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Hi guys, So I've been bitten twice so far by poor high-perf laptop thermals and ended up with bulged batteries (despite always having my laptops on a stand + living in freezing Canada of all the places). For my next laptop, I'm considering some config of Dell XPS 17. I'm no hardware expert so would be great to get some advice in terms of maximizing thermals at the least perf loss: 1) Should I go i5-10300H or i7-10750H? Is there any tangible thermal wins here? Can no hyper-threading support bite me at some point? 2) If I'm ok buying an eGPU at a later date, is it a good idea to ditch GTX 1650 and just go for Intel UHD Graphics in order to get best thermals? 3) Should I go for the smallest/cheapest SSD that Dell offers and just replace it with the best-thermals SSD I can find? Do SSDs even have different thermal properties? Any help would be much appreciated!

Great, CASE CLOSED then : )

What was the problem?

The manual of your case seems to show that there's some cable for that indicated as K. It should connect your mobo to your case's power button. If you're sure that you've connected your mobo with the front panel of your case, then it might be that PSU is, indeed, dead.

They can be pretty tricky to connect right. I've built a number of PCs but still had the POWER SW inverted once and it didn't turn on.

It could be that you installed the front panel connector cables wrong. Recheck them, consult the motherboard manual, or check some helper videos online :

Sorry, to hear that. Can you provide more details as to what happens when you press the power button, for example, does it show any signs of life, can you enter the BIOS screen, do you see any signs of the OS booting, etc.

Yeah, their butterfly keyboards are bad. I loved their keyboards before the butterfly, though. As for what's build quality, it's a bit subjective. Build quality for me is how the thing looks and feels to use: do my eyes get tired looking at the screen? Do I find myself adjusting the screen angle all the time? does the screen wobble when I type? does the keyboard have a nice response? do my hands get tired typing or I make many typos? Overall does it feel solid or like a cheap piece of plastic that's about to melt? Canada, I can pay up to $ ~3.7K CAD if it's a good product and has the best of both worlds: solid build/feel + solid performance. Weight and battery life are not really important. Most of the laptops switch to the integrated gpu if you unplug the cable, so given the work I do, I have it plugged in most of the time anyway.

I understand and I didn't say I'm looking for MacBook-like performance laptop. If I liked their performance, I'd be getting a MacBook. I'm looking for a MacBook-like build quality (as in screen, chassis, keyboard, trackpad, etc.) but the thermals and performance of a good content creation/gaming non-MacBook laptop.

Maybe I should, I still haven't crossed out this option completely, but it's just a bit weird to pay a high price for a laptop that has a graphics card that's behind the competitors. Plus, I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm sitting with a 1050ti and then in two years I need to grab a 1070/1080 eGPU. Why then not to start with something that will last me longer. Context: I work in the game development industry and have to travel a lot. So I need something that's capable of running AAA titles well, but that's also good for working with graphics and comfortable for long hours of coding. EDIT: upon further digging, looks like XPS 15" has thermal issues as they haven't upgraded the chassis in the newest models and just slammed in a more powerful CPU (https://youtu.be/18PA3WFFuAo?t=165). The Razer Blade 15" has the vapor chamber cooling going on at least.

Hi guys, I'm starting to get a real headache trying to find the perfect laptop that has the build quality that of a MacBook Pro but with a GTX 1060 or higher. By build quality, I mean: top notch screen (IPS panel, great viewing angles, around or more than 400 nits, sRGB 100%, 100-97% Adobe etc, minimum screen wobble), great centered keyboard without the numpad, centered track pad with good palm rejection, non flimsy chassis, non-gamerish design. I was thinking about the new Razer Blade 15", but after watching some reviews, realized that the screen is quite dim compared to that of a mac book (unless you opt of the 4K Touch screen which apparently has more nits and has better color quality). But then the price blows out of proportion (as that model is also only GTX 1070 + 512GB SSD only) and there's still other issues with it, like the weird arrow key positioning on the keyboard and poor palm rejection of the track pad. A friend at work got the Gigabyte Aero 15", which I was considering at some point as well, but after trying it, realized that the build quality is mediocre - screen's very wobbly, not the best viewing angles, keyboard is meh, etc. Then I found out that one of the best non-apple laptop screens out of there is that of the 2018 Dell XPS 15" and I was like ok, that's a good start... also it has a centered keyboard, good trackpad, etc... BUT it only comes with a GTX 1050 TI (WHY?!). So now I'm looking into MSI GS65 Stealth Thin, but I haven't yet found the proof that the screen is up to par with a MacBook Pro. Some other alternative ideas: Getting the HP Spectre 360 vega + eGPU, but in their latest model they reverted to a full on keyboard with numpad + trackpad on the left (also spectre + eGPU raises the price up to the Razer Blade 15" 4K model). Any recommendations would be much appreciated, also any comments about the screen quality of the MSI GS65. Also any HP Spectre 360 vega owners here, what are your impressions? A summary of my priorities: 1) Perfect 15" screen. 2) Great keyboard (TKL, centered) + trackpad (good palm rejection). 3) Solid chassis. 4) Good thermals. 5) At least a GTX 1060 or higher or, alternatively, something much more underpowered but with an eGPU option.