28 replies to this topic

[Pugnax]

Hello, I'm looking to buy a new laptop that can have mid-range gaming capabilities (I know I should get a desktop but I need the lappy for school). I was looking at this:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834313582
and was wondering what would be the bottleneck, the CPU or GPU? For $100 less they sell this:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834313581
which has the same GPU but a less awesome CPU.

If the i7 would just be slowed way down by that card I would rather buy the i5 and save $100 if there wouldn't be a huge difference.

Any input would be awesome!

[Catamount]

You can do okay with a laptop (read: not great, but passably), but you should shoot for a better GPU if possible.

If $900 is about what you can managed, I'd get this: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834313583 (note that still can manage 4 hours of battery life in non-gaming tasks)

A pair of 750s will obviously have something close to twice the performance you were looking at originally, and it still keeps a reasonably high-end CPU. Just beware of the lack of an optical drive, as though anybody uses those anymore...

As for whether the I5 will bottleneck you, truth be told, either chip will in intensive software, and hyperthreading is going to be minimally useful in games for quite awhile, so I wouldn't worry about that difference too much.

Edited by Catamount, 03 December 2013 - 03:51 PM.

[Camalus]

Between those two I'd go for the i7. It's got an extra 2GB of RAM, and the CPU has 6MB cache instead of the 3MB in the i5. To me, that'd be worth the extra $100.
While I can't say how well that card will do for MWO, if you've narrowed down your choices to only those two machines anyway I guess it's a moot point

[Pugnax]

Catamount, on 03 December 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

You can do okay with a laptop (read: not great, but passably), but you should shoot for a better GPU if possible.

If $900 is about what you can managed, I'd get this: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834313583 (note that still can manage 4 hours of battery life in non-gaming tasks)

A pair of 750s will obviously have something close to twice the performance you were looking at originally, and it still keeps a reasonably high-end CPU. Just beware of the lack of an optical drive, as though anybody uses those anymore...

As for whether the I5 will bottleneck you, truth be told, either chip will in intensive software, and hyperthreading is going to be minimally useful in games for quite awhile, so I wouldn't worry about that difference too much.

Wow I didn't even see that one. It's on sale as well, thanks for sharing!

[Sen]

Yea Cat. . it's one of the ugliest notebooks I've seen in awhile, but function over form ^^

At that price point, I can't think of anything that even touches it.

O/P:

Full disclosure

Just be advised that MwO does not currently support multiple card setups. There are some people that have gotten them to work, but it may not be "plug and play". Performance on a single 750m should be . . adequate in the meantime.

[cSand]

If you can spend a little more, this will last you for a long time, and I can attest to the lovely build quality of these (I have the next model up, same chassis though), and also the support from the manufacturer so far as I've used it has been excellent:

http://www.xoticpc.c...sm1-p-5840.html

That will run MWO no problem, and most other games, at high settings, and with the switchable graphics you can get great battery life on the Intel GPU.

Also, performance with 2 SLI cards will be about 1.5x the performance of 1 card, and SLI with 2x2GB cards still only gives you 2GB of VRAM. A single 770m will outmatch the performance of two SLI 750m any day of the week, plus you get 1GB extra VRAM as a nice bonus

In my experience, especially with laptops, save up for a little longer and spend the extra $$ to get one that will last you for longer, because upgrading down the road will cost you much more!

Edited by cSand, 04 December 2013 - 11:20 AM.

[Pugnax]

Sen, on 04 December 2013 - 08:00 AM, said:

Yea Cat. . it's one of the ugliest notebooks I've seen in awhile, but function over form ^^

At that price point, I can't think of anything that even touches it.

O/P:

Full disclosure

Just be advised that MwO does not currently support multiple card setups. There are some people that have gotten them to work, but it may not be "plug and play". Performance on a single 750m should be . . adequate in the meantime.

Oh man, I had no clue that 2 cards might not be supported, thanks for the info!

I was also looking at this one which has a pretty rippin' GPU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231136

I then realized it was refurbished. I've read questionable things about buying refurb... any input?

[Catamount]

OP, there's nothing wrong with refurb machines, ans Asus notebooks are among the most reliable.

Basically, here are the tradeoffs, in short:

Performance: The Asus will do better in a minority of titles where SLI isn't support, but the Lenovo will do better in titles where SLI is, and that's most games these days that are intensive enough for it to matter. The HP will be better for MWO for the time being, although probably not forever.

RAM: The Asus machine has a better RAM configuration. 6GB of RAM on a dual-channel setup makes no sense, whatsoever.

