Gaming Laptop ROG GL703GS?

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I picked up a GL703GS-E5011T for £1.499 during Black Friday. I added an additional 16GB of RAM and swapped out the 960 256GB EVO for a 970 512GB before doing a fresh install of W10 1809 and replacing the MS NVME drivers with Samsung's. I've left it running Assassin's Creed Odyssey with max details for over an hour without issue. I don't see the appeal of the Aero due to a smaller screen (15.6" vs 17.3"), lack of G-Sync and a slower performing graphics card. Max-Q is ~10-15% slower than the non Max-Q options.
 
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@Wrinkly thanks, I'm ideally looking for one with thunderbolt 3 as I'll be looking it to an egpu at home and wasn't decent enough graphics for travel.

I'm now almost set on Dell G3 1060 17" or the Alienware 15 from the outlet, as they have enough grunt and also thunderbolt 3 but I also have a spare 32gb 3200 ram sat waiting for a new host
 
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@Wrinkly thanks, I'm ideally looking for one with thunderbolt 3 as I'll be looking it to an egpu at home and wasn't decent enough graphics for travel.

I'm now almost set on Dell G3 1060 17" or the Alienware 15 from the outlet, as they have enough grunt and also thunderbolt 3 but I also have a spare 32gb 3200 ram sat waiting for a new host

Having owned the previous generation Dell 7577 I would be aware of the screen panel as I had continuous issues with pressure spots appearing on it after a couple of months of use. I took great care when transporting it by using a padded case but it didn't make much difference and ended up going back for repair twice before I'd had enough and just returned it for a full refund (note it wasn't bought via OC, purchased it on the high street). As the screen looks to be identical for this generation on the G3 and G5 models I would just make sure when you take delivery that the panel won't cause you any issues, especially if you intend to travel with it regularly.

Other than the screen issues I found it to be a fantastic laptop!
 
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Having owned the previous generation Dell 7577 I would be aware of the screen panel as I had continuous issues with pressure spots appearing on it after a couple of months of use. I took great care when transporting it by using a padded case but it didn't make much difference and ended up going back for repair twice before I'd had enough and just returned it for a full refund (note it wasn't bought via OC, purchased it on the high street). As the screen looks to be identical for this generation on the G3 and G5 models I would just make sure when you take delivery that the panel won't cause you any issues, especially if you intend to travel with it regularly.

Other than the screen issues I found it to be a fantastic laptop!

Hmm, thanks for that, that does not bode well. Hp also have machines with thunderbolt 3, like the Omen...

Think I should start a new thread, sorry if I'm hijacking
 
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@Wrinkly thanks, I'm ideally looking for one with thunderbolt 3 as I'll be looking it to an egpu at home and wasn't decent enough graphics for travel.

I'm now almost set on Dell G3 1060 17" or the Alienware 15 from the outlet, as they have enough grunt and also thunderbolt 3 but I also have a spare 32gb 3200 ram sat waiting for a new host
I almost went for the Dell via the outlet myself.
 
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I almost went for the Dell via the outlet myself.
Yeah it's so difficult to choose, these gaming laptops are great but they are wanting continued sales so the smart thing to do is to boycott the option of a graphics upgrade like egpu which makes your laptop last longer, allowing for bigger sales when you need more grunt having to fork out for a new laptop. But I want the laptop to be mobile and have the egpu plugged into a couple of monitors, keyboard and mouse, permanently with only the need to connect/disconnect the usb cable thunderbolt cable when more extreme graphics is wanted without needing a second pc/laptop.
 
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Hmm, thanks for that, that does not bode well. Hp also have machines with thunderbolt 3, like the Omen...

Think I should start a new thread, sorry if I'm hijacking
No worries, just thought I'd chip in my experiences. Yeah I quite liked the look of the Omen lineup...I haven't found one with a 1070 though and to be honest I wondered if it was just worth going up to a high-spec Asus or Gigabyte Aero.

Yeah it's so difficult to choose, these gaming laptops are great but they are wanting continued sales so the smart thing to do is to boycott the option of a graphics upgrade like egpu which makes your laptop last longer, allowing for bigger sales when you need more grunt having to fork out for a new laptop. But I want the laptop to be mobile and have the egpu plugged into a couple of monitors, keyboard and mouse, permanently with only the need to connect/disconnect the usb cable thunderbolt cable when more extreme graphics is wanted without needing a second pc/laptop.

I also find the thunderbolt/USB C very useful for keeping my phone charged on the go - I just hope they plan to add more for future models, maybe even ditch a USB 2.0 or two at last!
 
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I have one of the slightly older 7-series HP Omens, and actually it's a really decent laptop for the money I paid, with a few caveats. They did use to have 1070 and 1080 variants so I'm sure they do still somewhere, unless they've cleared inventory to prep for 2XXX series laptops. The Omen 17/Omen X at least also tend to use non-MaxQ, so for example, my non-MaxQ 1060 isnt as far behind a MaxQ 1070 as you'd think (~25-30%) whilst being much cheaper, and certainly plays everything I've thrown at it pretty well!

The downside of the 17" laptop:
-Despite being 17.3" only has room for 1HDD and 1 NVME, ODD cavity could theoretically be used, however no brackets/cable included unless you bought with, and additionally I believe they limit the speeds of that connector
- HP are conservative on power limits for the GPU due to the the chips being integrated not MXM or similar. The 2 1060 machines I have access to get power limited before they can hit the 1900-2100 MHz consistant speeds some Clevos and other machines can with tinkering and tend to vary between 1600-1800 most of the time even when overclocked, dependant on power load
- BIOS is VERY locked down for an enthusiast gaming laptop, this even makes initial resetup of the machine to run off an NVME drive a little bit of a pain as you have to jump through a few more hoops than you'd expect.
- The 120HZ screen I have whilst IPS unfortunately doesnt have the best response times, but I've adjusted. The 144Hz variant is meant to be miles better.

All this being said, overall I've been pleasantly surprised by my HP Omen 17, best gaming laptop I've used in general stability, reasonable temps etc, and much as I wish I had an 8 series CPU with the higher clock speeds, cores and threads (or Ryzen if it put me in a better position), for the money I've paid for the machine and upgrades a year ago now, I can't really complain.

Also HP tend to support Thunderbolt 3/eGPU, and even have thier own dock, although I suspect they're refreshing it at the moment as I can't find it in stock very easily right now. As I have a 1060 though, realistically no point for me to even consider it with the hit eGPU has to performance though, I'd need something 2080/2080TI level to really benefit.
 
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