New Laptop

[Demon Cleaner]

I was considering buying a new laptop, and my choice fell on the Schenker XMG P705 (http://www.mysn.de/detail.asp?KategorienOrder=010;020;015;002;010&bestellnr=XMG-P705). It will basically for gaming.

The P705 model got very good reviews, and the little brother, the P505, which is basically the same, only in 15", ranks 1st on Notebookcheck (http://www.notebookcheck.net/Notebookcheck-s-Top-10-Lightweight-Gaming-Notebooks.126456.0.html)'s lightweight mobile gaming list of May 2015, which is updated everytime they review a new laptop.

I'm following their laptops since some years now, and I like the fact that you can configure them to your liking. I never was really a big fan of their Clevo based chassis, but I have to say that I like the new model of the PRO versions. It's ligther and lower compared to other gaming laptops, 3,2kg and only 30mm in height. But because of that, the configuration is a bit limited, the motherboard doesn't have a socket for the CPU, therefore you have to go with the only CPU available (the HQ model), which is soldered to the mobo.

The only CPU you can get for it is the Intel Core i7-4720HQ (2,60 - 3,60GHz 6MB 47W), it's the 4th generation of their CPUs called Haswell.

For the GPU you can chose between the newest NVIDIA GeForce GTX (965M, 970M, 980M), where I would put the 970M, price is only 135€ more than the 965M, but already about 30% more power. Plus it comes with a code to download The Witcher 3, which is a nice addition anyway. The price for the 980M is 417€, which is definitely too much.

As HDD I would put a 250GB SSD, and they have a special offer, if you buy an SDD from Crucial, you get a discount of 100€, but only until tomorrow evening, thus I have to decide fast. As second HDD I will just put a WD Blue slim (5.400RPM). Btw, this laptop can hold 2 SDD plus 2 HDD, but I don't need that, using an external drive with my stuff anyway, so it's not needed.

The screen seems to be good, it's a non glare 17.3" Full HD (1920×1080) CHIMEI N173HGE-L11, although not an IPS, but apperently this exact screen is used by a lot of companies. They have an option for the LG LP173WF4-SPD1, which is an IPS, has better color, but less good contrast and black level, plus it's 125€ more expensive. The CHIMEI has also a matte surface, which is less affected by reflections.

For Wi-Fi you can have dual band plus bluetooth, but again because of the slimmer case, there is no place for a DVD/BD drive, which I don't need anyway.

Which is nice for me, you get to chose the layout of the keyboard, and as we use swiss/french layouts in Luxembourg, it's way more comfortable than having a german one.

With RAM I'm bit puzzled, whether to get 16GB, or just stick with 8GB, which will probably be enough for gaming. Although the price difference is only 90€. RAM is also from Crucial.

With that configuration it would cost me around 1.850€ (with 8GB RAM), which is in my opinion a good price for these specs, I checked, like always, Alienware, and they are still far more expensive, and other brands are not configurable at all. Shipping will be almost 60€, which is quite steep, but I also will get the 100€ off, so at the moment it would cost 1.810€ (8GB version), and I don't want to spent more than 2.000€.

Bigger SSD (500GB) is f.ex. 122€ more, do I need it? IPS screen? 8GB or 16GB? There's not so much to change anyway.

So what do you think? Any opinions?

[Tiago]

Hi Demon, my laptop was around 1000 euros (Toshiba Satellite P50-A-12Z) here in Portugal, last year. I prefer laptops over standard dektop PC. To work, even for games. I usually can't play games at full specs, but 1366x768 graphics are nice. My screen is 15.6" and it display 1980x1080 but for games is a bit hard to do it.... to work, is fine!

8GB is good for everyday work. I use photoshop, a bit of video editing, and i have no problems. My i7 is fast, not the fastest sure, but quite good.
the 17.3" monitor should be good for 1980x1080, but if a game is to heavy and you need to go to lower resolutions, will the image be good?
I guess it is optimized for fullhd, so how is handles in lower ones?

But that one looks a good computer.



