Thin Gaming Laptop Suggestion

[Khangf]

Hi everyone,

 

I am a student in UK and deciding to get myself a new laptop for school and gaming as well. I prefer a thin and a powerful gaming laptop, but my budget for it is quite limited at around £1500 plus minus.

I am currently looked at MSI GS63VR 4K Edition at around £1650 but would prefer to see any other suggestions.

 

Im looking for specs like

15.6 inch size

Intel i7

8GB Ram (Prefer 16GB)

256GB SSD + Normal hard drive

GTX 1060

 

Thanks alot.

[Mira Yurizaki]

While I understand the desire for a thin laptop for both size and weight, keep in mind gaming laptops tend to not be able to run at full power due to thermal management issues. The laptop you chose specifically does run into thermal throttling issues if you do put it under heavy load. The other part of it is that battery life tends to be sacrificed, with that laptop in at least one test getting about 3.5 hours on a lowish brightness setting browsing the web. And while you may think you'll be close to a wall socket, in school, those tend to be precious commodities if a lot of people have laptops.

[cragger89]

I like msi, I have a lower end specified one, the GV62 7RC. It has a  7th gen quad core i5 and the MX150 in it - light enough for me to carry it with one hand, doesn't feel heavy in my backpack with my battery banks/mice/game pads etc with it.

 

I used it as my main machine last week on holiday for RAW file editing in Lightroom and playing Rocket League/GTA V on it and grew to love it immensely.

 

Definitely give thought to how much you will be playing games with it vs studying, I literally wanted a lightweight and compact machine which would get the job done in equal parts as I have a gaming desktop PC at home which gets more use, so am completely satisfied with my choice. I went with what I bought because I wanted non-soldered RAM and an easy to access motherboard - quick access panels aren't something I favour, nor are touchpads where the left/right click buttons are part of the touch surface.

 

Can't say much about the model you are asking for, just a vote of confidence for msi more than anything, considering mine is a cheap model which doesn't exactly have high end build quality.

[Mira Yurizaki]

If @cragger89 was suggesting a desktop for play + laptop for study, then I think that's a better route.

 

But given the market, you'd be better off buying prebuilt desktops anyway. Which actually might work in your favor if the company does student discounts.

[Khangf]

2 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

While I understand the desire for a thin laptop for both size and weight, keep in mind gaming laptops tend to not be able to run at full power due to thermal management issues. The laptop you chose specifically does run into thermal throttling issues if you do put it under heavy load. The other part of it is that battery life tends to be sacrificed, with that laptop in at least one test getting about 3.5 hours on a lowish brightness setting browsing the web. And while you may think you'll be close to a wall socket, in school, those tend to be precious commodities if a lot of people have laptops.

 

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If @cragger89 was suggesting a desktop for play + laptop for study, then I think that's a better route.

 

But given the market, you'd be better off buying prebuilt desktops anyway. Which actually might work in your favor if the company does student discounts.

Yes i do know that thin gaming laptop does experience thermal throttling, but it's really my only choice at this moment. I am an international student currently studying in UK I don't think that getting a desktop would be a great thing for me and I don't really mind about the shorter battery life of a gaming laptop. However, if MSI GS63VR does run into serious thermal throttling issues, is there any other thin gaming laptop suggestion for my case?

[genexis_x]

Wait for more CFL-H options. Thin gaming laptops need undervolting and repaste.

[Khangf]

35 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

Wait forlre CFL-H options. Thin gaming laptops need undervolting and repaste.

Yes, I think will wait a moment for now. I do know that undervolting and repaste is required to prevent it to throttling under heavy loads, but for my case, i do gaming the most, will I experience throttling as well?

[genexis_x]

15 minutes ago, Khangf said:

i do gaming the most, will I experience throttling as well?

Depend on which model. Every model has different cooling design. But mostly no throttling in games.