Programming: 15.6" or 17"?
- Thread starter mrducking
- Start date
I use my laptop heavily for programming and during lectures the 15" screen is fine but I agree with Rakk in that a bigger screen is great for programming and having more screens is even better than a single better screen so I have a 24" monitor to hook up to it as well then I get a big monitor and a second monitor 
Both will likely be 1080p resolution so that won't make too much of a difference.
What programming are you doing exactly? Some kinds of programming require more than others and we can help you pick out a spec. For example games programming (what I do) can require a bigger screen to work with the game engines.
Both will likely be 1080p resolution so that won't make too much of a difference.
What programming are you doing exactly? Some kinds of programming require more than others and we can help you pick out a spec. For example games programming (what I do) can require a bigger screen to work with the game engines.
Depending on which laptop you get you may be limited to a single external monitor. I know my laptop is, but maybe some of the higher end ones offer compatibility for 2 additional screens.
Which model are you thinking of ordering just out of interest? (Because I'm too lazy to find an original thread haha)
Which model are you thinking of ordering just out of interest? (Because I'm too lazy to find an original thread haha)
debating between the vortex LE with 860m or 870m, the 860m can support 2 aditional screens besides the one of the laptop
im also considering to wait for the gtx 960m, which nobody knows when is gonna come out
im more and more tending for the 870m BUT due to it coming with only 120W charger and me living in spain, it scares me a "bit" how it is gonna behave in summer, with the beautiful 40-45ºC i got here, that charger is probably gonna melt
im also considering to wait for the gtx 960m, which nobody knows when is gonna come out
im more and more tending for the 870m BUT due to it coming with only 120W charger and me living in spain, it scares me a "bit" how it is gonna behave in summer, with the beautiful 40-45ºC i got here, that charger is probably gonna melt
That's good then, I wasn't sure if PCS offered any with 2 additional monitor support.
Sadly I have no idea on the 900m series so can't help you there, but problem is if you are waiting for that to come out, when it does come out there might be something else coming out just after. So you wait for that then something else will be coming out shortly after and you never end up with a laptop. So I recommend just going for it now and hoping Nvidia don't decide to announce their laptop GPUs tomorrow haha
Also the charger shouldn't be an issue, they are designed to withstand high temperatures and as long as you aren't wrapping it up in a towel and making sure it has some room for air to flow freely around it then there will be no issues.
Sadly I have no idea on the 900m series so can't help you there, but problem is if you are waiting for that to come out, when it does come out there might be something else coming out just after. So you wait for that then something else will be coming out shortly after and you never end up with a laptop. So I recommend just going for it now and hoping Nvidia don't decide to announce their laptop GPUs tomorrow haha
Also the charger shouldn't be an issue, they are designed to withstand high temperatures and as long as you aren't wrapping it up in a towel and making sure it has some room for air to flow freely around it then there will be no issues.
im waiting only till i get my money
my issue with the charger paired with the gtx 870m is the following:
charger--->120W (the real output is probably around 150W considering security margins and all)
my build:
i7-4710mq -- 47W
gtx 870m -- 100W
just this 2 reach 147W
now add screen, usb, motherboard,...
that charger is gonna heat up just in normal use, now consider temps of around 45ºC in summer
i already fried 2 chargers with a laptop due to the weather temps and heavy use, dont want to repeat the experience
my issue with the charger paired with the gtx 870m is the following:
charger--->120W (the real output is probably around 150W considering security margins and all)
my build:
i7-4710mq -- 47W
gtx 870m -- 100W
just this 2 reach 147W
now add screen, usb, motherboard,...
that charger is gonna heat up just in normal use, now consider temps of around 45ºC in summer
i already fried 2 chargers with a laptop due to the weather temps and heavy use, dont want to repeat the experience
I see what you mean but both of those stated values are their max values and probably at no point will you be using both the CPU and GPU to their max capacity.
150W is also the power which it can supply to the battery, battery can probably send more power around the laptop although you will be using battery quicker than it can charge if you were using it to its max.
Intel's max power usage also uses the Intel integrated graphics which would be disabled whenever the Nvidia graphics are on and although I don't know how much power the Intel graphics uses, it is generally quite a bit. Also can't find confirmation of the 100W Intel value other than that is what they suspect it is.
