What's the best 'Gaming Laptop'

Myranda

Bidley said:

Myranda said:

Bidley said:

2K/4K are screen resolutions, higher than 1080p and 1440p.

A budget of £2k is pretty good. You can afford some nice components with that. Have a look at the mobo/cpu/ram bundles on Overclockers UK, they're usually decent value. They do full systems there too.

What resolution do you call 2K? I thought it was the lazy way of saying 2560 x 1440 (which as far as I'm concerned should just be called 1440p to keep with resolutions people know, and by the same logic 4K should be 2160p... but hey)

Sorry, you're right on all fronts. My brain isn't working terribly well today.

Phew! Thought I'd gone weird.

Schnozz said:

This is great - I don't fully understand the 2K/4K thing, but I'm guessing this is related to VR?

It's my cousins main thing, so I would say £2K or under (no other hobbies) and she wants to play 'The Witcher' and something called 'Bannerlord', which I can't find.

I know a couple of guys that can Self-Build, but I just need to know where to start with that one, but this Chillblast stuff is interesting too.

"The Witcher" will likely include Witcher III which can be a beast to drive graphically if you want to have it look as awesome as it deserves

For £2000 You can make a VERY nice home computer and have a simple laptop to work/browse on the go.. or have a quite good gaming laptop. The cousin's use case will be very important here - if they plan to play games on the go (including Witcher) then don't even consider a home computer as every penny should be spent towards a laptop... if they want a laptop for school/work/travel but will mostly be gaming at home then a £500 laptop and £1500 desktop computer might be a better way to go.

Definitely find out what sort of thing they're after/need before accurate advice can be given

Axe_meister

Look out for some very tasty AMD Ryzen Rigs that are going to come out over the next few months.

Bidley

One of the best things about the Witcher 3, is that it's extremely well-optimised and will run like a dream on most machines, including lower-spec gear. It's the exception rather than the rule, as far as AAA titles go, though.

Myranda

Axe_meister said:

Look out for some very tasty AMD Ryzen Rigs that are going to come out over the next few months.

Or... don't.

 

For gaming Ryzen isn't better or cheaper*, so don't wait any longer than needed

*For gaming (and really only gaming) an Intel i7 7700K (£360) is faster in many games (and those it's not faster than, it is very closely second) than the AMD 1800X (£499) due to games not fully utilising more than 2-4 cores (i7's have 8 logical cores, so even where games DO use 4 whole cores it's not maxed out) and the i7 having a higher clock speed. This is the case for a number of games... if you go for price parity the 1700X (£370) then the AMD lags behind slightly.

AMD cleverly tried to market the 1800X against the 6950X (£1000!) as being 50% the price but better for gaming, but for gaming the 7700K is already faster in most cases than the 6950 so Intel make a chip that costs 35% of the 6950X and is better for gaming. Which I think was a mistake... they caught up to Intel - which is amazing considering where they were, so market it as an alternative for similar gaming performance, similar pricing and better productivity (for non-gaming things, the AMD has the clear advantage of higher core count than an i7 7700K, so will be much better for many CPU intensive tasks...) rather than trying to compare apples to oranges when the competition also sell perfectly good apples... 

If the AMD offering were cheaper OR faster (ideally both) then waiting makes lots of sense... as it is, there's little reason to wait**

** AMD does manage the similar performance on lower wattage, so if the Laptop is definitely the way to go, then perhaps there's an argument for waiting, as battery life will be better by a noticeable margin (though the GPU will be using much more watts than the CPU so it's not going to be a quarter better or a third better... but it will still be a good improvement over the intel part - for, as mentioned above about the same price-per-frame) 

Schnozz

I think I started looking at Laptops partly because I like them and partly because of Student Accommodation 

Myranda

Schnozz said:

I think I started looking at Laptops partly because I like them and partly because of Student Accommodation 

Depends on the halls, but some places have ample space to accommodate a desktop PC (stayed in two halls here, one I could barely fit a laptop on the "desk" the other I could fit my triple monitor setup with ease...)

But with a £2000 budget you can aim for a reasonable laptop 

Axe_meister

Myranda said:

Axe_meister said:

Look out for some very tasty AMD Ryzen Rigs that are going to come out over the next few months.

Or... don't.

 

For gaming Ryzen isn't better or cheaper*, so don't wait any longer than needed

*For gaming (and really only gaming) an Intel i7 7700K (£360) is faster in many games (and those it's not faster than, it is very closely second) than the AMD 1800X (£499) due to games not fully utilising more than 2-4 cores (i7's have 8 logical cores, so even where games DO use 4 whole cores it's not maxed out) and the i7 having a higher clock speed. This is the case for a number of games... if you go for price parity the 1700X (£370) then the AMD lags behind slightly.

