Need new laptop

[RustyHamrLickr]

Hey everyone,

So i'm looking towards replacing my current laptop which is 5 years old and getting slow,loud, and hotter than an AMD card.

The replacement would need to be not too heavy (my current is 8lbs with the plug, which is too much for me to want to bring it to school), with a decent battery life if light usage (I would have access to plugs almost everywhere if needed), and preferrably an SSD, but I can always add it myself.

I would mainly use it to take notes in class, watch movies in bed / internet browsing. But it should be able to run some 3D CAD programs (mainly SolidWorks and Catia) for light assemblies, and some light gaming (I don't mind lowest graphics for my laptop).

 

My max budget is 2000 $CAD.

To give an idea of specs: my current laptop has a i7-2630QM, 6GB ram and a Nvidia GT540M, and can handle most of my CAD needs (CATIA and SolidWorks), and some of my gaming needs (i.e. played Far Cry 3 on it).

 

Thanks

[Networking Wolf]

ever thought about looking into a sagar?

[RustyHamrLickr]

The only time I heard of sager was when Linus did a review of one, and when he showed the config of one on twitter not long ago.

I have to admit that I thought they would be way to expensive and haven't thought of them.

Will look!

[Dackzy]

ThinkPad P50?

 

And DO NOT TRUST LINUS WITH LAPTOPS, he is so shitty at reviewing them.

If you are going after a gaming laptop and you live in the US, look here http://www.hidevolution.com/ they are rebranded clevo laptops with prema bios mod and that is a really good thing

[RustyHamrLickr]

1 minute ago, Dackzy said:

If you are going after a gaming laptop and you live in the US, look here http://www.hidevolution.com/ they are rebranded clevo laptops with prema bios mod and that is a really good thing

I'm not in the US, hence the 2000 $CAD.

I'm also asking advice here as laptop reviews are rare on YT, and aimed outside my needs for most

[Dackzy]

6 minutes ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

I'm not in the US, hence the 2000 $CAD.

I'm also asking advice here as laptop reviews are rare on YT, and aimed outside my needs for most

can you order from hidevolution without getting tax? Clevo laptops are really good.

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/main()ec also have the prema mod bois

[RustyHamrLickr]

10 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

can you order from hidevolution without getting tax? Clevo laptops are really good.

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/main()ec also have the prema mod bois

Seems to be only shiiping fee (min is 50 USD), will check their models.

As for Eurocom, what's prema mod bois?

 

My main problem right now is what graphics card would be good. I saw in some other topics than 10 series GPU where getting kinda hot, and I won't need that much power. So it seems my options are Sager and Eurocom with the 960M and 965M. Would that be enough?

 

I will also keep the ThinkPad P50 in my mind.

 

 

[Dackzy]

Just now, RustyHamrLickr said:

Seems to be only shiiping fee (min is 50 USD), will check their models.

As for Eurocom, what's prema mod bois?

Oh god I don't know that much about it @Pendragon and @D2ultima can explain it much better than I can.

1 minute ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

My main problem right now is what graphics card would be good. I saw in some other topics than 10 series GPU where getting kinda hot, and I won't need that much power. So it seems my options are Sager and Eurocom with the 960M and 965M. Would that be enough?

well the pascal is hot, but Clevo laptops can cool pascal fairly well. I have no idea if a 965m will be enough for you.

2 minutes ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

I will also keep the ThinkPad P50 in my mind.

The P50 is only a good option when we talk performance, if your programs only support Quadro and FirePro cards.

[Pendragon]

14 minutes ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

Seems to be only shiiping fee (min is 50 USD), will check their models.

JOKES. You pay import tax as well if you order from HIDEvolution. Honestly I don't know wtf Eurocom is doing cause they still haven't released their 10 series mobile GPU on any of their laptops yet. So you know just chill out and wait a bit. You can probably pick up a 1060 in your laptop for 1.5k CAD. I just don't know yet cause Eurocom being slow af. 

 

Prema Bios is just a custom bios that a talented guy named Prema made. It basically makes your laptop bios like a desktop motherboard bios with tons of options to tinker and tweak with. For the average user, I doubt you'll use it. BUT, being in Canada, you can only order from Eurocom anyways so you'll get it LOL. Other Clevo vendors in Canada are shit so you kinda have no choice but to order from Eurocom if you're in Canada.

 

Never buy ram or storage or anything upgradable from Eurocom cause it's overpriced. Ask for a quote without any ram and storage and just buy it yourself. And also try to get it shipped to a location where there is only a 5% tax and get it reshipped to wherever you are, cause fuck paying 13-15% tax in high tax provinces. Also 10% student discount. 

[RustyHamrLickr]

9 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

well the pascal is hot, but Clevo laptops can cool pascal fairly well. I have no idea if a 965m will be enough for you.

