Gaming Laptop ~2k budget

Thargor

Hi, I'm thinking of going with a gaming laptop for my next pc, haven't looked at specs in about 2 years so a bit clueless. Are desktops still way ahead? Laptops back then seemed to be catching up with desktop level specs in the new Alienwares and Origins and others...

Anyway Im looking for a 17 inch laptop in the €1500-2000 range. As I said Im a bit behind on specs so basically I want a beast of a gaming machine with the best possible display, huge storage (SSDs), easily upgradeable in future + maintenance myself and most importantly able to run all todays games at max settings and hopefully a few years into the future aswell.

Any suggestions welcome! Is it too soon for 4K? Should I wait a few months for something on the horizon? Where is even the best place to look at laptops these days? Ive been out of the loop for a while as I said. Should I look at dell XPS machines or are they obsolete now? Might be able to get a trade discount on Dells...

psychomantis

Thargor wrote: »

Hi, I'm thinking of going with a gaming laptop for my next pc, haven't looked at specs in about 2 years so a bit clueless. Are desktops still way ahead? Laptops back then seemed to be catching up with desktop level specs in the new Alienwares and Origins and others...

Anyway Im looking for a 17 inch laptop in the €1500-2000 range. As I said Im a bit behind on specs so basically I want a beast of a gaming machine with the best possible display, huge storage (SSDs), easily upgradeable in future + maintenance myself and most importantly able to run all todays games at max settings and hopefully a few years into the future aswell.

Any suggestions welcome! Is it too soon for 4K? Should I wait a few months for something on the horizon? Where is even the best place to look at laptops these days? Ive been out of the loop for a while as I said. Should I look at dell XPS machines or are they obsolete now? Might be able to get a trade discount on Dells...

On that budget I'd build a PC

the_syco

Thargor wrote: »

easily upgradeable in future

You can upgrade the RAM and harddrive in future, but nothing else.

Thargor wrote: »

maintenance myself and most importantly able to run all todays games at max settings and hopefully a few years into the future aswell.

Best of going for a PC if you want max settings.

K.O.Kiki

Forget XPS, you want a look at Alienware (Dell), Asus, or MSI.

At your budget, most will have Intel i7 47xx CPUs and Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 GPUs.

Too soon for 4K gaming on laptop, but 1080p (native res) should be smooth.

Notebookcheck has a good listing of reviews: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Notebookcheck-s-Top-10-Gaming-Notebooks.98628.0.html

B00MSTICK

The Alienware 13 can take an external graphics card (needs an additional graphics amplifier €€€) but the CPU is a big bottleneck. Id say the same tech will be released for the larger models which may be some sort of future proofing.
Still though, I'd go for a desktop unless there's a big reason not to.

Thargor

But I want a laptop, thats why I posted this in laptops

2 years ago I was reading about Origin and alienware cramming desktop components into their laptops, has that changed? Forgot about 4k and upgrading then. I do see regular articles on Gizmodo and Engadget and other places about laptop x fully competing with desktops in the gaming stakes, usually an alienware or an Origin etc, will 2k not get me something like that

K.O.Kiki

B00MSTICK wrote: »

The Alienware 13 can take an external graphics card (needs an additional graphics amplifier €€€) but the CPU is a big bottleneck. Id say the same tech will be released for the larger models which may be some sort of future proofing.
Still though, I'd go for a desktop unless there's a big reason not to.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-msi-gs30-shadow-with-gaming-dock-review
The MSI GS30 goes the other way; it has a powerful CPU, but without the dock it relies on the integrated Intel Iris Pro.

I'm happy enough with my Alienware 13 though; apart from the budget screen (TN panel) & trackpad (nowhere near as good as Apple).
Gets 4-6hrs battery life thanks to the low-power 15W i5500U.

*edit*
The Alienware 15 & 17 support the Graphics Amplifier now, too.

Thargor

Gaming docks are out, do not want.

SterlingArcher

Have you tried pc specialist .

Done a quick one up. With this configuration

17 inch full 1080p HD screen.

i7 quad core

Gtx 980m

8 gig ram

120gig ssd

1tb hdd

Just under 2000.

Thargor

Thanks, Is that good? Shouldn't I be ordering from France or Germany with the Euro in the toilet?

SterlingArcher

Thargor wrote: »

Thanks, Is that good? Shouldn't I be ordering from France or Germany with the Euro in the toilet?

Well compare them specs to a dell, Msi or something.

Frankly I'm not buying anything right now, but I'm in no rush.

