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BIF
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Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Sat Feb 23, 2019 3:50 pm

Originally, I was thinking I'd get a Eurocom model because they are highly upgradable and because they have announced that RTX 20xx GPUs are available for their gaming and server lines. I'm interested in either the Sky X9C because it can take two GPUs, or Sky X7C with one 2080 card.

Currently only the 7 actually shows availability for the RTX line of GPUs, but I figure it's only a matter of time before the 9 has it, or gets replaced by a new model that can take it.

In light of this week's All the RTX 2000 Series Max Q Laptops article, I am once again considering other makers like Dell/Alienware, Acer, HP, etc. The idea of possibly getting a 17" panel in a 15" laptop form-factor is rather intriguing, and would help greatly when it's time for me to travel or squeeze myself into a booth in a coffeeshop. But then again, if I saw an 18" panel in a 17" form factor, I'd probably still go with the larger one. Yeah, I'm a glutton like that.

But in the meantime, here's what I think I want:
  • i9 9700 processor
  • RTX 2080 GPU with as much GPU memory as I can get
  • 32 GB RAM, upgradable to at least 64 GB
  • Capacity for at least 3 SSDs and up to a total of 10+ TB (can be a combination of M.2 and 2.5" form factor drives)
  • 17" display with 144 refresh rate and Gsync (regardless of the laptop's form factor, it really should have a 17" or larger panel in it)
  • Battery should be removable for ease of replacement
  • A fair number and diversity of ports, including HDMI, DP (if available), thunderbump (whatever it's called these days), USB 3-point-eighty-two-thousand Type C, D, E, and F (whatever), and so on.
  • ...and this is kind of dumb-sounding, but I would like it to have a fully programmable RGB keyboard.
  • Optional: I don't really care too much about the built-in sound, because I plan to use a USB audio + MIDI interface for anything really important. Also, touch screen and convertible mode (flip screen to tablet mode) are a "nice-to-have". Battery life should be competent, but mostly it will be plugged in.
Budget:
I'd like to keep the cost somewhere around $3,000 to $3,500. The one exception is that I'm still prepared to spend up to $5K+ for a dual GPU laptop as long as I can disable SLI (that X9C does allow SLI to be disabled). But I don't feel all that strongly motivated to get 2 RTX cards right now.

Use Case:
The laptop will be used for graphic arts (including CUDA rendering), music production, gaming, and general office stuff. I'm willing to spend more money on components that will work well for the first three of those things.

Thoughts, ideas, recommendations?
 
NovusBogus
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Sun Feb 24, 2019 1:58 am

I've heard a lot of things about dual-GPU and discrete GPU gaming laptops, none of it was good and most of it involved overheating.

General thoughts...
-I'd take a gaming whitebox over non enterprise HP/Dell/Lenovo any day. Enterprise HP/Dell/Lenovo beats everything else out on durability and serviceability but rarely offers much in the way of graphics.
-Gaming luggables have very bad battery life when doing GPU stuff.
-MSI makes nice things.
-If you're okay with gaming at medium or high rather than ultra with likely upside in CAD and audio/video editing, $3000 buys a lot of mobile workstation. Reliable, powerful and highly customizable, the catch is you'll be stuck with Quadro/Firepro graphics.
-Acer is the K-Mart of PC hardware, not recommended unless seriously budget constrained.
-Get something with big beefy hinges. Nothing chaps my clams quite like a LOLtrabook with cheap crummy plastic in the one spot guaranteed to get lots of repeated stress.
-Avoid 4K displays, they kill batteries dead. 2560x1440 is probably worth it for future proofing if it's an option, but it still comes at the expense of battery life and developers will be targeting 1080p for a long time.

Also, have you looked into external GPUs? It's not as portable, but for my money I'd rather have a tanky but still highly portable 14 or 15 inch laptop for general use and eGPU for hotel rooms and whatnot. And unlike onboard discrete, most external GPU solutions can be upgraded. This is a rather important consideration because a Coffee Lake CPU is going to be competitive for a long time but even if we're going into an era of diminishing GPU returns an RTX 2080 will be obsolete after a couple generations of 7nm silicon.
 
