Stanturbo

For some reason, thermal throttling and saying bad things about laptops is like some kind of dirty little secret. Laptops kill turbo boost and drop CPU down to 2.5GHz when CPU & GPU stressed? Oh boy, why would we tell a consumer this, let's sweep it under the rug! Here: The first thing Linus does is bash his own blade... that he loves.
This of course comes after the fact that he gushed and pushed it as some amazing product in his initial reviews many months past, and after they've all sold tons of units largely due to his and other reviewers' recommendations. Other people ignore the bad. They don't check things properly. MSI's GS43VR has heatpipes nearly touching the wifi card slot and running over the un-cooled PCH (chipset), and TOUCHING the only HDMI slot, making the ports on that side of the machine extremely hot under stressed usage. Who says anything about not? Not a single fucking person. Apparently the GS40 it replaced had the same cooling design, which means it always was a problem. They basically designed the machine to not last long. The GS63VR and GS73VR both have the heatpipes basically touching the PCH. Again, nobody looks, nobody says anything about it.
 
OEM/ODM-specific list below; spoiler hidden due to length. I suggest reading it all.


 
Long story short, almost every laptop reviewer on the market doesn't do proper reviews (not like they'd do for desktop parts, especially) and always try to spin positive points alone. They also give laptops actual points towards any kind of scoring system they have based upon looks... Razers' looks and outward feel alone, forgetting any and all problems with temperatures and soldering everything etc, give it high scores for reviews... but aesthetics have nothing to do with the performance, or operation of a machine. But it carries weight as if it does. Another thing people don't mention is that good, thickish plastic is often a better construction material (and transfers less heat too) than aluminum. Aluminum does NOT automatically equal better build quality. And build quality in reviews is meant to mean the outward aesthetic and feel for the most part... it's not very well done.
 
It's why I keep telling people when they say they've done research and end up with a Razer Blade or Dell XPS or ASUS for solid, problem-free, well-performing laptops that their research was wasted. As Pendragon mentioned, try going on Tech|Inferno and asking them about a Razer Blade, or Alienware, or Aorus, or ASUS as high performance machines. I'm pretty sure one person will call them all turdbooks, another will ask you to run cinebench with them overclocked, and about five more will plainly tell you how they're trash. At the LEAST. Notebookreview too will have people telling you off about them more than not.

Firstly, my referring to my MBP 13" from a few years back.
Also, I think everyone can agree that MacBook aren't the best gaming solution.
Lastly, don't give me that "well people have been making their own solutions for years" answer. I'm looking for sth on the market.
ALTHOUGH, I have seen a Kickstarter for an egpu unit for the MacBook, so I'll give you that.

Thanks. I think I'll go with the XPS 15 (so I can be productive and game on the go) and when I get the time I can build myself a gaming desktop for better performance.

Lol knowing how AMD works the R9 370 will be a rebrand of the old R9 280...the R9 380 will be a rebrand of the R9 290...so no i'd say you should buy a graphics card now if you need one...an R9 280X is probably a good one to get if at good price...faster than a GTX 960 and usualy cost about the same (BTW the R9 280X is a rebrand of the very old (at this point) HD7970 Tahiti (2012) flagship GPU )

If you can only spend so much more, 270x. If you just can't stretch for the 280x the 960 is a good choice.
 
In terms of performance though it will typically go:
750ti>270x>960>280x

The GTX 750Ti is significantly weaker than the GTX 660, much less the GTX 960. If AMD cards are expensive in Japan then go 960.

If you're worried about power consumption, GTX 960.
 
Otherwise, find a R9 280x around that same price point. 

GTX 960 easily, also I thought it would be GTX 660 or GTX 960 but I was surprised when I saw GTX 750 Ti and GTX 960. There is bloody big gap between those two.

With the low-mid end cards being so cheap, and the R9 300 series being hyped up for the high end performance, probably not.
It'll probably be 3-6 months + before we see the low-mid range cards anyways and even if the 300 series cards are significantly better price/performance than say a 280(x), your CPU probably won't be able to handle them to their full potential all the time anyways. 

I have a 7850K and a 280 (pretty much a 960) and it bottlenecks in some games. If you can get a good OC around 4.4GHz it should be fine though. 

The CX430M has one PCI plug its an 6+2 pin. So, as long as you get a 960 that dosent need more then 8 pins of power, it should work!

Op your PSU is fine , depending on you cpu i would recommend getting a 280.
 
If you have a lower power cpu like the i3 or i5 get a 280.
 
Dont make the same mistake that i did of buying a 2 GB card OP.

To end all this 960 can perform like a 970...
CUDA cores - 1664 for the 970, 1024 for the 960
Memory Clocks - 1050Mhz 970, 1126Mhz 960
Mem /w size - 4GB 256bit bus 970, 2GB 128bit bus 960
Mem Bandwidth - 224GB/s 970, 112.16GB/s 960
 
Just on the clocks the 960 can not even touch, I dont care how much of an overclock you put on it, how much cooling you put on the pcb, the memory alone makes the 970 a different class, My reasons...
 
Memory buffer allows for bigger, better textures, resulting in better image quality, this also counts for resolution driving, the higher resolution you go, the more vRAM you need to drive it, adding better textures onto the pile, it requires a bigger place to put it, so bigger buffers allow for more texture and reso driving before HDD swapping must occur.
I expect most people that are here know this, or understand the basics of the GPU memory buffers, but this alone is proof the 960 cant beat, take into account memory speeds and other things.
 
If you are looking at a competing card look at the 270x/280 (Not X) if you want to look at the 750Ti which is still a great card, compare it to a 260/260x
 
My Rant is over

the 960 will beat it, the 750ti is a budget top end card, if you can afford it go for the 960.
The architecture is the same yes, speeds are not which is where you look for cards, chipset/speed/memory in that order.
For the 960, I would be looking at 270x/280 for comparison, and both of them blow the 750ti out of the water.

Make sure all display drivers are up to date and installed first, and try testing the HDMI cable by using it on the TV or something else to make sure it's functioning properly.

umm no. An apu can only be crossfired with a low end card like an r7 250.
 
An r7 265 can't be crossfired with an apu. The highest performing gpu which can be crossfired is the r7 250.

I currently have an entry-level APU-based gaming PC. However, now that I have accrued a bit more money, I was looking to buy a discreet graphics card. I am not an enthusiast or heavy gamer (and I only have a 1080p 60hz monitor), so I figured getting anything more than a midrange card would be overkill for the budget I have ($150~$200). I was thinking of going with the GTX 750ti because my build only has the CX430M power supply; however, the R7 265 seems like a better card to buy, but I would need to upgrade my PSU. I want your guys' opinion on whether it is worth getting a better PSU to get the R7 265 or I should just purchase the GTX 750ti. 
FYI, I live in Japan but feel free to recommend cards of US pricing.