Thargor

What are you waiting for? Im in no rush either.

SterlingArcher

Thargor wrote: »

What are you waiting for? Im in no rush either.

Santy clause. To bring me stuff for free.

Thargor

Ah, not waiting that long.

Can I even just get suggestions for places to look for gaming laptops? Is PC Specialist the best or something?

the_syco

Maybe http://www.komplett.ie/laptops ?

Check the MSI builds.

SterlingArcher

the_syco wrote: »

Maybe http://www.komplett.ie/laptops ?

Check the MSI builds.

The last one 1999 dont look too bad at all. Check reviews for this one. Maybe price it on amazon.Co.UK See how much difference there is.

the_syco

SterlingArcher wrote: »

The last one 1999 dont look too bad at all. Check reviews for this one. Maybe price it on amazon.Co.UK See how much difference there is.

Euro is poor against the pound atm. If the user doesn't care about the letters on their keyboard(german keys, etc), maybe check out hardwareversand.de ?

K.O.Kiki

With boutique builders like PC Specialist, it helps to do a good Google search; a lot of their cases are based around MSI or Gigabyte barebones chassis so you can find a review for a similar laptop with same specs pretty easily.

Last thing you want is to end up with a stinker that drowns the room in noise as soon as you start playing.

Lu Tze

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

With boutique builders like PC Specialist, it helps to do a good Google search; a lot of their cases are based around MSI or Gigabyte barebones chassis so you can find a review for a similar laptop with same specs pretty easily.

Last thing you want is to end up with a stinker that drowns the room in noise as soon as you start playing.

I think most of the custm laptop builder chasis are clevo based, not msi or gigabyte
.

Edit: as regards Desktop vs Laptop, there is no comparison at the same price points, at €2000 you are nearly in 4K territory with a desktop. A €2000 laptop will likely be competitive with a ~€800 desktop. a 290x in the desktop will outperform the fastest mobile graphics card.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290X-vs-GeForce-GTX-980M

And you have the option to upgrade or crossfire down the line if required

MiskyBoyy

Take a look here:

http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/gaming-pcs-uk/laptop

Thargor

Lu Tze wrote: »

I think most of the custm laptop builder chasis are clevo based, not msi or gigabyte
.

Edit: as regards Desktop vs Laptop, there is no comparison at the same price points, at €2000 you are nearly in 4K territory with a desktop. A €2000 laptop will likely be competitive with a ~€800 desktop. a 290x in the desktop will outperform the fastest mobile graphics card.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290X-vs-GeForce-GTX-980M

And you have the option to upgrade or crossfire down the line if required

What about all these 4k laptops though?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=4k+laptop&tag=googiehydra-21&index=aps&hvadid=62291974279&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8169517651755450729&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_21698m20t7_e

Should I just wait 6 months?

K.O.Kiki

Thargor wrote: »

What about all these 4k laptops though?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=4k+laptop&tag=googiehydra-21&index=aps&hvadid=62291974279&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8169517651755450729&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_21698m20t7_e

Should I just wait 6 months?

They have 4K screens; doesn't mean they can run modern games at native resolution (that's up to the GPU/CPU).

It's highly doubtful any laptop GPU in the next 6 months can run at those resolutions anyway, so just do a little research & buy what you want.

There's ALWAYS something "better" around the corner, but I'd rather just play games now than wait.

moc moc a moc

IMO gaming laptops make no sense unless you have money to burn and already have a beast of a desktop machine. No laptop is going to be able to run at full throttle for much more than an hour on battery, and if you have to plug it in to game then that defeats the purpose of a laptop to begin with.

For 2K you could get a desktop with a good bit of horsepower for gaming and a basic laptop for portability.

MiskyBoyy

moc moc a moc wrote: »

and if you have to plug it in to game then that defeats the purpose of a laptop to begin with.

Except if you're travelling a lot, plugging it in on trains & buses etc then you can game on the go


But I agree with you, I would rather invest the money in a tower based setup personally.

5star02707

Thargor wrote: »

Hi, I'm thinking of going with a gaming laptop for my next pc, haven't looked at specs in about 2 years so a bit clueless. Are desktops still way ahead? Laptops back then seemed to be catching up with desktop level specs in the new Alienwares and Origins and others...

Anyway Im looking for a 17 inch laptop in the €1500-2000 range. As I said Im a bit behind on specs so basically I want a beast of a gaming machine with the best possible display, huge storage (SSDs), easily upgradeable in future + maintenance myself and most importantly able to run all todays games at max settings and hopefully a few years into the future aswell.

