New to owning a Laptop...questions about gaming on one.

[acctingman]

Looking to buy my first laptop. I'd like it to be decent enough to play games like Baldur's Gate 3. I used to keep up on PC's but that was 5+ years ago, so I'm definitely out of touch with what's what for gaming rigs let alone laptop gaming rigs.

Is there a good "dummys for gaming laptops" any where

Throw me some good processor speeds and what I should be looking at for GPU's.

Thanks

 

[igor_kavinski]

If money is no object: https://www.anandtech.com/show/2001...ew-ryzen-9-7945hx3d-with-3d-v-cache-impresses

ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 17 X3D (G733PYV-XH97) 17.3" 240Hz 3ms WQHD (100% DCI-P3) Gaming Laptop w / GeForce RTX 4090 16GB GDDR6 (AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D & Windows 11 Pro)

ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 17 (G733PYV-XH97), AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D (2.3GHz - 5.4GHz) Processor, 17.3" 240Hz (3ms) WQHD IPS-Level (2560 x 1440) Anti-Glare 100% DCI-P3 (300 nits Brightness) Display, 32GB (2x 16GB) DDR5 4800MHz Memory, 2TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (16GB) GDDR6 Graphics...

www.excaliberpc.com

Or you could wait for Zen 5 gaming laptops which could be a 6 to 7 month wait. However, if you are looking for something to play with soon, you can't really go wrong with a 3D cache CPU. It will age much better than a typical CPU as the huge cache will always help it against the newest CPUs without that much cache. Waiting on data from system RAM usually keeps a CPU from flexing its muscles properly so the X3D CPU doesn't have that issue.

 

[fralexandr]

Fyi, it's expensive to get decent amounts of vram on a laptop.

The sweet spot is the ryzen 77xx and 4060/4070 right now. If you want more than 8GB vram you'd be looking for a 6700m/6800m or 3080/4080/4090

Acer Nitro 16 Laptop: 16" QHD+ 165Hz, Ryzen 7735HS, RTX 4070, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD $1030 + Free Shipping

antonline via eBay has Acer 16" Nitro 16 Gaming Laptop (AN16-41-R7FA, Obsidian Black) on sale for $1029.99. Shipping is free. Thanks to community member RogerKangaroo for sharing this deal ...

slickdeals.net

GIGABYTE - 15.6" 144Hz Gaming Laptop FHD - Intel i7-12650H with 16GB RAM - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 - 512GB SSD - Black $750

Key Specs Screen Size 15.6 inches Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) Touch Screen No Refresh Rate 144Hz

slickdeals.net

 

[Tech Junky]

Clevo Barebone Laptop Series - R&J Technology, Clevo Barebone Notebook kits, Laptop and desktop system builder

your Memory hard drives build your laptop based this Clevo Barebone Series select from options provided build

rjtech.com

Best prices for a bare bones laptop with high end tech. Free shipping and no taxes. Just install ram and drives and install an OS.

 

[blankslate]

Jarrod's Tech channel on youtube has a link to current deals on laptops
for U.S. buyers I think.

Current Gaming Laptop Deals

Don't pay too much for your gaming laptop! We find the best laptop deals so you can get the best price with these sales!

gaminglaptop.deals

___________

 

[igor_kavinski]

This seems to be the best deal there in terms of value and longevity: https://geni.us/eqWFn

 

[lakedude]

I'd like it to be decent enough to play games like Baldur's Gate 3.

We are going to need your budget to make better targeted suggestions.

The better performance the more you lose portability and battery life. I once bought a gaming monster claiming I didn't care about the extra weight but between the oversized laptop and the huge power brick it was a bit unwieldy.

The recommended system specs are a few years out of date.

 

[lakedude]

This would have been a great deal but they seem to be sold out...

 

[lakedude]

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sku/6560989.p?skuId=6560989

This one!

 

[lakedude]

Back in the middle of covid we had 3 people working from home on laptops and 1 kid doing virtual school at home on a laptop so I bought a spare, this one:

MSI GF63 Thin Gaming Laptop, 15.6" FHD Display, Intel Core i5-10300H, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 MaxQ, 8GB DDR4, 256GB NVMe SSD, Black, Windows 10 - GF63222

I paid $537.67 November of 2021. It is "new" in that it is unused but it is out of warranty and I'm not an authorized reseller.

My son's laptop just died and his birthday is coming up so I was planning on giving it to him for his birthday but if you are interested you can make me an offer and I'll buy that $750 RX7700S from BB.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sku/6560989.p?skuId=6560989

This one!

