Gaming/Editing laptop.

[_Grid21]

I have a 9, almost 10 year old laptop that I am getting really sick and tired of dealing with and watching it just slowly die is getting old. I've been trying to just find a great laptop that has a 6th Gen i7 and a desktop class 1060 or 1080 for around $1,000 or so. I saw the review Linus did on the Razer Blade Pro, and I also saw a review he did on a MSi laptop. But Razer is like insane with their prices even though I REALLY liked the specs. So what's out there that's got what I am looking for? I'd be doing video editing and playing games such as Just Cause 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and a few other AAA titles in future. I like working with Dell, Asus, and Sagar, but if there are better laptops from other companies that's ok too.

 

Thanks

Grid

[gtx1060=value]

honestly, the hp omen laptop is actually really good - you can completely customize it to specs and it looks really sleek as well;

[_Grid21]

12 minutes ago, gtx1060=value said:

honestly, the hp omen laptop is actually really good - you can completely customize it to specs and it looks really sleek as well;

Ok, that's one, what else is out there?

[_Grid21]

18 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

For 1000? Pretty sure 1060 laptops start at like 1300. The MSI G63VR seems to be what you're looking for

That seems alright, How much better or worse would it be compared to a razer blade Pro or Omen 17. Or for that matter, the Dell Inspiron 17, I think it's called that. 

[_Grid21]

1 minute ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

The Inspiron 15 7559 is still using a 960m. Maybe you're thinking of the XPS 15?

It holds its own against either, although the blade pro has a slightly better CPU but probably worse cooling. 

 

There is just so much to consider. Let me tell you my desktop rig. I have a 4790 i7, 16 GBs of ram, and a 980 Ti by EVGA. What laptop out there can compete with that set up or better, or have what I am looking for as mentioned above.

[_Grid21]

Just now, wrathoftheturkey said:

You're probably looking at a laptop 1070 at least, and nothing short of a 6700HQ 

Ok that narrows the playing field, now, what company and model should I do my research on? Also thank you for your great help!

[_Grid21]

1 minute ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

Razer is overpriced and comes with a fair share of thermal and quality control problems. Alienware is similarly overpriced for the most part. Probably MSI, ASUS, Acer (off the top of my head, I'm sure there are plenty more)

 

And see this is where my trouble begins, I know of those companies, I know what their customer support is as I work in IT repair, but I also really want a solid laptop that will take any punch I throw at it in a moments notice. Which is why I've been looking for a 6th gen Intel, and a 1060 or higher GPU but not for a insane amount of money because I bet if the truth came out, those laptops are not as pricey as their marked up to be. 

[Pendragon]

5 hours ago, Josh_Grid21 said:

snip

Asus: Nothing.

Acer: Nothing.

Razer: Nothing.

MSI: GT73VR, GT72VR, GS63VR

Clevo: Pretty much anything with Pascal (P870DM3, P775DM2, P670RS, P650RS, P670RP6, P650RP6)

 

Side note: Alienware if you a) like tinkering with things and want to fix the laptop yourself (if it's not fixed it's fucked), b) find the right price for it. 

 

The lowest priced 1060 laptop is the P650RP6 from Eluktronics on Newegg specifcally, generally retails around $1200 on SALE. 

 

[_Grid21]

18 hours ago, Pendragon said:

Asus: Nothing.

Acer: Nothing.

Razer: Nothing.

MSI: GT73VR, GT72VR, GS63VR

Clevo: Pretty much anything with Pascal (P870DM3, P775DM2, P670RS, P650RS, P670RP6, P650RP6)

 

Side note: Alienware if you a) like tinkering with things and want to fix the laptop yourself (if it's not fixed it's fucked), b) find the right price for it. 

 

The lowest priced 1060 laptop is the P650RP6 from Eluktronics on Newegg specifcally, generally retails around $1200 on SALE. 

 

 

Well I have seen some gaming laptops from Asus I did like, Acer I don't like them at all because their customer care and laptops are junk to me. I like Razer for some of their products and HP I've kinda hated because of their customer care and driver support seems kinda bad. Although the HP Omen did seem closer to what I was looking for. I've heard that MSI is like scrapping from the bottom of the barrel. 

[Pendragon]

50 minutes ago, Josh_Grid21 said:

Well I have seen some gaming laptops from Asus I did like, Acer I don't like them at all because their customer care and laptops are junk to me. I like Razer for some of their products and HP I've kinda hated because of their customer care and driver support seems kinda bad. Although the HP Omen did seem closer to what I was looking for. I've heard that MSI is like scrapping from the bottom of the barrel. 

