Which gaming laptop

[Dimitri Van Britsom]

Hello,
I'm looking for a gaming laptop with the following specs;
GTX 1060 and i5 8300H or i7 8750.
The CPU shouldn't matter all that much, just depending on the price (I've read they both are sufficient for gaming). I have read that the 1060 is superior over the 1050 Ti. I have found 3 laptops, but with all of them I've read reviews saying that they have thermal issues. If there are that many issues with the 1060 isn't it better to buy the 1050 Ti without issues. Or does it also have thermal issues too?

These are the 3 laptops I've found with the GTX 1060 config:
MSI GV62 8RE-009BE
https://www.vandenborre.be/laptop-t...Ba_WVuH0yjXHzQKrsj99dOXzioRLD6-aMOyuwgEe9ujWQ

ASUS Gaming laptop FX504GM Intel Core i7-8750H 15.6" (90NR00Q1-M03740)
https://www.mediamarkt.be/nl/produc...AgczMFWX7a6yNa3diab-kSeoCd2JMGHmmfARzCFAyKoPg

HP Gaming laptop OMEN 15-dc0101nb Intel Core i5-8300 15.6" (4CL09EA#UUG)

HP Gaming laptop OMEN 15-dc0101nb Intel Core i5-8300H 15.6" (4CL09EA#UUG)

15-DC0101NB AZ 15.6" GTX1060 3GB I5-8300H 8GB 1TB

www.mediamarkt.be

If 1060 is that much of an issue for gaming should i opt to get an 1050 Ti (would be cheaper), but performance wise worse than the 1060. What would you guys do?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Seaweed Monster]

Unfortunately, that is the issue with gaming laptops. Some cope better with heat than others. When I say better, I mean not much better to be honest.

I have read up on the Asus model, there does not seem to be that much talk about thermal throttling (See here and here), only talk about the fans being quite loud, which is quite normal on these types of laptops. Nevertheless, most say they receive good performance. I am not going to sit here and say you will not/never experience any thermal throttling, as it all depends on the game, environmental temperatures (i.e. room temperature), the surface the laptop is on and so on, but I'd say you'd still get better performance than an i5-8300 and a GTX 1050ti.

Personally, I'd go for the Asus (i7-8750 + GTX1060) :

1. because it has the best hardware for the money, making it better for 'future proofing'
2. it's better at all tasks compared to an i5-8300 + GTX1050ti (Gaming, multitasking etc...)

If you're concerned, many users buy a good quality laptop cooling pad and a lot of the time they do definitely help!

One thing I would recommend surrounding any of the three models you eventually choose is upgrading to 2 x 8GB DDR4 RAM ( making 16GB in total), as out the box, they all seem to only come with 1 x 8GB DDR4 RAM, which means the system is in single-channel memory mode and not utilising full performance (which does affect gaming performance as well). Dual-channel memory is always recommended and will highly improve all-around performance. Depending on the laptop you choose, some (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 2666 MHz or (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 2400 MHz laptop RAM will do the trick, Corsair (I always prefer) or G.Skill will be fine. All of the laptops should have at least 1 x DIM slot free.

Hope that helps.

 

[Dimitri Van Britsom]

Unfortunately, that is the issue with gaming laptops. Some cope better with heat than others. When I say better, I mean not much better to be honest.

I have read up on the Asus model, there does not seem to be that much talk about thermal throttling (See here and here), only talk about the fans being quite loud, which is quite normal on these types of laptops. Nevertheless, most say they receive good performance. I am not going to sit here and say you will not/never experience any thermal throttling, as it all depends on the game, environmental temperatures (i.e. room temperature), the surface the laptop is on and so on, but I'd say you'd still get better performance than an i5-8300 and a GTX 1050ti.

Personally, I'd go for the Asus (i7-8750 + GTX1060) :

1. because it has the best hardware for the money, making it better for 'future proofing'
2. it's better at all tasks compared to an i5-8300 + GTX1050ti (Gaming, multitasking etc...)

If you're concerned, many users buy a good quality laptop cooling pad and a lot of the time they do definitely help!

One thing I would recommend surrounding any of the three models you eventually choose is upgrading to 2 x 8GB DDR4 RAM ( making 16GB in total), as out the box, they all seem to only come with 1 x 8GB DDR4 RAM, which means the system is in single-channel memory mode and not utilising full performance (which does affect gaming performance as well). Dual-channel memory is always recommended and will highly improve all-around performance. Depending on the laptop you choose, some (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 2666 MHz or (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 2400 MHz laptop RAM will do the trick, Corsair (I always prefer) or G.Skill will be fine. All of the laptops should have at least 1 x DIM slot free.

Hope that helps.

Thanks a lot for the reply, helps a ton!
I am wondering, is it easy to add an extra 8 gb of ram?
Does it have to be exactly the same ram stick as the one that is inside of the laptop?

PS: I think I'm buying the asus.
Thanks in advance!!

 

[Seaweed Monster]

Thanks a lot for the reply, helps a ton!
I am wondering, is it easy to add an extra 8 gb of ram?
Does it have to be exactly the same ram stick as the one that is inside of the laptop?

PS: I think I'm buying the asus.
Thanks in advance!!

Update - After some deeper analysing it seems there is an issue specifically with the Asus model. It seems the copper heat pipe cooling is not inadequate to deal with the i7 six-core processor. For this model, Asus seem to undervolt the CPU from its original 45watts to 25watts in games/high-performance tasks, in order to deal with inadequate cooling:

In this case, I would for sure go with either the MSI or HP model - Both have a GTX 1060 and a fast 8thGen quad-core processor.

I am wondering, is it easy to add an extra 8 gb of ram?
Does it have to be exactly the same ram stick as the one that is inside of the laptop?

Upgrading RAM is very simple. Unscrew the bottom of the laptop > Find the RAM DIM slots > insert RAM. It's best to have the same brand of RAM at the same speed. There is plenty of helpful YouTube videos you can watch if you're not sure.

 

[Dimitri Van Britsom]

Thanks for the reply, I have read though that the others have serious problems with their cooling aswell. As for the issue with asus, where have you read about the undervolting?

 

[Seaweed Monster]

I have linked some examples below where people have mentioned the CPU's TDP cap at high workloads:

1. YouTube
2. Amazon reviews
3. Ultrabook review
4. Lowyat forum

Just type 'Asus tuf fx504gm undervolting' in Google and you'll see results. An i7-8750h is an amazing CPU, but at 25W TDP in gaming and high-performance tasks, it is not worth it.

Between the MSI and HP, the MSI does appear to fair better in terms of cooling.