Laptop advice. GIS use case with some gaming.

[Lidelse]

So I have killed my laptop for work. It's old. Like 9 years old. An msi ghost pro 4k gs60 6qe. Like 6th Gen core i7 gtx 780m GPU. I upgraded the ram to 32 gm and I have a 1 tb sshd in the sata slot and a 2 tb gen4 nvme ssd. Anyway doesn't matter it's old. But I'd need equivalent ram. And I would want a high end gpu/cpu to make it last. I finally dumped an entire latte on it after 9 years. Eesh. 

 

I had been considering a replacement next year. Maybe strix halo but I have to replace now. So only asus has strix point laptops actually for sale at this time. And if I look at the 2300 usd Zephyrus one with a rtx 4070 and 32 gb of ram inside that's more than I would pay for say an Intel core i7 laptop by msi. Msi and others are supposed to release strix point options in maybe October. I don't know that prices will be better with competition. But my big issue with this asus one is it uses liquid metal for thermal compound. I don't know tons about that but how safe is liquid metal for long term usage? I do game but mostly this will be for doing heavy GIS workloads. Gaming is basically a bonus out of this. If anyone has any advice that would be great. And ty In advance as this is my first post here! 

 

To be fair I could leave it plugged in I guess. But having better battery life would just be nicer. I'm a little apprehensive about Intel chips right now though I know they claim the laptop chips aren't having the same issues as desktop ones. 

 

I am open to options and such. Tbh I actually despise soldered ram but it's the only option for strix point. And I guess upcoming lunar lake stuff from Intel unless I'm mistaken? 

[Zenny232323]

40 minutes ago, Lidelse said:

So I have killed my laptop for work. It's old. Like 9 years old. An msi ghost pro 4k gs60 6qe. Like 6th Gen core i7 gtx 780m GPU. I upgraded the ram to 32 gm and I have a 1 tb sshd in the sata slot and a 2 tb gen4 nvme ssd. Anyway doesn't matter it's old. But I'd need equivalent ram. And I would want a high end gpu/cpu to make it last. I finally dumped an entire latte on it after 9 years. Eesh. 

 

I had been considering a replacement next year. Maybe strix halo but I have to replace now. So only asus has strix point laptops actually for sale at this time. And if I look at the 2300 usd Zephyrus one with a rtx 4070 and 32 gb of ram inside that's more than I would pay for say an Intel core i7 laptop by msi. Msi and others are supposed to release strix point options in maybe October. I don't know that prices will be better with competition. But my big issue with this asus one is it uses liquid metal for thermal compound. I don't know tons about that but how safe is liquid metal for long term usage? I do game but mostly this will be for doing heavy GIS workloads. Gaming is basically a bonus out of this. If anyone has any advice that would be great. And ty In advance as this is my first post here! 

 

To be fair I could leave it plugged in I guess. But having better battery life would just be nicer. I'm a little apprehensive about Intel chips right now though I know they claim the laptop chips aren't having the same issues as desktop ones. 

 

I am open to options and such. Tbh I actually despise soldered ram but it's the only option for strix point. And I guess upcoming lunar lake stuff from Intel unless I'm mistaken? 

Sorry to hear it, rest in lattes.
I would look for a dissasembled look of the board and see how's the sealing. If it's good, then liquid metal will be good. If it lasts for a few years, you might have to get it reaplied, and you'd have to pay a premium since whoever will be working on it is taking extra risk of shorting out the laptop.
As for what laptop you should get

Here's a killer one I managed to find: Legion Pro 5i Gen 9. 32 gigs, 4070 with a 14700HX and a 240hz display for a whopping 1700$. Here's the beauty tho: you get one 512gb nvme ssd, which I wouldnt bother upping to a 1tb for 70 canadian. You can instead use the other nvme slot and slap a 2TB NVME if you felt like it. Oh and the RAM's not soldered. I suggest seeing if you have one of these near-by for the same price. To be honest I'd probably buy this myself since I have discounts on Lenovo's website, lol.

Edit: also has upgradeable Wi-Fi, if that's your thing.

Edited September 17 by Zenny232323
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[Lidelse]

Awesome! Thanks! Yeah I had looked at some others outside of the strix stuff but wasn't sure how they would stand up. Upgradable wifi is nice as right now wifi 6e is fine but wifi 7 down the line would be great. And Lenovo is great my boss uses a ThinkPad carbon and it's fantastic if you don't want a dgpu for all the map making. So I'd definitely check out their stuff. I'm not like stuck to brands which is why I've always liked pc as a platform. 

[Lidelse]

On 9/17/2024 at 6:38 PM, Zenny232323 said:

Sorry to hear it, rest in lattes.
I would look for a dissasembled look of the board and see how's the sealing. If it's good, then liquid metal will be good. If it lasts for a few years, you might have to get it reaplied, and you'd have to pay a premium since whoever will be working on it is taking extra risk of shorting out the laptop.
As for what laptop you should get

Here's a killer one I managed to find: Legion Pro 5i Gen 9. 32 gigs, 4070 with a 14700HX and a 240hz display for a whopping 1700$. Here's the beauty tho: you get one 512gb nvme ssd, which I wouldnt bother upping to a 1tb for 70 canadian. You can instead use the other nvme slot and slap a 2TB NVME if you felt like it. Oh and the RAM's not soldered. I suggest seeing if you have one of these near-by for the same price. To be honest I'd probably buy this myself since I have discounts on Lenovo's website, lol.

Edit: also has upgradeable Wi-Fi, if that's your thing.

I wanted to thank you. I went with a Lenovo. Got the legion pro 7i with an i9 14900hx and a 4070 2 tb ssd for 1900 usdISH. Was a bit more expensive than the 5i but should be a tad more performant for less than 500 more! Ty so much! 

[Zenny232323]

On 9/20/2024 at 8:51 PM, Lidelse said:

I wanted to thank you. I went with a Lenovo. Got the legion pro 7i with an i9 14900hx and a 4070 2 tb ssd for 1900 usdISH. Was a bit more expensive than the 5i but should be a tad more performant for less than 500 more! Ty so much! 

You're welcome, just please don't put it on your bed and suffocate it.