Sure. I'm just objectively saying nothing that Asus and Acer offer are competitive to others in the market. MSI is up there. 

[_Grid21]

12 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Sure. I'm just objectively saying nothing that Asus and Acer offer are competitive to others in the market. MSI is up there. 

Is MSi good quality and for that matter, is HP good too? Also what does Dell offer compared to everyone else? 

[Pendragon]

1 hour ago, Josh_Grid21 said:

Snip

HP can largely be ignored as well cept their professional line. Their Elitebooks and Zbooks are really good. I'm using one. 

 

Dell has good models. XPS lineup is good though they have funny issues like the heatsink not touching the dram on different batches. Alienware in my opinion is good for a highly experienced individuals who have the time and knowledge to fix it. They have older unlocked bios versions and are not fully locked down. Mostly, if u find it for the right price its fine. I know @D2ultima doesn't agree but he's right in that it requires an absurd amount of effort to get it working properly. Retail priced AWs are not worth it. 

 

HP Omen is okay. If u find it for the right price. I'd say it's slightly better than the 7559. 

[_Grid21]

32 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

HP can largely be ignored as well cept their professional line. Their Elitebooks and Zbooks are really good. I'm using one. 

 

Dell has good models. XPS lineup is good though they have funny issues like the heatsink not touching the dram on different batches. Alienware in my opinion is good for a highly experienced individuals who have the time and knowledge to fix it. They have older unlocked bios versions and are not fully locked down. Mostly, if u find it for the right price its fine. I know @D2ultima doesn't agree but he's right in that it requires an absurd amount of effort to get it working properly. Retail priced AWs are not worth it. 

 

HP Omen is okay. If u find it for the right price. I'd say it's slightly better than the 7559. 

 

 

So basically, There isn't really a good option no matter where you go?  the 7559 was made by which company again? 

 

EDIT: I found this model, the Asus GL502. Thoughts? The price is nice.

[D2ultima]

33 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Alienware in my opinion is good for a highly experienced individuals who have the time and knowledge to fix it. They have older unlocked bios versions and are not fully locked down. Mostly, if u find it for the right price its fine. I know @D2ultima doesn't agree but he's right in that it requires an absurd amount of effort to get it working properly. Retail priced AWs are not worth it. 

My problem with the AWs is that if the GPU has proper contact, the CPU does not. And if the CPU has proper contact, the GPU does not. They refuse to warranty-fix any existing sold models with CPU issues, and their band-aid for the CPU, while effective (for the CPU), imbalances the GPU contact (which they fix by tossing a ridiculous amount of paste at it, I believe) and I cannot really stand that. As a company, they fail. As a product, it fails.

 

I would not recommend a single AW current gen model for any reason. The unified heatsink design being imbalanced contact for one side instantly means that either new heatsinks need production to rectify the contact issue, or you're going to have one side with bad contact at all times. They want a recommendation? They can fix their fucking product and do right by their consumers. Is it going to cost them tens of thousands of dollars? Probably, but that's not our problem. It's theirs, for designing it, testing it and giving it the ok, selling it to customers, and then stating that it's "not a problem":

 

3 hours ago, Josh_Grid21 said:

I like Razer for some of their products

I think you grossly misunderstand how bad Razer's products are. Reviewers never paint them in a bad light or say anything bad about them until the period at which saying such things does not affect Razer's sales any longer. But they do not make good products. If you're considering them, then HP Omen and Acer Nitros are basically par for the course as well... they just don't look as pretty and aren't as thin. Their support is probably better.

 

On 12/24/2016 at 0:51 AM, Josh_Grid21 said:

There is just so much to consider. Let me tell you my desktop rig. I have a 4790 i7, 16 GBs of ram, and a 980 Ti by EVGA. What laptop out there can compete with that set up or better, or have what I am looking for as mentioned above.

The P750DM2, P775DM3, and P870DM2/3 from Clevo can beat your desktop. But they're far outside of your $1000 budget range. The 1070N is around $800 USD. The 1080N is around $1200 USD. The 1060N is near to $600 USD. Give or take on all those prices. As for CPU strength you would need an overclocked 6820HK to compete with the 4790.

 

The question is: how much are you actually fully willing to spend (your not a $ more budget), what do you want the laptop to do (give me everything from battery life to weight requirements and expected programs), and how in-depth are you willing to go in following instructions as to get the most out of your budget? As-is, the Dell 7559 with the 960M is pretty much your only real choice.