All else I can say is that PCS wouldn't offer configurations that the power supply couldn't handle, and Clevo (maker of the laptop shells) wouldn't manufacture them without this compatibility. It will be tested well once it is built in conditions far beyond those you will be using it in.
Also under normal use this will not be your power consumption. Without any games on the Nvidia graphics will be completely switched off and if you aren't doing anything CPU intensive then the CPU will "park" some of its cores and lower the active clock speeds to the point where it can sustain perfect performance but also optimises for lowest power usage.
Right now for example, I have 16 windows open and a Chrome window with 15 tabs open but because the CPU is not required much, it only has 1 CPU core switched on and its only running between 1-1.5GHz. But if you give it something to do then it will switch on the other cores and clock them up to their boost clock until the heat is too high at which case they will lower their clock speeds automatically until the temperature is at a safe level again.
The Nvidia GPU will do the same thing, if it finds itself getting too hot it will clock itself down one step at a time until it is at a sustainable temperature. This prevents it from having to switch itself off for protection.
150W is also the power which it can supply to the battery, battery can probably send more power around the laptop although you will be using battery quicker than it can charge if you were using it to its max.
Intel's max power usage also uses the Intel integrated graphics which would be disabled whenever the Nvidia graphics are on and although I don't know how much power the Intel graphics uses, it is generally quite a bit. Also can't find confirmation of the 100W Intel value other than that is what they suspect it is.
All else I can say is that PCS wouldn't offer configurations that the power supply couldn't handle, and Clevo (maker of the laptop shells) wouldn't manufacture them without this compatibility. It will be tested well once it is built in conditions far beyond those you will be using it in.
Also under normal use this will not be your power consumption. Without any games on the Nvidia graphics will be completely switched off and if you aren't doing anything CPU intensive then the CPU will "park" some of its cores and lower the active clock speeds to the point where it can sustain perfect performance but also optimises for lowest power usage.
Right now for example, I have 16 windows open and a Chrome window with 15 tabs open but because the CPU is not required much, it only has 1 CPU core switched on and its only running between 1-1.5GHz. But if you give it something to do then it will switch on the other cores and clock them up to their boost clock until the heat is too high at which case they will lower their clock speeds automatically until the temperature is at a safe level again.
The Nvidia GPU will do the same thing, if it finds itself getting too hot it will clock itself down one step at a time until it is at a sustainable temperature. This prevents it from having to switch itself off for protection.
I can assure you that PCS wouldn't offer this laptop if it was so close to the limit.
Also I honestly don't believe its anywhere near 100W for the Nvidia GPU, not even at max boost speed.
My 850M is almost exactly half the power and is estimated to be less than 40W. So twice that would only reach 80W at its very max boost speed. According to my Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, 47W is also the maximum for boost clock (3.5GHz) and not the regular 2.5GHz clock speed which would be considerably lower and even something like 3GHz would be considerably lower.
If you have any doubts then you could always email PCS about your concerns and they can explain the full process.
The PCS testing stage of the build process is designed to ensure that quality is always very high and that most issues are found before shipping. If stuff like this was a problem then it would appear during testing in every single one, of which they have had 100s if not 1000's of very similar builds to yours.
Also I honestly don't believe its anywhere near 100W for the Nvidia GPU, not even at max boost speed.
My 850M is almost exactly half the power and is estimated to be less than 40W. So twice that would only reach 80W at its very max boost speed. According to my Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, 47W is also the maximum for boost clock (3.5GHz) and not the regular 2.5GHz clock speed which would be considerably lower and even something like 3GHz would be considerably lower.
If you have any doubts then you could always email PCS about your concerns and they can explain the full process.
