Looking for advice on laptop

Phoebes · August 2016

I'm about to buy a laptop soon and I'm trying figure out where to cut corners to keep the price down.

I would love to get some advice on a few things

Video Card:
There is a big jump in price between the nvidia 1060 and 1070. Is there really that noticeable of a difference in performance?

Honestly, I don't play really demanding games... but that could change in the future.

Hard Drives:

Also .. Is the heat generated from a HDD in a laptop noticeable?

I plan to get a SSD for the main drive, but wondering if it's worth the money to get one as the secondary drive too. (though not as fast as the primary one...)

frostymug · August 2016

Depending on the screen resolution, the quality difference between a 1060 and 1070 probably won't be as extreme as the price difference.

If it is a 1080p screen then the 1060 will be all you need. especially if you don't play very demanding games

Quizzical · August 2016

The heat from a hard drive isn't much as compared to a video card when gaming. It will mean less battery life when you're not gaming and the video card is shut down. And I'd say that if you think you need more than 500 GB of storage in a laptop, you're probably doing something wrong.

Yeah, a GTX 1070 is a lot faster than a GTX 1060: about 50% faster or so. But it's also a much more expensive card for vendors to buy, and requires much beefier cooling.

Why are you looking at a gaming laptop in the first place as opposed to a desktop?

frostymug · August 2016

Also, I would go 2 SSDs unless you need a lot of storage where a large enough SSD would be cost prohibitive. As far as heat though, the HD is a ways down the list of heat producing components.

Phoebes · August 2016

Quizzical said:

The heat from a hard drive isn't much as compared to a video card when gaming. It will mean less battery life when you're not gaming and the video card is shut down. And I'd say that if you think you need more than 500 GB of storage in a laptop, you're probably doing something wrong.

Yeah, a GTX 1070 is a lot faster than a GTX 1060: about 50% faster or so. But it's also a much more expensive card for vendors to buy, and requires much beefier cooling.

Why are you looking at a gaming laptop in the first place as opposed to a desktop?

I'm getting the laptop for gaming and work. I need the portability for both. For work I will use it at home and at the office and for gaming I will use it at home and at a friend's house.

As for the space..
I need a lot of room for clients' files. I need to have up to about 200GB for that and they will go on the secondary. I need to also have a backup of that. I have an external drive, but I also want to use my main SSD for that as well... just for convenience. (I know that is wasteful of SSD space)

Aside from client file space, I have lots of my own files that take up a lot of space. I'm getting low on space as it is with a 1TB drive. I have to do a lot of drive space maintence just to keep space available.

So my plan is to have a 512GB SSD for for the main drive which will have windows, a couple games, some software and space for backups. The I need a 1TB for the secondary drive.

As for the heat with the hard drive, I'm just trying to cut down on it where I can and didn't know if it was neglbilble or not with a HDD.

Here are 2 of the laptops I'm looking at, but they are kind of expensive, especially with the added SSD's:

http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/ASUS-ROG-G752VM-RB71-Laptop
http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/ASUS-ROG-G752VS-RB71-Laptop

The secondary SSD I was looking at was:
1 TB Intel 540s Series SSD -- Read: 560MB/s, Write: 480MB/s

The primary one is faster:
512GB Samsung 950 PRO M.2 PCIe SSD --Read: 2500MB/s; Write: 1500MB/s

Quizzical · August 2016

Unless you absolutely need to move the computer around while at work (not just back and forth between home and office), using a laptop for work is usually a terrible idea. If you're going to do real work on the computer, you need something reliable, which laptops really aren't. You don't want to be unable to work for three weeks because the laptop died and you're waiting on warranty replacement. Desktops are both less likely to fail in the first place and far easier and faster to repair. The desktop form factor is also far, far better for getting real work done.

You likely want access to your work data both at the office and at home, but you can do that on separate computers with a VPN. Are you self-employed or part of a big business or what?

Phoebes · August 2016

Quizzical said:

Unless you absolutely need to move the computer around while at work (not just back and forth between home and office), using a laptop for work is usually a terrible idea. If you're going to do real work on the computer, you need something reliable, which laptops really aren't. You don't want to be unable to work for three weeks because the laptop died and you're waiting on warranty replacement. Desktops are both less likely to fail in the first place and far easier and faster to repair. The desktop form factor is also far, far better for getting real work done.

