28 replies to this topic

[Santarine]

Pugnax, on 07 December 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

... The idea of having no warranty just worries me. If it up and dies after a few months I'm boned.

It comes with 90 days Limited Warranty, which is pretty much what you usually get with refurbished equipment. If you decide to buy it, just give it really hard shake in those first 3 months, so if something was meant to fail it probably will. And you can buy 1 Year/2 Years Extended Service Plan for Refurbished Laptops for $60/$140 (personally I don't think 2 Years/$140 deal is wise choice in this particular cituation)

[Gremlich Johns]

psssst, Sager

[Slab Squathrust]

So I promised numbers for my y510p and here they are.

On very high settings, it averaged 30.74 frames per second. Definitely playable
On high settings, it averaged 29.06 frames per second. Playable as well. Strange there was no improvement over the higher settings.
On medium settings it averaged 39.29 frames per second.
On low settings it averaged 61.06 frames per second.
N = at least 5 for all tests and the resolutions was kept at 1920x1080p for all trials. My y510p has the 2.4 ghz i7 cpu. Sli was disabled for the tests. Playing with it on was interesting and seemed to lower frame rates. I didn't bother trying to develop a setting to allow it.

[Pugnax]

Thanks a lot for that info slab! It's incredibly helpful to get some numbers on what the y510p can do, I will definitely take that stuff into account. How was the heat while playing mwo? I've heard (as previously mentioned here) that it can be an issue.

[Kadix]

With the i7, about all you're getting over the i5 is hyperthreading.

Games don't actually take advantage of hyperthreading. It's useful for high-end graphics editing (photoshop, movies, etc.), but just for gaming and general computing you should save the $150 and get the i5. My work machines are i7's (because IT has more cash than brains) and my home machines are i5's. Nothing that I do runs noticeably better on an i7.

Also, for school, you want a 14" or 15" laptop. 17" laptops are monsters to carry around, and 13" laptops will be too small to fit snugly in most backpacks.

Every laptop with a good GPU is going to have heating issues. GPU's get hot, and trying to fit a hot GPU into a small case with limited space for cooling is going to get hot quick.

[Slab Squathrust]

Pugnax, on 14 December 2013 - 05:02 PM, said:

Thanks a lot for that info slab! It's incredibly helpful to get some numbers on what the y510p can do, I will definitely take that stuff into account. How was the heat while playing mwo? I've heard (as previously mentioned here) that it can be an issue.

I'm glad to help. You could definitely feel it was warm, but not burning hot. I had MSI afterbruner on and it was like 55-58 °C. Granted, my house is freezing. I'd definitely get a cooling pad to have better airflow. The cold air intake is on the bottom like many laptops and it exhausts out both sides if you have the SLI setup.

Kadix, on 15 December 2013 - 08:07 AM, said:

With the i7, about all you're getting over the i5 is hyperthreading.

Games don't actually take advantage of hyperthreading. It's useful for high-end graphics editing (photoshop, movies, etc.), but just for gaming and general computing you should save the $150 and get the i5. My work machines are i7's (because IT has more cash than brains) and my home machines are i5's. Nothing that I do runs noticeably better on an i7.

Also, for school, you want a 14" or 15" laptop. 17" laptops are monsters to carry around, and 13" laptops will be too small to fit snugly in most backpacks.

Every laptop with a good GPU is going to have heating issues. GPU's get hot, and trying to fit a hot GPU into a small case with limited space for cooling is going to get hot quick.

Some games do support hyper threading. Apparently battlefield 4 does. Granted you need to disable core parking. If you are thinking of getting this laptop for MWO primarily, the i5 might be the better option, just because of the higher clock rate. Also your price for performance on the i5 is about as good as it gets. Kadix is 100% correct, you really can't go wrong with 15". I always laughed when I saw someone bust a 17" laptop out of their bag when they would bring em to class.

[Catamount]

Maybe that's why 16" has been settled on by so many manufacturers. It's not as bulky as 17 (not significantly bigger than 15/15.4), but not as restricting as sub-16" laptops. My Asus has a fairly large keyboard, for instance, chicklet setup with a number pad, the spacing between the keys is appreciated by my big-handed room mate.

Still, 17 isn't bad to lug around as long as the distances aren't far. I wouldn't want to lug one back and forth across App State (big campus), nor did I even take well to smaller laptops (my Nexus 10 is all I use there), but in high school I had a 15" laptop that was bigger/heavier than any 17" that exists today, and it wasn't bad, and I mean seriously look at that thing. The DVD drive is only half the thickness of the body! So if it's not being transported much, a larger notebook isn't a problem, and frankly, I wouldn't want a smaller notebook for gaming just for heat concerns. What good is portability if it's dead in a year

Edited by Catamount, 18 December 2013 - 07:52 AM.

[Summon3r]

i5 has no issue running this game at all, so save a few bucks on the cpu and get a GOOD gpu, if your gpu isnt up to snuff it wont matter that u have an i7 anyway.

[Dinre]

Pugnax, on 07 December 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

Dang man, that's also good stuff to consider. Hah this is awesome though, I'm happy to be getting so many opinions. My only slight inhibition is buying refurb, though I've been assured it's legit. The idea of having no warranty just worries me. If it up and dies after a few months I'm boned.

Just an FYI (and not a recommendation): refurbished electronics are usually superior to off-the-line versions. When products are manufactured, there is a minimal amount of testing done for each product with full testing done for a very small subset of the products. With refurbishing, each product is fully tested, meaning that you are much less likely to get a dud and much more likely to get the absolute best performance from the product.