AMD cleverly tried to market the 1800X against the 6950X (£1000!) as being 50% the price but better for gaming, but for gaming the 7700K is already faster in most cases than the 6950 so Intel make a chip that costs 35% of the 6950X and is better for gaming. Which I think was a mistake... they caught up to Intel - which is amazing considering where they were, so market it as an alternative for similar gaming performance, similar pricing and better productivity (for non-gaming things, the AMD has the clear advantage of higher core count than an i7 7700K, so will be much better for many CPU intensive tasks...) rather than trying to compare apples to oranges when the competition also sell perfectly good apples... 

If the AMD offering were cheaper OR faster (ideally both) then waiting makes lots of sense... as it is, there's little reason to wait**

** AMD does manage the similar performance on lower wattage, so if the Laptop is definitely the way to go, then perhaps there's an argument for waiting, as battery life will be better by a noticeable margin (though the GPU will be using much more watts than the CPU so it's not going to be a quarter better or a third better... but it will still be a good improvement over the intel part - for, as mentioned above about the same price-per-frame) 

R5s about to come out (April 11). Yes they won't be able to compete (yet) with the i7-7700, but they are not bad at gaming, just like a bronze 100m running is not a slow runner, just can't beat Bolt. At resolutions above 1080p the Ryzen easily keeps up with all that intel have to offer. These will be nice and cheap and potentially will not hit the CCX issue the 8 Core chips are hitting.

Myranda

Axe_meister said:

Myranda said:

Axe_meister said:

Look out for some very tasty AMD Ryzen Rigs that are going to come out over the next few months.

Or... don't.

 

For gaming Ryzen isn't better or cheaper*, so don't wait any longer than needed

*For gaming (and really only gaming) an Intel i7 7700K (£360) is faster in many games (and those it's not faster than, it is very closely second) than the AMD 1800X (£499) due to games not fully utilising more than 2-4 cores (i7's have 8 logical cores, so even where games DO use 4 whole cores it's not maxed out) and the i7 having a higher clock speed. This is the case for a number of games... if you go for price parity the 1700X (£370) then the AMD lags behind slightly.

AMD cleverly tried to market the 1800X against the 6950X (£1000!) as being 50% the price but better for gaming, but for gaming the 7700K is already faster in most cases than the 6950 so Intel make a chip that costs 35% of the 6950X and is better for gaming. Which I think was a mistake... they caught up to Intel - which is amazing considering where they were, so market it as an alternative for similar gaming performance, similar pricing and better productivity (for non-gaming things, the AMD has the clear advantage of higher core count than an i7 7700K, so will be much better for many CPU intensive tasks...) rather than trying to compare apples to oranges when the competition also sell perfectly good apples... 

If the AMD offering were cheaper OR faster (ideally both) then waiting makes lots of sense... as it is, there's little reason to wait**

** AMD does manage the similar performance on lower wattage, so if the Laptop is definitely the way to go, then perhaps there's an argument for waiting, as battery life will be better by a noticeable margin (though the GPU will be using much more watts than the CPU so it's not going to be a quarter better or a third better... but it will still be a good improvement over the intel part - for, as mentioned above about the same price-per-frame) 

R5s about to come out (April 11). Yes they won't be able to compete (yet) with the i7-7700, but they are not bad at gaming, just like a bronze 100m running is not a slow runner, just can't beat Bolt. At resolutions above 1080p the Ryzen easily keeps up with all that intel have to offer. These will be nice and cheap and potentially will not hit the CCX issue the 8 Core chips are hitting.

I'm not saying they're worse chips just not better or cheaper, so seems little point in waiting... that's all

Schnozz

Myranda said:

Schnozz said:

I think I started looking at Laptops partly because I like them and partly because of Student Accommodation 

Depends on the halls, but some places have ample space to accommodate a desktop PC (stayed in two halls here, one I could barely fit a laptop on the "desk" the other I could fit my triple monitor setup with ease...)

But with a £2000 budget you can aim for a reasonable laptop 

Yeah - I think that Chillblast Messiah would be ideal, but it look just looks a bit out of reach

Taking the 256 SSD on board, it's counting out the MSI stuff under £2K, but people are saying that it's smoother than the Razer...

ThePrettyDamned

If it's for uni, I'd 100% recommend NOT buying an expensive gaming laptop. 

