Buying a laptop for next semester

[SpaceMudkips]

My first post here! I finally got around to checking out this forum and it seems like a pretty cool place. I miss that feeling of going through an old school forum, so hopefully you'll see me around more often .

 

Anyways, my old laptop is in rough shape after lugging it around my college campus the past few years. I could use some help figuring out what one I should get. It's a bit of a longer post, but I figured it would be better to be as specific as possible to help narrow down what I need. I'd like to hear what you guys think!

 

What I'm looking for:

 

Soft limit of $1500 USD. I'm willing to go a little higher for a large bump in quality, but would prefer to stay under that price.

 

Looking for a 15" screen, my current 17" laptop is just too much to carry around.

   

Expandable storage: It would be nice to have extra room for games, but I'll probably end up getting a bigger SSD anyways.

 

Thunderbolt 3: Would be really handy for things like an eGPU or extra peripherals. Not strictly mandatory but it would be nice to play with.

 

A built in webcam is a must. It doesn't even need to be a good one. My gold standard is that my face looks like a Minecraft block. Anything above that is just a nice bonus.

 

Solid build quality. Something that can handle being lugged around in a backpack.

 

Suitable for gaming: A laptop with an RTX 2060 would be nice, but a 1660 Ti might be better at this price point.

 

What I've been looking at:

 

RoG Zephyrus G15: looks fantastic for the price, but the lack of webcam kills it for me. I could get a separate cam, but it's one more thing to lug around and lose/forget.

 

Asus TUF A15: Also looks good for the price. I like the more rugged build since I move around a lot. The lack of Thunderbolt 3 is a bit of a bummer though. I haven't seen any in stock, but I can wait a few weeks before I have to buy it.

 

Razer Blade 15: It looks like a solid laptop and has pretty favorable reviews. It looks like a pretty close match to what I'm looking for. I'd probably get the 1660 Ti model to keep it under my budget, but i won't throw out picking up the next model up.

 

MSI GS66: This one is also a decent match, as it seems to check off all of the boxes and is right at the 1500 mark. I'll probably end up buying a bigger m.2 drive at some point, but I'd throw the SSD from my current laptop in the second m.2 slot when I get it just to have some extra breathing room.

 

Right now it looks like it's either going to be the Razer or MSI laptop, but I'd like to hear some other people's thoughts before I buy anything though.




 

[5x5]

The Zephyrus or the GS. The A15 is a lower tier and the Blade Stealth is horrid quality wise. It's electrical design and components are some of the worst on the market. Do NOT buy it

[Lord Vile]

https://m.dell.com/h5/m/r/outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7UdRYrUtlWR0XyhtYh%2fZAoK9HzF5ytSUf0OmlDNtZt95UVwyjSmM2TECynUZ9Jgy67CUK4QoYtBH0uobmkzY8bLZU%2frWUTQuEU4VcRJ3NiAf5TiXNUKozqHAwYOdIu1aCjm%2fKeSn2T%2f7Fk3BHraNoB4yO2nxZcveT3Bm2peFG5wmUf7c2j6pvfWe8%3d

 

Any good?

[5x5]

2 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

https://m.dell.com/h5/m/r/outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7UdRYrUtlWR0XyhtYh%2fZAoK9HzF5ytSUf0OmlDNtZt95UVwyjSmM2TECynUZ9Jgy67CUK4QoYtBH0uobmkzY8bLZU%2frWUTQuEU4VcRJ3NiAf5TiXNUKozqHAwYOdIu1aCjm%2fKeSn2T%2f7Fk3BHraNoB4yO2nxZcveT3Bm2peFG5wmUf7c2j6pvfWe8%3d

 

Any good?

This model is known for heat issues. I'd strongly suggest avoiding Dell's G series at the moment. The G3 have severe hinge issues as a result of a design flaw which causes them to break very fast under normal use and the G5/G7 are very thermally overloaded.

[5x5]

I mean - 101*C is just...wow

[Lord Vile]

2 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

This model is known for heat issues. I'd strongly suggest avoiding Dell's G series at the moment. The G3 have severe hinge issues as a result of a design flaw which causes them to break very fast under normal use and the G5/G7 are very thermally overloaded.

Just drop the wattage then? Just for gaming you don’t really need that much CPU and I’d take a 2060 over the 1660Tis in other laptops around the same price 

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Lord Vile said:

Just drop the wattage then? Just for gaming you don’t really need that much CPU and I’d take a 2060 over the 1660Tis in other laptops around the same price 

you'll be CPU limited then. If you're running at 2.6-2.8GHz, the 1660 Ti would get bottlenecked, let alone the 2060. Not to mention the OP shouldn't have to lose half his CPU performance because Dell can't design a laptop cooler

[Lord Vile]

4 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

you'll be CPU limited then. If you're running at 2.6-2.8GHz, the 1660 Ti would get bottlenecked, let alone the 2060. Not to mention the OP shouldn't have to lose half his CPU performance because Dell can't design a laptop cooler

You do know the base frequency is 2.6Ghz and the 4.5Ghz on intel chips isn’t sustained right? The picture you sent the chip is running at 2.9 under 100% artificial load which you won’t hit when gaming. 

[5x5]

Just now, Lord Vile said:

You do know the base frequency is 2.6Ghz and the 4.5Ghz on intel

chips isn’t sustained right? The pic tore you sent the chip is running at 2.9 under 100% artificial load which you won’t hit when gaming. 

4.5 is thermal velocity boost. it is NEVER sustained for more than 30 seconds. And the 2.9 is because the CPU has hit Tj max and safety measures have locked it to 25-30W of power maximum. And that's still pretty shit considering you're losing near half your performance. The GPU is also power throttling because it has hit tj max and is downclocking to save itself from cooking. Or do you think a 2060 running at 1000MHz (normal clock 1700) is normal or good?

[Lord Vile]

6 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

4.5 is thermal velocity boost. it is NEVER sustained for more than 30 seconds. And the 2.9 is because the CPU has hit Tj max and safety measures have locked it to 25-30W of power maximum. And that's still pretty shit considering you're losing near half your performance. The GPU is also power throttling because it has hit tj max and is downclocking to save itself from cooking. Or do you think a 2060 running at 1000MHz (normal clock 1700) is normal or good?

You aren’t losing half your performance though. You’re losing 1Ghz off your all core boost at 100% load during a synthetic stress test that will never happen during gaming. Stress tests for for test if overclocks not trying to overheat a laptop because if you leave them long enough they will all overheat barring your monsters that weight more than an ITX system. 
 

The GPU shouldn’t be throttling at 70 degrees the TJMax for nvidia cards is 88 AMD personally would be fine with it sitting over 80. 

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Lord Vile said:

You aren’t losing half your performance though. You’re losing 1Ghz off your all core boost at 100% load during a synthetic stress test that will never happen during gaming. Stress tests for for test if overclocks not trying to overheat a laptop because if you leave them long enough they will all overheat barring your monsters that weight more than an ITX system. 
 

The GPU shouldn’t be throttling at 70 degrees the TJMax for nvidia cards is 88 AMD personally would be fine with it sitting over 80. 

The GPU also hits 100*C in that laptop. It's a shared cooling system.

 

And you're still running slower than any Ryzen 7 4800H(S) and 1660 Ti combo so I don't see why the OP should buy an overheating Dell laptop as opposed to a fully functional Zephyrus or MSI GS66