Poll: Programming / gaming laptop advice (Medion?)

[Jordi]

[font color="red"]Edit: I just posted a reply to this topic to resolve it and tell interested people that I got the Medion (10th post). If you came here to give me advice: thank you, but I no longer need it. Of course, if you still want to add to the discussion: be my guest.[/font]


Dear Escapists,

I'm on the verge of buying a new laptop and I could use some advice. I'm a programmer who spends an exorbitant amount of time on my computer, so I'm willing to shell out the fairly hefty[footnote]Although, as we'll see it may actually not be that big a budget for what I want.[/footnote] sum of roughly ?1700. Unfortunately, for a software engineer, I know fairly little about hardware. I realize this may not be the most obvious website for asking about my particular use case, but this is the only forum I frequent and I think a lot of laptop gamers face a lot of similar issues when picking out their machines.

Because I know I can be fairly verbose and I have a lot to ask, I'll spoiler all my questions so it's easy to skip over parts you don't want to read.

Spoiler: Usage

The laptop will be both my personal "fun" computer as my hobby/work computer. This means I want it to play movies and games, but more importantly I also need to be able to develop software on it. The kind of software I develop are AI applications that use enormous amounts of data (so I need RAM + SSD) and processing power (i7 + CUDA). My development efforts also require frequent context switches between the developed applications, development environments and imaging software.

Spoiler: Why no desktop?

Anybody asking advice about purchasing a high-end laptop inevitably gets asked why they don't buy a desktop, so here's my answer: I often travel to my parents or to friends that I develop hobby projects with. I'd like to be able to use my (main) computer there too. Furthermore, in a couple of months I'm moving to a country where this stuff is much more expensive and I can't really take a desktop with me on the airplane and I will probably be living in hotels for the first weeks (also, I might occasionally need a mobile computer for work). Finally, I just really like the mobility. I have a laptop right now, and I take it with me throughout the whole house (so I can sit behind my desk, in front of my TV, at the dinner table for better collaboration, etc.)

Spoiler: Candidates

Medion Erazer X6825: ?1599
CPU: Intel Core i7-3630QM processor (2.4 GHz)
RAM: 16 GB 1333 MHz RAM divided over all 4 slots (brand unknown)
SSD: 120 GB (brand and type unknown)
HDD: 750 GB (brand and type unknown)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX680M with 2 GB GDDR5 (so not the maximum 4)
Blu-ray writer

This is probably my main candidate, but I'm slightly afraid that Medion (being kind of a budget brand) has cut corners on everything except the "numbers" that they mention. For one: how fast are the HDD and SSD? Will it produce too much heat or noise, or just break easily? Is the RAM too slow?

Asus G75 Series ROG G75VX: ?1546
CPU: Intel Core i7-3630QM processor (2.4 GHz)
RAM: 12 GB (brand and layout unknown)
SSD: 256 GB (brand and type unknown)
HDD: 1000 GB 5400rpm (brand and type unknown)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX670MX with 3GB GDDR5
DVD+/-RW DL

Asus seems like a better brand, but the same concerns apply and if anyone has any insights/opinions those would be very welcome. The video card is a lot worse than the Medion's (I think; it does have more memory), and I think 12 GB RAM is a little on the low side. The exact amount of storage memory are less essential for me (and neither is the Blu-ray), so I'll probably won't buy this one.

LENOVO® Y500 IDEAPAD (MBG3DMH): ?1199
CPU: Intel Core i7-3630QM processor (2.5 GHz; this is probably a typo and should be 2.4)
RAM: 16 GB 1600 MHz RAM divided over all 2 slots (brand unknown)
SSD: 16 GB (brand and type unknown)
HDD: 1000 GB (brand and type unknown)
GPU: 2x NVIDIA GeForce GT650M (SLI)
No optical drive

This one looks like an absolute bargain. However, it is not yet available and they expect it to come on March 15, which is a little late for me. It's SSD also seems too small, and I don't know what to think about the SLI configuration (will it require more battery power, will it be harder to program for?). I might still consider it, though, depending on what is said here.