CPU: It's the same either way

Battery life: the Lenovo will be better

Cooling: the Asus will likely be better

Weight, portability: The Lenovo will be massively better


If your focus is gaming/performance, I'd go with the Asus, however, it will be a heavy SOB of a machine. 9+ pounds is a lot. It's also very chunky. However, it will likely last longer, especially for you, since you'll be straining either machine thermally, a lot. That said, if you're going to be hauling it around everywhere, every day, say end to end across a college campus several times a day, I'd get the Lenovo.

[Pugnax]

Well, Catamount, you have been incredibly helpful. Now I've just got a tough decision on my hands

Also, I have 8GB of RAM I would stick in the Lenovo as soon as I got it if that were my decision.

Edited by Pugnax, 05 December 2013 - 01:01 PM.

[Sen]

When in doubt, trust your gut.

[Catamount]

Okay, so you wouldn't have to awkwardly have 2GB of RAM in single channel, so that definitely makes the Lenovo at least a bit less of a tradeoff.

I have to admit, were I in your position, I would have a hard time really deciding. Reviewers have said the Lenovo does have heating issues, not severe ones, but notable ones, so keep that in mind.

[Pugnax]

Basically I think it comes down to the Asus being a tank which will take most of the stuff you can throw at it while in the Lenovo you sacrifice some stability for portability. I tried to make my girlfriend pick for me but she was rather disinterested haha.

[Slab Squathrust]

Catamount, on 05 December 2013 - 06:12 PM, said:

Okay, so you wouldn't have to awkwardly have 2GB of RAM in single channel, so that definitely makes the Lenovo at least a bit less of a tradeoff.

I have to admit, were I in your position, I would have a hard time really deciding. Reviewers have said the Lenovo does have heating issues, not severe ones, but notable ones, so keep that in mind.

I have that y510p with the i7. I can confirm the heating issues. It is surprisingly thin for its components. I have found that resting the rear on something to add some space beneath (where the air intake is) does wonders. It performs quite respectably in MWO. I haven't played on it recently since upgrading my desktop. I will get some games in this weekend on it and report back. I'd definitely look at a laptop with an i7. It will definitely provide some future proofing. With the consoles having 8 core cpus, I would expect we start seeing more games that can take advantage of the 4 virtual cores through HT.

[Pugnax]

Slab Squathrust, on 06 December 2013 - 09:46 PM, said:

I have that y510p with the i7. I can confirm the heating issues. It is surprisingly thin for its components. I have found that resting the rear on something to add some space beneath (where the air intake is) does wonders. It performs quite respectably in MWO. I haven't played on it recently since upgrading my desktop. I will get some games in this weekend on it and report back. I'd definitely look at a laptop with an i7. It will definitely provide some future proofing. With the consoles having 8 core cpus, I would expect we start seeing more games that can take advantage of the 4 virtual cores through HT.

Would you buy the y510p again? How bad are the heating issues? Just uncomfortable for the hands or would you say bad enough to affect hardware?

[Henchman 24]

Pugnax, on 06 December 2013 - 04:36 AM, said:

Basically I think it comes down to the Asus being a tank which will take most of the stuff you can throw at it while in the Lenovo you sacrifice some stability for portability. I tried to make my girlfriend pick for me but she was rather disinterested haha.

Be careful thinking that Asus model is a tank...I have a bud with one, and managed to break the LCD trying to flick a fruit fly off it, now he has a green line running down it. It may be bulky and built fairly well, but thinking it's a "tough" book is a bad idea. Otherwise, I'd also warn off the 670m GPU...it works and runs the game ok on lower settings, but falls short of really performing well in MWO. I believe the 675m relieved some of it's bottleneck in later models.

Also, cSand wasn't kidding, Sager/Clevo makes some seriously nice laptops with very good build quality. The deal he linked too even starts off at a discount vs. their own site.

Edited by Henchman 24, 07 December 2013 - 08:55 AM.

[Jorn978]

Hey, I just wanted to add to this by suggesting that you get a 15inch laptop if you will be lugging it around for school. I recently also bought a laptop to use at school and found that a 17inch laptop doesn't fit in my backpack.

Also, I wouldn't worry that much about having a real powerful gpu unless you can't live without the eye candy. My laptop has a Geforce GT 620m and i can play MWO at 50fps on low (also at 720p). My suggestion to you would be to get the Lenovo Catamount suggested, just keep in mind that the 2nd GPU only works while the laptop is plugged in to power.

[Slab Squathrust]

Pugnax, on 07 December 2013 - 06:18 AM, said:

Would you buy the y510p again? How bad are the heating issues? Just uncomfortable for the hands or would you say bad enough to affect hardware?