BIF
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Wed Feb 27, 2019 8:25 pm

I'm with you on the hinges, but not so much on Acer. Acer seems to make decent stuff, and has fewer failures than some more mainstream parts.
 
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:07 am

IMO you want yourself a thin, light, modest gaming laptop with thunderbolt 3 @ PCIe 3.0 x4, then get yourself an external graphics dock.
Unless you really really really really need to be able to move that power around with you, having high power draw components in laptops isn't viable or cost effective. I've been buying and servicing Clevo whitebooks and HP/Alienware high-end graphics laptops (for realtime 3D demos more than gaming) for over a decade now and they all universally suck when it comes to longevity. Yes, you can replace the fans, no it's not as easy as it should be, and no, even the high-quality fans wear out. The trick is to not need three of them at high RPM in the first place.

Something portable with 16-32GB RAM and a 45W Coffee Lake hexa-core (i7-8850, 6C/12T up to 4.3GHz) will be the sweet spot for CPU performance/Watt. Sure, you can quadruple the weight of your laptop by shoving a couple of GTX 1080 GPUs in there, but how often are you needing that power on the move - would a GTX 1050 Ti or even Iris-Pro do the job on the move, or is this literally a mobile gaming platform for you?
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:03 am

I've not bought a gaming laptop since 2012, and I bought an Asus G75, the battery life is trash, but I didn't buy it to play games on battery. I bought it because it was easy to fold up, toss in a bag, and take it with me. I never had issues with it overheating, nor have the hinges failed in any manner. I still have this laptop and still use it. As long as Asus hasn't changed the overall insides of their laptop bodies you'll not have issues with their ware in terms of reliability. The ROG G703GX mostly fits what your list, but it's CPU is an i9 8950HK or the model with an i7 8750H.

https://www.asus.com/us/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-G703/Tech-Specs/

The price is a fair bit over your budget, but I'm pretty sure the price will drop down a bit soon. I'm also sure you're going to get a lot of replies with people saying "Go with an external GPU" or "Go thin and light" - Don't. External pods are a pain to pack around, and the thinner laptops often carry with them serious heat issues. Some laptop makers will also down clock the GPU to partially solve the heat problem. Stick to a large frame laptop.
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:09 am

BIF wrote:
I'm with you on the hinges, but not so much on Acer. Acer seems to make decent stuff, and has fewer failures than some more mainstream parts.

I do have an anecdotal data point of one: A few Intel processor generations ago my cousin bought Acer's tippy-top of the line gaming laptop with an i7 and Nvidia graphics. Came to me recently for support she had no video once it got into Windows. Turned out something in the Nvidia graphics broke, so I got rid of the Nvidia drivers in Windows and now she's running HD graphics lol.

Agree with the eGPU recommendations. Get a normal power-user laptop with a 6-core Coffee Lake and Thunderbolt, have the GPU in an external box. Has the benefit of longer run time when on battery, and a big portion of the heat is external to the laptop enclosure when you're gaming.
 
BIF
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 12:18 am

Okay, I guess you're not really aware of how much lower the power requirements and heat generation is for the new laptop-based RTX GPUs. That is what I'm planning to get; not a prior-generation heat monster. The latest crop of laptops built around the laptop RTX 20xx cards are very thin and light machines, and from what I'm hearing, they really don't generate a lot of heat like the older ones do.

I think some of this is covered in the article that I referenced in my first post.
 
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 7:16 am

The RTX 2080 Max-Q is only 80W, but the thin & light laptops from Acer/Asus/Lenovo still use multiple tiny whiny fans with short lifespan. Notebookcheck says the Acer Triton is actually okay but their definition of okay is 47dB of whiny fan noise and a hot 59C chassis temperature that relegates it to a desktop, ideally with some kind of laptop stand to get more clearance underneath. 'Okay' is all relative in the context of trying to cram 125W of hardware in something cooled by a few vents barely bigger than a coin slot each.

It has to be Max-Q if you want thin and light, because the non-Max-Q variants from Asus and Clevo require two massive power bricks and are far from quiet, with laughable battery life measured in seconds rather than hours. The Max-Q limitation of 80W on the 2080 means that it's actually spending a lot of time at 735MHz, as tested by Notebookcheck.

