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New Laptop
I need to to replace my old laptop (original HP Envy) with something more modern. I'm looking to spend somewhere between $2000 and $2500 on a gaming laptop. I understand that a desktop would be the wiser choice, but I need a laptop due to travel/gaming at other people's homes etc.
Here's two that I am currently looking at:
Asus
Alienware
I'm mainly curious if it's worth the ~$500 to jump from the 970m to the 980m and 128 SSD to 256 SSD.
Also, feel free to leave any other laptop options in that price range that you may think are better choices.
Thanks.
Here's two that I am currently looking at:
Asus
Alienware
I'm mainly curious if it's worth the ~$500 to jump from the 970m to the 980m and 128 SSD to 256 SSD.
Also, feel free to leave any other laptop options in that price range that you may think are better choices.
Thanks.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Comments
Alienware will be overpriced, try to get something with a 980m
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
AMD says Polaris is coming around the middle of this year, though it could easily take another month or two for the cards to show up in laptops after you can get them in desktops. It's not clear when Pascal-based laptops are coming, but I'd expect to see them by the end of the year.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8678-clevo-p670rg-p-8651.html?startcustomization=1
Upgrade to 16 GB of memory, a 480 GB SSD, and add Windows 10 and it's still under $1900 and includes a GTX 980M.
@Quizzical ;
Thanks for the link. You have likely saved me a good little chunk of change.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
But otherwise, I'd wait a few months or so. As soon as Polaris or Pascal arrive in laptops, all gaming laptops on the market today are instantly obsolete and definitely not what you'd want new. This is likely going to be the biggest jump for gaming laptops with discrete cards in about a decade.
Gaming laptops are fundamentally a case of trying to cram too much heat into too little space. When trying to make a better gaming laptop, energy efficiency is the whole game. AMD is promising that their next generation will offer 2.5x the energy efficiency of the previous. Nvidia is promising gains of about 60%, though to be fair, Nvidia's current laptop cards are a lot more efficient than AMD's. Those are huge gains and a huge deal. Normally, you'd expect about 20% improvement per year.
http://www.itechpost.com/articles/17909/20160506/amd-polaris-10-provides-impressive-gpu-performance.htm
Seems to me this year they are only releasing the intro cards that are only good at conserving energy. In 2017 they will be launching the actual cards which will give the boost in performance.
http://wccftech.com/amd-polaris-11-gpu-specifications-leaked-compubench/
If Polaris or Pascal can get the same performance in 60 W, that's so much better. That would save a ton of money, not just from the much cheaper card, but also not needing nearly so exotic of a cooling apparatus. If the rumored specs are accurate (which they might not be), a Polaris 11 may or may not get there, but a suitably cut down Polaris 10 surely could. Presumably some (possibly still unannounced) Pascal card could do likewise.
Alternatively, if you're willing to burn 100 W (which is really a lot for a laptop), having so much better energy efficiency could let you get performance that beats a desktop Radeon R9 390X or GeForce GTX 980, while still putting out less heat than the current GeForce GTX 980M.
Thanks so much for the advice.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
You say: "I need a laptop due to travel/gaming at other people's homes etc."
Do you need a laptop or would a mini-ITX solution work?
Obviously wherever you are going would have to have a spare monitor (probably TV) - assume you wouldn't want to carry a small monitor around! As far as mini-ITX systems go though the maximum motherboard size is 170mm x 170mm so not that big.
As I say probably not the right solution for you but I mention it "just in case". Skylake motherboards with a PCIe 3.0 slot etc. are available so you could have a pretty powerful rig in something that is usually a small-ish cube.
If you want something revolutionary, you'll have to wait for AMD to make an APU with HBM on package. AMD hasn't publicly committed to do so in laptops yet, but it makes so much sense that I'm sure they will. My guess is that that will show up in the latter half of 2017. Once it happens, discrete video cards will vanish from laptops pretty quickly because there will be no point in having them.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/nvidia-crams-desktop-gtx-980-gpu-into-monster-17-inch-notebooks/
a) needs really high performance,
b) needs it to be in a laptop,
c) is willing to accept that the laptop will be huge, heavy, and not very portable, and
d) is willing to pay a fortune for such a device.
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box