But i wounder but PC (desktop) would you buy with that amount... you could get a better game machine... but ok, i understand, i also don't like desktops.

Don't forget to see witch side the air flow goes out. It you are right handle with mouse and the air get's out that side, can be a pain in summer...
Mine is in right side, same as mouse, and i tend to run away from it. Less then 25cm playing a high specs game almost burn my hand... :(

[Demon Cleaner]

Basically I will take this one to work, it won't stay at home, at home I have a desktop PC, although not really for gaming. I play at the moment games on my working PC, which also is not the best, and I also don't wanna install too much on it, looks strange if someone checks my installed programs :)

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Probably gonna go with the 16GB, just in case, you never know. Could be that I would also use it for video editing and converting, so might be better to have a bit more reserve.

I'm only thinking if I should buy it or not? The problem is that I will only have 12 more hours to decide, then the discount is over. I would like to half at least one more week to decide. I still could indeed wait, only downside is that I would loose 100€.

[Harrison]

With Windows 10 just around the corner I would definitely get 16GB ram just to be safe.

Nice hardware spec too.

I personally don't like laptops much though as I just find them too restrictive to use for most tasks compared to a full desktop setup. Especially for gaming where a proper gaming mouse and keyboard are a world apart from a laptop. I'm also used to a 3 monitor setup, which obviously isn't easy on a laptop. When using my wife's laptop I just find it much harder to do things than on my desktop, especially with the touchpad compared to a mouse. These days also with tablets I use those for portable computing instead and now they have matured they are for me a much better portable solution.

[Demon Cleaner]

It would mainly be for gaming at work (don't tell) ;)

I don't have a possibility there to set up a desktop PC, would be quite offending :lol:

[Harrison]

So you are still able to "play" at work these days? Would love to have a job like that.

At the moment, even at home during the day as a stay at home dad I don't even get time to play as I'm chasing a 3 year old all over the place! :lol: Today's joy was attempting to wash red magic marker off of the plastic patio doors, and the wood surround! Safe to say the wood is now red and might need to be replaced. With his birthday tomorrow his presents are getting thinner by the day! ;)

[Demon Cleaner]

50% of the days I work longer, because of making backups, then almost nobody is in the building anymore, and then I have good time to play. Could also play during the day, only have to pay attention if somebody comes into the office, then you can fast ALT-TAB :) (if the sound isn't too loud).

[Tiago]

Do you need anyone to help you out at work? :D

[Demon Cleaner]

I would need someone for multiplayer :D

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In the end I didn't buy it (yet), I still need a bit of consideration. It's not so much about the money, I have it, but it's only about if I need it or not. I don't want to spend money on something I barely use, because I know myself. I could f.ex. easily play with my New 3DS XL or my Vita at work, but I never do it. On the Vita I have installed about 40 games, which I gathered together over time with my PS+ account, but the only game I played so far was FIFA, and that was on holiday in Finland. Plus I have 10 original games I bought, which are still wrapped and untouched, f.ex. Persona 4 Golden, which I really wanna play. And with the 3DS now, I basically can play their whole catalog, and there's some very nice games out for it. But again, I barely play on it.

I know that there are some great games for the PC, but will I really play them? I played some of the indie games on the PC at work, as they run perfectly on that PC, and I have quite a bunch of them, so why not just play them? On the other side, the laptop I have is now 4-5 years old, it's only a dual core, and newer games don't run at all, and perhaps it's time to change, once in 5 years is a good average I think. Like I said, I can afford it, it's not about that, I only have to figure out if I eventually need it. But sometimes too much thinking is also not good :) I will anyway keep an eye on the laptop, perhaps there will be price drops or other discounts, it would be stupid to buy it now straight away, because then I would have lost the 100€ stupidly.

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Well, well. Today I checked 3 other German sites where you can configure your laptop. The last one I checked was Notebookguru, I know them since longer. So I configured the exact same one like I did with Schenker, also with the same case, the Clevo P671, and to my astonishment, it is 315€ cheaper!!!! The same damn laptop!! Plus shipping is 25€ instead of 60€! So even with the 100€ discount, I would still save a lot of money ordering it from there.