Any suggestions welcome! Is it too soon for 4K? Should I wait a few months for something on the horizon? Where is even the best place to look at laptops these days? Ive been out of the loop for a while as I said. Should I look at dell XPS machines or are they obsolete now? Might be able to get a trade discount on Dells...

I would Strongly recommend the MSI GT72 970m or better 980m

Can get it on Ebay from germany easily between 1.5k - 2k euros depending on the configurations you want

Thargor

I think Ive relied on my laptop battery twice in the past 4 years tbh and I use it most days a week.

How much of a performance hit are we talking about on an 1800 - 2k laptop roughly? Will I be able to play Skyrim on ultra high settings? Will I still be able to play new games at decent fps in 3 years time? Thats what Im trying to get a feel for...

If you had 2 grand in your pocket and had to buy a 17" laptop today what would you go for? Does nobody buy Alienware anymore?

Thargor

5star02707 wrote: »

I would Strongly recommend the MSI GT72 970m or better 980m

Can get it on Ebay from germany easily between 1.5k - 2k euros depending on the configurations you want

Thanks, the Msi comes up a lot from what I can see.

What to do... Im worried about missing out on 4k and whether Id be better off waiting for a few months, or can you even tell the difference on a 17 inch screen?

5star02707

i would not be too bothered on the 4k resolutions unless you're in to that. 1080p still works fine for now atleast for me, it just really depends on the game you play if it supports 4k and how clear you want your screen is i.e. when playing games of watching movies.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/What-Is-.../What-is-2K-and-4K-Video-88297.aspx

EDIT: here's a side by side comparison not much difference but it's what Ultra HD is (4k)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC37OBcYc7o

K.O.Kiki

Thargor wrote: »

Thanks, the Msi comes up a lot from what I can see.

What to do... Im worried about missing out on 4k and whether Id be better off waiting for a few months, or can you even tell the difference on a 17 inch screen?

Screen resolution =/= quality.

Lots of Lenovo laptops come with high-def screens but are (by all reviews) utter ****.

Thargor

https://www.oculus.com/blog/first-look-at-the-rift-shipping-q1-2016/

I see the consumer rift is down for a 2016 release, might hold off for a while until I see what its requirements are like...

K.O.Kiki

4K gaming on notebook GPUs

tl;dr not feasible

Thargor

Im probably ordering this on Monday at pretty much max options ~€2.5k.

http://www.originpc.com/gaming/laptops/eon17-x/

Can anyone do better? All suggestions welcome...

Will it still play new games in 3-4 years time?

Elessar

That looks like a Clevo rebrand? If so you should be able to upgrade the GPU in future?

Have you looked at the Aorus X7 970M SLI?

Or the MSI GT80 Titan with 980M SLI with mechanical keyboard?. I do believe MSI have guaranteed to release GPU upgrade options for this beast for at least the next two generations.

Not sure if they are outside your price range, but they are some of the top gaming laptops atm.

Thargor

I cant even get the prices of them though, I dont even know if Im looking at the same laptop... are they better than what I posted? The one I posted was recommended by a guy at work, thats all I have to go on so Im completely flexible, I am completely clueless sorry.

I just want to know, what would you buy if you wanted a powerful gaming laptop?

Elessar

Thargor wrote: »

I cant even get the prices of them though, I dont even know if Im looking at the same laptop... are they better than what I posted? The one I posted was recommended by a guy at work, thats all I have to go on so Im completely flexible, I am completely clueless sorry.

I just want to know, what would you buy if you wanted a powerful gaming laptop?

If it was me, I'd get the msi or similar, or custom build my own clevo. FYI SLI means two gpus rather than one.

Thargor

Which MSI? That Origin is out by the way, absolutely ridiculous duties and postage adding nearly 700 quid onto final price even on the UK site.

Luckily those Origins are also available under the XMG badge for a good deal cheaper, going to go with one of these:

http://mysn.co.uk/xmg-u705-gaminglaptop

Any suggestions welcome, might dial that CPU back a bit for a 150 quid saving or should I just go for it?

