New gaming Laptop, thoughts? hardware/performance limitations/compatibility?

EugSha

Member
Hi everyone, pretty new here. open to thoughts and suggestions.. this is what I have decided with my semi-limited knowledge on specs! :)
Any hardware, performance limitations or heating/battery life issues i should be aware of?

Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 120Hz 45% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 10750H (2.6GHz, 5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Storage Drive
256GB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (500MB/R, 400MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3200MB/W)

budget is roughly £1,000.

Playing mostly games like call of duty/battlefield on medium to low detail and multiple clients of RuneScape (cpu demanding) as well as browsing.
I'm open to playing any new release games also but none on higher or maxed graphics/detail.
No use for rendering or editing.
 
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FerrariVie

Super Star
Your typical usage and requirements would help as well (types of games, rendering, video editing, just browsing, etc.)
 

FerrariVie

Super Star
Your budget is close to what mine was. I don't know what's @Nursemorph 's opinion on this, but for me if you're just gaming, having a better GPU is going to make a lot more of a difference than the CPU.

My suggestion would be the Nova chassis with Ryzen 3 CPU and RTX 2060 GPU, but that would be just about £100 above your budget (if you can stretch it):

Chassis & Display
Nova Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 3 3100 Quad Core CPU (3.6GHz-3.9GHz/18MB CACHE/AM4)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2060 - 6.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB INTEL® 665p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 2000MB/sR | 1925MB/sW)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Price: £1,095

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.ie/saved-configurations/nova-15/4tfXw!Mjay/

With that build, I believe that you're able to play those games that you mentioned with maxed settings. But you need to understand the advantages and drawbacks of a DTR (Desktop Replacement), which I explained recently on this post: 15,6" RECOIL IV vs 15,6" PROTEUS VII ? | PCSPECIALIST

If you can't go to the £1100 price, then you could still downgrade the GPU to the 1660Ti, which is going to be a lot better than the 1650 that your initial build had, but not as good as the 2060.
 
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Bhuna50

Author Level
Appreciate budget is an issue here but recommendations would be two hard drives.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

FerrariVie

Super Star
Appreciate budget is an issue here but recommendations would be two hard drives.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If that's the case, he could get one 500Gb M.2 PCS and one 500Gb 2.5" SATA for the same price, but I wouldn't do that personally. First that the speed increase of having 2 drives while one of them is SATA is questionable, and secondly that I would save the 2.5" slot for a bigger drive when the need comes, like 1 or 2 Tb.

If the budget allowed 2 reasonably good (not considering the Intel 660p here, it needs to be at least a 665p or PCS drive) 500Gb m.2 or 1 of those with another 1Tb SATA, then it would indeed be the best solution. But I would not get a worst CPU or GPU just for the sake of having 2 drives.
 

Bhuna50

Author Level
If that's the case, he could get one 500Gb M.2 PCS and one 500Gb 2.5" SATA for the same price, but I wouldn't do that personally. First that the speed increase of having 2 drives while one of them is SATA is questionable, and secondly that I would save the 2.5" slot for a bigger drive when the need comes, like 1 or 2 Tb.

If the budget allowed 2 reasonably good (not considering the Intel 660p here, it needs to be at least a 665p or PCS drive) 500Gb m.2 or 1 of those with another 1Tb SATA, then it would indeed be the best solution. But I would not get a worst CPU or GPU just for the sake of having 2 drives.

Agree - although will have to ensure he/she backs up their save games etc - I was just mentioning it in case the OP could stretch to that bit more to accommodate this from the start.

Could go for a 256gb PCS M2, and a 1TB 7200 RPM hard drive for now making it £1084. Add the second M2 to it later then - just have to be patient during games loading, but with lower graphics settings anyway should still be quick'ish
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
If that's the case, he could get one 500Gb M.2 PCS and one 500Gb 2.5" SATA for the same price, but I wouldn't do that personally. First that the speed increase of having 2 drives while one of them is SATA is questionable, and secondly that I would save the 2.5" slot for a bigger drive when the need comes, like 1 or 2 Tb.
Two drives at minimum is always a good idea from a performance point of view simply because it avoids queuing at the drive level (which can give a big performance hit) - queuing is always bad.

Whether the data drive can be a SATA drive depends on what applications are used and what type of data is being stored. Music and videos we know are perfectly fine on a SATA drive, as is any user data that is in relatively small file sizes (less than a few MB). If the SATA drive is an SSD (and we can ignore seek times and latency) then it's good for user data files up to around 100MB in size.