Ok, good to know.

I considered my old laptop as acceptable gaming wise when I got it, so my (un-informed)-self would think a 960M or 965M would be enough.

Games I play right now are Skyrim (can play it on my laptop at low graphics with no problems), and Black Desert Online (fan is going crazy and loading times are way long on laptop).I wouldn't play much more on it.

[Dackzy]

1 minute ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

Ok, good to know.

I considered my old laptop as acceptable gaming wise when I got it, so my (un-informed)-self would think a 960M or 965M would be enough.

Games I play right now are Skyrim (can play it on my laptop at low graphics with no problems), and Black Desert Online (fan is going crazy and loading times are way long on laptop).I wouldn't play much more on it.

well the 965m is a lot better than what you have, so yeah.. I would look at 1060 laptops since you never know what you might end up playing in a year

[Pendragon]

7 minutes ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

I considered my old laptop as acceptable gaming wise when I got it, so my (un-informed)-self would think a 960M or 965M would be enough

I really really really wouldn't recommend getting 965m laptops right now. They are priced way too close to 1060 laptops that it's really not worth it. When would you need it by?

 

If you need it NOW: http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(1,340,0)ec this is a decent option with a 965m. 

[RustyHamrLickr]

31 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

JOKES. You pay import tax as well if you order from HIDEvolution. Honestly I don't know wtf Eurocom is doing cause they still haven't released their 10 series mobile GPU on any of their laptops yet. So you know just chill out and wait a bit. You can probably pick up a 1060 in your laptop for 1.5k CAD. I just don't know yet cause Eurocom being slow af. 

 

Prema Bios is just a custom bios that a talented guy named Prema made. It basically makes your laptop bios like a desktop motherboard bios with tons of options to tinker and tweak with. For the average user, I doubt you'll use it. BUT, being in Canada, you can only order from Eurocom anyways so you'll get it LOL. Other Clevo vendors in Canada are shit so you kinda have no choice but to order from Eurocom if you're in Canada.

 

Never buy ram or storage or anything upgradable from Eurocom cause it's overpriced. Ask for a quote without any ram and storage and just buy it yourself. And also try to get it shipped to a location where there is only a 5% tax and get it reshipped to wherever you are, cause fuck paying 13-15% tax in high tax provinces. Also 10% student discount. 

I won't need the custom bios, but guess it's nice to have.

Right now Eurocom seems to offer good prices, and I can see them in $CAD. Being able to remove HDD and putting my own SSD will most likely save me money, that's a good thing, thanks for the advices.

Right now I'm hesitating between the Shark 7 (bigger screen) and the 5 (smaller screen, but a bit cheaper and lighter). Any comment on those two?

The quote also can give an estimate of taxes (I'm in QC, so 5% tax it seems), and shipping, which is good to get an idea of the final price.

 

I was looking for a new one now to take advantage of potential back to school rebates, but I don't mind waiting to see the 10 series laptops from Eurocom (if it doesn't take too long)

 

As for Evoc (hidevolution website), the P650RP6 and P670RP6 could be good as well but more expensive (price is in USD it seems).

 

[Pendragon]

3 minutes ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

I was looking for a new one now to take advantage of potential back to school rebates, but I don't mind waiting to see the 10 series laptops from Eurocom (if it doesn't take too long)

I've talked to a few people from Eurocom and those seem to be around 14 days out. From today. I just called a guy to reconfirm it. You're lucky you're in QC lol. ON is 13% and I need to send it to QC and have someone send it back. You can configure it to have no HDD and no SSD. It's almost always cheaper to buy off Amazon or NCIX or even sometimes the dell store (i picked up a extra 1tb 850 evo for like 350cad on the dell ca store which blew my mind). 

 

Both are essentially the same. Only difference is screen size. Battery life bout the same, cooling is bout 1-3% better on 17in purely because it's just bigger and not any cooling implementation change. It's honestly up to you. If you can wait, wait, I don't like the idea of recommending something that's instantly outdated by the time it ships to you. 

[RustyHamrLickr]

Great, I'll wait till they get out to take a look at them. Would have been cool to be able to remove RAM completely too.

Speaking of RAM, I'm not too knowledgeable on laptops, but any reason why the Shark models use DDR3L instead of DDR4? I thought it was CPU related but the Monster 4 seems to have the same CPU but uses DDR4.

Thanks very much for your help @Pendragon and @Dackzy.

Pendragon: In several topics I saw some people saying to get your opinion before taking a decision, I know why now, You're quite knowledgeable. I never knew there were higher taxes in ON, that sucks. Being in QC finally have its perks it seems 

[Pendragon]

14 minutes ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

Would have been cool to be able to remove RAM completely too.

