/new gaming laptop - spec check

Pladio

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New gaming laptop - spec check

Hi all,

My laptop has been giving me trouble for the past six months and it killed my old hard drive. I then got someone to give me his used one for free which died as well.

I wanted to buy a new one last year anyway, but decided against it because my laptop was working fine.

Now it isn't anymore. I found a new one I would like to get from Pcspecialist.co.uk.

The specs are listed below. I would like to know whether you think it's overkill for someone who is still playing The Witcher 1 to get something like this?

The biggest selling points for me are the SSD, CPU, RAM and GPU (mostly in that order). I do not care much for design unless it's going to break after two days of use.

Let me know what you think about the specs.
Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Keyboard Language
OPTIMUS SERIES UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Thanks.
 
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CPU Hz are good
Memory are maybe. Need pair of memory chips for DDR.
GFX cannot comment but dedicated card is a pluss
SSD disk is essential
Install DVD for Windows 7 are good. I recommend reinstalling it. The computer will come preinstalled with A LOT of crap. And yes, reinstall is quicker.
Check if you like a matte screen.
 
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Just about gfx… 740M or higher is what you need and you have it inside.
The rest of it is awsome. Buy now!



(Let your wallet to) cry later. ;)
 
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How much are they asking for that setup?

Personally, I still have a hard time using the words "gaming" and "laptop" in the same sentence. :)
 
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CPU is not your bottleneck in gaming. The quad you're thinking of is a serious waste of money imho unless you want to benchmark brag or do some serious video editing (like professionally).

--Put all your spare cash into the GPU --

I would get the other 15.6" pcsepcialist have, put in a bottom of the range CPU, top of the range GPU and have 2 hard disks. A small SSD for the OS and your current game, and a second mega mechanical drive (7200 rpm 750GB WD Scorpio Black) for your vids, music and other games. This will free up enough cash to then go for the king of GPUs the 780M GTX which will beat 98% of desktops.

Please do some research into CPU and gaming on places like tomshardware notebookreview and anandtech. Try to filter out the marketing by intel to sell expensive CPUs to people who don't need them.
 
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Sorry just to supplement that - I'm not saying that you won't notice any FPS difference at all with a top CPU. It will be something like 3-4 FPS (except maybe Rome II) compared to the CPU that's say, second from bottom on the 'customize' list. Whereas the difference between a 765M and a 780M is almost double the FPS.

In 2010 I took my pcspecialist (OEM, on a clevo ODM) with a top quad and replaced the CPU with a lowly i3 and ran a load of games (with the same GPU ofc). The price difference was 500 euro and the FPS difference was about 4 or 5 on average if I remember rightly.
 
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So many questions to answer :

First of all, the price is £930 on this set-up.
As I said before I will be playing the witcher 1 and probably the witcher 2 afterwards.
I was playing The Witcher 1 until my HDD died with a GT 330M on low-medium graphics and I wasn't bothered with it. (Maybe because I never played on max settings)
Do you think it's still worth downgrading CPU for a better GPU ?
Will downgrading the CPU make a difference to day to day use ?

@hisahdow, PCspecialist only installs the OS and necessary drivers apparently. No bloatware.
Also, I never gamed on a matte screen, so I'm not 100% sure I would like it, but apparently it's quite good. What do you think ?
 
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Modern games have been steadily making better use of the CPU (baby steps sure), and the new consoles might actually favor some development on that direction (more possibility that the next Console port you'll be playing will be heavily threaded).

Also the newer OSs simply work better on multiple cores. So don't cheap out completely on the CPU (but expect to see a much more tangible gain by the GPU naturally) especially if you want to future proof your laptop a bit. I would say go for an i5 @ 2.6 at least. (Dual core is ok for a gaming laptop I guess)

That said:

Personally, I still have a hard time using the words "gaming" and "laptop" in the same sentence. :)

This ;)

P.S The real gain of the Haswell Architecture should be battery life… But seriously gaming (and with a 780M) on a laptop, you'll be married to a socket anyways ;)
 
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I know, but I will be travelling on the train with it quite often and I like gong to the living room to watch movies on it with lovefilm too. So it will be moved around quite often. Just stuck to the socket while gaming.

