Choice for new laptop

really.... thats strange cause my laptop work fine and it is 5 year old
well anyway, the more recent something (in electronics), the less tougher it is. a good exemple would be old gen console vs new gen

 

I would not suggest running witcher on either machine. Big single player games like these which are not used on console, are very hard on the machine. You may be able to manage it on the lowest of graphics, but itll not be an ideal gaming environment. At that point you might as well get it for console.

 

Alright then, I'll just wait for the 1060 ones to hopefully get a sale near chrismas. Thanks man

 

bruh, just put in system specs of the two laptops into : http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri and put in the games you tend to play and see if you can run it

and yea to the other guy who said laptops start to die as soon as its warranty runs out, that's BS and you've probably just bought yours from fraudsters. My previous laptop had only 1 year warranty and lasted over 5 years. Actually recently got a new laptop myself because my previous one is pretty much now crippled with dead battery and such

 

ehm please watch on amazon the price is curently very low

 

I'm looking out for sales but the ones I see are either not low enough or they are so low that its too good to be true and is probably a scam.

Thanks for the link man but imma just wait for the 1060 one to drop down in price.

 

if you just play those games might as well get the cheapest one but perform well , maybe around mid tier m saving you alot .. but you are trying to be best quality gaming experience might as well build PC instead

 

How much money do you have? They're both on sale

 

Not really, The Acer laptop I bought 7 years ago still working fine... It depends on how you take care of it I guess.

 

I would say high to mid tier.

 

I recommend the new surface pro. Everyone been talking about it. If you don't have stores near you buy it online but if you do. I really recommend buying it at the store. Buying laptops on amazon is not a wise choice sometimes. Because some are very outdated unless your OK with that

 

I just had to crawl out of bed and quickly type this in hopes that this message reaches you in time before you pull the purchase trigger:


Let me expound some dao of the laptop machines to you.
From your description, you want a laptop that can last for years. Last for years is a very vague term. However, assuming you'll want to keep the machine fairly usable, and fairly not too out of date; here are my recommendations.

Since you're in the UK, go to these sites. Since I'm not sure if we're able to link, i'll just name the companies

pcspecialistuk
novatech
cyberpowerpc uk
birmingham's top laptop shop (box.co)
mysn uk
scan 3xs systems


And look for spesifically one company - Clevo. Failure to recognize this model is failure to recognize Mount Tai itself, fellow daoist! You shall not reject Clevo, and neither shall you look down upon them. Shun it at your risk and peril. I suggest you look deeply at them.

You also point out that you want a gaming laptop.

GTX 970M is the 900 series, with 70 designation (mid tier), where 1060 means 1000 series, 60 at lower tier, but the lowest is 1050 actually). 1060 performs slightly better than 970, and you should at the bare minimum look for a 1060 series laptop. A 1070 laptop would be very costly, and 1080 is probably beyond your monetary value.

There will be nasty people who will incessantly tell you "omg just buy a desktop". I assure you, that is only correct up to a certain point, because it truly falls on what kind of power-in-portability you need.

There are few things that you must remember when you purchase a laptop.

1) how much processing power (gpu and cpu) do you need on the go?
2) how much weight can you bear? I don't mind carrying a bag of 10KG filled with books, documents and my desktop replacement laptop) because I know I can bear it. But can you? Some forsake weight and are willing to pay a premium so that they could buy a laptop that weights like a paper (and the negative side effects of one as well).
3) Are you willing to learn how to properly service your laptop? IF you are, fine. If you don't, then please remember your laptop manufacturer may slaughter you for the labour charges. Just like desktop, laptops require maintenance. The question is, how user friendly do you want it to be? (again, only Clevos are the most user friendly [in terms of servicability] laptops ever built)
4) How much of catching up do you want to do? How much money are you willing to invest over time to keep up with the Joneses / what's your baseline?


If you can answer these questions, then you probably have in mind what kind of laptop do you want.

