Gaming Laptop for 1,200EUR?

Laptops are a minefield due to several competing factors. Reading the specs off a website doesn't give you any idea how it will perform as you've no idea how it manages heat. If they run hot, the CPU and GPU throttle down and it's not unknown to pay for expensive parts but get budget performance. I'd be very sure you can either get hands on with a laptop before you buy or get a good recommendation.

Dell (G5 brand) and HP (Omen brand) make very good laptops and it's worth waiting until the 3060 is actually released and see what you can get. No harm to let stocks build back up again as well.

Why not a proper desktop?

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I bought one in the late 00's and I counsel against it. Mine nearly two thousand euro and it lasted less than a year. I bought one in 2012 for less than 400 pounds in the UK that ran most games I put on it though it didn't have a 1080 display.

I think the desktop would be best for both unless he's a student and if he's a student he won't have portability if the thing is over 17-inches. Would a Macbook be an option if it's for video editing? It's not something I know about but anyone I've know who did that always went Mac.

A Macbook pro is a fantastic laptop. You can easily dual or triple boot them to linux or windows if you want also.

What about Razer? I've heard great things about their laptops. A bit over budget though.

https://www.razer.com/eu-en/gaming-laptops/razer-blade

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I bought one in the late 00's and I counsel against it. Mine nearly two thousand euro and it lasted less than a year. I bought one in 2012 for less than 400 pounds in the UK that ran most games I put on it though it didn't have a 1080 display.

I think the desktop would be best for both unless he's a student and if he's a student he won't have portability if the thing is over 17-inches. Would a Macbook be an option if it's for video editing? It's not something I know about but anyone I've know who did that always went Mac.

To be honest, comparing laptops of that era to current ones ( even up to two year old ones ), is a bit... wrong. Price/performance ratio became way better and gaming Laptops can be definitely a viable option, for those who need it. Then again, it's a pc building forum, and it will be a bit more leaning towards desktops.

I personally never went for laptops as they were not good value, but I finally decided to get one in 2019 November. 9750h 16gb ram 1tb m.2 ssd rtx 2060 144hz ips panel for 1500eu. Its way over a year old and I would say that no one here could label this laptop as useless already, it definitely still has a good bit life in it and even more, if you are not the one who expects to play all newest games maxed out.

The new mobile Ryzen cpus and rtx 30series gpus are even better then ever. Laptop gaming really went far.

I still want to update my desktop, but the way things going with pc part market, brexit and covid, chances are it won't be any time soon.

Yeah I paid a grand for my gaming laptop, i7-9750 and GTX1660Ti, fairly solid laptop for games, though heat and noise are an issue on the "budget" options that offer the best paper spec for the money.

Make sure you thoroughly research whatever model you are looking at, don't just buy what seems the best spec for the price, because that can be very misleading and led to frustrating issues.

For example my own laptop gets way too hot, sometimes the CPU throttles badly, and is very noisy. It's a Dell G3. It's still solid for games in general, but the chassis and cooling are pretty bad. Unless I'm playing something CPU intensive I usually disable turbo-boost and leave it at the base 2.5Ghz, but it's fairly crap that you cannot simply leave it at stock and get the "proper" performance.

I would recommend AMD processor, they run way cooler than Intel. Something like the 4600 or 4800 would be ideal and shouldn't have any thermal issues.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Yup, as always, you need to know what you getting in to when buying laptops. The noise can be a deal breaker for a lot of people.
Thing is, I do same thing as you, power limit to 98% to disable boost. It makes laptop so much quieter and still has enough punch for most games. New ryzen cpus should be even better as their base clock is higher then 2.5ghz.

Thing is, people forget most desktops are noisy too, unless you are building on purpose to be silent.

I wouldn't say desktops are all that noisy tbh but it definitely does help that they tend to be further away from you when you're playing. As a generality, a 30 quid cooler on your CPU will keep you pretty quiet and GPUs are usually grand as long as they aren't blower coolers. At that point it's just insuring your case isn"t sh*te for airflow

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Apple M1 MacBook can run these games:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1er-NivvuIheDmIKBVRu3S_BzA_lZT5z3Z-CxQZ-uPVs/htmlview

Or you can install Linux and play a whole load more with steam.

Homelander wrote: »

People really just need to stop with the Macbook recommendations.

When someone has a budget of €1,200 and their express want is a gaming laptop, it's honestly a completely stupid suggestion.

