Gaming Laptop Guide - UPDATED RTX Edition!

[linu5]

On 5/22/2018 at 12:13 PM, ZM Fong said:

Clevo P775TM from HIDevolution or ObsidianPC

Will check it out. Thanks. 

 

[Galm]

On 5/22/2018 at 10:56 AM, linu5 said:

Hi Boss @Galm, I am going to pull the trigger recent 2 weeks. 

I checked out all your articles in first post, that's brilliant. 

 

Just want to know if we have up to date deal for what I need as below: 

 

1. Price around $2000. I can afford up to $3000, but I might resell it to junior student in 1~2 years. So I though it might be more difficult to do so if too costly. 

 

2. It's a home laptop, 99% at home, no need portable, definitely 17'' (or above ?), game mainly, don't care of Aesthetic Quality, but do care Built Quality like cooling. 

 

3. I can do some work like repasting and changing M.2 SSD or Memory, but prefer to rest and play without bothering else. 

 

What do you think about laptop upgrading plan ? Buy a top end one and keep it for 3 years then resell,  OR buy an above average laptop for 1~2 years then resell ?  If the difference is just around $200 or so per year, I prefer latter. 

 

As far as I can see best deal for now would be below in your original post, what do you think of that for now? 

Acer Predator 17 with a GTX 1080 for 1999!
http://www.microcenter.com/product/475582/Predator_17_GX-792-7448_173_Gaming_Laptop_Computer_-_Black

 

 

In general buying the highest tier of laptops is never economical.  The performance sweet spot right now is technically probably in the 7th gen 1070 laptops that are like 1500 and less right now.  

 

Eluktronics Mech 15 comes to mind.  Then you can upgrade sooner in the future when newer gpus arrive.  Note though that this gpu gen was extremely long and should finally get replaced later this year by Volta/Ampere/whatever.

[D13H4RD]

On 3/16/2018 at 8:57 PM, ZM Fong said:

I heard that QC of MSI gaming laptops is dropping lately. Is it true?

No real confirmation yet, but MSI's QC hasn't exactly been great, alongside ASUS.

 

One of the issues with some MSI machines is the bezel separating from the display due to a weak adhesive. Don't think it's all that widespread but I was considering an MSI GS63VR alongside the GL502VM but after hearing of someone's GS and GE62 having that issue, I turned away.

 

I hope many of the QA issues are resolved because the GE and especially the GT line are pretty good performers. 

[Castdeath97]

Does anyone know of any skins that I can get for my P650hp6? Would be nice to cover the black aluminium from scratches.

[linu5]

18 hours ago, Galm said:

Eluktronics Mech 15 comes to mind. 

Thanks for reply. How is build quality of Eluktronics Mec series ? 

 

I just bought Acer Predator 17 X from Micro Center according to your original post link. 

 

I am very satisfied with it except full stress load cooling, but Grizzly Conductonaut is shipping on the way now. 

 

Vermintide 2 with highest graphic setting is about 60~100FPS (100FPS for most of time), 70~80C, without OC. 

 

 

[Galm]

4 hours ago, linu5 said:

Thanks for reply. How is build quality of Eluktronics Mec series ? 

 

I just bought Acer Predator 17 X from Micro Center according to your original post link. 

 

I am very satisfied with it except full stress load cooling, but Grizzly Conductonaut is shipping on the way now. 

 

Vermintide 2 with highest graphic setting is about 60~100FPS (100FPS for most of time), 70~80C, without OC. 

 

 

It's pretty good it seems.  The suggestalaptop discord has owners if you wanna talk with some.

[linu5]

On 5/25/2018 at 5:54 PM, Galm said:

It's pretty good it seems.  The suggestalaptop discord has owners if you wanna talk with some.

Thanks, did you mean "https://www.reddit.com/r/SuggestALaptop" ? 

 

I have got Grizzly Conductonaut, and conformal coating is on the way. Will apply it this weekend. 

 

I also found "Predator 17x 1080gtx owners lounge" (http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/predator-17x-1080gtx-owners-lounge.802834)

 

It's my first Acer laptop, so far pretty satisfied. Your build quality article is very informative and helpful. As I believe most of us don't want to spend endless time to tune and troubleshoot the laptop, but would rather rest and play games. Anyway that's why we need a gaming laptop, aren't we ~ 

 

 

[Galm]

3 hours ago, linu5 said:

Thanks, did you mean "https://www.reddit.com/r/SuggestALaptop" ? 