Built to order
All of the above laptops are non-configurable "take it or leave it" deals, but there are also some websites that let you configure a lot of stuff about their laptops. This seems to have a lot of advantages, as I can upgrade the memory, choose hard disks that I want, drop other features (like the Blu-ray) and add cooling features or better WLAN cards. On the other hand, I'm concerned about the quality, because I assume all of the above machines will be assembled by a machine, whereas such custom builds will be assembled by a human. What are your thoughts?

For instance, this is one configuration I'm considering:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3610QM processor (2.3 GHz)
RAM: 16 GB Crucial 1600 MHz 2 / 4 slots used
SSD: 180 GB INTEL 335 Sata-600 READ: 500Mb/s - WRITE: 450Mb/s
or
SSD: 250 GB SAMSUNG 840 Sata-600 READ: 540 MB/s - WRITE: 250 MB/s
HDD: 1000GB 7200rpm HITACHI S-ATA 32Mb cache
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX675MX with 2GB GDDR5
DVD+/-RW

Like this, it costs ?1637, but I'm thinking about getting an extra ?25 worth of cooling paste and possibly a ?55-?70 Bigfoot Killer WLAN card (not for gaming, but I like my internet to be good). The processor is slightly slower than the other ones, but it seems to have very good RAM, SSD and HDD and the second-best video card of the candidates.

Spoiler: Video card

Let's get the obvious out of the way: I want to be able to play games.

I also recently followed a course on CUDA programming and I would like to do more of it, since it is going to be extremely useful for the computationally intensive software I make. This means the video card needs to be NVIDIA. I also want it to have the latest Kepler architecture (so no Fermi).
Candidates include in decreasing order of awesomeness: GTX 680M, GTX 675MX, GT 350M SLI, GTX 670MX, GTX 660M (not mentioned in above).

Obviously the 680 is the best, but what I would like to know from people is: do you think it makes a huge difference? And what I would be curious about from GPU programmers is 1) the same, and 2) how does SLI affect things?

Spoiler: Processor

The things I will be doing and developing will be computationally expensive, so I want a fairly fast processor. It looks like this is going to be the i7-3630QM or i7-3610QM as this gives me the best and newest processor family and upgrading from this is very expensive.

Also it gives a relatively decent onboard graphics card, which is nice for low-power usage and GPU development (if your GPU application crashes, you need another video card to be able to debug it). At least, I think all of these processors have a Intel® HD Graphics 4000 card, but not all sites explicitly list it. Does anyone know if it's always there, or optional?

Spoiler: RAM

The applications I develop will use a lot of memory. Furthermore, it will require a lot of context switches between big programs (developed applications, development environments, imaging processors, web browsers). Therefor, I want at least 12, but probably 16 GB.

Other than that, I know very little about memory. I've heard that it's best to use as few memory banks as possible (i.e. it's better to have 2x8 GB than 4x4 GB), but I can't really find any reference to that. Does this actually lead to better performance, or is it just that with 2 free banks it's easier to add extra memory? I also heard that the memory in separate banks should be the same, or at least consist of pairs of identical memory. Does anyone know more about that?

Also, it appears that there are many different brands and models. How does "regular"/unnamed memory compare to brand name Crucial or Corsair Vengeance or Kingston HyperX? How do you notice the difference? Also, is the difference between 1333 MHz and 1600 MHz noticeable?

Spoiler: SSD

I want an SSD for fast boot times, but I've also found that it is often very handy for the applications I develop, since they often don't fit in RAM. This means I want the SSD to be fairly large (over 100 GB) so in addition to having Windows on it I can quickly read and write files.

I don't really think I have many questions about this, but if anyone has any tips about SSDs, they're always welcome.

Spoiler: HDD

Given that I'll have an SSD, will there be a lot of noticeable difference between 5400 rpm and 7200 disks and 8 and 32 MB caches?