[_Grid21]

5 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

My problem with the AWs is that if the GPU has proper contact, the CPU does not. And if the CPU has proper contact, the GPU does not. They refuse to warranty-fix any existing sold models with CPU issues, and their band-aid for the CPU, while effective (for the CPU), imbalances the GPU contact (which they fix by tossing a ridiculous amount of paste at it, I believe) and I cannot really stand that. As a company, they fail. As a product, it fails.

 

I would not recommend a single AW current gen model for any reason. The unified heatsink design being imbalanced contact for one side instantly means that either new heatsinks need production to rectify the contact issue, or you're going to have one side with bad contact at all times. They want a recommendation? They can fix their fucking product and do right by their consumers. Is it going to cost them tens of thousands of dollars? Probably, but that's not our problem. It's theirs, for designing it, testing it and giving it the ok, selling it to customers, and then stating that it's "not a problem":

 

I think you grossly misunderstand how bad Razer's products are. Reviewers never paint them in a bad light or say anything bad about them until the period at which saying such things does not affect Razer's sales any longer. But they do not make good products. If you're considering them, then HP Omen and Acer Nitros are basically par for the course as well... they just don't look as pretty and aren't as thin. Their support is probably better.

 

The P750DM2, P775DM3, and P870DM2/3 from Clevo can beat your desktop. But they're far outside of your $1000 budget range. The 1070N is around $800 USD. The 1080N is around $1200 USD. The 1060N is near to $600 USD. Give or take on all those prices. As for CPU strength you would need an overclocked 6820HK to compete with the 4790.

 

The question is: how much are you actually fully willing to spend (your not a $ more budget), what do you want the laptop to do (give me everything from battery life to weight requirements and expected programs), and how in-depth are you willing to go in following instructions as to get the most out of your budget? As-is, the Dell 7559 with the 960M is pretty much your only real choice.

 

I do video editing with Vegas Pro 14. I play games such as World of Tanks, Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider. I also like to do VMs once in awhile. And also edit and record music which isn't very CPU bound anyway. I don't know much about the mobile versions of the 900 series as most of what I do know their clock and cude core count were really poor to me and I've never liked them. I wanted a 1060 in a laptop for the sake of better speed, more cude cores and ram. 16GB of System ram would be nice too and anything in the 6th gen i7 would be great. 

[D2ultima]

7 minutes ago, Josh_Grid21 said:

I do video editing with Vegas Pro 14. I play games such as World of Tanks, Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider. I also like to do VMs once in awhile. And also edit and record music which isn't very CPU bound anyway. I don't know much about the mobile versions of the 900 series as most of what I do know their clock and cude core count were really poor to me and I've never liked them. I wanted a 1060 in a laptop for the sake of better speed, more cude cores and ram. 16GB of System ram would be nice too and anything in the 6th gen i7 would be great. 

Video rendering will definitely benefit from a faster chip like the desktop CPUs use, but I can't say it's needed.

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider will want a 6820HK probably. I don't have it, but I've seen it be CPU limited before. Overwatch and World of Tanks should be fine with mobile chips.

 

VMs... would also be fine, that just really wants more RAM than anything else. As you say, editing and recording music isn't CPU bound.

 

The 960M is a 750Ti. Basically the same card... I think it might be slightly faster than a reference version, in fact.

 

Mobile 1060s aren't so amazing in most notebooks. They simply don't boost well. They'll get maybe 50MHz above base, ending up near 980Ms in peformance with less vRAM. If you want raw gaming performance, you need a custom video BIOS for all mobile Pascal cards for the most part. Cuda cores is pointless as a number by itself. To that effect, the 970M has the same count as the 1060N, and the 980N has the same core count as the 1070N, and MORE than the 1070. For your case, a 1070N will be better for ROTTR alone, but I don't think you need it (especially for 60Hz) considering your other titles.

 

If you can afford it, a P650RP6 or P670RP6 from LPC-Digital (ask for the Prema mod!) or HIDevolution might be right up your alley... but Clevo's software has serious issues. If you're willing to deal with default keyboard backlighting and only auto/max fans by not installing their clevo control center app, or you're willing to use a fix to prevent fanspeed issues by blocking CCC from giving intel XTU access to your fans, then they're going to be your best bet.

 

If you are not willing to deal with that, then the second option would be to find the MSI GS63VR or GS73VR. Their cooling is not as good as the Clevo models, and their cards are set for lower power limits, but they will not have Clevo's crap software problems. You can pay Svet at the MSI forums for a BIOS/vBIOS mod. I heard his price is around 20 euroes for a system, I'd say it's worth it.