As an example, if we take a very basic SATA SSD with a read time of 550MB/s, then a 100MB file can be read in less than 0.2 seconds - and because it's an SSD we don't have to consider the implications of fragmentation, it's a flat 0.2 seconds. Unless the application is doing dozens of reads at a time a 0.2 second access time is perfectly acceptable - not many humans can detect a time that short.

For the right data types I'd be very happy with them being on a SATA SSD - for music and videos I'd be happy with them being on a SATA HDD!
 

FerrariVie

Super Star
I would prefer to have a 1tb m.2 than 500gb m.2 + 500Gb HDD (for gaming). For just documents, photos and videos I agree that an HDD would do just fine, but why not an external USB instead?

But that's just my personal preference.
 

EugSha

Member
The idea was to save any games and larger files on the M.2, to take full advantage of it's speed, I hope that's a logical way of approaching it :S
In terms of upgrading the gpu, I'm not one for playing everything on max graphics, I'm happy playing things on low detail to be honest, just as long as it's running smoothly, I'm not sure if that's relevant at all though. The cpu option was the best choice I had for the particular model I had chosen, the 17" screen was a preference also.
 

EugSha

Member
If that's the case, he could get one 500Gb M.2 PCS and one 500Gb 2.5" SATA for the same price, but I wouldn't do that personally. First that the speed increase of having 2 drives while one of them is SATA is questionable, and secondly that I would save the 2.5" slot for a bigger drive when the need comes, like 1 or 2 Tb.

If the budget allowed 2 reasonably good (not considering the Intel 660p here, it needs to be at least a 665p or PCS drive) 500Gb m.2 or 1 of those with another 1Tb SATA, then it would indeed be the best solution. But I would not get a worst CPU or GPU just for the sake of having 2 drives.

So to downgrade the M.2 to a slightly slower one in order to increase the size of a the SATA?
Why is it questionable to have an M.2 and a SATA?
I just don't think I need 1tb+ in storage, I only play a few games and browse.. but I guess newer game files are become much larger these days.
The gpu is meant to cater for medium/low quality gaming, I don't really need high def. The CPU I chose was the better choice I had for the model I had chosen. If the combination of hardware I have chosen for it's purpose doesn't make sense, let me know :)
 

FerrariVie

Super Star
The reason why I think that the 1650 is not a good enough card is the fact that while you might be able to play games at low/medium settings today, it is likely that you won't in 2 or 3 years time, on newer games. It's just about future-proofing your device (and your money).

If you have a requirement for 17", then I don't think you have any other option at that price-point.

And regarding the storage, it's actually the opposite: if you have 2 drives, you need the faster drive for windows and apps, while games (and any big enough app/file) on the second, since the latter is usually also bigger than the boot one. I was just questioning the fact that having 2 drives (one fast and one slow) might not be better than having just one fast drive if you're short in budget, since everything will be on a fast drive. But as @ubuysa said, there is also the issue with the apps competing to use the same drive, so not sure which is best.
 
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EugSha

Member
Two drives at minimum is always a good idea from a performance point of view simply because it avoids queuing at the drive level (which can give a big performance hit) - queuing is always bad.

Whether the data drive can be a SATA drive depends on what applications are used and what type of data is being stored. Music and videos we know are perfectly fine on a SATA drive, as is any user data that is in relatively small file sizes (less than a few MB). If the SATA drive is an SSD (and we can ignore seek times and latency) then it's good for user data files up to around 100MB in size.

As an example, if we take a very basic SATA SSD with a read time of 550MB/s, then a 100MB file can be read in less than 0.2 seconds - and because it's an SSD we don't have to consider the implications of fragmentation, it's a flat 0.2 seconds. Unless the application is doing dozens of reads at a time a 0.2 second access time is perfectly acceptable - not many humans can detect a time that short.

For the right data types I'd be very happy with them being on a SATA SSD - for music and videos I'd be happy with them being on a SATA HDD!
Are you aware of any issues having two different drives? i.e M.2 & SATA.
From my understanding, It's better to utilise the M.2 for things you want loaded/accessed quicker, so... the windows system and the games I have downloaded, please correct me if I'm wrong or if there's a better way to approach the situation :)
I'm not entirely sure of the differences between, HDD, SATA and M.2. As far as I know.. M.2 is the quicker one, so ideally you would use that with things you want accessed quickly. My idea was to have a SATA SSD for everything else, some photos maybe and anything else, which probably wouldn't be much.
please mind my ignorance, I really appreciate the info/help.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Are you aware of any issues having two different drives? i.e M.2 & SATA.
From my understanding, It's better to utilise the M.2 for things you want loaded/accessed quicker, so... the windows system and the games I have downloaded, please correct me if I'm wrong or if there's a better way to approach the situation :)
No, there are no issues in having an M.2 SSD and a SATA SSD (or even a SATA HDD).
I'm not entirely sure of the differences between, HDD, SATA and M.2. As far as I know.. M.2 is the quicker one, so ideally you would use that with things you want accessed quickly. My idea was to have a SATA SSD for everything else, some photos maybe and anything else, which probably wouldn't be much.
please mind my ignorance, I really appreciate the info/help.
M.2 and SATA are just connectors. M.2 accesses the PCIe bus (so has much greater bandwidth), SATA uses the SATA interface (at 6GB/s).

