Best i7 laptop for someone wanting low noise and no gaming?

AdladUK

AdladUK

AdladUK

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Joined
6 Jan 2007
Posts
1,509
Hi,

I seem to have had a bunch of crappy luck lately with buying computers that just make a ton of noise for no reason. Just had to send back an ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW because it was pretty much full out on fans at idle and showing temps jumping around 70-80c when doing absolutely nothing.

Having done more research online it seems a lot of people are having major noise problems with i7 ultrabooks, which makes sense when you think about it.

Anyways I don't think it's too much to ask in 2017 to have a quiet laptop at idle or when under a light work load, regardless of the CPU and especially when you're spending £1,500+. My 3 year old Macbook Pro runs for weeks at a time non-stop and is completely silent most of the time.

So please may someone be so kind as to recommend me a laptop that has the following qualities:

1. A 15" screen
2. Something that isn't too heavy (doesn't have to be an ultrabook, just shouldn't feel like a giant brick)
3. Has a Core i7
4. Has a nice quality build and feel

No need for gaming and the budget would be around £1,500.

Thank you
 
I had an XPS 13 (9360) with Kaby Lake i7-7500U. The fan on it was ridiculously loud and seemed to ramp up to max even under seemingly light load. Maybe the i5 may have been a quieter option. I sold it because of that reason - otherwise it was a stunning laptop.
 
fezster said:
I had an XPS 13 (9360) with Kaby Lake i7-7500U. The fan on it was ridiculously loud and seemed to ramp up to max even under seemingly light load. Maybe the i5 may have been a quieter option. I sold it because of that reason - otherwise it was a stunning laptop.
Click to expand...

I've got a 9360 with an i7560u and I've never heard the fan. Im assuming it would come on under heavy load. But so far web browsing, youtube, intelli j and some light image editing Ive yet to hear it.
 
Okay, so just an update... I figured I would give another chance to a Windows based laptop with a U type processor this time and bought an Asus ZenBook UX430UQ. Great little thing, super super light, really decent spec and looked the part... But guess what... SAME ******* ISSUE!

Even at idle in Windows the fan was coming on load, the CPU was quickly reaching 70+c at the slightest bit of work and now on top there was some additional strange noise that sounded like a hard drive clicking, but since these have SSDs I'm guessing it was some sort of coil whine from the graphics card. And this wasn't a supplier issue, because it was from a completely different company.

Anyway totally useless because it was driving me crazy. I have my main big computer making absolutely no sound and then this tiny little laptop with a loud fan at idle. No way. Not when I'm paying over £1,500.

Did some stress tests and found that even when my old Macbook was under 100% load it was barely audible. So I went to the Mac store and bought one of the new 2017 13" models with the touch bar. Got it home, booted it up and it's 100% silent. The look and feel is absolutely amazing and I'm very pleased. Now I can give my old Macbook to my GF and use this as my main traveling computer, since this was the goal all along.

So yeah, I'm most likely never buying another Windows based laptop again. They're simply not worth the stress. I'm just going to put Boot Camp on this and it's perfectly acceptable for everything I need to do. When I want to play games I use my main desktop anyway. And this is by no means an Apple fanboy post. I love PCs and you can't beat building your own custom gaming rig... But for laptops Apple are king. Nothing comes close. Shame it took me 3 laptops to realize that and I pray I can get my money back on the other 2!
 
Just out of interest, Why did you ignore the advice on getting an XPS 9560?

Dell are the kings of Windows ultraportables, not sure why you bought an ASUS?
 
For Windows consider Dell XPS, Microsoft Surface Books or proper Thinkpads (not Lenovo's consumer stuff).
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
Just out of interest, Why did you ignore the advice on getting an XPS 9560?

Dell are the kings of Windows ultraportables, not sure why you bought an ASUS?
Click to expand...

Hi,

I didn't ignore and was looking at the Dell XPS range even before I made this thread. The problem was I'd read about quite a few people who had problems with noise (there was even a guy in here) and I wasn't willing to take the risk yet again on having to return a 3rd laptop because of silly fan issues.

I did see an XPS in a store I went to and they look awesome. Maybe in future that would be a viable alternative, but for now I'm just happy I have a silent laptop than runs Windows 10 nicely. People give Apple a lot of crap, but at least when you buy them you know 100% you're getting a very high quality (and silent) device
 
AdladUK said:
Hi,

I didn't ignore and was looking at the Dell XPS range even before I made this thread. The problem was I'd read about quite a few people who had problems with noise (there was even a guy in here) and I wasn't willing to take the risk yet again on having to return a 3rd laptop because of silly fan issues.

I did see an XPS in a store I went to and they look awesome. Maybe in future that would be a viable alternative, but for now I'm just happy I have a silent laptop than runs Windows 10 nicely. People give Apple a lot of crap, but at least when you buy them you know 100% you're getting a very high quality (and silent) device
Click to expand...


The issue with Apple is they throttle the device instead of turning up a fan that's why it's quiet. Check something like Aida64 and you will see how badly the cpu gets held back because of this silence. I mean don't get me wrong I understand it but I would rather have a hum over silence that's slower.
 
harry5522 said:
The issue with Apple is they throttle the device instead of turning up a fan that's why it's quiet. Check something like Aida64 and you will see how badly the cpu gets held back because of this silence. I mean don't get me wrong I understand it but I would rather have a hum over silence that's slower.
Click to expand...

I did run some tests using AIDA64 and from what I can tell the throttling only takes place when the CPU gets very hot, which has not happened to me yet (aside from when running the AIDA64 stress test). For general usage it seems super quick within Windows 10 and I've had zero heat/noise issues, which is all I really want out of a laptop.

If I'm doing something that requires extensive CPU or graphics card usage like gaming then I wouldn't use a laptop anyway, I'd just use my regular desktop PC system...

And this wasn't really about a slight hum. I have 2 full desktop system running in here and a laptop (the old Macbook) and both of the new laptops I purchased made significantly more noise at idle than all my systems combined, even when they were under heavy load or had been running for days. It just wasn't acceptable
 
I was looking at getting an ultrabook aswell and I'm a little worried about noise.

I was looking at either:
HP ENVY 13-ad013na (i5 model)
or
HP ENVY 13-ad015na (i7 model)

...by the sounds of it, I should only be looking at Dell's, but my concern was they don't have a dedicated GFX card.
 
Cheetah Designs said:
...by the sounds of it, I should only be looking at Dell's, but my concern was they don't have a dedicated GFX card.
Click to expand...

You may or may not be aware of nvidias new MAX Q cards. These currently have only been showing up on gamingy laptops like the ROG Zephyrus but i have no doubt that this tech will trickle down into the less gamery market in good time. It has allowed for some really really small laptops with really really top dog performance.

For example the rog zephyrus pictured below is packing a max Q gtx 1080. ( about the same performance as a 1070 )

YzAXmkc.jpg


Very interesting time for small form factor laptops.
 
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