Best High Performance Laptop Available (Recoil II?)

Hi All,

I am looking for a high performance Laptop for the following uses with a max budget of £1500+/-:


I would prefer the following specs:


I have therefore come up with the following:

Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
250GB WD Black™ M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3000MB/s R | 1600MB/s W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 150W AC Adaptor
Battery
Recoil II Series 46WH Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
2 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 3
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ WIRELESS-AC 1550 M.2 GAMING 802.11AC + BLUETOOTH 5.0
USB Options
1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.1 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK MECHANICAL KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,342.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/recoil-ii-15/t9d355u3zF/

My main questions I have are the following:


My main concern buying from PC Specialist is that I don't see much information available on the Chassis they provide and whether they are top of the range.

Any feedback much appreciated. Feel free to post better specs below.

Thanks in advance.

Define "top of the range".

The chassis are usually Clevo and PCS do have the clevo chassis models on the website. The Recoil isn't a Clevo as it happens, it's apparently a TongFang GK5CN.

I suggest you check this page: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews/ for 2 reasons
1) it has reviews of 4 recoils that PCS sent out to different websites for review. One of them is in Italian but the benchmarks and charts should be fairly understandable, and google translate will do the rest if you don't happen to speak Italian. Some of the reviews are very detailed. These may help answer questions about noise.
2) The review specs are fixed specs with built in discounts, which can be upto ~£100 or so for the Recoils I think. There are specs with 500gb Samsung 970 Pro SSDs that cost less than the above. It should offer the highest performance of all the drives of the list.

Why the high refresh screen? You describe your gaming as very casual and your other uses wouldn't seem to really benefit?

The 1050 ti is suitable for those needs. Note that you can't change the GPU in the future, so if you get a taste for a demanding future title, the GTX 1060 will get you a good deal further with that. Something to be aware of anyway.

New CPUs and GPUs are rumoured to be coming out shortly (Aug/Sept/Oct) but in the desktop space, I'm not sure when (or if, in the case of the CPUs) the mobile equivelents will be coming out.

Sorry for the late reply Oussebon.

When I used the term 'top of the range', I meant are the chassis that PC Specialist use comparable to the best chassis available out there on the market e.g. ASUS, Dell etc. The reason I ask is I understand that a chassis is a key part to consider when buying a new laptop because of temperatures, air flow, durability and much more. Do you think the TongFang GK5CN (Recoil II) is my best choice available for me from PC Specialist at this current time or would you recommend another chassis?

Thanks for the information you provided and the links to the reviews. I will be sure to check those out to learn more.

I agree with you regarding the refresh rate. I will change that to 60Hz instead to save a bit of money as 144Hz seems a bit excessive for my needs.

The GPU is interesting as you are right in that it can't be replaced. I may consider the GTX 1060 instead now.

Do you (or anyone on the forums) think I should tweak anything else to this set up prior to me purchasing?

I think this chassis is a very good fit. Reviews of cooling have been positive, and unlike some other models where concerns have been raised on the forums about cooling (Defiance V), people generally seem happy with their Recoils.

The specs look good for your uses - noting the points about the 60hz screen and the 1060 ofc.

Do check out the review spec offiers though as it may end up offering a better spec for a similar price.

As for how the chassis compares to the most expensive dell, asus, etc offerings I can only suggest checking out those reviews (since I haven't personally handled the Recoil or its competitors) If shopping in this range I would be fairly unlikely to buy from one of the major OEMs versus a barebones type build from PCS or a similar company. But it's not my money here and it's also not allowed to comment on competitors' products (either in favour or against) so you need to make your own conclusion on that score!

Edit: Just saw this person posting in a long thread about the Recoil II https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...2018-Recoil-II&p=419873&viewfull=1#post419873 saying they thought the chassis finish feels nice and solid. You can check out that thread plus comments here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?15-Show-off-your-new-PC-Laptop!

And ofc you can google the Tongfang chassis (GK5CN) as other companies sell laptops based on this and you can see what people had to say about the chassis quality, cooling, etc - which ought to be the same whether PCS or anyone else are selling the item.

Thanks for all your help. I have decided to go with the Recoil II so will be ordering this eventually. Can you confirm a few final things below:


I was able to find a forum with tonnes of information around the TongFang GK5CN5Z Chassis so thought I would share with anyone else interested in buying the Recoil II:

Would you recommend the 'Cooler Master Mastergel Maker Thermal Compound' over the 'Standard Thermal Paste for Sufficient Cooling' thermal paste?

Click to expand...

I'd probably buy it, though I suppose it's not strictly necessary.

Would you recommend the 'Gigabyte LAN & Killer Wireless AC 1550' over the 'Gigabyte LAN & Wireless Intel AC-9560'?

Click to expand...

Killer vs Intel really depends on who you ask. But for the uses you've listed above I'm not sure you're going to see much real difference.

Do you think it is worth buying Windows 10 elsewhere and installing it myself to save money?

Click to expand...

That's up to you. By all means buy it without Windows if you can get a better deal on that elsewhere and you don't mind setting it up yourself. Probably best to avoid websites that claim to sell legit Windows keys for ~£10 though...