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Laptop for school and a bit of light gaming?

I need a laptop for school and I also want to run some games on it, so I want a discrete GPU. Does anyone have a suggestion? My budget is about $1760AUD (1340USD), and a metal casing is a must.

 

Thanks in advance.

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What kind of games?

Laptop: 2019 16" MacBook Pro i7, 512GB, 5300M 4GB, 16GB DDR4 | Phone: iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB | Wearables: Apple Watch SE | Car: 2007 Ford Taurus SE | CPU: R7 5700X | Mobo: ASRock B450M Pro4 | RAM: 32GB 3200 | GPU: ASRock RX 5700 8GB | Case: Apple PowerMac G5 | OS: Win 11 | Storage: 1TB Crucial P3 NVME SSD, 1TB PNY CS900, & 4TB WD Blue HDD | PSU: Be Quiet! Pure Power 11 600W | Display: LG 27GL83A-B 1440p @ 144Hz, Dell S2719DGF 1440p @144Hz | Cooling: Wraith Prism | Keyboard: G610 Orion Cherry MX Brown | Mouse: G305 | Audio: Audio Technica ATH-M50X & Blue Snowball | Server: 2018 Core i3 Mac mini, 128GB SSD, Intel UHD 630, 16GB DDR4 | Storage: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad (6TB WD Blue HDD, 12TB Seagate Barracuda, 1TB Crucial SSD, 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD)
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Terraria, modded minecraft, maybe rocket league (im not sure if this classifies as light). Hope that's a bit clearer.

 

EDIT: Sorry forgot to tag @DrMacintosh 

Edited by Ellsta5
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Any new-generation i5 with 8 gigs of ram and a discrete GTX 9xxM GPU should be able to run those games you mentioned.

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2 minutes ago, Mahde232 said:

Any new-generation i5 with 8 gigs of ram and a discrete GTX 9xxM GPU should be able to run those games you mentioned.

9xxM is a generation old now. 10 series is newer.

 

OP, just make sure you don't get an mx150 gpu, that's the mobile version of the gt 1030, and is weak. even less powerful as a 950M i believe.

She/Her

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7 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

9xxM is a generation old now. 10 series is newer.

 

OP, just make sure you don't get an mx150 gpu, that's the mobile version of the gt 1030, and is weak. even less powerful as a 950M i believe.

I just mentioned the 9xx series because it's still powerful enough to run those specific games while being cheap (They ARE indeed 1 gen older, but still do the job).

10xx series are nice, but would spike up the price.

 

EDIT: Check out the Lenovo Yoga 720 15", It has an i7-7700HQ (HQ is more powerful than U variants), a discrete GTX1050 4GB, 512GB M.2 SSD, and it's around the 1k$.

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47 minutes ago, Mahde232 said:

EDIT: Check out the Lenovo Yoga 720 15", It has an i7-7700HQ (HQ is more powerful than U variants), a discrete GTX1050 4GB, 512GB M.2 SSD, and it's around the 1k$.

OP is using it for school. HQ series have poor battery life. my laptop (see signature) gets more than 7 hours with light use. i haven't seen any HQ laptops do that before.

She/Her

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9 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

OP is using it for school. HQ series have poor battery life. my laptop (see signature) gets more than 7 hours with light use. i haven't seen any HQ laptops do that before.

Isn't your cpu under volted tho so it uses less power?

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I have no way of checking prices in AUD as I don't know any retailers to check products, nor know what products are available in that region; but can give you a basis on what to filter down if you have access to a tool like NewEgg's power search or the retailers available down there allow you to search based on parts-

  • GT 1030 and up; with a hardcap on GTX 1050. Anything above that introduces too much heat/ power consumption to be portable/ light enough for daily school use; with ones like the GT 1030 or equivalent MX150 being more than enough for the games you've listed out- while having the horses to drive AAA games on medium-high settings. Unless you're playing on VR or 1440p and up- don't go above this.
  • Any Core U series processor to keep power consumption and heat low; while not being a bottleneck in any day-to-day tasks. I'm in university and do programming in regards to website and database  development- my i3 U series has been actually more than enough for anything I throw at it (minus running a loop 300,000 times to gauge the efficiency of different algorithms which took a few minutes).
  • 12GB of RAM or more- this should be self-explanatory.
  • IPS screen- you're probably going to collaborate in school and will definitely do so in university; if you're showing a design or idea to others in your group- you don't want them having to tilt your screen to see it.

PC in Profile

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Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Very useful. 

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4 hours ago, ramo55 said:

Isn't your cpu under volted tho so it uses less power?

not that i know of... it turbo's to 3.10 ghz... which is to spec on intel's website.

She/Her

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21 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

OP, just make sure you don't get an mx150 gpu, that's the mobile version of the gt 1030, and is weak. even less powerful as a 950M i believe.

MX150 is actually a very decent GPU especially in ultrabooks, it's on par or slightly better than 950M (depends on games), also consume much less power (less power means less heat)

Desktop specs:

Spoiler

AMD Ryzen 5 5600 Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB Gigabyte B550M DS3H mATX

Asrock Challenger Pro OC Radeon RX 6700 XT Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (8Gx2) 3600MHz CL18 Kingston NV2 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD

Montech Century 850W Gold Tecware Nexus Air (Black) ATX Mid Tower

Laptop: Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro 16ACH6

Phone: Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro 8+128

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20 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

HQ series have poor battery life

Except for a few laptops like Dell 7567, Dell XPS 15 and Lenovo Yoga 720, they have solid battery life

Desktop specs:

Spoiler

AMD Ryzen 5 5600 Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB Gigabyte B550M DS3H mATX

Asrock Challenger Pro OC Radeon RX 6700 XT Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (8Gx2) 3600MHz CL18 Kingston NV2 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD

Montech Century 850W Gold Tecware Nexus Air (Black) ATX Mid Tower

Laptop: Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro 16ACH6

Phone: Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro 8+128

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2 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

MX150 is actually a very decent GPU especially in ultrabooks, it's on par or slightly better than 950M (depends on games), also consume much less power (less power means less heat)

oh okay, didn't know that. thanks!

 

2 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Except for a few laptops like Dell 7567, Dell XPS 15 and Lenovo Yoga 720, they have solid battery life

those are out of the OP's pricerange i think. unless you get the low end models, but those won't have HQ cpu's anyway.

She/Her

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