The PCS testing stage of the build process is designed to ensure that quality is always very high and that most issues are found before shipping. If stuff like this was a problem then it would appear during testing in every single one, of which they have had 100s if not 1000's of very similar builds to yours.
man they should clearly hire you you win, finally someone who clears all my worries about this configuration
my main interest is not having to use charger AND battery to be able to play at highest possible settings, which kind of kills the point of getting this
besides that i know i can perfectly use it for day to day use without worries, but if im buying a "gaming" laptop, i want to game properly (within my budget that is)Haha well just another thing to try and put your mind at ease about it all
I'm currently running a benchmark, its getting up to a maximum of 3.1GHz across all cores where the max is 3.5GHz, its running at around 70'c and won't go higher to protect itself. It's also averaging 34/35W at this level, if you were to add that on top of your GPU, also at its max boost clock which would be around 80W lets say, that would bring you under 120W and everything else combined would only be a few watts.
One thing I recommend is to use VSync. If you don't know what that is, it locks the number of frames the game produces to the refresh rate of your screen (likely 60) so that it doesn't produce any unnecessary frames and isn't wasting any power
And if I could quote you in my CV that would be great
I'm currently running a benchmark, its getting up to a maximum of 3.1GHz across all cores where the max is 3.5GHz, its running at around 70'c and won't go higher to protect itself. It's also averaging 34/35W at this level, if you were to add that on top of your GPU, also at its max boost clock which would be around 80W lets say, that would bring you under 120W and everything else combined would only be a few watts.
One thing I recommend is to use VSync. If you don't know what that is, it locks the number of frames the game produces to the refresh rate of your screen (likely 60) so that it doesn't produce any unnecessary frames and isn't wasting any power
And if I could quote you in my CV that would be great
Well its always worth a short and one more thing, if you are gaming whilst on battery then I'd recommend lowering some settings anyway as these laptops are only designed to have short battery life when gaming (couple hours tops) but can go a long time when just browsing or programming.
And if you don't mind me asking, what area of Spain do you live in? My parents have a villa on the South East near Alicante and Murcia
And if you don't mind me asking, what area of Spain do you live in? My parents have a villa on the South East near Alicante and Murcia
keynes
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I would suggest contacting PCS for an official response. I also think they wouldn't sell it if it was not fit for purpose and indicating the 120w it is not suitable for a laptop with the gtx 870m could put people off when it could be the case that the power adaptor is fine
my concern is not if the 120W is gonna be able to power it, considering the margins built in, it most certainly will
my problem lies in temperatures, as you probably have realized PSU's heat up, even when they are not straining, and they dont have a built in fan to cool them and avoid frying them, what is more, with 45ºC in summer i havent fried a single PC yet, on the other hand i fried 3 PSU's of laptops, which where supposedly well in their safety margins, i admit newer charger are way better, but when you can cook over your laptop charger, it becomes kind of a concern
so all this was for this rare, but imo pretty important for certain locations, is the "laptop charger" (not the laptop, just the charger) gonna heat up a lot?
i know sometimes i go round and round, but be it in english or spanish im the kind of person that cant express properly what he is trying to say
i asked PCS already, but they answered me with something that had nothing to do with what i wanted to know (probably my amazing capacity to explain had something to do with that) and not many people used specifically the Vortex LE in that kind of climate conditions, so it is hard to test
wozza thankfully put a lot of my questions to rest with actual energy consumption
hope i made at least something clear, if not, please insist and i will try again
I live in zaragoza wozza, where there is only freezing winter and hellish summer
EDIT: i just found this, https://randomfoo.hackpad.com/Gigabyte-GB-BXi5G-760-Testing-OILOc5jPsEn
this is why the 120W seems a little small imo
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The new PSUs are usually built to well above their actual power rating and also have safety measures to prevent them from breaking. Currently, my PSU isn't even warm because its only using a few watts currently thanks to the power savings in the laptop.
The PSU very likely has its own temperature monitor in the hottest part of it and may or may not be capable of talking to the laptop telling it to lower the power requirements (lowering clock speeds etc).
When indoors keep it in a cool room in summer (which you would probably do anyway for your own welfare) and if you want to use the charger outside then keep it in the shades and with some ventilation around it.
The PSU very likely has its own temperature monitor in the hottest part of it and may or may not be capable of talking to the laptop telling it to lower the power requirements (lowering clock speeds etc).
When indoors keep it in a cool room in summer (which you would probably do anyway for your own welfare) and if you want to use the charger outside then keep it in the shades and with some ventilation around it.