So basically I would get it here for the same price if I would put the GTX 980M.

[Kin Hell]

Sorry to be totally off topic, but hell fire H.....

It's never 3 years since you became a Dad already?? :hmmm:

[Harrison]

Indeed it is. Doesn't time fly!

[Demon Cleaner]

So is the GTX980 worth the 300€ more over the GTX970?

So far I read it's about 28% faster.

[Teho]

Is there a point to getting the most expensive high-end cards these days unless you have 4k screen and insist on +100Hz? Would think they're overkill on anything else.

[Demon Cleaner]

Thought the same.

[Kin Hell]

Indeed it is. Doesn't time fly!

Heck fella, indeed it does. :o



Is there a point to getting the most expensive high-end cards these days unless you have 4k screen and insist on +100Hz? Would think they're overkill on anything else.

I sort of understand where you are, but I feel I have to express my feelings about this too, so please bear with me.

I upgraded from 3 x GTX670's to 2 x GTX780Ti's. @ the time I did this, GTX980 was just out by approx 8 weeks & the 780Ti prices fell through the floor. I got two of them for £600 instead of £1300 when they were in their prime. However, I also ended up with 2880 Stream processors on one card over the 2304 on the GTX780, compared to 1344 Stream processors on each of the 3 x GTX670's.
WOW!! - what a difference on my 120Hz LG W2363D Monitor. 5760 Stream processors on SLI instead of 4032 on Tr-SLI & a 384 Bit Memory bus instead of a 256 Bit bus on the 670's. It meant that Far Cry 4 could be put in ULTRA settings & holds 120FPS @ 1920 x 1080 no matter how busy it all gets. Simply put, it's "Buttery Smooth" & 384 Bit Memory bus is a huge help over 256 Bit, coupled with even more Stream processors.

Quite breathtaking in so many ways, but as far as I am concerned, no way would I want to kill my rig by putting a 4k monitor on it.
For those who might be concerned at this statement, a 4k monitor has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 (exactly 4 x 1920 x 1080 screens) so if I said my average FPS on one resolution of 1920 x 1080 was 120, I'd be in the realms of 30fps per monitor, less any overheads the cards have to deal with by outputting such a high res.
However, if you had a 4k G-Sync monitor in place, the G-Sync would help keep things smooth. This is a technology I have had no personal experience with yet, but the reviews are quite promising. I beleive Acer are now doing a 27" IPS Panel with G-Sync, though it's G2G is still a poor 4ms. Not sure how G-Sync will cope with that & @ nearlly £700, I'm almost tempted to have one if the 4ms G2G is un-noticeable. *cough*

It's perhaps a little unfortunate, but we all have different perspectives and perceptions of what really does look & feel good. In my books, 2 x GTX980's will struggle to run 4k screens because of the lack VRAM & number of Stream processors. You really need to be in the realms of "Titan X" & 12GB of Ram for those screens & then throw at least two of them in SLI for a half decent experience @ this res.

Graphics in Laptop's are no where near as powerful as their Bigger sisters on the PC platform & bang per buck, Laptops are grossly overpriced, but.....

It really depends how much spare money you have in your wallet & can you justify it by seeing & feeling a difference. ;)

[Demon Cleaner]

Graphics in Laptop's are no where near as powerful as their Bigger sisters on the PC platform & bang per buck, Laptops are grossly overpriced, but.....
Also because of the power supply, which in my case would be 180W (150W if you get the GTX965M).

Anyway, the screen is definitely no 4k, it's just a normal Full HD.

[Kin Hell]

Graphics in Laptop's are no where near as powerful as their Bigger sisters on the PC platform & bang per buck, Laptops are grossly overpriced, but.....
Also because of the power supply, which in my case would be 180W (150W if you get the GTX965M).

Anyway, the screen is definitely no 4k, it's just a normal Full HD.