View attachment 99019

-That's... A damn good deal...

For clarity's sake, the 7700s is really a 7600 in disguise. Not the greatest desktop part, but a pretty solid laptop option all things considered.

Smidge faster than the laptop 4060, bit slower than the laptop 4070.

 

[igor_kavinski]

but if you are interested you can make me an offer and I'll buy that $750 RX7700S from BB.

OP is MIA so I suggest you get the BB laptop. Darn good deal. Best thing is it's 165 Hz. Anything above 144 Hz has a premium panel with good colorspace coverage. It's at least sRGB 100% which corresponds to 72% NTSC. Most panels even on expensive 144 Hz displays are 45% NTSC. The colors should be really vibrant on this laptop.

 

[lakedude]

OMG I was so excited! My buddy contacted me for laptop advice and so naturally I told him about the $750 BB 7700s, and then he bought this:

 

[igor_kavinski]

Ask him to stress it in Intel XTU. If it shows the chip is throttling, that's gonna be suboptimal for smooth framerates.

 

[lakedude]

I couldn't stand it...

 

[igor_kavinski]

Looking forward to your "comprehensive" review, lakedude!

 

[lakedude]

The new laptop is awesome but is having reliability issues. Starting a new thread to discuss. Will edit in a link:

Thread 'Trouble with brand new laptop' http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=threads/trouble-with-brand-new-laptop.2619549/

 

[lakedude]

The new lap is over twice as fast as the old but I had to run some of the things twice on the new one because 3DMark locked up. Ran perfect on the old laptop...

 

[igor_kavinski]

3DMark locked up.

Sounds like someone at the factory forgot to put thermal paste on the GPU or something. Check the GPU hotspot if it shows in Adrenaline control panel.

 

[tcsenter]

Clevo Barebone Laptop Series - R&J Technology, Clevo Barebone Notebook kits, Laptop and desktop system builder

your Memory hard drives build your laptop based this Clevo Barebone Series select from options provided build

rjtech.com

Best prices for a bare bones laptop with high end tech. Free shipping and no taxes. Just install ram and drives and install an OS.

Thing I remember about the barebone Clevo's from several years ago is BIOS support sucks. You might get three BIOS updates, if that.

 

[Tech Junky]

Thing I remember about the barebone Clevo's from several years ago is BIOS support sucks. You might get three BIOS updates, if that.

Yeah, but, by the time you get the last bios everything has been patched. I found a repo site though that has stuff clevo doesn't seem to release publicly that helps too in keeping that sort of thing updated.

https://repo.palkeo.com/clevo-mirror

repo/repo un/pw

 

[tcsenter]

Yeah, but, by the time you get the last bios everything has been patched. I found a repo site though that has stuff clevo doesn't seem to release publicly that helps too in keeping that sort of thing updated.

I can't say that I have specifically experienced a problem that was likely due to or solvable through a BIOS/firmware issue on Clevos but I do not accept the notion that Clevo has everything all figured out and is just much better at BIOS development than Dell, Lenovo/IBM, HP, Intel who are still releasing BIOS/firmware updates more than two years after model launch. Not just limited to Clevo, but others who are notorious for being skimpy on BIOS support and releases after the 'marketing period' ends.

 

[Tech Junky]

better at BIOS development than Dell, Lenovo/IBM, HP, Intel who are still releasing BIOS/firmware updates more than two years after model launch.

If you've ever worked for a company with thousands of employees it's easy to see why they're constantly releasing updates. What do the release notes indicate is being patched? After the initial complaints come in for bugs there really shouldn't need to be years of updates. It's not like a desktop where you can enable more functions to upgrade the CPU or something else. There may be a hardening update if they find an issue but generally it's housekeeping for shit they missed.

 

[Tech Junky]

Come to think of it I've actually had a Dell BIOS update brick a laptop for work once. So, there's that too. They sent a tech out 2-3 times to replace bits and pieces to try to get it working properly again as well. Over the years though I've owned plenty of variety of laptops from Dell / Lenovo / etc. and when it comes down to it all that really matters is what's inside the plastic chassis. As long as the components are good there hasn't really ben any issues with any of them. I'm on my 2nd Clevo and planning a 3rd potentially if they release more AMD based ones as I'm sick of dealing with Intel at this point. There's currently 3 models that have AMD but, waiting to see what comes later this year.