 

Otherwise, the Dell 7559 is the only decent thing within your budget I'd say.

[Pendragon]

3 hours ago, D2ultima said:

Snip

That's only with AWs retail shitty fix. Actual custom modding keeps both pretty flat and consistent. But takes 10s of hours of testing to do. You can bend certain parts to stop the GPU from being uneven after the CPU fix. Granted this sounds stupid as fuck and is not recommended for the average user. 

[Imglidinhere]

5 hours ago, Pendragon said:

HP can largely be ignored as well cept their professional line. Their Elitebooks and Zbooks are really good. I'm using one. 

 

Dell has good models. XPS lineup is good though they have funny issues like the heatsink not touching the dram on different batches. Alienware in my opinion is good for a highly experienced individuals who have the time and knowledge to fix it. They have older unlocked bios versions and are not fully locked down. Mostly, if u find it for the right price its fine. I know @D2ultima doesn't agree but he's right in that it requires an absurd amount of effort to get it working properly. Retail priced AWs are not worth it. 

 

HP Omen is okay. If u find it for the right price. I'd say it's slightly better than the 7559. 

Holy crap really? That's depressing...  

 

Your $1500 gaming notebook is barely better than Dell's $800 models. Awesome.  

[D2ultima]

4 hours ago, Pendragon said:

That's only with AWs retail shitty fix. Actual custom modding keeps both pretty flat and consistent. But takes 10s of hours of testing to do. You can bend certain parts to stop the GPU from being uneven after the CPU fix. Granted this sounds stupid as fuck and is not recommended for the average user. 

yeah... I don't consider that in existence. At least you can buy a P775DM3 with a 1080/6700K and get it factory delidded and then add thermal pads aftermarket and be basically set with thermals for it. That's more work than I ask most users to do, but that's nothing compared to what AWs do...

[_Grid21]

14 hours ago, D2ultima said:

yeah... I don't consider that in existence. At least you can buy a P775DM3 with a 1080/6700K and get it factory delidded and then add thermal pads aftermarket and be basically set with thermals for it. That's more work than I ask most users to do, but that's nothing compared to what AWs do...

 

 

What do you think of the MSI GT73VR? I saw a video about it from NCIX Tech Tips?

[D2ultima]

8 hours ago, Josh_Grid21 said:

What do you think of the MSI GT73VR? I saw a video about it from NCIX Tech Tips?

I think it's the best notebook with a BGA CPU on the market. For a basic user not wanting to put in much elbow grease physically into his system (like changing thermal pads etc), and who doesn't want to deal with Clevo's bullshit software (which admittedly takes a bit of work to get working well) and wants a GTX 1080 machine with a 120Hz panel, that is the notebook I'd recommend without a doubt. I only wish MSI would sell them with the desktop CPUs. They have variants that use desktop CPUs, but they only sell them as whitebooks and won't officially sell them under the "MSI" name.

[Pendragon]

19 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

They have variants that use desktop CPUs, but they only sell them as whitebooks and won't officially sell them under the "MSI" name.

Have you seen the 17in GT72VR and GT73VR whitebook versions yet? Eurocom was due to release them soon.

[D2ultima]

2 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Have you seen the 17in GT72VR and GT73VR whitebook versions yet? Eurocom was due to release them soon.

If they get 6700K GT73VR versions then there is 0 reason for a P775DM3 (price-permitting)

 

Hell, I'd even go so far as to say no reason for P870DM2.

[_Grid21]

7 hours ago, D2ultima said:

I think it's the best notebook with a BGA CPU on the market. For a basic user not wanting to put in much elbow grease physically into his system (like changing thermal pads etc), and who doesn't want to deal with Clevo's bullshit software (which admittedly takes a bit of work to get working well) and wants a GTX 1080 machine with a 120Hz panel, that is the notebook I'd recommend without a doubt. I only wish MSI would sell them with the desktop CPUs. They have variants that use desktop CPUs, but they only sell them as whitebooks and won't officially sell them under the "MSI" name.

 

Ok that's good, now what do you think of this vs that MSi one? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234299

[D2ultima]

2 minutes ago, Josh_Grid21 said:

Ok that's good, now what do you think of this vs that MSi one? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234299

I thoroughly dislike ASUS and their awful quality control/quality assurance/post sale service. There is always a better option than an ASUS gaming model laptop. I would not consider it; I'd quicker suggest a P650RP6 instead over that. Easily. Even if it costs a bit more.

 

Also, the GT73VR obliterates it in cooling, design, and the ability to be unlocked with a custom Svet BIOS.