Buying a gaming laptop :o

I'd always go for the best processor/gpu you can afford with a laptop. You can upgrade the Harddrive to an SSD later but you're stuck with the first choice of mobo/cpu/gpu.

Just make sure you get a 'gaming laptop' rather than a laptop with a dedicated GPU. I made this mistake before and it wasn't designed for prolonged sessions (keyboard felt like lava after 2 hours playing)

Same here, i mean i have to start again to look at machines.

I'm oriented toward a 17" and nothing else because I don't have a desktop and necessity is forcing me to decide toward the portable solution

I did find a couple of German vendors making gaming machines, I was almost decided when I read couple reviews saying how noisy one model was, how not solid the other felt…

Jackophant wrote somewhere else he would have some hints for companies to consider.

Yeah I bought a couple laptops with that nvidia card that switches to intel when it's on battery. I've had some pretty bad performance overall. It's ok but not great.

Also I've had issues with some games not switching to the nvidia gpu when I launch them and they run terrible. In most cases I can get it to use the right gpu with some fiddling but sometimes not. For instance, all sega games I own just won't work with that gpu

I'd certainly pick the one with the better GPU.

double post, read below

Quote from blackdog

Jackophant wrote somewhere else he would have some hints for companies to consider.

Thanks for the heads up!

Aside from portability, what are your requirements? My view on portability is that anything is portable if you try hard enough. You need more criteria to be clear on what you're buying.

What sort of screen size do you want? if it's not replacing your desktop a 17" screen might be a bit too large and hefty. But if you want it for mapping 13" and the rise of these new 14" laptops might be a little on the lower end of screen real estate.

I actually bought the gigabyte model above the one you list there (P35W) a couple of months back. I think it's a fucking marvellous machine. I can't see how ours are different tbh (mine has hot swappable bays?), but easily a contender to any MBP (equivalent spec MBP is more in the region of £2k FYI, I looked) and with the haswell chip the thing just goes for days, it's crazy. (Seriously, I love this laptop... Like a child).

There are a few custom places as well, but with the customisation comes a size problem. They aren't stupidly large, but they arent 2cm thick like the P35s. Spec to what you need, keep track of the price easily enough: Utopia Laptops

There is also AORUS. I had my eye set on one of these, but they seemed to be quite hard to come buy. Almost had to buy from LDLC.com!

And there's this Laptop Buying Guide. Most of it is common sense, but it's worth having a butchers just to see if there are some tricks you didn't know already.

But what I will say is this... DO. NOT. EVER. SCRIMP. ON. LAPTOPS.

I know a guy who went for a laptop... £800 version had 4GB of RAM, £820 had 8GB of RAM (literally the only difference). He refused to spend the extra £20 and forever regrets it. You've got a good budget, but if you can, save that little bit extra.

I tried to look at the efficiency of what I was buying, there are a lot of laptops that sport >1080p screens. When battery life is important and the GPUs are often underpowered, those extra pixels are a serious case of diminishing returns. They push the price up and reduce gaming performance/quality.

Sorry, this has been a bit of an unstructured splurge of information, links and opinions. Hopefully you can extract something useful out of it.

Quote from jackophant

Aside from portability, what are your requirements? My view on portability is that anything is portable if you try hard enough. You need more criteria to be clear on what you're buying.

Thanks for the contribution.I must haven't been clear, I am of your same opinion. When I said "portable" I mean "transportable".

I need a workstation.

I was considering assembling a mini-case PC, packing as much power as I could fit, and buy a 24-27".

Now I have a girlfriend so regularly I move from my very tiny room where I live (I live-in where I work) to her small one-room studio for a couple of days. Commute is 2-2.5hrs going through London, so I don't mind transporting anything that can fit in my trolley… I actually considered buying the mini-PC anyway and just attach it to my gf's small TV when I'm there.

Might be too hassly tho after the first couple of trips.

I was planning to spend 900-1100£.

