I'm considering once again getting a new laptop, since half the games I try to play on this one have to be on lowest settings and often times still run poorly. I'm still set on having a laptop since the convenience of being able to take it around wherever I go is a huge plus to me (whether going to a friend's house, going on vacation, or even just being able to effortlessly take it in the other room when people are over). I could be convinced of a desktop, but I imagine I'll miss the mobility (also I'd need all of the monitors/keyboards/etc.)

I'm arbitrarily capping my budget around $1k with ~$800 being preferable, but I am flexible (e.g. if someone happens to know of one at like $1.1k that is just super goddamn amazing, I'd be willing to work with that).

I've been searching a bit, but I have very little knowledge of hardware and performance. It is my understanding that the GPU is the most important, with most CPUs and RAM being sufficient. Most everything I've found within my price range seems to be i5/i7, >=8 GB RAM, and GeForce 940M, 940MX, or 960M.

These are the ones I found that, as best as I can tell, seem decent:
Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6 GHz, 8GB DDR4, 1TB HDD + 128GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M - $950 (Q&A says 4GB VRAM, but it's not actually listed in the specs)
Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6 GHz, 8GB DDR4, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4GB - $869
Intel Core i7-7500U 2.7 GHz, 12GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce 940MX 4GB - $750

I have a 250 GB mSATA SSD, but unfortunately it looks like the only one listed there has a different kind of slot (M.2, which google tells me superseded mSATA).


So my specific questions are:
- Are there any more specific GPUs I should look for, or are these ones fine? My friend said 10xx series, but 960M was the highest I saw within the price range.
- Am I on the right track (specs are fine, not overlooking or trivializing anything), and if so are there any better stores I might try than Amazon? I haven't looked at newegg, I'll probably look there next.
- Is, by some mircale, one of the ones I've already found a good enough choice? I'll probably still check newegg and around to compare prices.
- Any further suggestions or things to consider?

As I said before I don't know much about hardware, so any input is greatly appreciated.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 13 2016, 12:23 am by FaRTy1billion.

I would definitely go with one of the first two. The last one is an Ideapad, which is an ultrabook class (usually) but according to the reviews it has shit battery life. It's thin so it also won't have bulray/DVD drive - I don't know how much those features matter to you. I'd probably go with the second one.

Second one is the one I was actually leaning toward. I forgot to consider it entirely, but optical drive isn't hugely important to me. I can't even think of the last time I used mine.

EDIT:
My friend said his laptop is 960M and it works well with everything he's played, so I'm not too worried about that.

Yeah, in this day and age it isn't really ever needed - but that would be a bad surprise to find out if you wanted to listen to a CD on a 12 hour flight.

Talking with NR in the shoutbox, 960M is probably fine for right now but 980/1060 is probably better for longevity. I'll probably wait a few weeks to see if there are any holiday/black friday/cyber monday deals to find some hopefully under $1.2k, but in the meantime I'll keep looking & still appreciate any thoughts.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 13 2016, 2:01 am by FaRTy1billion.

Newegg usually has some decent black friday details, so if you're not on their mailing list I'd get on it now. I think they've "started" doing it already.

Browse this: https://slickdeals.net/deals/computers/
Watch this: https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?searchin=first&q=laptop&r=1

Aweaome, thanks! It looks like there will indeed be some available for black friday, so it is good to wait. xD

I thought I'd stir some life back into this topic since it's Black Friday today.

Mobile graphics cards are more efficient in exchange for performance, but Nvidia plans to move away from laptop-specific GPUs and just use desktop variants inside them, starting with the 1000 series.

I would look up benchmarks to determine which GPU matches your needs. A good site to do this can be found here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

You can see how they rank, and you can click on one to see its actual performance in a lot of games.

For gaming, the rules are the same on laptops and desktops: GPU first, everything else second. However, with a laptop, you're stuck with the screen you get, so ideally I try to find an IPS panel at 1080p or above.

My personal checklist (which doesn't really touch gaming laptop specs) is:

• 1080p IPS panel or better
  
• 8GB of RAM or more
  
• Dedicated mouse buttons on trackpad
  

If you're going for a gaming laptop, chances are you're gonna have an i5-HQ or i7-HQ as your CPU.