LOL yeah. With the way technology is atm, there is no way of getting 1250 Watts of power into a Laptop for a GTX780Ti SLI experience with a 4.7Ghz CPU pushing em. :lol:

Anyhow, your bog standard XMG p705 PRO does 1920 x 1080 on TN Technology. But, for 125 Euro more, there is an option for an IPS panel. Heck, 419 Euro more for GTX980M.....
With technology where it is & current Laptop design, Kudos for for the cash splash on such a rig with a 970M.
But don't go over 1920 x 1080 & be tempted for IPS Status. IPS will have a higher G2G trasition & if it doesn't have G-Sync capabilities to an External Screen or via is't own G-Sync Module & display, forget IPS. The ghosting will look shocking when gaming on laptop system bandwidths. Sure, 2D should look great but forget Gaming on IPS Laptops without G-Sync.

I believe there is no support for G-Sync & nVidia Mobile yet.......

http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/technology/g-sync/supported-gpus

Yet reading this is already sounding a bit like, "Naughty Naughty nVidia"... :rolleyes:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/198603-leaked-nvidia-driver-offers-taste-of-mobile-g-sync

Oh yeah, on the subject of how much do you want to spend, check this gaming station out.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GC-004-VS&groupid=702&catid=3036 :hmmm:

Is "Buttkicker Advance Tactile Feedback System" the next thing over "FTW"!? :eyebrow:

:lol:

[Teho]

I admit I don't pay much attention what's current in PC hardware so had no idea that running 4k is that demanding still. Myself I don't even have a dedicated PC screen, my rig is in the living room hooked up to my HDTV. As such all I need is 1080p @ 60Hz, which you certainly don't need to reach for the top shelf for. I've a GTX670 in it now which still runs just about everything fine. Elite: Dangerous does lag a bit sometimes though, so I've been thinking about upgrading. But really, I should build a new rig as this one is close to six years old and the mobo, CPU and PSU in it has never been changed.

[Kin Hell]

I admit I don't pay much attention what's current in PC hardware so had no idea that running 4k is that demanding still. Myself I don't even have a dedicated PC screen, my rig is in the living room hooked up to my HDTV. As such all I need is 1080p @ 60Hz, which you certainly don't need to reach for the top shelf for. I've a GTX670 in it now which still runs just about everything fine. Elite: Dangerous does lag a bit sometimes though, so I've been thinking about upgrading. But really, I should build a new rig as this one is close to six years old and the mobo, CPU and PSU in it has never been changed.

Yeah, six years of age on a Mobo/CPU/Memory/GPU thing is massive..... really. You should upgrade to at least Z77 with an Air cooled OC @ 4.4/5Ghz with some 780Ti action. You'll be gobsmacked! :)

& 60Hz @ ANY resolution is not suitable for gaming on. Absolute minimum is 75Hz, 80 is better and anything over 100Hz on CRT or Flat panel, be it TN or IPS is where you need to be for a more absolute definition of what's best for gaming on the PC.

A bit where the "Amiga" was (in the opposite direction) all those years ago.

Look what happened since.;)

[Harrison]

As you well know, I'm just not bothered about resolutions above 60Hz any more since LCD monitors appeared. With CRT yes, 85Hz was essential for crisp looking graphics but no more. I know some people say they can tell the difference, and I bet Charlie you are one of them because you are always in pursuit of the ultimate setup, but as you know I'm all about the best bang for your buck rather than spending big for only a slight advantage.

With prices of 4k monitors starting to fall I've been very tempted by them but I'm still putting off getting 4k monitors until the GPUs are good enough to power one in gaming at 60fps from a single card. At the moment I'm still running a 27" 2560x1440 resolution Dell U2711 and love it. I would say however that this Dell at this resolution and 27" is about the highest pixel density I would like to use for productivity work and think the pixel density would be way too high on a 4k 27" screen. Although saying that my Samsung 10.1" tablet has a screen resolution of 2560x1600 so it's slightly higher than my 27" monitor and it looks really nice, but it is a different way of using the higher resolution, so is different.

Personally for a laptop any of the GPUs you have mentioned should run all current games at 1080 resolution without any issues so really no point spending a lot more than needed.