The Lenovo Y740 actually seems to be one of the quietest, and well-cooled 2080 laptops right now. At least Lenovo have gone for a huge amount of ventilation and stuck to a pair of beefier 70mm fans instead of the usual compromise of three whiny little 50mm ones.

Few of the thin-and-light style laptops will have a 6C+ CPU in them, let alone the removable battery or triple drive arrangement you want. in that form factor you can probably pick any one of the following options:
  • Good cooling
  • 3-drive storage across M.2 and 2.5" SATA
  • 4 SoDIMM slots for >32GB total RAM
  • A removable battery
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 9:40 am

I would love to get a gaming laptop or something as I travel a lot. My company issued me a Dell Precision M4800 but I don't game with it as we aren't allowed to put games on them and the Quadro K1100m is a pretty lame gamer. I get pretty bored most nights as I don't watch TV and I thought about getting an X-Box to take along with me but I don't like the idea of paying a subscription to play online since I game with a PC at home and also hate console controllers. Not that you can play a lot of games on the hotel Wi-Fi...

I looked into a NUC and using the rooms TV for a monitor, but by the time you put ram, hard drive and OS on to one you're paying for a pretty decent Laptop...And since I'm already toting anchor I really don't want to drag along another laptop. So, I'm resigned to being bored and reading a lot...
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:45 am

Pville_Piper wrote:
I would love to get a gaming laptop or something as I travel a lot. My company issued me a Dell Precision M4800 but I don't game with it as we aren't allowed to put games on them and the Quadro K1100m is a pretty lame gamer. I get pretty bored most nights as I don't watch TV and I thought about getting an X-Box to take along with me but I don't like the idea of paying a subscription to play online since I game with a PC at home and also hate console controllers. Not that you can play a lot of games on the hotel Wi-Fi...

I looked into a NUC and using the rooms TV for a monitor, but by the time you put ram, hard drive and OS on to one you're paying for a pretty decent Laptop...And since I'm already toting anchor I really don't want to drag along another laptop. So, I'm resigned to being bored and reading a lot...


Do you have BIOS access and a USB 3 SSD? Boot off the USB disk and install your own version of Windows and games when you're not using it for work.

With the performance driver, rather than the certified driver, the K1100m is a 650M, so it shouldn't be too terrible for gaming - I'd imagine it'll handle esports / indie / older AAA titles without any issues?
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:48 am

The idea of possibly getting a 17" panel in a 15" laptop form-factor is rather intriguing


The best "17 in laptop in a 15 in chassis" is probably the Asus Zephyrus S GX701. Available with up to RTX 2080 Max Q, but that SKU will cost a pretty penny. Also, it's still using "only" an 8750H (6-core). But if you want power, portability and great cooling, it's a tough one to beat (disclaimer: I have the older GX501 with a 1080 Max Q).
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 12:35 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
Pville_Piper wrote:
I would love to get a gaming laptop or something as I travel a lot. My company issued me a Dell Precision M4800 but I don't game with it as we aren't allowed to put games on them and the Quadro K1100m is a pretty lame gamer. I get pretty bored most nights as I don't watch TV and I thought about getting an X-Box to take along with me but I don't like the idea of paying a subscription to play online since I game with a PC at home and also hate console controllers. Not that you can play a lot of games on the hotel Wi-Fi...

I looked into a NUC and using the rooms TV for a monitor, but by the time you put ram, hard drive and OS on to one you're paying for a pretty decent Laptop...And since I'm already toting anchor I really don't want to drag along another laptop. So, I'm resigned to being bored and reading a lot...


Do you have BIOS access and a USB 3 SSD? Boot off the USB disk and install your own version of Windows and games when you're not using it for work.

With the performance driver, rather than the certified driver, the K1100m is a 650M, so it shouldn't be too terrible for gaming - I'd imagine it'll handle esports / indie / older AAA titles without any issues?