Spoiler: Other important stuff

When I looked for reviews and information online, I often found people saying that budget manufacturers often cut costs on important things like the motherboard and PSU. However, aside from the fact that most websites don't seem to list any information about this, I wouldn't even know what to look for. How do I spot a good or bad motherboard/PSU?

Spoiler: Wireless LAN cards

In the customizable laptops I have the option of upgrading the WLAN card. This isn't cheap, but I would like to have reliable internet connections (even though I don't usually game online). I'm not sure if it's worth it, because I guess most locations with WiFi (universities, coffee shops / restaurants) have to make it good enough for people without fancy WLAN cards, but any experiences with Bigfoot Killer (1103 and 1202) and the higher end Intel cards are welcome.

Spoiler: Cooling

The customizable laptops give to option to add cooling paste for up to ?25. It seems like a laptop with strong a strong processor and video cards like I mentioned could get pretty hot, so it seems like a good idea. On the other hand, it seems like a fairly temporary solution (I assume the paste doesn't last very long), so I have no idea if it's worth it.

Spoiler: Replacing parts later

I can easily replace parts in a desktop computer, but have never really looked inside a laptop. If I decide now that I don't need a fancy WLAN card, Blu-ray player or large SSD, would it be hard to put in later?

Thanks a lot for your time and any help you may have to offer!

 

[SnowyGamester]

I'm working with the same limited information you've posted here so take my advice with a heaping of salt. From what I can tell, the Lenovo looks to be the most powerful and by far the cheapest so it seems really hard to pass up, however, being largely unfamiliar with the GTX 600 series and laptop GPUs in general, I can't be totally certain that's the case since for all I know a high end 680M or 670M may be more powerful than two low end 650Ms (even a low end model of one of the former may be more powerful than two high end models of the latter, I'm completely unfamiliar with the technical specs of each) - it really depends on the exact specs of the cards used in each model, look for more information or contact the manufacturers.

Regardless, the Lenovo seems like a bargain in comparison. The SSD may be substantially smaller but in general the storage drives in laptop are fairly easy to replace and upgrade - the manufacturer or retailer may even offer an upgrade for a reasonable fee, though it would probably be cheaper to do yourself, and considering how much the prices of SSDs have dropped upgrading to a larger one should still leave the total cost far below the others.

How much more using two cards will drain the battery I don't know...I can almost guarantee that under load it will drain substantially more however being unfamiliar with the various cards mentioned and how SLI manages power usage it's hard to determine the overall difference. Chances are you'll get a general idea from a comparison between the usage times on battery power listed by the manufacturers.

A lot of your additional questions seem a bit out of my depth but there are a few I can cover. When it comes to RAM (when you say banks, I assume you mean the separate channels and not the individual slots) really you want to use as many channels as you can, though each channel can have more than one slot associated with it. Each channel communicates separately so if you're using two sticks of RAM on a single channel you're worse off than if you're using them on separate channels because you're forcing all of the data through one. I'm not sure of the performance difference when say you're using two 4GB sticks compared to one 8GB on the same channel however I assume the difference is minimal (though I'd prefer the latter since it's easier to upgrade to 16GB). When it comes to the need to use the same kind of memory the answer is kinda. If you're using memory of a different speed then the faster sticks will be nerfed to the lower speed. Also, sometimes different sticks just don't want to work together (I've read it may be related to whether both sticks have chips on one or both sides). I've encountered this issue once myself though simply getting the same kind of RAM should avoid anything like this (it really is best practice). AFAIK the brand of RAM doesn't change much when it comes to performance, it's mostly about reliability (and the possibility of overclocking). Faster RAM is going to give you faster performance though whether you notice really depends on the application (and how observant you are).

I'm no expert when it comes to Wi-Fi, but getting a fancy ass card is probably more about performance than reliability. I do most of my personal wireless on the cheap, it all works well and is consistently faster than my internet connection, you really shouldn't need something high end unless you plan on doing a lot of file transferring or media sharing over Wi-Fi (keeping in mind that you also need a network that supports it unless you're going ad hoc).