You likely want access to your work data both at the office and at home, but you can do that on separate computers with a VPN. Are you self-employed or part of a big business or what?

In an emergency I will have a backup laptop. I have backups of the files and software I would need as well. I have been using a laptop for many years for work and several times a year I need to take it with me out of town. So a desktop would just be very inconvenient.
I also use it in different rooms in my house.

Besides that, I just don't want to buy another computer just to get a desktop. I don't use one right now.

edit:

I work a lot from home, so pretty split between both places.

Quizzical · August 2016

Do you need much battery life, or is it pretty much always the case that you move the laptop somewhere, then plug it in?

I really hope that you at least have external keyboards and mice at home and work that you plug in, rather than using the built-in laptop keyboard.

If you need a bunch of bulk data storage, that's what hard drives are for. You don't want to run real programs off of a hard drive, but I doubt that all that client data is a bunch of executables.

Unicron- · August 2016

Have you looked at Sager laptops? They have a better build quality and cooling. http://www.sagernotebook.com/Sager-Gaming-Notebooks/

frostymug · August 2016

Out of the two you linked, I'd go with the VM. All the specs appear the same aside from the video card and you could use that 300 dollar savings to get the SSD. The 1060 will play pretty much anything on that 1920x1080 screen better than fine.

Phoebes · August 2016

Quizzical said:

Do you need much battery life, or is it pretty much always the case that you move the laptop somewhere, then plug it in?

I really hope that you at least have external keyboards and mice at home and work that you plug in, rather than using the built-in laptop keyboard.

If you need a bunch of bulk data storage, that's what hard drives are for. You don't want to run real programs off of a hard drive, but I doubt that all that client data is a bunch of executables.

I'm not too concerned about battery life .. I never use it unplugged.

I couldn't live without a mouse, but I do use the laptop keyboard. Its very comfortable. That's why I was asking about the HDD heat. One thing I really like about my current laptop is that it stays pretty cool, but I have had some in the past that got hot and I didn't like that.

Phoebes · August 2016

frostymug said:

Out of the two you linked, I'd go with the VM. All the specs appear the same aside from the video card and you could use that 300 dollar savings to get the SSD. The 1060 will play pretty much anything on that 1920x1080 screen better than fine.

That's what I was thinking. Right now I'm using the 660M. So the 1060 would be a pretty decent upgrade. I just wasn't sure how much better the 1070 would be or if I would notice a difference.

Phoebes · August 2016

Unicron- said:

Have you looked at Sager laptops? They have a better build quality and cooling. http://www.sagernotebook.com/Sager-Gaming-Notebooks/

I haven't, but I will check them out.

Phoebes · August 2016

One other question I had about memory. It says this:

16GB [16GB x 1] 2400MHz DDR4 Overclocked SO-DIMM Laptop Memory [G752]

Now I really don't know how this works, so maybe this is a stupid question, but will the fact that the memory is overclocked cause it to be more likely to have problems later on? Or is that nothing to be concerned about?

Thanks for all the replies! I really appreciate it

Quizzical · August 2016

Phoebes said:

One other question I had about memory. It says this:

16GB [16GB x 1] 2400MHz DDR4 Overclocked SO-DIMM Laptop Memory [G752]

Now I really don't know how this works, so maybe this is a stupid question, but will the fact that the memory is overclocked cause it to be more likely to have problems later on? Or is that nothing to be concerned about?

Thanks for all the replies! I really appreciate it

That basically means that they're crippling your memory bandwidth by leaving a memory channel vacant entirely, and then trying to partially compensate for it by clocking the memory higher. That's a really stupid configuration and I'd look elsewhere in a laptop.

Quizzical · August 2016

Phoebes said:

Quizzical said:

Do you need much battery life, or is it pretty much always the case that you move the laptop somewhere, then plug it in?

I really hope that you at least have external keyboards and mice at home and work that you plug in, rather than using the built-in laptop keyboard.

If you need a bunch of bulk data storage, that's what hard drives are for. You don't want to run real programs off of a hard drive, but I doubt that all that client data is a bunch of executables.

I'm not too concerned about battery life .. I never use it unplugged.

I couldn't live without a mouse, but I do use the laptop keyboard. Its very comfortable. That's why I was asking about the HDD heat. One thing I really like about my current laptop is that it stays pretty cool, but I have had some in the past that got hot and I didn't like that.