 

I have got Grizzly Conductonaut, and conformal coating is on the way. Will apply it this weekend. 

 

I also found "Predator 17x 1080gtx owners lounge" (http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/predator-17x-1080gtx-owners-lounge.802834)

 

It's my first Acer laptop, so far pretty satisfied. Your build quality article is very informative and helpful. As I believe most of us don't want to spend endless time to tune and troubleshoot the laptop, but would rather rest and play games. Anyway that's why we need a gaming laptop, aren't we ~ 

 

 

Yeah the sidebar has a discord link.  It's been pretty helpful for people with a lot of questions.

 

And thanks about the guide.  It was hard to put together, not sure I'll do the same for the next gpu gen.

[linu5]

17 hours ago, Galm said:

Yeah the sidebar has a discord link.  It's been pretty helpful for people with a lot of questions.

 

And thanks about the guide.  It was hard to put together, not sure I'll do the same for the next gpu gen.

 

I am in the discord group now.  Glad to see we have a chat group 24X7

 

Please do the same for next gpu gen. If I had known Alienware heatsink issue and sucking keyboard 2 years ago, I wouldn't have suffered such a long time. 

 

Build Quality is very difficult to identify by just googling it.  Good review is not just that A is better than B, but put all things together, give all options, but note in terms of X, A>B>C>D... in terms of Y, .... etc

 

That's pretty tough work, common end user like me couldn't possibly do it. You are a hero and you rock  

[q54528]

Gigabyte has a large battery ， it would be my first choose  

[Galm]

17 hours ago, q54528 said:

Gigabyte has a large battery ， it would be my first choose  

They have plenty of cons vs other brands like build quality concerns and firmware issues.

[q54528]

22 hours ago, q54528 said:

Gigabyte has a large battery ， it would be my first choose  

Thanks

[A5let]

Hey guys!

A5let here!

I just joined a few minutes ago after watching one of Linus' tech videos, and I have a serious question I want to ask.

 

So I'm debating between getting a gaming laptop and a cloud gaming subscription. The one cloud gaming service I am leaning towards is called Shadow (here's the link: https://shadow.tech/usen) So, what I want to know is if this service is a viable option to a gaming laptop and can it be used easily in real-world situations with varying internet speeds that I may come across at home, while traveling, and at school. And if not, what gaming laptop would be a good fit to play Space Engineers under 900 dollars at medium to high settings on multiplayer.

[Visesh Kodali]

On 2/1/2017 at 12:59 PM, Galm said:

Has it been mentioned?  I've only joined here in the last month or so and am still ramping up how active I am here.

 

Feel free to leave feedback.  I've gotten a ton of good feedback over there, I'd love to get the same here.  It's a lot more polished than my original post months ago that's for sure.

 

@D2Ultima and @hmscott left me a lot of good feedback along with others who may or may not also be members here.

What is your opinion on the MSI gs65 Stealth thin. Im looking for a no portable gaming laptop I travel everyday for about 2-21/2 hours so portability is very important. Im trying to decide primarily between MSI g65 thin/ Razer Blade2018 but want to make sure i'm not missing anything else that is equally powerful/portable

[Galm]

On 7/19/2018 at 5:32 PM, Visesh Kodali said:

What is your opinion on the MSI gs65 Stealth thin. Im looking for a no portable gaming laptop I travel everyday for about 2-21/2 hours so portability is very important. Im trying to decide primarily between MSI g65 thin/ Razer Blade2018 but want to make sure i'm not missing anything else that is equally powerful/portable

The thin and lights are all pretty bad.  A liquid metaled GM501 is pretty decent.

[Bruak]

any rumors on when the mobile RTX are coming?

[genexis_x]

10 hours ago, Bruak said:

any rumors on when the mobile RTX are coming?

According to @sicily428 it should be December 2018 or early next year

[seriousseriouspunch]

You can do this the hard way and wait or get a GM501. The choice is yours.

 

 

Been a owner of a Zephyrus M for a short time but its a great piece of kit. I am considering the liquid metal but taking the cooling assembly off from under those fragile cables and connectors sounds like such a chore. Ah, man Ill just go buy the liquid metal today

[Castdeath97]

@Galm Okay, I seem to have stumbled upon the worst Clevo seller in existence. My P650HP6 have been overheating non stop and apparently they think it’s normal if it’s 94 degrees. Thankfully it’s bad enough to be higher than that, but I’m not even sure it would come back fixed ...

