Laptop for college

[JSAE]

Greetings.

Recently I’ve been looking for a laptop that is thin enough to comfortably take it on the go, but powerful enough that it can game in high and make simulations, 3D rendering and such.

I first narrowed my options to the laptops listed down, but they were discarded right away.

I asked for advice in a discord and this is what they told me:

”You don’t want the Acer triton 700, nor the MSI GE73VR, nor the rog zephyrus, the only good option out there is the Aorus x5 v7~8”

The reason behind this is because of the thermal problems those laptops seem to have.

 

I intend to extend the life span of the laptop for at least 4 years, therefore reliability and upgradeability are huge factors.

 

Due to the previous options getting discarded, I've researched for other options under 3k or scratching that number, here they are:

• MSI GS65 (bundled with a backpack, a mouse and headphones, GTX 1060) at $2,586.17 usd 
• Aero 15x V8 (32 Gb of ram, 144 Hz) at $3,318.15 usd
• Aorus x5 v7 (i7-7820HK, 16 Gb, 256 Gb SSD, 1 Tb hdd) at $2,465.83 usd
• Aorus x5 v8 (i7-8520H, custom thermal paste replacement and further optimizations) at $2,500 ~ $2,800 usd depending on the extra stuff altered.

Those are the options, which one would be the best value? If none of these are good enough, what do you recommend?

 

Thanks.

[AntiTrust]

57 minutes ago, JSAE said:

snip

on first glance, I would take the Aorus x5 V8. has the latest gen i7, and a full 1070 (not a MAXQ)

 

the battery life and size/weight is going to be terrible on all of these though

[wojtepanik]

maybe 15 inch XPS ? 

[genexis_x]

2 hours ago, JSAE said:

You don’t want the Acer triton 700, nor the MSI GE73VR, nor the rog zephyrus, the only good option out there is the Aorus x5 v7~8”

The reason behind this is because of the thermal problems those laptops seem to have.

Zephyrus M and GE Raider have good cooling.

2 hours ago, JSAE said:

reliability

This depends mainly on usage and luck

 

Are portability and battery life important to you?

[JSAE]

5 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Zephyrus M and GE Raider have good cooling.

This depends mainly on usage and luck

 

Are portability and battery life important to you?

Yes, due to being on the go pretty much at all times, but carrying a charger doesn't bother me nearly as much

[genexis_x]

Max weight preferred?

[JSAE]

On 5/30/2018 at 8:52 AM, ZM Fong said:

Max weight preferred?

No more than 4kg

[genexis_x]

11 minutes ago, JSAE said:

No more than 4kg

That's a lot. Max thickness preferred?

[Dackzy]

If you want to run simulations and do 3D renders, then I would highly advice against any laptop with a GTX card or else you are going to run into situations like I did yesterday where my CPU is under 100% load and I would at most see my 1080 under 20-25% load, usually only like 10-15% and that was with inventor which has GTX "support". Unless you use some software that is made with proper GTX support, then they don't really make a ton of sense in the 3D render/modeling world.

 

Just so you can see that this is legit.

Spoiler

 

Ofc if you also plan to game on it, then GTX laptops are basically the only way to go, unless you want to pay a big premium for a Quadro equivalent of a given GTX model.

 

Just my two cents, I hope that you can use some of the info.

[JSAE]

8 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

That's a lot. Max thickness preferred?

From 2 to 3 cm

[genexis_x]

25 minutes ago, JSAE said:

From 2 to 3 cm

I suggest you to wait for CFL-H mobile workstation (Thinkpad P52/P72, Zbook 15/17 G5, Precision 7530/7730). They are announced, but still not available