If battery life isn't an issue, then getting a hard drive in addition to an SSD shouldn't be a problem. Laptop hard drives only put out something like 2 W. For comparison, a GTX 1070M is probably closer to 100 W.

I do expect heat to be an issue just because a GTX 1070M will put out a lot more heat than a GTX 660M. But I'd get a separate keyboard on general principle, as using a keyboard so close to the monitor is ergonomically horrible. That's fine if you're only going to use it for half an hour per day, but not what you want to work on all day every day. And keyboards are cheap, too.

GladDog · August 2016

Quizzical said:

Phoebes said:

One other question I had about memory. It says this:

16GB [16GB x 1] 2400MHz DDR4 Overclocked SO-DIMM Laptop Memory [G752]

Now I really don't know how this works, so maybe this is a stupid question, but will the fact that the memory is overclocked cause it to be more likely to have problems later on? Or is that nothing to be concerned about?

Thanks for all the replies! I really appreciate it

That basically means that they're crippling your memory bandwidth by leaving a memory channel vacant entirely, and then trying to partially compensate for it by clocking the memory higher. That's a really stupid configuration and I'd look elsewhere in a laptop.

They are doing this so the buyer has the option to add more memory later without throwing out their existing chip, I don't think it is stupid at all.

Sager is a well thought of company, and they have a LOT of options for buyers. I put together a 17.3" 1080p dream machine with 32GB memory, 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD, and a GTX1070 video card, for under two grand. Pretty damn impressive. And that one is using 2x16GB on the memory.

filmoret · August 2016

The real question is about the expectations of the graphics card and the heat produced from the laptop. You want to run witcher 3 on ultra settings and pull 120fps? Must you have 60 fps on ultra settings or does that not matter much?

IDK if all gaming laptops run 180-200F but mine definitely does and MSI told me it was normal.

SSD is really a waste of money right now you can grab the 7200 rpm HDD's and they work fine and hold much more data.

gervaise1 · August 2016

If you don't play demanding games and are looking to cut corners then maybe look at e.g. a 900 series graphics solution - which were top of the line just a few months ago. The 1000 series is faster but is still new and so carries a price premium. (Same with AMDs new cards).

With the money saved should offset the cost of getting an SSD from day 1. Better might be to go for an M.2 storage solution which would (should) leave the "hard drive" slot empty. This would make it easy to add to add an SSD for extra storage / backup at a later date.

Ridelynn · August 2016

GladDog said:

Quizzical said:

Phoebes said:

One other question I had about memory. It says this:

16GB [16GB x 1] 2400MHz DDR4 Overclocked SO-DIMM Laptop Memory [G752]

Now I really don't know how this works, so maybe this is a stupid question, but will the fact that the memory is overclocked cause it to be more likely to have problems later on? Or is that nothing to be concerned about?

Thanks for all the replies! I really appreciate it

That basically means that they're crippling your memory bandwidth by leaving a memory channel vacant entirely, and then trying to partially compensate for it by clocking the memory higher. That's a really stupid configuration and I'd look elsewhere in a laptop.

They are doing this so the buyer has the option to add more memory later without throwing out their existing chip, I don't think it is stupid at all.

Sager is a well thought of company, and they have a LOT of options for buyers. I put together a 17.3" 1080p dream machine with 32GB memory, 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD, and a GTX1070 video card, for under two grand. Pretty damn impressive. And that one is using 2x16GB on the memory.

You almost always have the option of upgrading the memory later on, so long as the DIMMs aren't soldered in.

Quizzical · August 2016

Ridelynn said:

GladDog said:

Quizzical said:

Phoebes said:

One other question I had about memory. It says this:

16GB [16GB x 1] 2400MHz DDR4 Overclocked SO-DIMM Laptop Memory [G752]

Now I really don't know how this works, so maybe this is a stupid question, but will the fact that the memory is overclocked cause it to be more likely to have problems later on? Or is that nothing to be concerned about?

Thanks for all the replies! I really appreciate it

That basically means that they're crippling your memory bandwidth by leaving a memory channel vacant entirely, and then trying to partially compensate for it by clocking the memory higher. That's a really stupid configuration and I'd look elsewhere in a laptop.

They are doing this so the buyer has the option to add more memory later without throwing out their existing chip, I don't think it is stupid at all.