However, some general rule of thumb applies.

1) Go for the best CPU you can have. At the meantime, avoid AMD (for less headache's sake, despite I like AMD)
2) GPU is secondary if you have can dedicate one of your laptop's Thunderbolt 3 / USB type c port connected to an external GPU solution. NVidia already support this, and its a great thing. Avoid OPTIMUS (google that) at all cost. It is not exactly the cheapest solution over time, but it will be the best solution to your need of wanting a laptop that would last years in terms of technological relevance.
3) Do you need a laptop / desktop replacement? Depending on your answer, your path of choice will split into two divergent paths.


If you need more answers, you can always enquire further.
Remember, laptops are equivalently as powerful as desktops, or even more powerful than your average desktops, if you KNOW where to look and willing to pay the price for it.

 

I have a 970m laptop which I bought in december 2 years ago. Today I'd say if you are a moba player 970m is all you need. Better yet buy an even cheaper laptop no point getting a 970m for mobas. Normal gaming usage it runs all games just fine. Don't expect ultra settings though. Mid- high settings in games will get you 60 fps. So its upto you. I personally feel I wasted money as I bought this and only play games which my cpu can run. Rarely I play demanding games (last demanding title was DOOM).

1060 is better ofcourse! but higher price gets ya better stuff always. See your priorities, see your budget, see your options. My advice don't overspend atleast on laptops. It's not worth it.

Edit: Another piece of advice. Buy a 15.6 inch max. If you buy 17.3 you won't be able to take it around with you much. I have a msi gt72. Its been plugged in for 2 years like a pc......seriously these 17.3 inch laptops are just not portable. Heavy and big

 

£1230

 

dude, with 1230, you can get a GREAT system in the UK, like way above average laptop.

Avoid macbooks, and I hope you read my message above.

 

Then couldnt you afford either?

 

I bought the Rog Strix 15.6 with 1070 about a month ago for about $1400 USD plus tax to replace a 17 inch Sager laptop from 10 years ago. Was tempted to go with the Strix 17 inch but decided on the lighter weight.

The 1060/1070 are VR ready so if you plan on a Rift or a Vive in the future you might want to consider it. I have both so I plan to use the Rift with the laptop and keep the Vive on my desktop.

I haven't played any games yet on the laptop so I can't really comment on game performance as I've been using it for Unity development.

 

Alienware has always been amazing for me.

 

If that's all you need it for you could buy a laptop for half the price and run those games just fine.

You shouldn't be buying 'gaming' laptops anyways, they're usually overpriced and break down rather quickly. Imo use laptops for work/class and use desktops for everything else.

Just build yourself a desktop rig for a much cheaper price than a comparable laptop, it'll last you a lot longer and you can always upgrade it down the line if you need to.

I built my PC in early 2010 for about $800 and I can run all those games you just mentioned on full or near full graphics with no problems at all.

It's lasted me until this point and just the other day I purchased a new graphics card for it. So i've gotten a lot of mileage out of my money.

 

Also, since you're now talking about GPUs and what not;

take this with a wee bit of salt:

You probably know by now that with today's 900 series would play any games at 720p at almost max settings.
Going to GTX1060 would allow you to play 720p (any game in the foreseeable future) in almost max out settings. Of course if you're dolling it out the moolah, GTX1080 (the laptop variant, and not the gimped lower RAM versions sold by MSI, ASUS, ACER, etc) would be able to play almost anything in 1080p in full glory in foreseeable future? That's because of the switch to 2k, 4k and god forbid 8k (because its way too costly).

You'll notice that a lot of laptops claim to have 4k screens. Beware! Many of these are frauds. Why or how? While its true that their resolutions are indeed 4k, but they do not work in 4k mode, because their refresh rates are not true 4k refresh rates (minimum of 60MHz, ideally at 120MHz). A lot of these screens are pseudo-4k screens because they work on much lower frequencies (45MHz, like some Samsung made panels). So you'll probably think "so what, I'll buy an external monitor", right? That's where you OUGHT to be careful.

