Which laptop for gaming?

[TechMansReviews]

I am looking to buy a laptop around $1000 price point (but my budget is flexible). 
 

I will be gaming (mainly),  light video/photo editing, as well as continuing to learn blender and Inkscape software. I will also be learning various programming languages and the such. 
 

I have been eyeing the Dell G5 SE 15” laptop, as it seems to provide very good performance and built quality for the price (Dave2D has a very compelling video on It). 
 

What does everyone recommend as the best laptop for me. Also what laptop configuration has the best value for money (for your recommendations as well as the G5 SE). 
 

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

Mr. TechMan

[Bombastinator]

19 minutes ago, TechMansReviews said:

I am looking to buy a laptop around $1000 price point (but my budget is flexible). 
 

I will be gaming (mainly),  light video/photo editing, as well as continuing to learn blender and Inkscape software. I will also be learning various programming languages and the such. 
 

I have been eyeing the Dell G5 SE 15” laptop, as it seems to provide very good performance and built quality for the price (Dave2D has a very compelling video on It). 
 

What does everyone recommend as the best laptop for me. Also what laptop configuration has the best value for money (for your recommendations as well as the G5 SE). 
 

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

Mr. TechMan

TL;DNR. No specifically useful suggestions.  Just general musing about needs.

Video and photo editing can get something from the Nvidia studio drivers but it depends on what you are doing.  Everything else is agnostic because programming (as opposed to compiling) requires near nothing because gaming is agnostic and educational stuff is about learning the gui and capabilities and project size can be fit to the machine.  Light Bias for cores over threads maybe.  Power will be nice though.  Existence of CUDA cores may prove non useles but also might. I’d say “just get a Mac” but the ones worth getting are out of budget.

[TechMansReviews]

9 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

TL;DNR. No specifically useful suggestions.  Just general musing about needs.

Video and photo editing can get something from the Nvidia studio drivers but it depends on what you are doing.  Everything else is agnostic because programming (as opposed to compiling) requires near nothing because gaming is agnostic and educational stuff is about learning the gui and capabilities and project size can be fit to the machine.  Light Bias for cores over threads maybe.  Power will be nice though.  Existence of CUDA cores may prove non useles but also might. I’d say “just get a Mac” but the ones worth getting are out of budget.

I probably should have specified better (I was too vague). I will be compiling as well, but it’s more recreational over professional. More of an after thought of the laptop (I was thinking to upgrade the aforementioned dell to the 8-core model instead of the base 6-core etc.).

 

a Mac wouldn’t work well for me for several reasons. First off they’re not great for gaming. Secondly the price to performance is atrocious on those machines lol. 
 

Thanks for the insight!

[daveholland86]

You can get an i7 9750 and 1660 Ti for $1000.  The rest depends on what design you like.  I would avoid any AMD GPU, you get a Ryzen then shoot your foot with an AMD card.  

[Bombastinator]

33 minutes ago, daveholland86 said:

You can get an i7 9750 and 1660 Ti for $1000.  The rest depends on what design you like.  I would avoid any AMD GPU, you get a Ryzen then shoot your foot with an AMD card.  

I would say Nvidia over AMD is Situational in this case.  Most of the stuff Nvidia is good at is unknown quantities.  There are things only an Nvidia card can do that may be simply needed. The issue is Nvidia generally comes at a price premium.  In the US at least it can be a very large one depending on the card level.  There are points where AMD has no good reply so they’re irrelevant.  The 1650 stands alone as the most powerful gpu that doesn’t need a supplemental power cable, and AMD has no answer for the 2080 series or above either.  If the price premium is negligable for equivalent gaming speed no reason not to get Nvidia.  It only becomes an issue if the price premium is significant.  Then the gains of the Nvidia features for productivity stuff need to be weighed against the Nvidia added cost.  A local costs problem I’m not qualified to treat.