I don't expect being able to find in a few months a game industry job thanks to the work I'll do on the computer, but I am struggling anyway thinking I could save a little bit hoping in being able to replace the machine quickly (when moving someplace else after finding a different job).

Just going to say this: Don't take MSi, they have overheating issues mostly, while ASUS has its shit together on cooling side.

Thanks, cos last time when I was almost decided and then stopped myself from buying, I started to look also at MSI

I've been a huge fan of custom laptops and currently own a Clevo that I've been using for the last 3 years. I don't know much about Gigabyte so definitely look into their build quality! The company that sold my Clevo merged with a bigger one over here: http://www.mysn.eu/ They rebranded the Clevo models as XMG or Schenker, or something.

Check out this comprehensive list: http://alteredqualia.com/texts/notebooks/

And obviously check the reviews (notebookcheck!)

Yes! Xmg/schenker were the computers I was looking into months ago! Think schenker were a bit cheaper but review said build quality left something to desire, while xmg noisy/hot.

I also have a Clevo/Sager laptop which has lasted a good five years. I originally got it so I could travel by air with my computer easily, but it worked well as my main workstation for a few years and for a while I took it back and forth to the office every day.

I wouldn't expect any laptop you purchase to outperform a comparable desktop build in terms of price. An equally performing desktop PC will probably cost a little bit less, so you have to decide if the portability is worth it. I know I wouldn't want to haul a desktop around too often, even a smaller one - I put together a mini-ITX system for my home PC recently so it would be somewhat portable if I decide to move, want to take it to an event/LAN, etc, but it's still pretty sizable and definitely more 'fragile' so I wouldn't want to lug it around on a weekly basis.

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusV-15/

Make no mistake, the build quality of the GIGABYTE P35 is fantastic, and as non-apple laptops go I personally think it's pretty easy on the eye. Slightly gaudy stickers on the screen bezel, and the bezel itself is a bit large and plasticy, but yeah...

I've had a Dell Studio 1749 which is literally a tank despite being very plastic and a little mismatched in some of the moulded parts, but this thing just keeps going! The gigabyte is honestly a great build, and I reckon it will have comparable if not better longevity.

Isn't buying a gaming laptop like buying a limo to use it off road? Shit is bound to break cos it's doing things that no matter what manufacturers try, they're not meant to because of heat basically?

nah, maybe if you cut corners or choose a shitty manufacturer, but as I once saw on a forum (may be slightly paraphrased, but you get the point):

Quote

Choose any 2 of the following 3 when finding a powerful laptop:

• high performance
• easily portable
• low price

I chose the first 2!

Build quality doesn't feature in the list as it depends on the manufacturer. I think ASUS have fantastic build quality in any of their range, budget to premium, but MSi are fairly... poor, regardless of price. My friend had an MSi notebook and you could literally pick it apart with your nails. We would take bets on which part had dropped off the next day in colllege

Yeah that P35 looks pretty minimal, I quite like it! (I don't understand why manufacturers keep positioning the touchpad to the left instead of the middle.)

Anyway, I haven't seen mentioning Alienware or the Asus ROG (Republic Of Gamers) series: any opinion?

When i first looked at these machines, Alienware even had an HDMI input... which would very interesting for me: if possible I'd love to be able to use the computer as a screen for the X360 (atm I have to keep it in the staff shared sitting room and so I'm able to use less often than I'd like). Anyone knows if it works?

~

An alternative to go big with a 17" for me would be go portability, choose a 14" and also buy a 24-27" display for my room, and just do what I can when at my gf. But other than the screen estate, I am more keen on a 17" cos they usually pack the top tier hw, being wider they should be able to dissipate a bit better the heat...

~

Quote from dux

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusV-15/

Have any direct experience with these?

Yes I built my current laptop with them for £700. Being able to pick your own parts is the only way to go with a laptop, same as a PC really. The only thing I need to do is get another stick of ram as single channel isn't amazing, but that's easy to fix.