When it comes to replacing or upgrading parts it not only depends on the part but also the laptop model. As mentioned earlier in general the storage drives are easy to replace. RAM probably comes second when it comes to ease of replacement but it may vary depending on how the laptop is put together. Disks are all but dead so personally I wouldn't worry about that, regardless if the laptop you've got already has a disk drive it should be possible to upgrade (though I'm sure there are exceptions). Wi-Fi cards are usually a little trickier to replace and require putting more things apart though it should be possible in most cases. You'll probably get better answers to these by contacting the relevant manufacturers or checking the product manuals online.

That's all I have to say about that.

 

[Jordi]

I'm working with the same limited information you've posted here so take my advice with a heaping of salt. From what I can tell, the Lenovo looks to be the most powerful and by far the cheapest so it seems really hard to pass up, however, being largely unfamiliar with the GTX 600 series and laptop GPUs in general, I can't be totally certain that's the case since for all I know a high end 680M or 670M may be more powerful than two low end 650Ms (even a low end model of one of the former may be more powerful than two high end models of the latter, I'm completely unfamiliar with the technical specs of each) - it really depends on the exact specs of the cards used in each model, look for more information or contact the manufacturers.

Thanks a lot for your help! The thing is, according to [a href="http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html"]notebookcheck.net[/a] the 680M and 675MX (ranked 13 and 22) are a lot better than 2x 650M SLI and 670MX (ranked 43 and 44). That makes the Lenovo definitely not the most powerful one of the candidates, although it's still the biggest bargain. However, as I mentioned, it's not expected to become available until March 15, which would be just in time for my emigration, but if it's later (and these things always are), it won't be an option for me.

Regardless, the Lenovo seems like a bargain in comparison. The SSD may be substantially smaller but in general the storage drives in laptop are fairly easy to replace and upgrade - the manufacturer or retailer may even offer an upgrade for a reasonable fee, though it would probably be cheaper to do yourself, and considering how much the prices of SSDs have dropped upgrading to a larger one should still leave the total cost far below the others.

If I can just add a ?100 SSD myself, that would be great and the Lenovo would still be much cheaper than the rest.

A lot of your additional questions seem a bit out of my depth but there are a few I can cover. When it comes to RAM (when you say banks, I assume you mean the separate channels and not the individual slots) really you want to use as many channels as you can, though each channel can have more than one slot associated with it. Each channel communicates separately so if you're using two sticks of RAM on a single channel you're worse off than if you're using them on separate channels because you're forcing all of the data through one. I'm not sure of the performance difference when say you're using two 4GB sticks compared to one 8GB on the same channel however I assume the difference is minimal (though I'd prefer the latter since it's easier to upgrade to 16GB). When it comes to the need to use the same kind of memory the answer is kinda. If you're using memory of a different speed then the faster sticks will be nerfed to the lower speed. Also, sometimes different sticks just don't want to work together (I've read it may be related to whether both sticks have chips on one or both sides). I've encountered this issue once myself though simply getting the same kind of RAM should avoid anything like this (it really is best practice). AFAIK the brand of RAM doesn't change much when it comes to performance, it's mostly about reliability (and the possibility of overclocking). Faster RAM is going to give you faster performance though whether you notice really depends on the application (and how observant you are).

Actually, I was talking about the slots (not the channels), but this is very informative. On the other hand, I'm afraid that the manufacturers don't put channel information on their websites (although I guess I can ask them).

I'm no expert when it comes to Wi-Fi, but getting a fancy ass card is probably more about performance than reliability. I do most of my personal wireless on the cheap, it all works well and is consistently faster than my internet connection, you really shouldn't need something high end unless you plan on doing a lot of file transferring or media sharing over Wi-Fi (keeping in mind that you also need a network that supports it unless you're going ad hoc).