They're expensive and bloody portable. And student halls get burgled. I wasn't burgled, but my flatmate was, and it was the laptop and ipod they grabbed. 

Gaming laptops are generally portable enough to be stolen, but the ones that are actually nice to play on are heavy - as in, heavy enough to not want to carry everywhere. When I bought a shite, cheap netbook, it accompanied me everywhere. It was small and light enough that I could easily sling it into a bag. Cheap enough that I didn't care too much about putting it into a padded laptop bag. All you need is a couple of 1tb external hard drives and a kid who's smart enough to regularly backup to both

So, for uni, I'd probably say a chromebook or a small laptop of some kind that prioritises basic web and office applications and portability over performance. I LOVED my shitty, early, crashy windows 7 notebook thing and only had it for the last year of uni. My quite-powerful gaming laptop stayed at home... And didn't get used for gaming as much as my xbox because it wasn't as nice to use. 

So, with that in mind, I'd probably lean towards a half decent 24"-30" IPS monitor and gaming monitors that don't need mad 144hz refresh rates are not stupidly expensive - that should be under £200 for a decent quality screen. Then get a desktop for the gaming. It'll give them a more powerful computer that's more responsive for working in dorms, FAR better for games, *less* likely to be stolen unless someone is really dedicated (because it's a big heavy tower with cables coming out of it everywhere, including the power cable, monitor cable and an external drive versus a little laptop you can nip in and grab). 

https://www.chillblast.com/chillblast-fusion-krypton-2-gaming-pc.html?category_id=412#product-details-tab-tab298

That ^^ looks incredible. You could probably put a bigger m.2 SSD in and keep the monitor, computer AND notebook within a £2k budget. Probably. 

Of course, you'll need a desk and space for a desktop so it might all be moot

Schnozz

ThePrettyDamned said:

If it's for uni, I'd 100% recommend NOT buying an expensive gaming laptop. 

They're expensive and bloody portable. And student halls get burgled. I wasn't burgled, but my flatmate was, and it was the laptop and ipod they grabbed. 

Gaming laptops are generally portable enough to be stolen, but the ones that are actually nice to play on are heavy - as in, heavy enough to not want to carry everywhere. When I bought a shite, cheap netbook, it accompanied me everywhere. It was small and light enough that I could easily sling it into a bag. Cheap enough that I didn't care too much about putting it into a padded laptop bag. All you need is a couple of 1tb external hard drives and a kid who's smart enough to regularly backup to both

So, for uni, I'd probably say a chromebook or a small laptop of some kind that prioritises basic web and office applications and portability over performance. I LOVED my shitty, early, crashy windows 7 notebook thing and only had it for the last year of uni. My quite-powerful gaming laptop stayed at home... And didn't get used for gaming as much as my xbox because it wasn't as nice to use. 

So, with that in mind, I'd probably lean towards a half decent 24"-30" IPS monitor and gaming monitors that don't need mad 144hz refresh rates are not stupidly expensive - that should be under £200 for a decent quality screen. Then get a desktop for the gaming. It'll give them a more powerful computer that's more responsive for working in dorms, FAR better for games, *less* likely to be stolen unless someone is really dedicated (because it's a big heavy tower with cables coming out of it everywhere, including the power cable, monitor cable and an external drive versus a little laptop you can nip in and grab). 

https://www.chillblast.com/chillblast-fusion-krypton-2-gaming-pc.html?category_id=412#product-details-tab-tab298

That ^^ looks incredible. You could probably put a bigger m.2 SSD in and keep the monitor, computer AND notebook within a £2k budget. Probably. 

Of course, you'll need a desk and space for a desktop so it might all be moot

256 M.2 SSD wouldn't be enough?

Schnozz

I'm thinking of recommending the 2017 Alienware 15 at £1800, but it's a shame it doesn't come with the 13's OLED screen; however, the 13 doesn't have the G-Sync of the 15 and 17.

Does this seem like a good recommendation? Sounds like it beats the Razer Blade and the Blade Stealth with Core, as well as the MSI GS36VR.

xinkai

User of the latest Razer Blade here. As a uni student, i can confidently say that burglary really isn't that big of a problem provided your cousin is responsible enough. (i.e. lock the room proper when going out, not leaving the laptop just anywhere on campus, sensible stuff really)

Performance wise it's great. I'm not a gamer but as an engineer and a side hobby of photography, i need the graphics power to run CAD software and Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop. Also need the computing power to do programming. Laptop never really gave me problems on those fronts, and can handle running CAD duplicated on a TV. Perhaps not the most intensive usage of the laptop's capabilities, but i'm confident it will run higher loads perfectly fine.

