Budget Gaming laptop suggestions

[tanner775]

1. What is your budget? ~$800

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15.6"

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1080p

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? portable

5. How much battery life do you need? not important, i always game plugged into an outlet.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? Medium settings with butter smooth 60fps on the following games; wow, bfv, bf1, witcher3, skyrim (lightly modded), ac origins, kingdom come, pubg

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) n/a

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 256gb ssd or that new 16gb octane memory + 1tb hdd. is that any good?

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. doesnt matter as long as it is trustworthy.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 2-3 yrs

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? n/a

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. ive had issues with dell lately, they are on my shit list right now. bad quality control.

13. What country do you live in? US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed. thermals need to be a high priority. i am not interested in repasting but i will undervolt and use a cooling stand. but i am tired of seeing units get 100c max temps on cpus during gaming sessions. i can live with high 80s.

Thanks for your time. I appreciate what you guys do here. 😁

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

there's a few choices out there, but unfortunately, almost all of them have crap GPU specs for the price with them either having a 1050 or 1050Ti.
And that's not going to cut it for that "buttery smooth" 60fps you want at medium on those titles you listed.

If you want more horsepower for better frame rates at medium 60fps on those games, you need a gtx 1060 6gb, and that's going to end up costing you more than $800.

The 1050Ti will get you a range of 45-60 fps, but not a solid and "buttery smooth" as you call it, 60fps.

And laptops with one of those all cost about $750.

 

[tanner775]

there's a few choices out there, but unfortunately, almost all of them have crap GPU specs for the price with them either having a 1050 or 1050Ti.
And that's not going to cut it for that "buttery smooth" 60fps you want at medium on those titles you listed.

If you want more horsepower for better frame rates at medium 60fps on those games, you need a gtx 1060 6gb, and that's going to end up costing you more than $800.

The 1050Ti will get you a range of 45-60 fps, but not a solid and "buttery smooth" as you call it, 60fps.

And laptops with one of those all cost about $750.

I can live with a gtx 1050ti I suppose and those expectations. My primary concern is just thermals and not having to repaste. I'll most likely end up playing classic wow mostly anyway but I like to have the option to play newer titles with tolerable performance. Which model would you recommend?

I did find this Refurb Dell G3 3579 for under $700 (after 14% disc) w/ a GTX 1060 and a i5 8300h but I'm worried about thermals after my last encounter with Dell's QC.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Honestly, a GTX 1060 and the i5-8300 for under $700 is a steal, and I would suggest getting that if it's an option you are considering and haven't been able to find anything else that's as good for less or better for the same price.

And if you do run into any thermal issues, those Dell gaming laptops are easy as pie to take the back panel off of, and then remove the heatsink on and then repaste yourself. Can get Arctic Silver 5 on Amazon hella cheap.

If it was me, and I didn't have any better looking options available, I would totally get it and repaste it anyways regardless just to make damn sure it's good to go, because repasting a laptop CPU is not hard and not a bother for me to have to do.

And there are plenty of videos on YouTube if you need them to see exactly how someone takes apart that specific laptop, or there's always a local computer shop that I'm sure you could go to and give them like $10 to just open it up real quick and repaste it for you.

But this is all in the case that the thermals aren't where they should be out of the box.

100c would be a bit on the warm side for sure, but if the temps when under an intense enough load get up to 90c-ish, then those temps are fine and within spec for gaming laptops. Anything more than 90c should be a concern.z

I would also advice strongly against a "cooling pad" as that will only help to blow more dust and debry into the laptop through it's vents and will inevitably clog it up and cause cooling issues that will cause overheating, just simply making sure it's elevated enough to get airflow underneath with nothing in the way will ensure it stays cool enough not to overheat and reduce the time it will take for the system to get clogged, but of course clogging is inevitable in the long run and at some point will need to be blown out. But that shouldn't have to be for a good while.

Another thing that those "cooling pads" do is blow more volume of air forcefully into the vents which causes the fans that are in there to spin faster than they should which will cause damage to the bearings and eventually cause the fans to stop working all together.

So yeah, don't do that.

 

[tanner775]

Honestly, a GTX 1060 and the i5-8300 for under $700 is a steal, and I would suggest getting that if it's an option you are considering and haven't been able to find anything else that's as good for less or better for the same price.

And if you do run into any thermal issues, those Dell gaming laptops are easy as pie to take the back panel off of, and then remove the heatsink on and then repaste yourself. Can get Arctic Silver 5 on Amazon hella cheap.

If it was me, and I didn't have any better looking options available, I would totally get it and repaste it anyways regardless just to make damn sure it's good to go, because repasting a laptop CPU is not hard and not a bother for me to have to do.

And there are plenty of videos on YouTube if you need them to see exactly how someone takes apart that specific laptop, or there's always a local computer shop that I'm sure you could go to and give them like $10 to just open it up real quick and repaste it for you.

But this is all in the case that the thermals aren't where they should be out of the box.

100c would be a bit on the warm side for sure, but if the temps when under an intense enough load get up to 90c-ish, then those temps are fine and within spec for gaming laptops. Anything more than 90c should be a concern.z

I would also advice strongly against a "cooling pad" as that will only help to blow more dust and debry into the laptop through it's vents and will inevitably clog it up and cause cooling issues that will cause overheating, just simply making sure it's elevated enough to get airflow underneath with nothing in the way will ensure it stays cool enough not to overheat and reduce the time it will take for the system to get clogged, but of course clogging is inevitable in the long run and at some point will need to be blown out. But that shouldn't have to be for a good while.

Another thing that those "cooling pads" do is blow more volume of air forcefully into the vents which causes the fans that are in there to spin faster than they should which will cause damage to the bearings and eventually cause the fans to stop working all together.

So yeah, don't do that.

Appreciate the feedback. I ended up upping my budget a little and got a refurbished Dell G5 15" 5587 with a GTX 1060 6GB, i7 8750H, 16GB RAM, 128GB SSD PCIe, 1TB HDD for $820 out the door. I know for sure this thing is going to have heat issues but maybe not since the latest BIOS version claims to have fixed it. I'll repaste if I have to.

As for the cooling pad, its a cooler master 200mm vacuum fan, it pushes the air down. If that makes any difference, idk.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

as long as the cooling pad doesn't push air into the system should be fine, but it really shouldn't be necessary to use one at all as long as you aren't blocking the intakes with anything.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

You can easily buy a decent laptop under $600, with decent processor ram and dedicated Graphic card, here is the post which i found : Best Laptops Under $600

Those are laptops for general use.
The OP was looking for a gaming laptop with powerful dedicated graphics.
None of the laptops in that list are powerful enough to game on at the OP's desired level of performance in the games he/she wants to play.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

With that budget and current prices of Graphic Cards you can't expect much A power laptop easily cost $1500+

sure. you can pay $1500+ if you want a beefy gaming laptop, but as the OP already stated they got themselves a laptop with a 6c/12t i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a GTX 1060 for $820.

And that is more than competent enough to play the games they said they wanted to play at the performance they wish to play at.