ACHI and NVMe are data access protocols - the means by which data is accessed on a drive. ACHI is used by some M.2 SSDs and by all SATA SSDs (and HDDs). NVMe is a much faster protocol and is consequently only available on M.2 drives.

You want Windows and programs on the fastest drive you can afford - typically that will be a M.2 NVMe drive. User data does not need to be on such a blistering fast drive, an ACHI M.2 SSD, a SATA SSD, or even a SATA HDD for some user data are what you want for the best price/performance balance.
 

EugSha

Member
No, there are no issues in having an M.2 SSD and a SATA SSD (or even a SATA HDD).

M.2 and SATA are just connectors. M.2 accesses the PCIe bus (so has much greater bandwidth), SATA uses the SATA interface (at 6GB/s).

ACHI and NVMe are data access protocols - the means by which data is accessed on a drive. ACHI is used by some M.2 SSDs and by all SATA SSDs (and HDDs). NVMe is a much faster protocol and is consequently only available on M.2 drives.

You want Windows and programs on the fastest drive you can afford - typically that will be a M.2 NVMe drive. User data does not need to be on such a blistering fast drive, an ACHI M.2 SSD, a SATA SSD, or even a SATA HDD for some user data are what you want for the best price/performance balance.
I appreciate the info! so there's no issues I would experience with the current storage choices I have made? Would you recommend any changes to the build?
I could change the samsung 970 500gb to something like a 1TB intel 665p M.2 NVME PCIe SSD for the same price. Would that be more effective do you think?
 

EugSha

Member
Your budget is close to what mine was. I don't know what's @Nursemorph 's opinion on this, but for me if you're just gaming, having a better GPU is going to make a lot more of a difference than the CPU.

My suggestion would be the Nova chassis with Ryzen 3 CPU and RTX 2060 GPU, but that would be just about £100 above your budget (if you can stretch it):

Chassis & Display
Nova Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 3 3100 Quad Core CPU (3.6GHz-3.9GHz/18MB CACHE/AM4)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2060 - 6.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB INTEL® 665p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 2000MB/sR | 1925MB/sW)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Price: £1,095

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.ie/saved-configurations/nova-15/4tfXw!Mjay/

With that build, I believe that you're able to play those games that you mentioned with maxed settings. But you need to understand the advantages and drawbacks of a DTR (Desktop Replacement), which I explained recently on this post: 15,6" RECOIL IV vs 15,6" PROTEUS VII ? | PCSPECIALIST

If you can't go to the £1100 price, then you could still downgrade the GPU to the 1660Ti, which is going to be a lot better than the 1650 that your initial build had, but not as good as the 2060.
Hi there, upon relfection I have now realised how poor the performance is on the gpu I have.. I think your suggestion is definitely the way to go. thanks :)
Do you know if there's much difference between the amd and intel cpu? what would I be losing, going with amd?
I guess you're still unsure about going a singular big ssd or two medium?
 
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FerrariVie

Super Star
Hi there, upon relfection I have now realised how poor the performance is on the gpu I have.. I think your suggestion is definitely the way to go. thanks :)
Do you know if there's much difference between the amd and intel cpu? what would I be losing, going with amd?
I guess you're still a little unsure weather to go one big asd or multiple?
The intel 10750H is a better processor overall than the 3100. The former has 6 cores, against 4 on the latter. I would say that the difference is around 10% in single-core and 15% on multi-core, but not counting the fact that the 3100 is an unlocked processor with lots of room for overclocking, if you're up to it. But where you'll gain is in the GPU, as the 2060 is around 60% better than the 1650, so I think it's a good trade-off for gaming.

I guess the storage option is kind of a personal preference 😜 . For budgets bigger than yours, I would definitely recommend 2 drives (I have 2 drives at the moment). But at that price-point, it's hard to decide.... I would definitely prefer to have an Nvme drive (even if it's just one) than having a SATA and an HDD, but that's my opinion.

And always remember that you can add a second drive at any moment you want without losing the warranty. It's really easy to do, especially on the Nova.
 
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