QUESTION: Laptop Ryzen 5 4500 + GTX 1660Ti under £750?

[LaMOi]

QUESTION: Laptop Ryzen 5 4500 + GTX 1660Ti under £750?


So I’ve been doing extensive research Over the last month.

I’ve learned quite a bit.


I’ve decided to buy a cheaper laptop for home use and playing RTS games.

It will be like a filler — I plan to wait to buy a 30 Series Laptop. No rush. But when the right time comes I’m willing to drop more money.

I recently bought an HP HP 14s-fq0000na Laptop - AMD Ryzen™ 5. £499


I’ve been impressed with it. Runs Medieval 2 Total War, Empire Total War.... very smooth. I was surprised! Not even a dedicated graphics card!

However the screen was too small and a bit naff.
So I thought why not upgrade to HP PAVILLION same spec only it includes GTX 1650 and bigger screen 15.6.

Only £649.

SPEC:

• • • Dedicated GeForce® GTX 1650 4GB graphics
    • AMD Ryzen 5 4600H hexa core processor
    • 8GB of DDR4 RAM delivers seamless multitasking
    • 256GB SSD offers plenty of storage & super-fast loading

But you know how it goes....

You then see another laptop namely Asus TUF Gaming A15 15.6 - which has a better screen 144hz and larger SSD 512 GB only £100 more!

This pattern can be a slippery slope, you see something else a little better, slightly more expensive.

But that said I’ve noted with gaming laptops that around a certain price range e.g £600-900 you are largely getting the same components.
It’s around £1000 mark and over that you start to hit the higher mid range Processors like Ryzen 7 and more recent gen graphics cards like the RTX 2060.

However, I’ve realised it would be foolish to spend that kind of money when I’ve seen new 30 series laptops starting for under £1000 !

For example,

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 15.6" 144Hz IPS Ryzen 7 RTX 3060 Gaming Laptop £998

https://www.**********/products/156-asus-tuf-gaming-a15-fa506im-fhd-144hz-ryzen-7-4800h-8gb-ddr4-512gb-nvme-ssd-6gb-rtx-3060-win10-h


So I thought no hold fire.


But I thought if I could get a slightly beefier laptop in the interim. So I could comfortably run Warhammer and 3 Kingdoms Total War - that would be good.



So to my question — is it possible to find a laptop with better specs than HP Pavilion 15-ec1001na 15.6"? At the same price point or £100 more (max)?

So finding better specs below £700-750 — I myself have not been able to find it.

It seems for that price point these are the best specs you can get..?

Even laptops with RTX 1660Ti mostly adds another £200 to the price from what I’ve seen! And I’m not prepared to drop a lot of money on a laptop with soon to be quite outdated parts.


Any views on this??

 

[LaMOi]

So .....


I returned the HP Laptop and got a refund.

Unfortunately HP informed me that they were out of stock on the HP Pavillion 15-ec1000na £649. And they said they have actually discontinued this model.
However I managed to snag one at ao.com when only one came back in stock!

it’s great — as for those specs — I’ve been unable to find a better deal/laptop.

And so far — smooth gaming. Every RTS game (including Warhammer Total War) I’ve thrown at it, it’s played on ultra settings, very smooth, zero issues so far.

I will likely upgrade the RAM to 32GB.

 

[LaMOi]

Reason for laptop — live in a flat currently, small kids too...

The laptop is purely for convenience.

That said I looked at desktops with similar spec — to the 30 series laptops. Not a massive price difference, and plus you’d have to buy a monitor as well.
Also, I must admit I love being able to fold the laptop up and put it away or easily connect it to my TV.

 

[LaMOi]

@LaMOi You need to edit out the competitor information, this forum is ran by the OCUK store and it's against forum rules to hint at or discuss competitors.

my bad. Didn’t know. I was just saying that for £998 that’s a damn good deal!

it’s baffling that so many lower spec laptops are still way more expensive! Low spec CPU’s and graphics cards etc...

 

[LaMOi]

its hard to find a good price and spec laptop under 1k that would be worthy. mean when i got my laptop(sig) it was back in 2019, so before all this prices/demand rubbish and at the time i paid £700 reduced from 850 from another shop and i couldnt have founded anything better. i had thought about a lesser model as i dont game on it as much, but prices to specs are stupid even for no gaming, so id say either wait and get more money or make a compromise.

i dont get some specs these days as my laptop has 120hz freesync screen, 256gb ssd + a 1tb hdd, so regardless of the gpu and a last years like cpu. it still seems better than a lot ive seen for similar money, mean whether you have a nvida card better than the amd r560x and/or a better cpu, you still only get a single hard drive be it a 256 or 512gb ssd which isnt a good solution for a desktop never mind a laptop and the screens are not atleast 120hz in some cases nor have free/g-sync.

It depends what you want it for.

My laptop has been fantastic — plays everything I’ve thrown at it very smooth including Warhammer Total War on Ultra settings!

I bought the laptop in the main for RTS games, AA, indies.... I might see if I can run Bannerlord, but likely I will upgrade to 32GB RAM when I get around to that game.

If you intend for the laptop / desktop to be your main platform for gaming e.g AAA, then sure you gotta spend a 1000 + ....

personally I play the bulk of my games on PlayStation. I think generally it makes more sense to get a console — especially the new ones. More cost effective. It’s impossible to build a PC with comparative spec for similar price.


But maybe not. That ASUS laptop I mentioned has great specs but only £998!