Didn't think about that... Is there anyplace I can get a legit Win 10 key for less than $100?
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 12:47 pm

Pville_Piper wrote:
Chrispy_ wrote:
Pville_Piper wrote:
I would love to get a gaming laptop or something as I travel a lot. My company issued me a Dell Precision M4800 but I don't game with it as we aren't allowed to put games on them and the Quadro K1100m is a pretty lame gamer. I get pretty bored most nights as I don't watch TV and I thought about getting an X-Box to take along with me but I don't like the idea of paying a subscription to play online since I game with a PC at home and also hate console controllers. Not that you can play a lot of games on the hotel Wi-Fi...

I looked into a NUC and using the rooms TV for a monitor, but by the time you put ram, hard drive and OS on to one you're paying for a pretty decent Laptop...And since I'm already toting anchor I really don't want to drag along another laptop. So, I'm resigned to being bored and reading a lot...


Do you have BIOS access and a USB 3 SSD? Boot off the USB disk and install your own version of Windows and games when you're not using it for work.

With the performance driver, rather than the certified driver, the K1100m is a 650M, so it shouldn't be too terrible for gaming - I'd imagine it'll handle esports / indie / older AAA titles without any issues?

Didn't think about that... Is there anyplace I can get a legit Win 10 key for less than $100?


This is a terrible idea. If you use your work laptop to run an unauthorized OS and programs (even if everything runs off a USB drive), this may count as 'unauthorized use of company equipment', and could subject you to disciplinary action or even termination. If your work machine has ITAR or EAR information or access, this could also result in both you and your company being blacklisted by the State Department or even face criminal charges.

Put this way: is losing your job worth saving $1000-2000 on a laptop?
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Chrispy_
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 1:17 pm

It's not a terrible idea, you just need to find out what your company policy is.

If your company policy is super strict and your C drive contains mission-critical, valuable confidential data I can understand them totally locking you down - including the BIOS to prevent you running a portable OS on removable media to decrypt and steal data from the internal OS drive. If you work corporate finance, legal, or government sectors you are likely to be heavily restricted in what you can do on a company laptop.

It's far more likely that the IT department just says "no games" to avoid them spending company time cleaning up malware, pirated software, or clearing free space for failed software deployments because the drive was full of games, movies and other junk. Talk to them and tell them what a bummer it is to carry around two laptops because your company one is locked down. Blanket policies have to cover a wide range of possibilities to stop the minority of incompetent/malicious idiots causing problems. I/we make exceptions for respectful, tech-savvy employees all the time and give users one chance to not screw up.

I'm an IT manager. I know dozens of other IT managers; Most of us are reasonable people who just want to keep on top of things and have a stress-free/incident-free day. If you are volunteering your own boot drive and OS license with no risk of screwing up the deployed software image on the laptop, why should I care? Employee happiness and willingness to give/take a little is just as important as security policy, since an unhappy and resentful employee (with access to resources, data, and with the potential to inflict damage) is far more of a risk than most external attacks, unless your IT department is run by clueless buffoons with no concept of security.

Either way, it won't take long to ask if you're allowed to boot a portable OS off an external drive, and you can get W10 keys cheap if the answer is yes.

https://www.techpowerup.com/250562/urcd ... -to-92-off
(that's OEM though, which means you'll be locking it to your laptop and that portable SSD).
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:32 pm

There is nothing classified or confidential about my work, the IT department just doesn't want to clean up after idiots and they have enough work to do with out it being added to. On my part, I don't want something to screw up my work computer, it is the only way to do my job and I take that responsibility seriously. I'm out here in a plant and often don't have access to the internet and even if I do I'm in a bad spot when something goes wrong.

Next chance I get, I'll talk with the IT head and see what he says. I don't like doing anything underhanded or behind someone's back.
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:17 pm

Pville_Piper wrote:
...Next chance I get, I'll talk with the IT head and see what he says. I don't like doing anything underhanded or behind someone's back.
This is a good idea, but may not be enough. The guy who tells you it's okay is NOT the guy who will decide he wants your head if it's discovered that you were the cause of... shall we say, Airborne Excrement coming from a virus or infection in the company network.
 
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Sun Mar 03, 2019 2:26 pm

So after a week and several good conversation threads here and elsewhere, I'm still not feeling a strong preference from folks in one direction or another. People tend to say "it's too expensive" for some feature or another, rather than "if you want to do this, buy that".

