Deciding between laptops for moderate gaming
My brother came to me asking for advice on a new laptop because his old one finally gave up the ghost and I am turning to you guys because I could not firmly decide between two models. He has a max budget of $1500 and has a few requirements: it must have a SSD (at least for boot), must have a backlit keyboard, 1920x1080 screen, and be reasonably portable. Uses will be productivity in MS Office, content consumption, and moderate gaming (Civ V, Smite, Bioshock infinite, and would like to be able to in the future run Mass Effect 4 at higher than low settings).
I have narrowed it down to a MSI GE62 Apache (i7 4720HQ, 8GB ram, 1TB HDD, GTX 965m 2GB) and a Gigabyte P35Wv2 (i7 4710HQ, 8GB, 128GB SSD, 1TB HDD, GTX 870m 6GB). Note: would purchase a SSD to add to the the GE62.
It is a difficult decision because the Apache seems to have higher build quality and a brand new gpu but that gpu only has 2GB of VRAM whereas the P35W has 6 and we would have to order a SSD which would add to the cost of the Apache. Also a concern is that the P35W is reviewed to be quite loud at full load. Six GB of vram is ridiculous for 1080p gaming but I don't feel comfortable about 2GB.
Suggestions? Maybe there is a great model that I missed or some flaw I am not seeing. Am I worrying too much about the vram and 2GB is plenty?
For those uses, you will never reach 6GB of VRAM usage. 2GB is perfectly fine with a 965M. Get the MSI.
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