Advice on buying a gaming laptop

[flying_whimsy]

Battery life is something to keep in mind. I mean yeah, if you're gaming you should be plugged into a wall since running on battery typically makes the machine automatically throttle back. But even if you're not gaming, having an i7 will really eat up power regardless of what you are doing.

Some other things to consider would be if you want to hook it up to a monitor or tv, what kind of sound it has, how you'll be doing back ups, anti-theft measures, and fan placement (if it intakes directly on the bottom it may not be great if it'll be sitting on your lap on top of a blanket. You know, some of the more practical things that can really effect how you use it in your day to day. That i7 or high end nvidia card won't do much good if you still can't use the thing the way you want to. Also, a lot of laptops don't have disk drives, so that's something to keep in mind as well.

Overall, though, $800 would be enough to get a decent one and it wouldn't go obsolete any faster than something you'd probably pay more for. I don't recommend gaming laptops, but if you have your heart set on it do not buy ibuypower (their stuff is waaay over priced), and check out newegg, tiger direct, and micro center. I've used all three for years: those places are reliable and will usually have the absolute best prices.

Mainly, though, just look for something with a proper graphics card of the current generation (nvidia is usually better for laptops for both heat and power) and a good amount of ram (8 gigs or more, or at least an extra slot to add some). You can always replace a small or slow harddrive for cheaper than you would pay to get it as a factory spec. Check reviews to make sure it's not made of string and that it won't fry itself (HP has a really bad habit of that on their high performance laptops). Also, since it will likely have windows 10, you may want to consider getting one with a touchscreen and a 2-in-1 convertible option, depending on how you're going to use it.

So there you go: pro tips from a certified computer specialist. I'll send you a bill. Joking aside, Feel free to ask questions as part of my certification was literally just training on how to help people get systems that meet their needs.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

What if...one of us didn't live in the US >.>

Then I'm afraid I have little idea what I'm doing. I obviously live in the US, and selling on Amazon was already a bit of a hassle just to sell in my own country. I think I might also have to cough up more of the money received in the purchase towards international fees (shipping primarily) and I need the most amount of the money possible for something that's coming up.

 

[Rack]

Having gamed on a laptop there are a few things you need to be aware of before taking the plunge.

1) Heat. Laptops get HOT if you try to push them towards gaming for more than an hour or so. You'll want to get some feedback on a setup that handles this really well (My Asus did not) or maybe a cooling pad? Thus far I've not quite solved this as I ended up just playing simpler games on the laptop.

2) Dust. It's pretty easy to blast a desktop with compressed air when it gets dusty, but a lot harder with a laptop. You'll have to account for semi-regular maintenance to clean up your laptop. Either get comfortable opening it up (ideally one that's easy to do this with) or getting someone to do it for you.

3) Transport. Mechanical hard disks don't enjoy being carted around so if you genuinely need this to be portable you're better off going for a SSD only option. It was a huge boost to my laptop swapping out the hdd for an ssd, and as I (like yourself) have a main system too the size restrictions never felt too overbearing.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I got my gaming laptop couple of months ago. Here are some notes.

1. The battery needs to be constantly plugged in. The battery itself won't be as powerful as when it's plugged in, and you'll see the noticeable, but manageable frame drop.

2. While the processor will be enough to run games, the graphics card won't be as powerful as the ones used in desktop/

3. The weight can be hefty depending on the laptop. Mine's 15 pound, which you'd think it's not that heavy, but it puts strains on my back when I'm carrying around.

4. The built in mic can be decent when used for something like skype calls, but when it comes to in-game voice chat you sound like muffled pedophile.

5. because of the ports on the sides, you might be looking at huge mess of wires when you hook up multiple things such ass headset, flash drive, controller, and external drive

6. DO NOT buy from ibuypower, alienware, and cyberpower. They are infamous for putting garbage specs to their computers and overcharge them.

7. Because laptop has wireless connection, you may experience slow internet depending on how far it's away from router. If your router is downstairs or behind multiple layers of wall, you may have to consider using wifi extender.

8. If you slam shut the lid in rage caused by bad game or something, it may damage your laptop.

9. There is THEORETICAL (it's a huge maybe) way to upgrade your processors and graphics card, but it requires opening the bottom of your laptop. The parts are soldered to the MB, so you have to un-solder those and solder on the new parts. BUT this will void any warranty you have on the laptop.

