Gaming Laptops

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Chaps, it's time to upgrade my old MSI GT70 laptop and I am struggling to find a laptop that ticks all the boxes.

This is going to be a dual purpose laptop, Gaming as well as using it as a mobile study lab.

Basic requirements are SSD for boot and decent 1TB data drive, 32GB of ram as a minimum as it's also going to be my mobile lab for VMware tech.

With that in mind I have looked at machines from the following vendors.

Acer, MSI, Gigabyte (and Aorus which is their gaming arm) as well as Asus and Dell.

From Acer I have the following choices.

Predator G9 791 - 17" Screen (4K), 32GB of Ram, 512GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the GTX980M (4GB) and Intel 6700HQ CPU

Predator G9 591 - 15" Screen (HD), 32GB of Ram, 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the GTX970M (3GB) and Intel 6700HQ CPU

From MSI I have the following choice.

GT72S Dominator Pro - G-Sync - 17" Screen (HD), 32GB of Ram, 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the GTX980M (8GB) and Intel 6820HK CPU.

This particular machine comes with up to 4 M.2 SSD slots and the G-Sync screen means no in-game tearing.

From Gigabyte I have the following choices.

P35W - 15" Screen (HD), 16GB of Ram, 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the GTX970M (3GB) and Intel 6700HQ CPU

P35X - 15" Screen (4K), 16GB of Ram, 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the GTX980M (8GB) and Intel 6700HQ CPU

From Aorus I have the following choices.

X5 - 15" Screen (3K) with G-Sync, 16GB of Ram, 512GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the two GTX965M GPUs (2x4GB = 8GB) and Intel 5700HQ CPU

X7 - 17" Screen (HD), 16GB of Ram, 2x256GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the two GTX970M GPUs (2x3GB = 6GB) and Intel 5850HQ CPU

From Asus I have the following choices.

Asus G752VT - 17" Screen (HD), 16GB of Ram, 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the GTX970M GPU (3GB) and Intel 6700HQ CPU

Asus G751JY - 17" Screen (HD), 32GB of Ram, 512GB SSD and 1TB HDD, it also comes with the GTX980M GPU (4GB) and Intel 4870HQ CPU

Finally from Dell I have added the following choice.

Dell XPS15 - 15" Screen (4K), 16GB of Ram, 1TB SSD, it also comes with the GTX960M GPU (2GB) and Intel 6700HQ CPU.

All of the above machines have the capacity to be upgraded to 32GB so for machines that don't have the minimum of 32GB fitted I would be purchasing additional ram, the same for the boot drives, I would prefer a minimum of 256MB so that not being present isn't a show stopper either.

From a looks perspective I really like the Acer Predator, what worries me some is the lack of G-Sync for gaming and the 4GB of ram for the 980M and the 4K screen but a big plus for it is the fact it can take up to 64GB.

I am also concerned about heat and whilst the spec's of the Aorus looks great the heat buildup and fan noise have been of concern to some of the reviewers.

The Dell machine looks great, can go up to 32GB of ram but... it's a Dell and people have already been complaining about component failure on the XPS15 and that's not something I need if I am away for a month and can't use the machine because something fails.

Of all the machines listed, the one that ticks most of the boxes for me is the MSI GT72 my only concern is that it's a heavy beast of a machine and I have had concerns in the past with build quality (the reason I have a GT70 now is that I had so many issues with my GT60 that MSI upgraded me to the GT70 for free).

Help and advice greatly appreciated because I have less than a month to make the purchase and configure it for my training lab requirements.

 

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Business laptops make a lot of sense, gaming laptops make zero sense, too big and bulky, crap reliability.
No controller or decent screen, better off with a console.

17" screen in laptop - bad idea, 30" external screen is better, laptop 15-16 inch is big enough.
big laptop PSU - bad idea
high TDP GPU in laptop - bad idea
HDD in laptop - bad idea, stick with fitted 1TB SSD, or look for M.2 expansion.
4k display on laptop - bad idea, smaller screens don't warrant 4k, 4k capable graphics might be useful with external display (CPU you are looking at doesn't mandate discrete GPU for 4k productivity).

You'll end up paying £2000 for a laptop that breaks within 2 years.

Important things for laptop (main advantage is portability) :-

• Size
• Weight
• Reliability
• Power draw / Battery Life

You'll lose this on a gaming laptop.

The trade-offs are simply too high for gaming, stick an xbox in the car boot and plug it into the hotel TV or maybe consider other approaches like a Shield tablet.

My advice, don't do it !

 

I understand the reservations about gaming on a laptop but my GT70 has been somewhat of a godsend when I have been away, yes it's heavy but it lasted a few years, only now starting to struggle with some of the games (it's got an old 675M graphics card in there).

I want something big enough that I can still game with decent quality (BF4 and WoW) but capable of running a full on VMware lab as well.

I don't game on a console, it just doesn't do it for me.

I guess the main thing is that it's only gaming rigs that offer large scale ram (the GT72 and Acer Predator are capable of running 64GB of ram)

 

Unfortunately been out of the hardware/gaming on PC's for a while now, but this brings back memories of speccing up my last gaming rig

Are alienware still as hyped as they used to be back in the day? or are they just a dell cop out now?

Shame about the XPS - i really like them, we have a couple of similar (Less spec'd) models in work, and they're awesome.

 

I bought a new £2000 XPS, worst piece of sh*%&!t laptop I ever owned...

I can go into the details, and I expect some of the Dell issues are now resolved, (however some of their old tricks they are still up to) but I'll never buy Dell ever again on principle. Reliability sucks, a Dell out of warranty is worthless.

 

:O

interesting, not that i'd buy one, but i'd certainly think twice after that.

Agree about warranty comment though