XMG U705 17.3" ULTIMATE Gaming Notebook
Display
1 x 17.3" (43.9cm) Full-HD LG LP173WF4-SPD1 (1920*1080) Matte IPS€0.00

Graphics Card
1 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M 8192MB GDDR5 + NVIDIA "The Witcher 3" Gaming Voucher (while stocks last) €378.78

Processor
1 x Intel Core i7-4790K | Quad Core | 8 Threads | 4,0 - 4,4GHz | TDP: 88 Watt €164.48

Memory
1 x 16GB (2x8192) SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM 2133MHz HyperX Impact€134.37

SSD Drive 1
1 x 120GB m.2 SSD Kingston (SM2280S3/120G) €77.60

SSD Drive 2
1 x No SSD €0.00

Hard Drive 1
1 x 750GB SATA-III 7200rpm Western Digital Black (WD7500BPKX)€62.55

Optical Drive
1 x No External Optical Drive €0.00

WIFI Card
1 x Qualcomm Atheros Killer Wireless-AC 1525 (with Bluetooth) €32.43

Keyboard
1 x Backlit Keyboard UK €0.00

Warranty
1 x Standard Warranty : 24 Month Collect & Return (inc parts, labour, support, shipping) €0.00

Operating System
1 x No Operating System €0.00

Office Software
1 x Microsoft Office 365 30-day trial version (only when Windows 7 or 8 is ordered) €0.00

Power Cable
1 x UK Power Cable €0.00

Might be able to get the whole thing for around €2300 delivered, waiting to talk to their sales team tomorrow, apparently you can bargain for a couple of hundred off, free SSD upgrades etc, I think Im going to go for it though, any suggestions welcome.

K.O.Kiki

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Schenker-XMG-U705-Clevo-P771ZM-Notebook-Review.141416.0.html

You could save a bit on CPU if you want; performance hit won't be big but temperature should be reduced.
You could also easily downgrade to the GTX 970m; again you'll only lose 10% performance at most.
I looked at the wrong stats; performance gap is ~25%.

Bigger SSD is better.
Upgrade the Wi-Fi card (might as well)

Temperatures at max load are going to be high; I'd play with a detached keyboard for comfort.

So IMHO:

GTX 970m 6Gb or 980m
i7-4790S
250Gb SSD + whatever HDD

Thargor

But is it good enough for proper gaming and will it serve me for the next couple of years though? Bit clueless sorry.

TerrorFirmer

I wouldn't go overboard on the CPU, the GPU will be obsolete before the processor is. That would be true even of the base 4460S, I personally wouldn't bother spending any more as you won't see any benefit in games.

Personally I find the best value in gaming laptops is buying mid-range and simply upgrading every 12-16 months - trying to buy something now that can play games for the next 4 or 5 years costs an absolute fortune and in the end, will end up being worth next to nothing. A good quad core, 8Gb of ram and GTX970 will serve you excellently in games for the next 12-16 months, and will hold a good chunk of its value for re-sell. Just a thought!

MiskyBoyy

New mobile CPU's coming in next 2 months with double the integrated graphics. I know you'll have a seperate GPU but still!

http://www.geek.com/mobile/intel-doubles-mobile-chip-graphics-performance-with-switch-to-iris-pro-1624106/

Thargor

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I wouldn't go overboard on the CPU, the GPU will be obsolete before the processor is. That would be true even of the base 4460S, I personally wouldn't bother spending any more as you won't see any benefit in games.

Personally I find the best value in gaming laptops is buying mid-range and simply upgrading every 12-16 months - trying to buy something now that can play games for the next 4 or 5 years costs an absolute fortune and in the end, will end up being worth next to nothing. A good quad core, 8Gb of ram and GTX970 will serve you excellently in games for the next 12-16 months, and will hold a good chunk of its value for re-sell. Just a thought!

MiskyBoyy wrote: »

New mobile CPU's coming in next 2 months with double the integrated graphics. I know you'll have a seperate GPU but still!

http://www.geek.com/mobile/intel-doubles-mobile-chip-graphics-performance-with-switch-to-iris-pro-1624106/

Too late! The trigger has been pulled

I did dial back on the processor a bit to the Xeon, its like an i7 you just cant overclock it which I wouldnt do with a desktop processor in a laptop anyway in case it burst into flames:

XMG U705 17.3" ULTIMATE Gaming Notebook

http://mysn.co.uk/shop/xmg-u705-gaminglaptop.html


Display
1 x 17.3" (43.9cm) Full-HD LG LP173WF4-SPD1 (1920*1080) Matte IPS £0.00
Graphics Card

1 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M 8192MB GDDR5 with NVIDIA G-Sync £314.17
Processor

1 x Intel Xeon E3-1231 v3 | Quad Core | 8 Threads | 3.4 - 3.8GHz | TDP: 80 Watt £36.67
Memory

1 x 16GB (2x8192) SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM 1866MHz Crucial Ballistix Sport £72.50

