyLake? Or would you recommend a different one altogether (like a -6820HK)?

Honestly? Go for the cheaper of the two, unless you're doing some intense video editing or something, you really don't need a beastly CPU for gaming.
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