There isn't anything particularly wrong with any of them from the usage you've described, but the prices are not great, especially around this time of year.

With the 1060 in particular, you may want to look at the VRAM, since there are 3GB and 6GB variants.

Don't be fooled by the i5/i7 naming scheme for laptops. An i5-U and an i7-U are basically the same CPU at different clock speeds: they're both dual-core with hyperthreading. An i5-HQ or i5-MQ has 4 cores with no hyperthreading, and an i7-HQ or i7-MQ has 4 cores with hyperthreading. U = Ultrabook (2 cores), Q = Quad (4 cores).

Here are some deals that have come up this morning:

• $521 Lenovo E570 - i7-7500U, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, GTX 950M (2GB), 1080p IPS panel
  
• $738 CyberPower Tracer - i7-6700HQ, 16GB RAM, 480GB SSD, GTX 965M (4GB), 1080p IPS panel
  
• $900 Asus FX502VM - i5-6300HQ, 16GB RAM, no SSD, GTX 1060 (3GB), 1080p TN panel
  
• $1100 CyberPower Fangbook - i7-6700HQ, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, GTX 1060 (6GB), 1080p IPS panel
  

The Lenovo is damn cheap for what it is, but if you're serious about gaming, a 950M isn't gonna get you much above the likes of Overwatch on high settings. The CyberPower Tracer is likely your ideal balance between price and functionality, and it has a powerful CPU and large SSD in it as added bonuses. The Asus is honestly not a great deal all around, but it is very affordable for a laptop with a 1060 in it (even though it's only the 3GB model). The CyberPower Fangbook is a killer machine with all the specs, but obviously even this sale price is breaking your budget.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 25 2016, 6:15 pm by Roy.

Awesome! Thanks, Roy.

I wouldn't have thought of IPS (I don't know what that is ), and I've been trying to look for 6GB over 3GB on the 1060 (nude and other people I've talked to have basically said 1060 is the best way to go). Good to know about i5/i7 naming stuff. I think most/all of the ones I've been looking at are HQ.

Based on what I have talked to people about, the $1100 isn't too bad in terms of paying a bit more for a longer useful life. My budget is/was mostly just me being hopeful. Honestly, under $1.2k is probably a more reasonable budget.

Now my only question is if I should try to grab one of these, or see if cyber monday will have anything worth looking at or will probably just be more of the same?


Another one I found is:
$1150 GIGABYTE Intel Core i7 6700HQ, GTX 1060, 16 GB Memory, 128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD
The SSD is smaller than what I have right now, but it's nice to have the HDD.
There were a few more, but they are no longer on sale or sold out. I also haven't looked today to see if any more have come up.

IPS panels sacrifice good blacks in favor of bright and vivid colors while retaining good readability and accurate colors from almost any angle. Especially useful for outside use or when multiple people are looking at your screen.

Note to current deals: Asus and Lenovo generally have one of the best build qualities.
So I particularly like the Asus though it lacks some nice to haves. It has a slot to add a m.2 SSD though.
In direct comparison to the Cybertech Fangbook it lacks USB-C, a webcam and 3 GB VRAM. The latter isn't particularly bad for performance, but what it means is that texture wise you'll be locked in the current state of games. To clarify: Today you can crank up the textures all the way up (maybe minus a few select titles or UHD mods). It's expected that in the future games will offer even higher quality textures, but you'll need to resort to the 2nd highest texture setting when with the 6 GB variant you could take the highest without a performance hit. Other features that need VRAM: Anti-aliasing and screen space occlusion (e.g. HBAO). But those create a huge performance hit on higher settings so for most games you'll have them on standard settings throughout the card's life. Realistically though, this isn't as bad or as noticable as it sounds.

I got the Cyberpower Fangbook Roy linked to. All the ones on sale I've seen come and go seem to hover around similar specs & prices, so I just went with it. Plus can't complain about a 512 GB SSD

It's not the budget one I was hoping for, but w/e

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 26 2016, 9:10 am by FaRTy1billion.

ahh that moved to $1050

Apparently the one I ordered doesn't ship until Dec 12th, so if something super crazy comes up for Cyber Monday I could potentially still cancel this one.