I'm getting the feeling that I could really just close my eyes and throw a dart, even given my use case as outlined in my original post. I'm thinking that as long as what I choose has most of my preferences and room for expansion in CPU, memory, and/or GPU, I might as well pull the trigger. So I'll re-review MSI, Alienware, Razer, Asus, Eurocom, and whatever else, and probably just buy something this week or next.

Can anybody see any lackings in my original preference list that I should bear in mind?
 
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Sun Mar 03, 2019 3:41 pm

Voldenuit wrote:
The idea of possibly getting a 17" panel in a 15" laptop form-factor is rather intriguing


The best "17 in laptop in a 15 in chassis" is probably the Asus Zephyrus S GX701. Available with up to RTX 2080 Max Q, but that SKU will cost a pretty penny. Also, it's still using "only" an 8750H (6-core). But if you want power, portability and great cooling, it's a tough one to beat (disclaimer: I have the older GX501 with a 1080 Max Q).



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuQ2gczGfDM
 
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Tue Mar 05, 2019 11:45 pm

BIF wrote:
So after a week and several good conversation threads here and elsewhere, I'm still not feeling a strong preference from folks in one direction or another. People tend to say "it's too expensive" for some feature or another, rather than "if you want to do this, buy that".

I'm getting the feeling that I could really just close my eyes and throw a dart, even given my use case as outlined in my original post. I'm thinking that as long as what I choose has most of my preferences and room for expansion in CPU, memory, and/or GPU, I might as well pull the trigger. So I'll re-review MSI, Alienware, Razer, Asus, Eurocom, and whatever else, and probably just buy something this week or next.

Can anybody see any lackings in my original preference list that I should bear in mind?


Well, if you're getting a RTX 20xx mobile GPU, make sure to check performance tests on each specific model.

As shown in the video CScottG linked in the post above this one, performance of mobile 20xx GPUs can vary by a lot from model to model, depending on cooling, power delivery, and TDP limits set by each manufacturer.
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BIF
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Mon Mar 11, 2019 1:35 am

I've narrowed it down to three choices:

Asus Zepherus GX 701 - About $3,200
Alienware Area 51-M - About $4,100
Eurocom Sky X7C - About $3,400

For comparison purposes:

1. The Asus would have an i7 CPU and the other two the i9 CPU
--> Slight edge to the A51 and Sky.

2. All would have 32 GB RAM to start, upgradable to at least 64 GB or 128 GB
--> Slight edge to the Sky

3. All would have a 17" screen at 144 hz with an RTX 2080 with (as far as I can tell) Gsync
--> Edge to whomever has the best dead pixel policy

4. The Asus and Alienware come in a 15" form factor (with the 17" screen), although the Alienware would be slightly larger and considerably thicker/heavier. The Eurocom is the biggest/heaviest, being in a traditional 17" form factor. Slightly bigger cases for the A51 and Sky may make cooling easier. Thinner case on the Zephyrus is nice and would be better for travel, however.
--> No big preference (at the moment)

5. All would have whatever HDD comes with them. Upgrading the hard drive in any of them as part of the purchase is either not possible (for what I really want, due to limited configuration choices at shopping cart time) or is prohibitively expensive, so I plan to swap my own 2.5" drive and add my own M.2 NVME drives (to be purchased at a later date), for a total of about 4TB internal storage capacity.
--> Slight edge to the Sky

6. No ethernet port on the Asus, and webcam is a separate part; not built in. Neither is a deal-killer, because I can't really remember the last time I used a built-in camera or an ethernet cable on my non-work laptop.

Although it's more expensive, I'm leaning toward the A51 right now for the slightly smaller form factor than the Sky (a little easier to fit into a laptop bag). And that snazzy white case color is quite sharp. I could get one for a lot less money if I drop the RAM and/or CPU specs a bit, and would probably come in around the same price as the others.

Still under consideration, of course; but definitely getting closer to a decision!
 
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:56 am

I would go with the Asus or Alienware.