Aside from screen and performance etc, i think keyboard, trackpad, wifi module, and other small things are important considerations. Razer has great build quality and i feel that the small details are worth the premium.

Oh yea, i use the 1080 non-touchscreen version because it's cheaper and supposedly has better colour accuracy than the touchscreen version. I came from using a 3K screen (HP x360 Spectre) and haven't missed the higher resolution. To me, not much of a difference in resolution, but a big difference in colour representation.

Schnozz

xinkai said:

User of the latest Razer Blade here. As a uni student, i can confidently say that burglary really isn't that big of a problem provided your cousin is responsible enough. (i.e. lock the room proper when going out, not leaving the laptop just anywhere on campus, sensible stuff really)

Performance wise it's great. I'm not a gamer but as an engineer and a side hobby of photography, i need the graphics power to run CAD software and Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop. Also need the computing power to do programming. Laptop never really gave me problems on those fronts, and can handle running CAD duplicated on a TV. Perhaps not the most intensive usage of the laptop's capabilities, but i'm confident it will run higher loads perfectly fine.

Aside from screen and performance etc, i think keyboard, trackpad, wifi module, and other small things are important considerations. Razer has great build quality and i feel that the small details are worth the premium.

Oh yea, i use the 1080 non-touchscreen version because it's cheaper and supposedly has better colour accuracy than the touchscreen version. I came from using a 3K screen (HP x360 Spectre) and haven't missed the higher resolution. To me, not much of a difference in resolution, but a big difference in colour representation.

Excellent - Do you experience any thermal/noise problems? And if so, have you tried some of the tricks to reduce fan usage etc?

xinkai

Schnozz said:

xinkai said:

User of the latest Razer Blade here. As a uni student, i can confidently say that burglary really isn't that big of a problem provided your cousin is responsible enough. (i.e. lock the room proper when going out, not leaving the laptop just anywhere on campus, sensible stuff really)

Performance wise it's great. I'm not a gamer but as an engineer and a side hobby of photography, i need the graphics power to run CAD software and Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop. Also need the computing power to do programming. Laptop never really gave me problems on those fronts, and can handle running CAD duplicated on a TV. Perhaps not the most intensive usage of the laptop's capabilities, but i'm confident it will run higher loads perfectly fine.

Aside from screen and performance etc, i think keyboard, trackpad, wifi module, and other small things are important considerations. Razer has great build quality and i feel that the small details are worth the premium.

Oh yea, i use the 1080 non-touchscreen version because it's cheaper and supposedly has better colour accuracy than the touchscreen version. I came from using a 3K screen (HP x360 Spectre) and haven't missed the higher resolution. To me, not much of a difference in resolution, but a big difference in colour representation.

Excellent - Do you experience any thermal/noise problems? And if so, have you tried some of the tricks to reduce fan usage etc?

Haven't experienced any problems with heat, but the fan does run pretty loud when i use Lightroom and Photoshop concurrently. I don't do anything about it - i take it that the fan is supposed to be working that loud to avoid overheating, so it doesn't make sense to me to cap its usage. 

The fan outlets are on the underside of the laptop though. For this reason, there are two long and thick rubber strips running the length of the laptop on the bottom to prop the laptop up. However, when i'm at home, i prop it up further with laptop cooling balls or whatever they're called. Not sure if it really helps much, but just gives me a peace of mind.

Schnozz

xinkai said:

Schnozz said:

xinkai said:

User of the latest Razer Blade here. As a uni student, i can confidently say that burglary really isn't that big of a problem provided your cousin is responsible enough. (i.e. lock the room proper when going out, not leaving the laptop just anywhere on campus, sensible stuff really)

Performance wise it's great. I'm not a gamer but as an engineer and a side hobby of photography, i need the graphics power to run CAD software and Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop. Also need the computing power to do programming. Laptop never really gave me problems on those fronts, and can handle running CAD duplicated on a TV. Perhaps not the most intensive usage of the laptop's capabilities, but i'm confident it will run higher loads perfectly fine.

Aside from screen and performance etc, i think keyboard, trackpad, wifi module, and other small things are important considerations. Razer has great build quality and i feel that the small details are worth the premium.

Oh yea, i use the 1080 non-touchscreen version because it's cheaper and supposedly has better colour accuracy than the touchscreen version. I came from using a 3K screen (HP x360 Spectre) and haven't missed the higher resolution. To me, not much of a difference in resolution, but a big difference in colour representation.