Hard Drive 1
1 x 120GB SATA-III SSD Crucial BX100 (CT120BX100SSD1) £48.33

Hard Drive 2
1 x 1000GB SATA-III 7200rpm HGST Travelstar 7K1000 (HTS721010A9E630) £49.17

Optical Drive
1 x No External Optical Drive £0.00

WIFI Card
1 x Qualcomm Atheros Killer Wireless-AC 1525 (with Bluetooth) £23.33
Keyboard

1 x Backlit Keyboard UK £0.00
Warranty

1 x Standard Warranty : 24 Month Collect & Return (inc parts, labour, support, shipping) £0.00

Operating System
1 x No Operating System £0.00

Power Cable
1 x UK Power Cable £0.00

Really sound sales team emailing back and forth all day, ended up getting a £75 student discount and a £30 discount on the Xeon on top plus a thermal paste upgrade, all in all it came to €2,200,considering I was building practically the exact same system in other places for €2800 Im very happy. Now give me Fallout IV tomorrow Bethesda...

Anyone got any thoughts?

K.O.Kiki

Get a mouse, keyboard and 360 pad

TerrorFirmer

I think putting that processor in a gaming laptop is just ridiculous! Unless you're doing heavy editing or rendering, otherwise it will make exactly 0% different to games. The GTX980m is still the bottleneck even with the far cheaper i5-4460, you did kinda flush money down the toilet there if the laptop is only for gaming.

Price wise it is reasonable for what you paid definitely though. But you could have gotten a GTX970M Sli laptop for the same price which would beat it in games. At the end of the day a laptop with a ridiculously overkill desktop processor + powerful card is still going to lose to a cheaper processor + better card or cards. Raw GPU grunt is far more important for high-end gaming. In a few years time the processor would still be able to easily coast through the latest games on highest settings - except the card will start to lag behind badly essentially failing to ever use anywhere near the actual CPU power (that's true even now even with the GTX980M in its prime).

Also, the Xeon doesn't have integrated graphics so no Nvidia Optimus, which means lower battery life.

Thargor

Well they were doing a £30 off promotion on Xeons and it was way way cheaper than the i7 I was initially going for already so it really wasn't that much of a difference financially compared to the cheaper options and now I dont need to worry about cpu for years. The graphics card is upgradeable down the line if it comes to it which it might with the Oculus Rift, we'll see. SLI conigurations were pushing my budget too far for very little gain, although that will probably change as time goes on. SLI configurations can run very hot and loud aswell, this is apparently surprisingly quite and practically silent when browsing.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Schenker-XMG-U705-Clevo-P771ZM-Notebook-Review.141416.0.html

System Performance:
If you look at the specifications of the review unit, it is not surprising that the XMG U705 is one of the fastest high-end laptops on the market. With 6,847 points, the almost 4 kg (~8.8 lb) monster can secure second place compared to all tested notebooks in PCMark 7 (6,860 points @One K73-5N). Even the top configuration of the MSI GT80, which is equipped with a Core i7-4980HQ, 32 GB RAM, four SSDs and two GeForce GTX 980M in an SLI configuration, cannot keep up with the review unit and gets 6,624 points

Im coming from a 6 year old Aldi laptop and an Xbox 360 so Im really not bothered about the little tweaks here and there tbh.

Thargor

Also will a powerful CPU reduce loading times in massive games like Witcher III and Fallout IV? And the OS maybe?

K.O.Kiki

Thargor wrote: »

Also will a powerful CPU reduce loading times in massive games like Witcher III and Fallout IV? And the OS maybe?

No.
It's more dependent on your harddrive, so SSDs are recommended for game installs.

Thargor

Well its here, and all set up, pics don't do justice to how big it is, its like a small coffee table

It is blindingly fast, anything I do just happens instantly, games install from Steam the way a Youtube video buffers, the case is cold and its completely silent aswell, going to push it a bit and see what its like running a game on ultra tonight but so far it makes about the same amount of noise as my tablet in normal use, with about the same amount of heat!

See in the pics along the hinge, under the XMG logo, something I wasn't expecting, its got a big speaker that's practically as good as a tv soundbar, it is loud, as in hi-fi loud, I knew it had good Soundblaster X-Fi stuff on board but I wasnt expecting it to be this good, subwoofer built in aswell, major unexpected bonus.





Linus did a review of a near identical build as mine yesterday:

Couldn't have worked out better tbh, and the Steam Sale has been a gift this year. Windows 8.1 is an abomination but the Classic Shell fixed everything.