Need a New Laptop for School

[The Pikachu Mafia]

Hey everyone,

 

For the past several years I've happily owned a Sager NP8156 (Clevo P650HP6). There were a few things I didn't care for about the laptop - The screen was discolored in some places, it was heavier than I would've liked, it had some software bugs, etc. - but overall it was a great little machine that served my needs well. However my parents recently had a catastrophic electrical failure at their house that fried a bunch of appliances/electronics and unfortunately my laptop was one of the victims. The failure was actually due to the power lines leading to our house not being up to code, and fortunately we were able to make an insurance claim. So here I am, a Senior Engineering Student in need of a new laptop. I figured that since it's been a couple years now is a good a time as any to upgrade my laptop. Here's some information on what I'm looking for:

 

- My budget is tentatively around $2600 USD before taxes, although spending less is always a plus.

- I will mainly be using this laptop for school and some gaming. As I mentioned earlier, I'm an Engineering student (mechanical/aerospace), so on the school side I will be using programs such as Solidworks, MATLAB, Python, ANSYS, CAD software, and Microsoft Office. Gaming is not as much of a priority, but I would like to be able to run modern titles in high/ultra settings. (Tomb Raider, Fallout, Overwatch, etc.)

- I also do recreational photo/video editing with Adobe Lightroom/Premier Pro/Photoshop. So I would like to have a nice panel on the laptop.

- I would like the laptop to have at least a GTX 1060 in it, preferably a 1070 Max-Q

- The laptop itself must weigh under 2.2kg (4.8 lbs). I often have to walk in excess of 2-3km a day to get to my classes and I always have my laptop with me. One mistake I made with my Clevo was underestimating how much it would weigh when combined with its power brick. Speaking of which, bonus points for a compact power brick.

- I don't need crazy-out-of-this-world battery life, but I would also like to not be always plugged into a wall. I would like to have around 4-6 hours of battery life during productivity tasks or media consumption (Microsoft Office, coding, web browsing, Netflix/Youtube, etc.)

- I would need at least a 512GB hard drive. In general more storage is better.

- I am willing to purchase a last gen laptop with a 7th gen processor, although an 8th gen Intel processor is ideal.

- I'm not too keen on upgrading my laptop very often. Build quality is somewhat important to me and I would like to have a laptop that will last 3-5 years. If I have to spend a little more up front to future-proof it then I'm okay with that. 

 

Given my above requirements, I'm leaning towards getting either the MSI GS65, the Gigabyte Aero 15, the Razer 15, or the Clevo P955ER. Any help or insight on any of these laptops would be greatly appreciated. I'm also open to any suggestions that meet my criteria. Thank you all very much for your time and I hope you have a nice day!

[genexis_x]

7 hours ago, The Pikachu Mafia said:

MSI GS65, the Gigabyte Aero 15, the Razer 15, or the Clevo P955ER.

These are the only options unfortunately. Out of these 4, Aero 15/15X is the best choice IMO. However you need to apply LM and undervolt CPU+GPU (needed for all of them)

 

GS65: OKish build quality, difficult upgradability, mediocre cooling

 

Aero 15/15X: Possible QC issues, mediocre cooling. Best battery life though

 

Razer Blade 15: It's a Razer so quality and customer support suck, otherwise it's quite good

 

Clevo P950/P955: Mediocre cooling, 1070MQ performance issue

[The Pikachu Mafia]

13 hours ago, GeneXiS_X said:

These are the only options unfortunately. Out of these 4, Aero 15/15X is the best choice IMO. However you need to apply LM and undervolt CPU+GPU (needed for all of them)

 

GS65: OKish build quality, difficult upgradability, mediocre cooling

 

Aero 15/15X: Possible QC issues, mediocre cooling. Best battery life though

 

Razer Blade 15: It's a Razer so quality and customer support suck, otherwise it's quite good

 

Clevo P950/P955: Mediocre cooling, 1070MQ performance issue

Thank you for the response, it was very helpful!

 

With regards to a Liquid Metal thermal repasting, I agree that some kind of custom repaste is a necessity on all of these thin and light laptops given their out of the box temps. However I'm not too well versed in tampering with a laptop's GPU/CPU and I've only ever done a thermal pasting on a desktop, so I would probably get a 3rd party like Xotic PC or HIDevolution to professionally install it (as a side question, do these 3rd parties offer their own warranties since I would likely be invalidating whatever warranty that comes with the laptop?) 

 

If you don't mind me asking though, what is the relative risk for using liquid metal over normal thermal paste? I love the idea of chopping my thermals down by 15-20 C, but Liquid Metal is electrically conductive and I would be very mobile with my laptop. So would I have to worry about the liquid metal leaking out at all - even if a conformal coating was applied to protect the laptop? Also would I have to worry about the longevity of the liquid metal (i.e would it need to be repasted after a period of time/will it eventually compromise the integrity of the copper heat pipes? I've seen that liquid metal can bond weirdly to copper and I'm wonder if that's just purely aesthetic or will it affect the integrity of the system after awhile?) Finally, are there any resources I can find that compare the relative performance of Liquid Metal to a normal thermal compound for these laptop models? 

 

Again, thank you very much for your time!

[genexis_x]

4 minutes ago, The Pikachu Mafia said:

so I would probably get a 3rd party like Xotic PC or HIDevolution to professionally install it (as a side question, do these 3rd parties offer their own warranties since I would likely be invalidating whatever warranty that comes with the laptop?) 

This is probably the best choice. Yes you'll still have warranty on the laptop

4 minutes ago, The Pikachu Mafia said:

what is the relative risk for using liquid metal over normal thermal paste?

Short circuit, most obviously. However if the application method is correct, it shouldn't have any problem for a few years (I would say 3 years) and it will not leak even with everyday transport.

4 minutes ago, The Pikachu Mafia said:

Also would I have to worry about the longevity of the liquid metal

Just treat it like normal paste and change once in a few years

4 minutes ago, The Pikachu Mafia said:

are there any resources I can find that compare the relative performance of Liquid Metal to a normal thermal compound for these laptop models?

Users. @TLCH723 has Aero 15X with LM

[TLCH723]

Aero 15x with LM drops 10 to 15C depending on the condition. People on the notebook review forum said that the heatsink/pipe is the limiting factor so Grizzly Kryonaut is good enough.

 

@GeneXiS_X How about the Origin Evo15-S?

[The Pikachu Mafia]

1 hour ago, GeneXiS_X said:

This is probably the best choice. Yes you'll still have warranty on the laptop

Short circuit, most obviously. However if the application method is correct, it shouldn't have any problem for a few years (I would say 3 years) and it will not leak even with everyday transport.

Just treat it like normal paste and change once in a few years

Users. @TLCH723 has Aero 15X with LM

Awesome, thanks for the information! As a final question, I'm looking at gentechPC for thermal repaste since they have a sale going on now. They also list thermal pads as an additional cooling option. Would you recommend adding in thermal pads/would they realistically improve performance ontop of LM? (I'm looking at the MSI right now for reference, I find its lower base price to be somewhat appealing). 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

If you can import 3XS makes good shit

[genexis_x]

24 minutes ago, TLCH723 said:

Origin Evo15-S

It's Clevo P950/P955

[genexis_x]

9 minutes ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

3XS makes good shit

Not all models. Also, they sell Clevo and TongFang barebones

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Not all models. Also, they sell Clevo and TongFang barebones

If OP can find those they would be an option