Excellent - Do you experience any thermal/noise problems? And if so, have you tried some of the tricks to reduce fan usage etc?

Haven't experienced any problems with heat, but the fan does run pretty loud when i use Lightroom and Photoshop concurrently. I don't do anything about it - i take it that the fan is supposed to be working that loud to avoid overheating, so it doesn't make sense to me to cap its usage. 

The fan outlets are on the underside of the laptop though. For this reason, there are two long and thick rubber strips running the length of the laptop on the bottom to prop the laptop up. However, when i'm at home, i prop it up further with laptop cooling balls or whatever they're called. Not sure if it really helps much, but just gives me a peace of mind.

Cheers Xinkai - That's one I can definitely put to her

ThePrettyDamned

Schnozz said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

If it's for uni, I'd 100% recommend NOT buying an expensive gaming laptop. 

They're expensive and bloody portable. And student halls get burgled. I wasn't burgled, but my flatmate was, and it was the laptop and ipod they grabbed. 

Gaming laptops are generally portable enough to be stolen, but the ones that are actually nice to play on are heavy - as in, heavy enough to not want to carry everywhere. When I bought a shite, cheap netbook, it accompanied me everywhere. It was small and light enough that I could easily sling it into a bag. Cheap enough that I didn't care too much about putting it into a padded laptop bag. All you need is a couple of 1tb external hard drives and a kid who's smart enough to regularly backup to both

So, for uni, I'd probably say a chromebook or a small laptop of some kind that prioritises basic web and office applications and portability over performance. I LOVED my shitty, early, crashy windows 7 notebook thing and only had it for the last year of uni. My quite-powerful gaming laptop stayed at home... And didn't get used for gaming as much as my xbox because it wasn't as nice to use. 

So, with that in mind, I'd probably lean towards a half decent 24"-30" IPS monitor and gaming monitors that don't need mad 144hz refresh rates are not stupidly expensive - that should be under £200 for a decent quality screen. Then get a desktop for the gaming. It'll give them a more powerful computer that's more responsive for working in dorms, FAR better for games, *less* likely to be stolen unless someone is really dedicated (because it's a big heavy tower with cables coming out of it everywhere, including the power cable, monitor cable and an external drive versus a little laptop you can nip in and grab). 

https://www.chillblast.com/chillblast-fusion-krypton-2-gaming-pc.html?category_id=412#product-details-tab-tab298

That ^^ looks incredible. You could probably put a bigger m.2 SSD in and keep the monitor, computer AND notebook within a £2k budget. Probably. 

Of course, you'll need a desk and space for a desktop so it might all be moot

256 M.2 SSD wouldn't be enough?

Easily enough for OS, apps and documents. I actually keep my word documents on it for no reason other than they're tiny - probably bad management on my part, but it's fast! I keep my games (all two of them!) on the hdd. 

And it's less nickable - our flat was burgled in the first year despite automatic locks on the doors (some housemates were regularly locked out) and my shed in the second or third year (also locked) was smashed open for a bike. Students make for a common target, even if it is still very unlucky to be targeted. A desktop is just far less likely to be stolen because it's a pain in the arse. 

Obviously laptops are more portable now, but I really wouldn't want to carry around something so expensive where it could be accidentally left on a bus (it does happen), dropped or stolen. A small netbook type jobby is super cheap, longer battery life and way more portable while allowing productivity. Back up the documents to Google drive for instant backup and access on the more powerful computer back home. 

All imo and such. There is the logistical challenge of where it goes and how to get it there, of course. But it's definitely worthy of consideration. 

Schnozz

I think it's just a maze to try and spec a Desktop - is this compatible with that? yada yada. Even trying to find the Laptop equivalent is hard, as there's so many additional features, so I don't know what to recommend.

Axe_meister

The great thing with a PC is that pretty much everything is compatible with everything.
But you do have think hard about what you need.
I built a PC 3 years go (i7 4770S) but cheapes out on the Motherboard which doesn't have enough USB slots so have to have extenders/Hubs.

crunchman

Axe_meister said:

The great thing with a PC is that pretty much everything is compatible with everything.
But you do have think hard about what you need.
I built a PC 3 years go (i7 4770S) but cheapes out on the Motherboard which doesn't have enough USB slots so have to have extenders/Hubs.

As long as you get a decent motherboard you should be fine.  Just don't go skimping and get a £40 motherboard and make sure it supports SLI (or Crossfire for an AMD graphics card) if your graphics card needs it.