Help me pick a new laptop

Soldato
Joined
20 Jun 2005
Posts
3,825
Location
London..
So I've been using a 2008 MBP which I've upgraded over the years with a new SSD and 8GB ram. However I'm finding it very slow, especially when playing Football Manager.

I think the time has come to upgrade. I've been looking at alternatives to MBPs that will allow me to do some light gaming.

So far my options are as follows:
Alienware R15 - Skylake i6700 with 16GB ram and a 980M 4GB GPU, 1TB HDD: around £1400 with the 12% black friday coupon

OR

MSI GS60 6QE - Skylake i6700 with 8GB ram and a 970M 3GB GPU.
This one has 1 TB and 128tb SSD - £1,257

Not sure which one to get, I could save a bit and get the MSI but I'm not sure how different the performance would be between the two. I would look to update the RAM in the MSI to 16GB also.

Any thoughts on which one to pick?
 
Associate
Joined
14 Sep 2008
Posts
2,230
I've got a Clevo P150SM-A with an i7 4710MQ, 16 GB RAM and Nvidia 970m. Apart from the fans being noisy at max speed the laptops great, has ran everything I've played (Wolfenstein, Tomb Raider, Mad Max, Hitman Absolution etc) with ease at a mix of high/ultra settings to keep the game around 60fps. The 970m is a great card and I've managed to overclock mine by 200 on core and memory with ease but...



If I was you and you can afford it (I bought second hand) buy the Alienware. The 980m is faster and upgrading/changing graphics cards in laptops is much more expensive than there desktop counterparts, harder and depending on model impossible (due to soldered chips or bios limitations) so buy the fastest now and enjoy it for longer :D

P.S. Buy a cheap SSD in sales for Alienware, laptop will boot up quicker, use less power and produce less heat, full of win :) I've got two Msata drives and one SSD in mine. Runs great.
 
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