I read some reviews that look at different distances and with walls between the laptop and the WiFi point. That's what I meant by reliability. The reviews show a clear advantage for the Bigfoot Killer, but I was wondering how relevant this is in real life. You're probably right that the internet connection will probably not be able to keep up anyway though, and I don't really think I want to shell out ?70 right off the bat for it. Maybe I'll try to upgrade if I run into problems with this.

When it comes to replacing or upgrading parts it not only depends on the part but also the laptop model. As mentioned earlier in general the storage drives are easy to replace. RAM probably comes second when it comes to ease of replacement but it may vary depending on how the laptop is put together. Disks are all but dead so personally I wouldn't worry about that, regardless if the laptop you've got already has a disk drive it should be possible to upgrade (though I'm sure there are exceptions). Wi-Fi cards are usually a little trickier to replace and require putting more things apart though it should be possible in most cases. You'll probably get better answers to these by contacting the relevant manufacturers or checking the product manuals online.

You're right, I should ask the manufacturers. I'm fairly sure they'll say I shouldn't touch the insides of their laptops though as it will probably void the warranty (except for the custom builders, who might not care).

That's all I have to say about that.

Thanks a lot! It was really helpful!

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

There's a reason the Lenovo is cheap... they have a terrible reputation for reliability.

My go-to recommendation for any high end use laptop is a Clevo or a custom rebadged Clevo (such as Sager)... failing that either a high end Asus or MSI laptop. You'll pay a premium for them but in the case of these 3 brands, you get what you pay for (unlike many other laptop brands)... as far as laptops go, anyway.

As for upgrading... ugh... unless you're ponying up for a custom engineered laptop (not custom build) you're gonna have a hard time upgrading anything beyond the usual HDD/SDD, RAM, Optical bay device and anything in expansion slots... and even if the laptop is upgradable more than the average laptop there's the issue of finding the parts and that laptop parts cost a fortune compared to similar function desktop parts.

 

[SnowyGamester]

Thanks a lot! It was really helpful!

Glad I could help! Though take heed...Rhombus may hate you but it doesn't mean he isn't usually right. I've never even seen a Lenovo laptop but I've had enough experience with ASUS and MSI tech to know it's good quality stuff. Regardless of what you go for, I'd definitely shell out for extended warranty...with such a big investment on something that can sometimes be impossible to fix yourself (tracking down a replacement board usually isn't easy, not to mention actually putting it in) you don't want to be without it if something happens.

 

[Jordi]

There's a reason the Lenovo is cheap... they have a terrible reputation for reliability.

My go-to recommendation for any high end use laptop is a Clevo or a custom rebadged Clevo (such as Sager)... failing that either a high end Asus or MSI laptop. You'll pay a premium for them but in the case of these 3 brands, you get what you pay for (unlike many other laptop brands)... as far as laptops go, anyway.

Thanks for the heads up! Actually, I think (but I'm not 100% sure) that the built-to-order laptop I mentioned is actually an adapted MSI GT60 since it's in the page title (but not anywhere else), people mentioning these laptops on the internet are consistently saying stuff like "my custom laptop is basically an MSI XYZ" and the laptops look a lot alike. I'll ask them though. The other major BTO vendor in the Netherlands is also the official Clevo reseller, so I think most of their laptops are adapted Clevos. I'm going to look into that.

 

[AWAR]

I would go for the Asus since it seems more solid. I wouldn't worry so much about the graphics card, a 680 in a laptop is too much of an overkill purchase and because of the weaker CPUs there aren't going to be any serious differences in gaming performance.

 

[Jordi]

I would go for the Asus since it seems more solid. I wouldn't worry so much about the graphics card, a 680 in a laptop is too much of an overkill purchase and because of the weaker CPUs there aren't going to be any serious differences in gaming performance.

Thanks for the tip! However, I was always under the impression that for gaming the bottleneck is pretty much always the video card (although it depends on the game). Especially in laptops. Are you saying that you think the i7-3630QM (which I thought wasn't so bad) is so bad that the difference in video cards won't be noticeable (in a significant number of games)?