The Clevo chassis are adequate but the software/drivers for things like the RGBLED keyboard are sub-par, i.e. skinned chinese utilities with outdated interface/installer/themes. I have around 10 years experience building and servicing Clevo whitebooks from a handful of resellers in Europe and they're perfectly decent but nothing special - think "mid-quality plastic chassis with steel reinforcement in key areas". It's not glamourous but it's adequate.

If you were buying a $1000-1500 laptop, the build quality, feel, and styling of the Eurocom/Schenker/Xotic-badged Clevos would be competitive and appropriate. It's not really quite so appropriate when you're spending north of 3K though, because everyone else is using premium materials and putting effort into presentation and build-quality once you're at the upper end of the premium gaming laptop market.

I know it's the most expensive one here, the but the A51 has a magnesium alloy chassis and uses socketed CPU and GPU, so as someone buying high-end with the aim of using this for several years, it's both more durable and more upgradable than the Asus/Eurocom. For such a high-end purchase, those two qualities would be important to me.
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Mon Mar 11, 2019 8:15 am

Well put, thank you. I'm thinking in much the same way.
 
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:39 am

I'm almost 100% there for the Alienware. The biggest questions now are concerning whether to order from Dell or to order from a reseller. Some of the reviews say Dell takes a month for delivery. XoticPC also has it, but all the "good ones" are out of stock.

It's almost as if 1985 Gateway came back to haunt us. :( Personally, I blame "Mall Hair" and leg warmers, and I think we still have about 75 years of penance to do for those sins. :P

There's one big reseller on Amazon that has prices low enough for a low-end i9 model (8GB RAM, cheap SSDD drive) that I could buy it and then upgrade the memory and hard drive for a few hundred dollars cheaper than they sell their higher end i9 model.

For example, I could order the 8GB model with the SSHD drive along with a couple of 16 or 32 GB memory sticks from another Amazon seller, and maybe even just get one 1TB M.2 (I'd probably go with an NVME one rather than SATA; yeah, I've been reading the other forum threads... :P ). When it all arrives, I would swap those components with mine and transfer the OS as necessary, have fun doing it, and save a couple-to-few hundred on the whole deal.

Or I could spread out some of the cost by 2TB NVM drives for purchase in a month or two.

As an aside:
I've reviewed the service manual and setup manuals, and to my pleasant surprise, I find the A-51M machine to be VERY easy to work with. You don't have to remove keyboards or motherboard to access all memory slots or all hard drive slots. The machine is clearly and logically laid out, with some attention having been paid to the person who has to service the parts. Nice!

And as a bonus, the service manual has clear instructions for removing and replacing every component in the machine, with key diagrams shown. I've never had that with any other laptop before, and have always relied on You-Tube videos and a wing and a prayer when servicing or upgrading my laptop hardware.

Anyway, I'm still thinking on this, but I plan to purchase by the end of the month.
 
NovusBogus
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Sun Mar 17, 2019 7:46 pm

Dell's customer service is famously bad, so if Xotic offers first-line support that might be worth the extra hassle.

Nice to hear that it has a sensible and serviceable component layout. That's something I'm used to seeing on Glorious Corporate Master Race but not so much the consumer stuff.
 
BIF
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Re: Advice Needed: The Latest 2019 Crop of Gaming Laptops

Mon Mar 18, 2019 6:56 pm

I have ordered the Alienware Area 51 M in white, with i9 9900, the RTX 2080, and 32 GB RAM. The tiny SSHD hard drive is just a placeholder device, in here long enough to hold the OS in transit for me to back it up and transfer said OS to an NVME drive that I'm about to buy off Amazon.

I did pay the extra $15 to get the sugar free, fat free, non-GMO, certified MSG-free, and bloatware free installation of Windows 10 Pro. Yeah, don't start with me. :P :roll:

Sometime soon I'll be starting up a new thread in the Windows forum, because I want to build my environment from scratch, while also planning to completely refresh my desktop machine's Windows environment at a later date this year. I'll have a number of questions regarding partitioning, OS, data, and application organization, and security, all in light of a Bitlocker'd, TPM'd, virtualized, and secure-booted world.

Thank you all for your advice and good judgment!

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