Ask for a custom quote. Eurocom does do it on occasion and depending how you speak to. 

 

14 minutes ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

any reason why the Shark models use DDR3L instead of DDR4?

wow. wtf. LOL. Blame Eurocom. In that case wait for the new ones. Skylake scales well with memory and ddr3l is shit. 

[D2ultima]

1 hour ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

Speaking of RAM, I'm not too knowledgeable on laptops, but any reason why the Shark models use DDR3L instead of DDR4? I thought it was CPU related but the Monster 4 seems to have the same CPU but uses DDR4.

 

1 hour ago, Pendragon said:

wow. wtf. LOL. Blame Eurocom. In that case wait for the new ones. Skylake scales well with memory and ddr3l is shit. 

Skylake has support for DDR3L and DDR4. Personally, since I have 2133MHz 11-11-11-31-1T right now, I can say for certainty I'd never take DDR4 if I had the choice.

 

As for why Eurocom's models have DDR3L instead of DDR4, the N1xxRF models use DDR3L and the N1xxRF1 models (with the MUX switch and gsync support) use DDR4

[Pendragon]

3 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

Skylake has support for DDR3L and DDR4. Personally, since I have 2133MHz 11-11-11-31-1T right now, I can say for certainty I'd never take DDR4 if I had the choice.

Why not?

[Pendragon]

26 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

As for why Eurocom's models have DDR3L instead of DDR4, the N1xxRF models use DDR3L and the N1xxRF1 models (with the MUX switch and gsync support) use DDR4

 

Edited August 25, 2016 by Pendragon
does not have MUX, has MSHybrid

[D2ultima]

Just now, Pendragon said:

Why not?

Because DDR4 timings are awful. DDR4 2133MHz is 15-15-15-35. I'm at 11-11-11-31-1T for the same speeds. It's a pretty huge difference.

 

DDR4 has 3000MHz, yes, but it's at 16-18-18-43-2T. Desktop does it at 14-14-14-34, but because of voltage control. Since we need to unlock sBIOSes to acquire voltage control on laptops, it's not really a thing here. I'd deal with desktop DDR4 but not laptop ones if I had a choice. Laptop RAM is still shitty.

 

Also, considering my sisters have one N155RF each, and there is definitely no MUX switch there, I can say with 100% certainty that they don't have MUX switches or IPS panels.

[Pendragon]

6 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

Also, considering my sisters have one N155RF each, and there is definitely no MUX switch there, I can say with 100% certainty that they don't have MUX switches or IPS panels.

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(1,340,0)ec

It seems to have  AH-IPS and Microsoft Hybrid Graphics switching, just Optimus branding or MUX?

 

Edit: Rip. MHG is optimus rip my information.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Pendragon
i was wrong about something

[Pendragon]

5 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

Because DDR4 timings are awful. DDR4 2133MHz is 15-15-15-35. I'm at 11-11-11-31-1T for the same speeds. It's a pretty huge difference.

 

DDR4 has 3000MHz, yes, but it's at 16-18-18-43-2T. Desktop does it at 14-14-14-34, but because of voltage control. Since we need to unlock sBIOSes to acquire voltage control on laptops, it's not really a thing here. I'd deal with desktop DDR4 but not laptop ones if I had a choice. Laptop RAM is still shitty.

Interesting. RIP. Skylake and things moving forward is going to transition into DDR4 with DDR3L being a rarity. 

[D2ultima]

2 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure(1,340,0)ec

It seems to have  AH-IPS and Microsoft Hybrid Graphics switching. 

That model does not exist on Clevo's website.

 

http://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=913&lang=en

http://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=930&lang=en

 

It's either DDR4 + Gsync/Mux + 4GB 965M, or DDR3L + no gsync/mux + 2GB 965M. There is no combo. There is no mix & match, everything is board soldered. DDR3L = N1xxRD or N1xxRF. DDR4 = N1xxRD1 or N1xxRF1 or N1xxRF1-G.

 

2 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Interesting. RIP. Skylake and things moving forward is going to transition into DDR4 with DDR3L being a rarity. 

DDR4 is only JUST becoming decent for desktops. DDR4 for notebooks is going to remain trash for quite some time until people get the idea that laptops aren't so bloody different from desktops and should allow XMP/overvolt support, and stop gimping sBIOSes. 

[Pendragon]

3 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

snip

so Eurocom probably just grabbed the DDR3L model and added their own IPS screen on it ye?

[D2ultima]

Just now, Pendragon said:

so Eurocom probably just grabbed the DDR3L model and added their own IPS screen on it ye?

Only if the N1xxRx models had an eDP AND LVDS slot in the first place. Who knows, they might have. But those don't have Gsync, correct? That's the clincher. They have no MUX switch either. Those are the N1xxRx models.