[Demon Cleaner]

Personally for a laptop any of the GPUs you have mentioned should run all current games at 1080 resolution without any issues so really no point spending a lot more than needed.
At the moment, definitely yes, but how does it look in 2-3 years? Will then the 980 have a noticeable advantage over the 970?

[Harrison]

As is always the case, in 2-3 years time I think the GPU technology and games will have moved on another generation as we are currently at a development point that should see something new very soon which pushes performance forward again, so whatever you get now will start to struggle for new releases in 3 years time. Saying that, sticking with a 1080 resolution current GPUs should IMO manage to cope because development is definitely looking towards 4k for the future of gaming, plus multi-display for games such as racing.

It depends what you want to play most. If you are going to be running a lot of FPSers then the best current GPU you can buy will be best for future proofing. If however you will mostly be playing RPGs, Strategy and Adventure games, plus some emulation, then that isn't so important.

[Demon Cleaner]

I noticed something else at Notebookguru, you can still chose the CPU.

As I mentioned before, Schenker has the i7-4720HQ (2.6 - 3.6GHz), but Notebookguru also still has the previous model, the i7-4710HQ (2.5 - 3.5GHz), which was used in most laptops before, and it's 80€ less expensive. Both use turbo boost technology, and in comparison (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2448&cmp[]=2243) they are almost the same.

Another 80€ saved?

[Harrison]

AFAIK both CPUs are the same, except the more expensive one is clocked 0.1GHz faster, which isn't anything you would ever notice. So definitely go for the cheaper one if possible. Clocked slightly slower, it will also run that little bit cooler, which is always good for a laptop.

[Kin Hell]

@ DC

Harrison is right about your Graphical needs on this Laptop in every way really.

In Mr. AK47 terms, if your not FPS-ing it, don't waste 400 Euro on the 980 upgrade. The 970 option you were hankering for from the start should keep you going for 3 years+ on RPG. To be fair, the IPS option might suit your line of use better. Can you get to see some RPG stuff in action on one of these Lappys with IPS display installed?

[Demon Cleaner]

Actually I would order it online, thus I cannot see the panel in action. The site which has the laptop for a lot cheaper, doesn't have the IPS panel option, so I cannot not get it anyway.

[Kin Hell]

@ DC

Ah, I see.... - Bit of a shame really for such a small amount extra. :(

[bory]

I used a Lenovo z50 (http://pc4u.org/best-cheap-gaming-laptop-under-500-dollars/), it works well

[Demon Cleaner]

I might change my plan.

Really want to play titles like Project Cars, Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Witcher 3 or GTA V, which are not really PC games. Most of the time, if I play games on the PC, it's indie games, which my PC at work can run without a problem. So what would be the benefit of getting those for the PC? I would prefer to play them on my 108" screen with 5.1 B&W sound-system, rather than playing them on a 17" laptop. So the choice of buying a PS4 would be wiser, also considering it's 1/4 of the price only.

Like I also mentioned before, I have still tons of games to play on the Vita, plus with the new Sky3DS card, I have now access to the whole 3DS catalog. And it's far easier to play with these handhelds at work than having a laptop on the desk. Plus I can still play my indie titles on the PC if I want, which I really enjoy, and I think lately some quite good stuff has been released.

It's true, I can't play Pillars of Eternity or Elite Dangerous to name a few, but there's so much other stuff. Probably Pillars of Eternity would even run on my PC at home.

[Demon Cleaner]

So I eventually took a decision one week ago, and I ended up buying a white PS4 with 2 controllers, and straight away a bunch of games, I had a bigger budget anyway.

Yesterday I then started playing The Witcher 3, and so far I think it's a great game, although I'm only 3-4 hours into it.

On my PC at work I installed Pillars of Eternity, and it runs almost flawlessly, so I can enjoy playing that too. If you ALT-TAB out of the game, it pauses the game automatically, thus you don't have music or dialogue running in the background when you're back to the desktop, but instead it's silent, quite perfect to play at work at any given time :)