Sager is a well thought of company, and they have a LOT of options for buyers. I put together a 17.3" 1080p dream machine with 32GB memory, 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD, and a GTX1070 video card, for under two grand. Pretty damn impressive. And that one is using 2x16GB on the memory.

You almost always have the option of upgrading the memory later on, so long as the DIMMs aren't soldered in.

A lot of laptops don't give you that option these days. The particular laptop configurator that he's looking at lets you have one 16 GB module, but it doesn't let you have two modules at all, whether two 8 GB modules for 16 GB total, two 16 GB modules for 32 GB total, or anything else.

With AMD Carrizo, the laptop vendors were actually so bad about this that, although Carrizo has two channels of DDR3, not a single laptop that used it even offered two channels of DDR3. Rather, they were all single channel with no way to use the second channel. And this is to feed integrated graphics, so it's about the most memory bandwidth-intensive use there is in the consumer space.

If it gave you the option to have two 8 GB modules instead of one 16 GB module and use both memory channels that way, I'd be fine with it. But if a configurator doesn't give you that option up front, it's not likely that you'll be able to add memory to use the second module later. Most likely the slot necessary for the second memory module simply doesn't exist.

Besides, if upgradeability is the priority (which would be extremely unusual in a laptop), they could just have four memory slots with two full when you get the laptop. Many (most?) Sky Lake desktop motherboards do exactly that, and it's likely to be exactly the same chip in a laptop.

Also, 16 GB is a lot. It's not likely that you'll need more than 16 GB in the useful life of the machine.

Quizzical · August 2016

gervaise1 said:

If you don't play demanding games and are looking to cut corners then maybe look at e.g. a 900 series graphics solution - which were top of the line just a few months ago. The 1000 series is faster but is still new and so carries a price premium. (Same with AMDs new cards).

With the money saved should offset the cost of getting an SSD from day 1. Better might be to go for an M.2 storage solution which would (should) leave the "hard drive" slot empty. This would make it easy to add to add an SSD for extra storage / backup at a later date.

The GTX 1000 series is much more energy efficient than the GTX 900 series. You can reasonably greet that with a shrug in desktops, but it's a huge deal in a laptop. If you want to save money on the video card, get a GTX 1060M or wait for AMD Polaris to show up. A laptop version of the RX 460 will probably be cheap, even, and much lower power than what is available today, simply because it's a lower end part.

Phoebes · August 2016

Thanks for all of the great advice and info! I did check out sager and they seem to have some more options there. I might go with those guys. My only concern is I have read that Sager laptops aren't as good with cooling as Asus ones are, but I just don't know.

I wish I could get the Asus one, but with 2x8GB for Ram as opposed to the 1 16GB... Not sure why they did that for that laptop. I originally wanted to go with Asus mainly because I have owned a few Asus laptops (and use one currently) and have been happy with them.

This may seem minor, but one thing I liked about the Sager ones is the configurable backlit colors as opposed to always having red lit keys on the Asus.

Quizzical · August 2016

A number of Sager's laptops are rebranded Clevo laptops that a lot of other vendors also sell.

Phoebes · August 2016

I think I may go with this:

- 6th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ Processor ( 6MB Smart Cache, 2.60GHz)
- 17.3" Full HD IPS Matte Display with G-SYNC Technology (1920 x 1080) Back Order! (ETA: 08/31/2016)
- Guaranteed no dead or partially-lit pixels for first 30 days of purchasing
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB GDDR5 Video Memory
- IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- Windows® 10 Home 64-Bit Edition Preinstalled
- 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 SDRAM at 2400MHz - 2 X 8GB
- 512GB Samsung 950 Pro M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD - as an OS Drive (Primary Drive C) [+$295.00]
- 1TB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive
- Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 M.2 AC Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Module

It's for this one:

http://www.sagernotebook.com/customize.php?productid=1110

The final price is $1,844.00. It's a much better price than the Asus ones.

I'm assuming I don't need more than 16G RAM

Quizzical · August 2016

I don't see any need to spend extra for a PCIe SSD over a simple M.2 SSD. The performance difference basically doesn't matter for consumer use, as you'll be waiting on something else and not the SSD. So you might as well save yourself about $200 by going with the SanDisk X400 or Samsung 850 EVO. Other than that, it looks good.

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