You can't play a ton of games, a) due to major compatiability issues and b) the card isn't even strong enough to run most new games anyway even at lowest settings. It's a great chip for what it is, but in the context of having a budget of €1,200 specifically for a "gaming laptop" it's awful.

You can buy RTX3060 laptops from €1,200 that would be 4x as powerful in games, even putting aside the compatiability problems.

The 13" Macbook is a fine machine no doubt but it has zero place in a thread where someone specifically wants a gaming laptop.

He said he wants to do video editing and gaming.

OSX has better software for video editing, can run Linux and at least used to be able to run windows natively. Don't confuse the hardware for the OS.

I play games on a Mac that run just fine. I also play games on Linux. Haven't bothered booting to windows now for a long time because there is such good linux support in steam now. (you can enable even more games if you tweak a few settings)

My suggestion was a Razer if games are the priority anyway.

beauf wrote: »

A lot in that list either don't work, need their settings turned way down, and get dysmal frame rates. Games are increasing looking for more than 16gb.

Looking at the current macbook pro you'd need the 16 inch with the i9 and AMD Radeon Pro 5500M for more than double OPs budget...

beauf wrote: »

A Ryzen with a 2060 or 3060 will out perform the M1 in most things including video editing and rendering.

https://youtu.be/y_jw38QD5qY

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Apple-M1-MacBook-vs-PC-Desktop-Workstation-for-Adobe-Creative-Cloud-1975/#AfterEffectsPerformanceAnalysis

The M1 is brilliant, no doubt. If I wanted a laptop with the best battery life in 13" for traveling and my apps were supported, I'd pick the mac. But as a general all rounder Id want the gaming machine. More bang for buck. One thing I was looking for was lots of USB 3.x ports. Our gaming laptop has 5.

I'm tempted to get M1 just to play with. But I wouldn't get it for gaming. You need a dedicated GPU.

I'm looking at a Ryzen Blade 15 with an i7 10750H CPU and RTX2060, but a little concerned I'm overpaying for the brand. It's going to cost somewhere in the region of €1400. Am I mad?

These are the three options I have (Prices in dollars, buying from the US, long story, I know the customs bit):

Razer Blade 15 Base Gaming Laptop 2020: Intel Core i7-10750H 6-Core, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, 15.6" FHD 1080p 144Hz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, CNC Aluminum, Chroma RGB Lighting, Thunderbolt 3, Black - $1484

MSI GS66 10SE VR-Ready Stealth 15.6" FHD 144HZ Laptop, i7-10750H, WiFi 6, RGB Backlit Keyboard, Webcam, USB C, HDMI, Thunderbolt 3, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, Win 10 (16GB RAM | 512GB PCIe SSD) $1399

ROG Zephyrus G15 Ultra Slim Gaming Laptop, 15.6” 240Hz Pantone Validated FHD Display, GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q, AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS, 16GB DDR4, 1TB PCIe SSD, Gig+ Wi-Fi 6, Windows 10 Home, GA502IV-PH96 $1299

AnthonyB wrote: »

I'm looking at a Ryzen Blade 15 with an i7 10750H CPU and RTX2060, but a little concerned I'm overpaying for the brand. It's going to cost somewhere in the region of €1400. Am I mad?

These are the three options I have (Prices in dollars, buying from the US, long story, I know the customs bit):

Razer Blade 15 Base Gaming Laptop 2020: Intel Core i7-10750H 6-Core, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, 15.6" FHD 1080p 144Hz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, CNC Aluminum, Chroma RGB Lighting, Thunderbolt 3, Black - $1484

MSI GS66 10SE VR-Ready Stealth 15.6" FHD 144HZ Laptop, i7-10750H, WiFi 6, RGB Backlit Keyboard, Webcam, USB C, HDMI, Thunderbolt 3, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, Win 10 (16GB RAM | 512GB PCIe SSD) $1399

ROG Zephyrus G15 Ultra Slim Gaming Laptop, 15.6” 240Hz Pantone Validated FHD Display, GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q, AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS, 16GB DDR4, 1TB PCIe SSD, Gig+ Wi-Fi 6, Windows 10 Home, GA502IV-PH96 $1299

1400 sounds reasonable for a decent laptop. I'd personally go with the Razer based on all the stellar reviews.

Just going to throw this out there.

Unless gaming and travel are a must, get a laptop with thunderbolt + no graphics card and a GPU dock with a graphics card.

AnthonyB wrote: »

Would you not think the AMD chip in the ASUS is better - the GPU looks better too - for $200 less?

Things usually cost less for a reason.