10. IF you want a recommendation on which gaming laptop to get, I recommend the one I bought. http://www.amazon.com/GL552VW-DH71-15-Inch-Discrete-GeForce-Metallic/dp/B01578ZKPO?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00

 

[Inazuma1]

The big pitfall of the gaming laptop is the GPU and CPU being integrated into the same motherboard in such a small package is going to cause a lot of heat buildup, and the small fans usually installed on laptops isn't enough to do the job. You'll have to frequently blow out the vents with compressed air to get the built up dust out. Plus the battery is always going to cause temperature buildup because while plugged in it is constantly sucking juice to stay charged. Of course, you can run with the battery out and just mainline it to your outlet via the power supply. If the manufacturer cheaped out by using ceramic thermal paste it'll dry out after about 6 months of heavy use and you'll probably experience your first heat crash. It's not really a crash, more an emergency shutdown to prevent the laptop overheating, but it's still annoying as all hell. And don't buy one of those intercoolers that sit underneath the laptop base. Those things actually recirculate the hot air back into the case and make the laptop overheat faster.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

The only advice I have is do not, do not get an HP. I got one because I get a discount through work on them, and it's just been a bit shit really. Runs well (plays The Witcher 3 on top quality, no problems unless you set plants to max), but the build quality is pretty poor and the customer service is awful. Had to send it back because the headphone jack was buggered and they were incredibly unhelpful about it.

 

[Twinrehz]

I'd just like to throw my 2 cents in here and say that IF you can, wait a bit. The new Nvidia and Radeon cards are currently being rolled out, so if the possibility is there, wait and see if they're going to announce any new mobile GPU options. The newest generation from nvidia offers until-now unsurpassed power management, meaning that you'll get more performance, with less heat. Also the new Pascal GPU is an absolute beast. (Pascal is 10XX cards, i.e GTX 1080).

Do NOT under any circumstances, whatever you're considering, buy a laptop with AMD CPU and/or Radeon GPU. AMD and Radeon are notorious for being extremely hot, and while they're built with higher heat-tolerance in mind, it still needs to be cooled properly, and with higher temperatures comes greater risk of something going wrong. Technically, from what I've heard, their performance is subpar compared to Intel and Nvidia, and since you're going for laptop, the amount of performance per watt of heat is critical.

For gaming on a laptop, get a proper cooling pad to put the laptop on. Even if this puts a strain on your hand for having to reach the keyboard, keeping the computer at least somewhat cool makes a huge difference; and a cooling pad with fans make that difference. (Get an external keyboard that you can use, I'd recommend this regardless. Laptop keyboards can be uncomfortable in the long run).

The two computers you linked are both all right, I've had no bad experience with Dell myself, but Asus ROG laptops are (from what I've heard) built to last. I have significant experience with Asus desktop hardware, it's pretty decent.

i7 vs. i5 is mostly a moot point, on a regular basis the i7 doesn't give all that much more performance in a game (maybe a few frames extra per second or something). One thing to consider though, is that the new Doom game recommends a high-end i7 desktop processor in their specifications, and while I choose to take such recommendations with a pinch of salt, it is going to become more of a trend for high-end games to utilize the available power that more powerful processors offer. I disagree with the statement made earlier in the thread about laptop i7 being comparable to desktop i5; unless stated in the specifications of the CPU, an i7 has 4 cores and hyperthreading (meaning 8 logical cores to work with, meaning the processor can do more stuff at the same time), while an i5 will never have hyperthreading. In the case of multitasking operations, i7 will always trump i5.

Sorry for the long post, hope I didn't completely overwhelm you. If you have any questions, just quote me here, or send a PM.

 

[SupahEwok]

Piggybacking off of twinrehz there, he's right about Radeon's rep for hot running cards. However, they've supposedly gotten better about that in the past couple years, and the new card they announced a few days ago, the RX 480, is gonna match the 980 in graphics power with a chunk less wattage (165 watts vs 150), which in theory means that it should only run as hot or less than Nvidia's flagship card from last year. However, the RX 480 is only gonna cost $200, way down from the 980's $500. Nvidia has not yet announced a 1060 for this year yet, which should in theory be the competitor card to the RX 480. That might be announced in a month or two. Might not.

The basic thing about graphics cards this year is that Nvidia and Radeon have been stuck on 28 nm transistors since 2011. There should have been a jump to 20-22 nm transistors around 2014, but neither company figured out how to make it work. Therefore, these new cards, which are the first with 14 nm transistors, are effectively a 2 generation jump from last year's cards (yes, yes, this is an oversimplification, I doubt OP wants the tech jargon long story). So this summer is a very exciting times for graphics cards; if you can hold out for 4 months you'll almost certainly be able to get a much better deal than current offerings, or at least prices might go down (not sure if laptop versions will be available in 4 months is my only caveat, somebody who keeps up with laptop development more than me might be able to give an accurate timeline for when laptops will get their versions of these new cards).

 

[Twinrehz]

Just thought I'd revive this thread briefly with a link regarding the future of 1080 and 1070 laptop GPU news, from PCGamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-and-1080-coming-to-gaming-notebooks/]. It looks as though this might just be the best generation for laptop GPUs yet, so my advice is to definitely wait until they arrive on the market.