Laptop build ideas please
- Thread starter Hood815
- Start date
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Welcome back, nice to see you, hope you got the car sorted without too much issue.
Starfield and Total War are both high CPU usage, so it will need a strong CPU, and as high a GPU as we can squeeze. Neither of those games are going to benefit from high refresh rate, but the best CPU chassis are all 240Hz 1440p panels.
This would be my suggestion, it's the best mobile CPU currently and a pretty damn strong GPU which should see you ok for a few years to come
Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 16" Matte QHD 240Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1600)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 24 Core Processor 13900HX (5.4GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair 4800MHz SODIMM DDR5 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4080 - 12.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 330W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Recoil Series Integrated 99WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
LIQUID METAL PERFORMANCE COOLING
Sound Card
Nahimic by SteelSeries 2 Channel HD Audio
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.3
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 4 PORT + 3 x USB 3.2 PORTS
Keyboard Language
RECOIL 16 SERIES RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Chassis
TongFang GM6PX8X (12GB RTX-4080, i9-13900HX, 240Hz QHD)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Price: £2,334.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.ie/saved-configurations/recoil-16/UafAMqhv08/
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Just need to highlight a couple of caveats with the above system.
The chassis is basically the most powerful that PCS offer, it's a very capable system, it shouldn't have any problem with Total War or Starfield, do be prepared for Starfield to have buggy optimisation out of the gate, that's pretty usual for Blizzard releases, may take them a while to polish it up.
But from a laptop perspective, this is about as good as you can get.
BUT, couple of things to mention:
1/. on a laptop, you can't upgrade the GPU, and that will be the first bottleneck which is why you always spec as high a GPU as you can, no matter what screen resolution and refresh it's paired with. But it means that as performance starts to bottom out and you have to reduce settings to the point you're no longer satisfied, you have to get a new laptop. So they don't last anywhere near as long as a desktop, and cost substantially more vs performance that you'll get on a desktop.
2/. This model has liquid metal on the CPU rather than thermal paste. Any paste or liquid metal degrades over time and needs replacing, with paste it's self serviceable and takes about 30 minutes to apply a new lot.
With liquid metal though, it's not so simple, liquid metal is corrosive and conductive, so if there's a little too much, it can seep onto exposed capacitors on the motherboard or the CPU and either short them, or burn out the board. So it's pretty delicate application.
PCS have advised that any repaste required would need to be done by them.
Normally we'd say for thermal paste to repaste once a year to maintain temps, I have no idea how long the thermal paste would last, possibly 2 years or so before it needs another application.