Defiance V - Build Inspection and Advice please

[Mandla]

This is the my first ever "custom laptop" purchase. I want it for gaming mostly, for example, at the moment I want it to be able to handle the big rpg like games (for example, I want to play Divinity Original Sin or The Witcher) with mods and still perform at the highest specs. I obviously hoping it can survive for a long time, 4-6 years.

Any advice? On the whole thing and especially on the hard drive section, I tried to reduce the expense with a smaller hard drive, are they good enough?

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte QHD 120Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (2560x1440) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Memory (RAM)
4GB Corsair 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 - 6.0GB 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
500GB WD Black™ M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3400MB/s R | 2500MB/s W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 200W AC Adaptor
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (66WH)
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + Sound BlasterX® Pro-Gaming 720˚
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9260 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
4 x USB 3.0 Ports + 1 x USB 3.1 Type C Ports
Keyboard Language
RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Carry Case
Tech Air 17.3" Classic Backpack
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,467.00 including VAT and Delivery

 

[Oussebon]

GTX 1060 + 1440p + Witcher 3 + top settings + mods = unhappy laptop owner.

Drop the screen to 1080p, swap to the GTX 1070, and if necessary to balance costs, adjust the storage.

Only 4gb RAM?

 

[Mandla]

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Can you explain why that scenario would lead to an unhappy laptop owner. Is it that the GTX 1060 cannot support 1440p? (I have noob level knowledge in this area).

Do you think having a single 1TB SSD would be better? I am not really sure about game sizes at the moment and thought space would quickly run out.

The 4GB RAM was a mistake, I wanted 16GB and that leads me to a question. Is it it better to have 2 8GBs or 1 16GB? I thought it was for convenience, for example if the was a problem the whole 16GB module would be out while in the other setup, only 8gb.

Is it worth it to swap to the 1080p screen so I can get the better processor or is the difference it would make negligible?

I can probably go up to £1600-700 as the overall cost. How would you advice me customise it within that amount?

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Oussebon]

Can you explain why that scenario would lead to an unhappy laptop owner. Is it that the GTX 1060 cannot support 1440p? (I have noob level knowledge in this area).

This. The GTX 1060 is too weak for 1440p gaming in many titles at very high settings, and as future, more demanding games come out that will be the case even more.


1440p is a higher resolution than 1080p. This means it requires a lot more graphics horsepower to game at 1440p than 1080p.

The GTX 1060 is good for 1080p gaming. It is not going to come close to 60fps at 1440p at high-ultra settings in many games, however.

Also note that the GTX 1060 in laptops is weaker than the GTX 1060 in desktops. See this: https://tinyurl.com/y82bx8xu for 1080p benchmarks of some games

So you want a GTX 1070. Which is very good at 1080p and okay at 1440p.

Personally I would go for the 1080p screen as the GTX 1070 will push higher framerates and higher settings for longer into the future at this resolution.

The 4GB RAM was a mistake, I wanted 16GB and that leads me to a question. Is it it better to have 2 8GBs or 1 16GB? I thought it was for convenience, for example if the was a problem the whole 16GB module would be out while in the other setup, only 8gb.

2x8gb is preferable. It runs in dual channel and can improve performance in some tasks. The only positive of 1x16gb is if you need to add another 16gb in the future. You will not need to for gaming, only for things like demanding video editing.

Do you think having a single 1TB SSD would be better? I am not really sure about game sizes at the moment and thought space would quickly run out.

Games can be very large. However, they are easy to move between drives (it can be done in a few mouse clicks in steam). So you don't need a huge SSD, if you would rather buy a cheaper SSD and an HDD as secondary storage.

e.g.

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
---FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1[SUP]st[/SUP] M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2300MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (66WH)
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + Sound BlasterX® Pro-Gaming 720˚
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN + WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8260 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
USB/Thunderbolt Options
4 x USB 3.0 Ports + 1 x USB 3.1 Type C Ports
Keyboard Language
RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,670.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/defiancev-17/uG24tKGbyV/

 

[Mandla]

Hey man. Thank you for the advice, I really really appreciate it. I took some time to save money so I could try and make the configuration a little better.

I have managed to increase my budget upper limit to £2000. What do you think about it? Can you think of any improvements I could make to it?


Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8850H (2.6GHz, 4.3GHz Turbo)
FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB WD Black™ M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3400MB/s R | 2800MB/s W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (66WH)
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + Sound BlasterX® Pro-Gaming 720˚
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ WIRELESS-AC 1550 M.2 GAMING 802.11AC + BLUETOOTH 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
4 x USB 3.0 Ports + 1 x USB 3.1 Type C Ports
Keyboard Language
RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL 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
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,929.00 including VAT and Delivery

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/defiancev-17/jUYs0DHm!W/