By the time you actually cough up the money for a proper 4k monitor (so that you can enjoy 4k goodness on your laptop when you're docked at home), you'll come to realization that your laptop that comes with 1060, 1070, or 1080 (god forbid 1050, that's way gimped too badly) would be so underwhelmed that you can't enjoy an optimal experience on 4K. That is the reality. Even desktop class 1080, on a single configuration pumped to maxed out ultra settings would only yield "console-esque" 30 fps (frames per sec). Some people are very anal about FPS on their PCs (inb4 console peasants vs pcmasterrace, just please don't head into that direction already). But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy 4K gaming.

Like I previously said in my previous posting:

1. external gpu helps (if you do have a thunderbolt 3 / usb-c combo port). This setup will last at least 3-4 years before Thunderbolt probably upgrades its tech specs. Just a reminder, even at current specs it can draw above 90% computational power from current top-end GPUs, which is GREAT, compared to previous thunderbolt 2 interfaces (which can only draw 50% of today's top-end GPUs) and from there, if there are already cards that can play 4K in the future, you can just buy a brand new card, put it into the external GPU case, and then from your laptop's video out (HDMI, etc etc, or directly from your external GPU) you can pump out that "glorious" 4k resolution. Even then, from my own experience, its better to downscale 4k to 1080p instead (its better than natively playing at 1080p, and it looks gorgeous and you don't need to spend computational power at anti-aliasing and few other things)

Just to add on:

1. Make sure your RAM comes in 2 or 4 sticks, not 1, not 3. Gaming RAM and non gaming RAM, doesn't make much difference UNLESS you're a benchmark freak. More RAM = better because the old mantra 4GB "works just enough" is out of date and doesn't apply. Besides, windows 10 will utilize all the RAM you can throw at it, and it works great. (still I hate win10 because its a gigantic cesspool of spyware from microsoft).

2. If you're planning to buy a laptop with interchangeable parts, go for laptops with desktop processors. For all the reasons mentioned above. interchangeable GPU is fine, but you need to look at the maker and generation of laptops. e.g: Clevo sells laptops with change-able GPU, but only their latest line ups can run the 1000 series GPU because previous gens don't have enough room to squeeze in the larger GPU (so like me, i'm stuck with 900 series) after owning this laptop for years, but hey, it's been a great ride)

3. Thinner does not equate to better. Let me point to an example. You can buy really thin laptops like Razer Blade, macbook airs, etc. But with the same price, you can get REALLY powerful laptops (although they're bulky) that will serve you better. Same goes for branding. A lot of brands can worth a dog's feces, especially when you don't have the warranty. I don't know about things in the UK, but here only Dell has proper after-sales service (with exception of Clevo's authorized resellers). Even taking out the backpanel just to remove dusts will void warranty for most if not all laptops (with exception of the two manufacturers i've mentioned above), but that's just where I live. Laptops do need servicing too, so do remember that.

4. HDD / SSD debate:
Rule of the thumb:
1. Find a laptop that doesn't have shitty HDD. (not all 7200rpm are great, but not all 5400rpm HDDs are shite). Max out your HDD at 1TB (or two TB, per HDD, if you know where to get the seagate/samsung HDDs). Read up on general HDD reliability.
2. Find a laptop that actually has a M.2 Slot (so buy a proper M.2 slot SSD). You may want to put your OS and some games into the SSD, but never fill it to the brim. rule of the thumb, do not ever torrent on your SSD. Torrent only on your normal HDD. SSDs nowadays are much more reliable than the first generation SSDs, but still, good practice is still preferable. You don't want a premature death of machine.
3. Avoid RAID, only do it IF you need it that badly.


and for 1000 british pounds, you can really buy a somewhat top end laptop system.