 

[Castdeath97]

16 hours ago, Castdeath97 said:

@Galm Okay, I seem to have stumbled upon the worst Clevo seller in existence. My P650HP6 have been overheating non stop and apparently they think it’s normal if it’s 94 degrees. Thankfully it’s bad enough to be higher than that, but I’m not even sure it would come back fixed ...

 

 

Okay, serious question. Are temperatures of around 95 average and 99 max without fan boost and 90 average and 97 max with fan boost normal? Does the P650HP6-G (i7 7700hq) really overheat that often? What temperatures are you people here getting if you owned one? 

I have had mine sent out, but what should I be expecting and should I ask for a better paste to be applied perhaps? And, I have been considering replacing the battery, should I get it replaced?

[Galm]

14 hours ago, Castdeath97 said:

Okay, serious question. Are temperatures of around 95 average and 99 max without fan boost and 90 average and 97 max with fan boost normal? Does the P650HP6-G (i7 7700hq) really overheat that often? What temperatures are you people here getting if you owned one? 

I have had mine sent out, but what should I be expecting and should I ask for a better paste to be applied perhaps? And, I have been considering replacing the battery, should I get it replaced?

It's more important to check throttling than temps.  While those temps are bad some laptops still hold clocks.  

 

I'd run a benchmark that measures throttling like AIDA64 dual cpu and gpu benchmark and see what happens.  If you're throttling that's a problem.  My P650RS with liquid metal had temps like 20C lower than that.  A normal well pasted unit I'd expect in the 80s.

[Castdeath97]

On 10/18/2018 at 1:02 AM, Galm said:

It's more important to check throttling than temps.  While those temps are bad some laptops still hold clocks.  

 

I'd run a benchmark that measures throttling like AIDA64 dual cpu and gpu benchmark and see what happens.  If you're throttling that's a problem.  My P650RS with liquid metal had temps like 20C lower than that.  A normal well pasted unit I'd expect in the 80s.

Finally got the system back from them, and this time they said they used a paste for newer Clevo. Whatever they used seemed to have fixed the problem significantly, Horzion 4 once used to brutally murder my CPU making it hit 94 easily with fan overdrive, now I can’t manage to get it over 74 without fan overdrive. 

 

The overheating was was so bad it made me think Horizon 4 was CPU intensive.

[Galm]

Guide will be update once RTX arrives.

[RaginL33]

On 7/19/2018 at 3:32 PM, Visesh Kodali said:

What is your opinion on the MSI gs65 Stealth thin. Im looking for a no portable gaming laptop I travel everyday for about 2-21/2 hours so portability is very important. Im trying to decide primarily between MSI g65 thin/ Razer Blade2018 but want to make sure i'm not missing anything else that is equally powerful/portable

I am in the same boat. I am looking in the US for the best overall (battery life, power, cooling, etc) portable gaming rig at or under 2k. So far I am between:

 

Razor Blade 15

MSI GS 65 

GIGABYTE Aero 15X v8-BK4

 

As of now the GigaByte and MSI are in the lead due to having a 1070 vs Razor having the 1060 at that price point but I am unfamiliar with those manufacturers.

 

I am aware that any portable gaming rig is going to have heat issues as well as a less than stellar battery life. 

 

My questions are:

 

Out of the three which (likely) has the highest/lowest overall longevity?

Which is least/most likely to have bugs?

Which has the best/worst thermal properties?

Is there another option I should consider and why?

 

TIA

 

[Galm]

6 hours ago, RaginL33 said:

I am in the same boat. I am looking in the US for the best overall (battery life, power, cooling, etc) portable gaming rig at or under 2k. So far I am between:

 

Razor Blade 15

MSI GS 65 

GIGABYTE Aero 15X v8-BK4

 

As of now the GigaByte and MSI are in the lead due to having a 1070 vs Razor having the 1060 at that price point but I am unfamiliar with those manufacturers.

 

I am aware that any portable gaming rig is going to have heat issues as well as a less than stellar battery life. 

 

My questions are:

 

Out of the three which (likely) has the highest/lowest overall longevity?

Which is least/most likely to have bugs?

Which has the best/worst thermal properties?

Is there another option I should consider and why?

 

TIA

 

Are you in the U.S.?  The new generation of gaming gpu comes out tomorrow...  You should wait for that.