Gaming Laptop Help

[thefallan]

1.What is your budget?
Around a 1000 dollars would be nice less is preferred but, more is not the worst case looking for a deal since black friday is coming up
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Does not really matter that much
3. What screen resolution do you want?
1980*1080 is fine but 4k is ok as well
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
portability is a plus but again main aspect I am focusing on is the best specs for the money
5. How much battery life do you need?
Does not really need to be long it is a gaming computer and will be plugged in most of the time
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)?
Looking for current gen games like fallout 4 mainly but needs to be able to run future games at a high level doesn't need to be ultra but running smoothly on high would be nice for a few years
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Mainly games, but I am a college student so I do some homework on it isnt really applicable though
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
1tb would be nice, with an added ssd (or even a slot I can install one myself) for the os mainly for fast boot up times
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Anything buying something on a deal would be great since black friday/cyber monday are coming up
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2-3 years
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
simple dvd would suffice
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.
I do not have a preference when it comes to brand
13. What country do you live in?
US
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Some models i have looked at but not evaluated fully are:
Acer Aspire V Nitro VN7 Series 17.3-inch Full HD IPS display Gaming Laptop
ASUS ROG GL552VW-DH71 15-Inch Gaming Laptop
Dell Inspiron i7559-763BLK 15.6" Full-HD Gaming Laptop
MSI GE62 APACHE-276

 

[jaguarskx]

All the laptops you have chosen have a GTX 960m GPU and quad core CPUs so technically speaking they should generally provide similar performance. With the exception of the Dell, the Core i7 CPUs have Hyper Threading (HT). While HT is nice to have, games do not really take advantage of it. Benchmarks of desktop CPUs shows that Core i7 CPUs (with HT) only provides an additional 0 FPS - 3 FPS compared to Core i5 CPUs (no HT) which is why when people are asking for help to build a desktop nearly everyone recommends a Core i5 CPU.

The laptops basically all come with a 1TB hard drive, but if you buy the Dell Inspiron 7559 from Amazon instead of directly from Dell it will come with a 256GB SSD. A SSD will make the laptop feel more responsive because of faster read / write speeds, but it does not increase FPS in games. However, it's lower capacity means you will need to install a 2.5" hard drive or SSD in the Dell if you want more storage space. It seems the Acer has a 128GB SSD and 1TB hard drive in it.

I do not think there will be much of a difference between a GTX 960m with 2GB or 4GB of VRAM. The GTX 960m is a good mid-ranging gaming GPU, but it is not really powerful enough to play most games on ultra settings at 1080p. That means you will not really be taking advantage of the 4GB VRAM for the highest quality textures. 2GB of VRAM will be enough for high texture quality at 1080p resolution. Of course having more VRAM does not hurt.

About 2 years ago laptops started to be sold without DVD drives. The trend is basically due to the fact that most software and games are digitally distributed. Only the Asus and MSI laptops have an optical drive.

RAM ranges between 8GB and 16GB, but it is relatively easy and cheap to upgrade RAM.

The Dell offers the best bang for the buck since it is selling for $800, while most gamers who could afford it would gravitate towards the Asus or MSU laptop.

 

[thefallan]

Thanks for the detailed response, I have a desktop and I understand most of the specs and what not but, I was really needing to narrow down my choices, there is a large market available especially for laptops. I used to only use my desktop but now that I am attending college need alot more mobility and whatnot but again battery was not a facotor, there is pretty much always a plug in no matter where I go. I was wondering if you had any recommendations other than these, I am thinking about just getting the dell for the cheaper price, it seems sufficent for on the go and will work with most games of today. As far as future proofing goes does this work or is there a better investment out there? If you could help me answers these it would be much appreciated thanks for your previous response as well.

 

[jaguarskx]

For mobility, I would recommend against the 17.3" Acer due to size and weight unless you are looking for a workout carrying it around with you from place to place.

I have personally been looking at the Dell Inspiron 7559 for myself. It seems okay. It has good specs, but there have been some complaints about the somewhat low brightness of the screen. It is certainly usable, but some people have stated they wish it was just a little more brighter. There were also a few complaints about the mouse pad, I don't remember if it was twitchy or just feels a bit cheap. There have also been a few complaints that it runs hot so you need to prop up the back of the laptop for better airflow or better yet, buy a laptop cooler. I am sure there are some complaints for the other laptops, but since I was not interested in buying any of them, I do not know what they are.

I was also considering the new Dell XPS 15 with the Infinity Display. The thin bezels means the 15.6" laptop is about the same size as an average 14" laptop and it is lighter than the Dell Inspiron; 4.4lbs vs ~5.75lbs. Both have the same CPU and GPU, but the XPS 15 will likely have a much better quality screen (good for photo editors). However, it lacks a m.2 slot which the Inspiron has, and it costs $1,200; $400 more than the Inspiron. I do not necessarily need a new laptop, but shinny new electronics is sometime hard to ignore.

As for "future proof", there is really no such thing, especially for laptops. To get the most life out of a gaming laptop you want some powerful specs, but that means spending a lot more money. The good thing about the Dell Inspiron 7559 is that it is relatively cheap so when you decide to replace it you can at least say to yourself that you didn't pay $1,000 or more for a laptop that would have provided similar performance to an $800 laptop.