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UK gaming laptop, £600 hard budget. Ideas?

porina
By porina
in Laptops and Pre-Built Systems
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Friend is looking to buy a gaming laptop primarily to run FFXIV. They have stated a hard budget of £600, and had linked me to some old machine with a 950M. Told them to hold off, we can do better. They are not well off and I know even this £600 is a big deal. My personal laptop is the older Asus FX503, 7300HQ, 1050, and it is adequate for 1080p60 at reduced settings. It cost £600 at the time I got it, but as an older model, this doesn't seem to be generally available any more, and the few places that do have it do so at higher price. The laptop they're currently struggling with is one of my old ones I gave as a long term loan after their previous died, with AMD HD era graphics and 1st gen i5 so it is really showing its age.

 

After some looking around, I found the following two on Amazon UK. In a quick look the Asus seems to be a newer variation of mine. While a real SSD would be nice, the HD+Optane would simplify things for them as they're not the most computer literate. The CPU has more threads, lower base clock, higher turbo clock. On paper spec at least, I don't see anything to choose the Acer. I haven't yet dug into details like construction, thermals, or other considerations.

 

Any other suggestions?

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-FX504GD-E4603T-Wide-View-Gaming-Laptop/dp/B07F3JGPW1/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1542300074&sr=8-7&keywords=1050+laptop

ASUS FX504GD-E4603T 15.6 Inch Full HD Wide-View Gaming Laptop - (Black) (Intel Core i5-8300H, 8 GB RAM + 16 GB Intel Optane Memory, 1 TB HDD, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Graphics, Windows 10)

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-A715-71G-Gaming-Notebook/dp/B077RRY18N/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1542300074&sr=8-6&keywords=1050%2Blaptop&th=1

Acer Aspire 7 A715-71G Gaming Notebook - (Intel Core i5-7300HQ, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2G, 15.6" FHD Display, Black)

Main system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, Corsair Vengeance Pro 3200 3x 16GB 2R, RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
Gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion 5, 5800H, RTX 3070, Kingston DDR4 3200C22 2x16GB 2Rx8, Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB + Crucial P1 1TB SSD, 165 Hz IPS 1080p G-Sync Compatible

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Asus one is clearly better as it's basically a renamed i7-7700HQ, 

 

Expect a lot of plastic for cheap laptops like these. Thermals should be just fine, considering they both have higher TDP variants. Their monitors though, very likely to be crappy TN

CPU: i7-2600K 4751MHz 1.44V (software) --> 1.47V at the back of the socket Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 (BCLK: 103.3MHz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 RAM: Adata XPG 2x8GB DDR3 (XMP: 2133MHz 10-11-11-30 CR2, custom: 2203MHz 10-11-10-26 CR1 tRFC:230 tREFI:14000) GPU: Asus GTX 1070 Dual (Super Jetstream vbios, +70(2025-2088MHz)/+400(8.8Gbps)) SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (main boot drive), Transcend SSD370 128GB PSU: Seasonic X-660 80+ Gold Case: Antec P110 Silent, 5 intakes 1 exhaust Monitor: AOC G2460PF 1080p 144Hz (150Hz max w/ DP, 121Hz max w/ HDMI) TN panel Keyboard: Logitech G610 Orion (Cherry MX Blue) with SteelSeries Apex M260 keycaps Mouse: BenQ Zowie FK1

 

Model: HP Omen 17 17-an110ca CPU: i7-8750H (0.125V core & cache, 50mV SA undervolt) GPU: GTX 1060 6GB Mobile (+80/+450, 1650MHz~1750MHz 0.78V~0.85V) RAM: 8+8GB DDR4-2400 18-17-17-39 2T Storage: HP EX920 1TB PCIe x4 M.2 SSD + Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5" SATA SSD, 128GB Toshiba PCIe x2 M.2 SSD (KBG30ZMV128G) gone cooking externally, 1TB Seagate 7200RPM 2.5" HDD (ST1000LM049-2GH172) left outside Monitor: 1080p 126Hz IPS G-sync

 

Desktop benching:

Cinebench R15 Single thread:168 Multi-thread: 833 

SuperPi (v1.5 from Techpowerup, PI value output) 16K: 0.100s 1M: 8.255s 32M: 7m 45.93s

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Its doubtful you are going to find anything better than the fx504 in that budget. It does have some issues, but it's still a very capable machine.

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29 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Expect a lot of plastic for cheap laptops like these. Thermals should be just fine, considering they both have higher TDP variants. Their monitors though, very likely to be crappy TN

The vertical display angle on my FX503 is pretty bad, but still more than usable. Only takes a bit more care getting the angle right.

1 minute ago, markr54632 said:

Its doubtful you are going to find anything better than the fx504 in that budget. It does have some issues, but it's still a very capable machine.

Any issues of note or concern? 

Main system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, Corsair Vengeance Pro 3200 3x 16GB 2R, RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
Gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion 5, 5800H, RTX 3070, Kingston DDR4 3200C22 2x16GB 2Rx8, Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB + Crucial P1 1TB SSD, 165 Hz IPS 1080p G-Sync Compatible

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Thermals, battery life, and crappy screen.

 

On the plus side no soldered ram, m.2 slot, and relatively easy to work on.

 

Before someone says liquid metal will fix thermals it has a poorly designed cooler. Liquid metal does not fix cooler design. It will help transfer hear more efficiently, but not fix the underlying problem.

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1 minute ago, markr54632 said:

Thermals, battery life, and crappy screen.

 

On the plus side no soldered ram, m.2 slot, and relatively easy to work on.

If my FX503 is anything to go buy thermals are adequate in the sense it doesn't throttle, but can get loud. Not much to be done about screen is there?

Main system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, Corsair Vengeance Pro 3200 3x 16GB 2R, RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
Gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion 5, 5800H, RTX 3070, Kingston DDR4 3200C22 2x16GB 2Rx8, Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB + Crucial P1 1TB SSD, 165 Hz IPS 1080p G-Sync Compatible

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14 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Asus one is clearly better

Only if you count in the hardware packed inside. Really bad cooling (even worse than FX503), build quality is kinda meh, probably uses TN panel. At least Aspire 7 only has CPU cooling issue, build quality is alright and has low sRGB IPS panel.

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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36 minutes ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Only if you count in the hardware packed inside. Really bad cooling (even worse than FX503), build quality is kinda meh, probably uses TN panel. At least Aspire 7 only has CPU cooling issue, build quality is alright and has low sRGB IPS panel.

Both of those sub models have the lower quality tn panels.

 

That was why I ended up with a nitro 5 over the a715. The tn screen was much worse and it had the 2gb 1050 (wasnt a big deal to me). 

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35 minutes ago, markr54632 said:

Both of those sub models have the lower quality tn panels

Never heard of TN panel in Aspire 7. Any source for this?

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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7 hours ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Never heard of TN panel in Aspire 7. Any source for this?

The acer community forum has several posts. The a715-71 lineup can have either or. They are very proud of their ips panel and advertise it heavily on the sub models that have it.

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1 hour ago, markr54632 said:

The acer community forum has several posts. The a715-71 lineup can have either or. They are very proud of their ips panel and advertise it heavily on the sub models that have it.

Interesting. I though it only affects Aspire 3 and 5

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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