Please keep in mind that we're talking about the 680M here (i.e. not the 680-without-M desktop version). Notebookcheck.net has some nice comparisons between video cards in the Benchmark sections of their respective info pages: [a href="http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-680M.72679.0.html"]680M[/a], [a href="http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-675MX.82580.0.html"]675MX[/a], [a href="http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-670MX.82603.0.html"]670MX[/a]. On the 3DMark 11 benchmarks there are actually comparisons between the 680 and 680M and it's the desktop version is apparently 50-60% better. When looking at other comparisons between the cards, it appears that there are also often significant differences between the 680M, 675MX and 670MX (it's hard to create an overview, but it appears the 680M regularly beats out the 675MX by 20-30% and the 670MX by 50%).

It may seem like I'm just disagreeing with you, but I don't really know that much about this and I'm genuinely curious about your insights with respect to the CPU being such a bottleneck that the GPU no longer matters as much (I'm aware that the cited benchmarks were taken in different systems than the ones I'm considering). If anything, your advice prompted me to do more/better research myself, so thanks!

 

[AWAR]

-snip-

Yeah, well actually you now seem to know more on the issue than I do ^^
My opinion is that you just can't get the kind of performance you get on the desktop, that's why I think it's a good idea to settle for less. One thing that is crucial is reliability. We are talking about high end components here that will get hot during stressful applications and games leading to a shorter lifetime. It's worth pointing out that on tech surveys, Asus comes second best in reliability behind Toshiba while Lenovo is pretty low on the list.
Also that 25 euro cooling paste option sounds to me a like a gimmick. It's true that in some cases cooling paste needs to be replaced but that's after years of use, and higher quility thermal grease doesn't make a noticeable difference in temperatures (are we even sure they will use top grade stuff?).
Finally, I wouldn't take into account stuff like RAM (you can always add more later), storage (same as ram) and blu ray drives (you can buy external ones if you really need them).

 

[Jordi]

I know this topic is a bit old now, but I know other people are having questions similar to mine and when I'm doing my purchasing research I also like it when the topics get resolved. I'll add a disclaimer to the first post saying this is an old topic.

Anyway, I did end up going with the Medion. The Asus was a really good candidate, but there was a large difference in video card performance and RAM size that finally made me pick the Medion. I had also heard relatively good stories about the quality of the system, that put my mind at ease a little. The Asus' quality might still be better though. The built-to-order system was discounted, because of stories about shoddy quality and a helpdesk guy who tried to sell me pointless crap instead of providing actual information.

If it had been available sooner, I might have gone with the Lenovo, because the price meant that I could upgrade components myself and still have a cheaper system. Lenovo's helpdesk told me that their average delivery time is one week. So if that is correct and the launch data of March 15 was correct, I would get it on March 22. That would be okay, but if even a tiny thing went wrong, I wouldn't have gotten the system in time. Since these are their own (probably optimistic) estimates and it's a new launch here, I didn't like those odds.

The Medion actually wasn't my first choice in the end. Someone pointed out the quality of Dell Alienware laptops and some ways to get discounts on them. This made me slightly break my budget to get an M17x, but after ordering the system they changed their estimated delivery date from March 8 to March 26, so I had to cancel it.

Over the last period I've had to deal with a lot of helpdesks and it just baffles me how little they know or can do. Everything is "in China", so they have no idea about delivery times and whether things are in stock. But they also have no idea what brand SSD, RAM or HDD their own laptops have. Maybe I'm naive, but that seems like something they ought to know.

I haven't really used my laptop much yet, because I'm very busy with work, but so far everything's looking good (except Windows 8).

Anyway, thanks for your help everybody!

 

[SnowyGamester]

Good to know everything worked out okay. Windows 8 actually offers little other than improvements once you uninstall all the Metro apps from the start screen and add some power option shortcuts (or use a start menu replacement, though I personally like the new one once it's cleaned up).