Yes, I would totally buy it again. i got an i7 model with the dual gt750m gpus for about 1000 bucks awhile back when there was a big sale. What drew me to the y510p was the relatively high specs in a somewhat compact machine. The heating has never got to a point that it is uncomfortable to keep my hands on the machine. I just like to keep it cool in hopes of prolonging the life of the hardware. Another thing to note is that the included HDD is terribly slow. I threw an 840 pro in there and in boots in like 8 seconds. Also it is riddled with bloatware, however the easiest fix I found was to grab an iso of Windows 8 and reinstall it. The license key is stored in the bios so you can use any win 8 iso.

[Pugnax]

Jorn978, on 07 December 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Hey, I just wanted to add to this by suggesting that you get a 15inch laptop if you will be lugging it around for school. I recently also bought a laptop to use at school and found that a 17inch laptop doesn't fit in my backpack.

Also, I wouldn't worry that much about having a real powerful gpu unless you can't live without the eye candy. My laptop has a Geforce GT 620m and i can play MWO at 50fps on low (also at 720p). My suggestion to you would be to get the Lenovo Catamount suggested, just keep in mind that the 2nd GPU only works while the laptop is plugged in to power.

I have a 15" at school right now and the portability is nice like you said. Though as stated above I'd probably have to find a workaround to get the SLI working.

Slab Squathrust, on 07 December 2013 - 09:51 AM, said:

Yes, I would totally buy it again. i got an i7 model with the dual gt750m gpus for about 1000 bucks awhile back when there was a big sale. What drew me to the y510p was the relatively high specs in a somewhat compact machine. The heating has never got to a point that it is uncomfortable to keep my hands on the machine. I just like to keep it cool in hopes of prolonging the life of the hardware. Another thing to note is that the included HDD is terribly slow. I threw an 840 pro in there and in boots in like 8 seconds. Also it is riddled with bloatware, however the easiest fix I found was to grab an iso of Windows 8 and reinstall it. The license key is stored in the bios so you can use any win 8 iso.

That's very good info, it's helpful to hear from someone who owns it. I think I might go for the y510p after all. The only slight bummer is the i5 but it's not a deal-breaker. Plus that deal has a 2-year warranty for $50 which is nice.

[Catamount]

I wouldn't worry about getting SLI working. It won't function in MWO at the moment, it's true, and I am NOT big on Macgyvering SLI or Crossfire, because that just sounds like a recipe amplifying the issues inherent to those technologies, that are only passably suppressed in very optimized situations (same reason I don't like hybrid crossfire). However, SLI will function in almost every game where the extra performance matters. Even in MWO, it should come along sooner or later, and until then, you have a grand total of one game where it doesn't work.
I'm just continually concerned about the reliability of that machine. Two mobile 750s is at least a passable GPU setup, and passable on a laptop is impressive, and in most games, it will be moderately faster than a 670mx, just understand that if you game a lot, the computer will, in all probability, die sooner or later from it. You could spend the $50 on an extended warranty, just understand that if your machine dies after two and a half years, you're buying another laptop. The two 750s appear to be placed in different parts of the machine, so that should help a lot with heat (my understanding is that one replaces the drive), however, having those cards so far apart may also introduce latency issues that could again hurt performance.


Honestly, the more I think about it, OP, the most I'm thinking go for the Asus, unless you're willing to take gambles for that mobility. If the mobility is important, those gambles won't be enormous enough to override it, but if you can live with the size, and you're not prepared to risk buying another laptop after a mere two years, you get a lot more certainly in both the performance and the reliability of the Asus. OTOH, if buying another laptop after two years isn't a big deal, then go for the machine that might break, and just understand you might replace it. Just make sure that's really the case, though, because I've personally owned THREE laptops that have died due to heavy gaming, and seen at least a couple others. Only my Asus ever held up, having just been given away to an older friend as a basic Internet machine after three and a half years of very frequent intensive gaming battering the CPU and GPU (it's also been droped, bumped, struck and subject to extremes of temperature in both directions).


I don't mean to harp on what you already know, I just think it bears emphasizing that killing your machine is NOT a far off, abstract concern. Gaming will either destroy your laptop, or at the very least, savagely reduce its life. It's more a matter of "when", than "if". If that's okay, get the Lenovo, if not, get the Asus, because Asus builds downright redundantly reliable laptops. You really have to work hard to kill them.

Edited by Catamount, 07 December 2013 - 01:11 PM.

[Pugnax]

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.