Can't really move a desktop from the living room (movies + tv shows) to the bedroom (gaming) every two days :D
 
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Oh I get that and it is a bit tempting at times, but I find I cannot enjoy "High-end" gaming if I don't do it right (on my big screen and with decent surround speakers with no other distractions). So paying a premium for mediocre Hardware on something that will need a decent cooler at a minimum to game on was never something I was sold on.

I do game on my old (late 2008) 13" macbook at times (Finished Avernum 6, the remake, an Arcanum replay and did most of an IWD one on recent memory). But lately I just feel like killing time on a couple of side games on it, when I am stuck on an airport or something…

Off topic: I just backed this silly little one for a tenner just for that purpose :)
 
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Cooling may be a problem on laptops used for gaming. My old HP envy sometimes shut down due to heat. It helped taking it apart and replace cooling paste. Still, I would search the net to see if your laptop wannabuy has cooling problems.

My new Asus Republic of Gamers machine has a couple of serious, ominous looking fans/fan outlets. And it gets only lukewarm back there even on high intensity gaming. This one is well suited for gaming both on my lap, and while connected to my main Keyboard-mouse-24inchmonitor-setup using a KVM switch.

It comes with a hefty price and a hefty weight, though.

pibbur who wish (actually, not) he got paid by someone to write this

PS. Talking about laptops: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_opH-VtMPc. And: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lER9c6exzjg. And of course, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTMdXZ_QwTo DS.
 
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@hisahdow, PCspecialist only installs the OS and necessary drivers apparently. No bloatware.
Also, I never gamed on a matte screen, so I'm not 100% sure I would like it, but apparently it's quite good. What do you think ?
Plus is that you'll have less glare. Minus is slightly less contrast. You'll probably be happy regardless. :)
 
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Cooling may be a problem on laptops used for gaming. My old HP envy sometimes shut down due to heat. It helped taking it apart and replace cooling paste. Still, I would search the net to see if your laptop wannabuy has cooling problems.

My new Asus Republic of Gamers machine has a couple of serious, ominous looking fans/fan outlets. And it gets only lukewarm back there even on high intensity gaming. This one is well suited for gaming both on my lap, and while connected to my main Keyboard-mouse-24inchmonitor-setup using a KVM switch.

It comes with a hefty price and a hefty weight, though.

pibbur who wish (actually, not) he got paid by someone to write this

PS. Talking about laptops: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_opH-VtMPc. And: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lER9c6exzjg. And of course, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTMdXZ_QwTo DS.

I'm not a coder, so I guess that isn't a problem.
I already have a laptop cooler anyway as I did find my laptop to get hot sometimes..

On the videos, I can't watch the first one. The Mactini is really funny, but other one was alright :)
 
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I say, if you're going to spend a lot of money on a gaming laptop, you should get top of the line (if money is not a big deal, obviously).

That rig you posted is nice, but you can do better than the 765m. Get the 780m. You will be thankful when you're playing every game out there at ultra settings, and it gives you a little bit longer of a lifespan before you have to upgrade again.
 
Upgrading to a 780 turned out be very expensive. I ended up adding another HDD to the config though, a 7200rpm 500GB one.
I also changed it to Win8.1

I got my laptop two days ago and I've been installing games and all of my programs on it.

I will be continuing my playthrough of the Witcher on it.

I have to say this. Having an SSD makes the laptop so much more responsive.
I am very happy with it.
As their website had advertised, I got my laptop in 12 working days. So not a shirt time to wait, but reasonable for a custom-built one I'd say.

:)
I'm very happy with it for now.

Only backdraw compared to my old laptop are the speakers. I had Harmon Kardon speakers which were amazing in my old laptop. These new ones aren't bad per se, but the contrast is massive.
 
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Asus G750JW 17.3-Inch
Intel Core i7-4700HQ(2.4 GHz)
750GB 5400RPM
8GB DDR3
Geforce GTX765M (2G DDR3 VRAM)
 
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You could maybe look for some USB-powered speakers (with integrated soundcard)? Would be head and shoulders better than any speaker fitted in a laptop I imagine.
 
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Yeah, got a tiny one that's quite good actually.

If I really want better speakers then I'd probably get a subwoofer and two speaker type setup at some point but it's ok for now.

Haven't been able to fix the HDMI problem unfortunately ...
 
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