Laptop for game development

[JackosGame]

Hi there, I'm starting a bachelor degree for game development next year and am in the market for a laptop as I currently do not have one.

I was wondering if it was better to focus my money towards something with a beefy GPU or not bother due to my desktop being more than powerful enough.

I'm not looking to spend any more than AUD$2500. I'm open to any suggestions of laptops with or without decent graphics. The most appealing option to me at this point in time seems to be the Dell XPS15.

 

PC SPECS:

i5-8500 3GHz

980 Ti

16GB DDR4

[r4tch3t]

10 minutes ago, JackosGame said:

Hi there, I'm starting a bachelor degree for game development next year and am in the market for a laptop as I currently do not have one.

I was wondering if it was better to focus my money towards something with a beefy GPU or not bother due to my desktop being more than powerful enough.

I'm not looking to spend any more than AUD$2500. I'm open to any suggestions of laptops with or without decent graphics. The most appealing option to me at this point in time seems to be the Dell XPS15.

 

PC SPECS:

i5-8500 3GHz

980 Ti

16GB DDR4

You'll want as much CPU as you can so you compile times are quicker. Also integrated graphics will be a plus if you want to develop games and test them on a range of hardware. Graphics I'd say something like a 1060, you can always test the game out on the pc at high graphics settings. 16GB is plenty. You could get away with 8GB but 16 is nice. 

To be honest, you probably don't really need that much of a laptop since what you'll be developing, at least for the first year or 2 will be fairly low spec.

Best bet would be to talk to the professor or a current /previous student to find out what you need.

My 2c anyway. 

[Mephi00]

Damn you‘re able to study game development, I would like to too but in germany it only exists at private schools... 

[Mephi00]

I‘d go for the best value with the best cpu because testing can be done on you desktop at home also try to get a light one, so its easy to carry around every day

[genexis_x]

Any preference on weight and battery life? Need good display?

[Settlerteo]

2 hours ago, JackosGame said:

Hi there, I'm starting a bachelor degree for game development next year and am in the market for a laptop as I currently do not have one.

 

 

PC SPECS:

i5-8500 3GHz

980 Ti

16GB DDR4

Congrats on your bachelor decision. Now if you want something to make and test graphics on then a laptop won't suffice or you will spend a ton of money. Instead build a desktop pc. If you want a laptop to write code and probably use Unity on or similar engines, then you don't even need a discrete gpu. Just go for a FHD display, a good processor(i would advise 4 cores either inter or ryzen although in the latter you have very few choices),12 or more RAM and a SSD drive. The laptop you mentioned above has good specs but i d prefer a better processor(although it's a good choice with the 980ti if you want to game on it also).