Quiet, gaming ready Notebook

W

Wildcard

Member
Hi there,

I have a newish HP notebook (i5 6200U, 8GB, Samsung SSD) that's bottlenecking me in daily life quite a lot and am looking for something new. I'm quite particular with my hardware and build my PCs myself, with a notebook that's not really possible so that's why I landed here.

I use the Notebook with a USB dock and lots of external stuff (headset, 2 screens, speakers, webcam, keyboard/mouse) daily for work as a developer/system engineer. So mainly for that it needs a lot of punch, I'm looking at the quad core i5 or even better the hexacore i7. I also travel a bit for work, and it would be great if the laptop was gaming ready. A GTX1050 would be perfect. Ultimately I just would like to be able to play games that aren't 10 years old at lowest settings (my current laptop can hardly handle path of exile at the lowest settings).

I want a 17" screen as well. Weight and size is not an issue.

I have all the components picked out, but I'm worried after reading a bit that the notebook will end up being noisy during daily work. If it starts getting hot and noisy when I'm gaming, that's fine.

Anything I need to look out for? I'm looking for advice along the lines of "the cosmos is really cheap, the cooling isn't great. get a recoil and you're grand" or "stick to the i5, the i7 generates and awful lot of heat" or "the MX150 is enough for a bit of gaming, the 1050 increases heat a lot".

Thanks!
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
The MX150 will struggle to play some games from 2015 below 1080p at playable framerates.

The 1050 in the Cosmos isn't very powerful, and will really struggle with newer titles before too long (well, probably, I don't actually own a crystal ball ofc... but it's very entry level).

What sort of budget are you looking at? Will help suggest a spec. I suspect the Recoil will be the one to aim for.
 
W

Wildcard

Member
Thanks for the reply. The budget is ... as low as possible, but I don't want to set a limit. The machine will be my daily worker and I've learned often enough in the past that if you buy cheap, you buy twice. I also have quite a few computers at home for various tasks, and the past has shown that a cheap computer that is replaced lands in the bin, whereas an expensive computer that gets replaced, gets repurposed.

Maybe I'll first quickly elaborate in detail on what I plan to use it for:

90% of the time this will sit stationary on my desk and be used for work. I actually connect to a computer in a remote office through a cisco VPN and do my actual work there. Nonetheless, my local computer needs to be powerful enough because it runs a few tasks (browser with various Wikis and Docs, Soft phone, VPN client, Microsoft Teams and Skype, etc.). Sometimes I do development work directly on this machine, so it needs to perform adequately for that. During my regular 9-5 job the GPU won't have anything to do and I want the laptop to be reasonably quiet (my current cheapo HPs fans are going constantly, so I don't expect absolute silence).

A few times a year I have to travel to a different country where my company resides, and live a couple days or a week or two in a hotel room. For that time I need this notebook to be my source of entertainment, from streaming movies to playing games. With my current notebook I'm restricted to retro games.

I have a gaming desktop at home (i7 6700k, GTX 1070, 16GB RAM, SSD). So the laptop will not be used for gaming at home at all.

I *think* a 1050 would be good enough. I see your point that that it wouldn't be terribly future proof. Keep in mind where I'm coming from (the HP has an Intel 520) though, and that it will only be used for gaming a couple times a year.

My requirements are:
- "Quiet" under medium CPU load and without GPU load
- Can be louder when gaming, I don't care
- 6Core CPU (4Core is ok if necessary to keep the notebook "quiet" in daily life)
- GTX 1050 or better (MX150 at a stretch if necessary to keep the notebook "quiet" in daily life)
- 17" screen
- "Good" set up of connectors (I am left handed, my mouse hand will be on the left side of the notebook, I don't want wires to get in the way)
- Weight and size is of very little concern - the laptop will be used at home or in the hotel, it won't be used on the go
- 500GB M.2 SSD (all my data is on network storage anyway, 500GB is more than enough for OS, applications and games)

I am actually looking at the Octane VI chassis at the moment. It's a bit bonkers, but I like the fact that this thing is as close to a desktop computer as anything. It's not portable, I don't need it to be. It's certainly expandable, with 2 M.2 and 2 SATA bays. And it's designed for much heavier hardware than I want to put in there, so my thinking is that it should stay cool and quiet enough (under the condition of medium workload with no GPU load)?

- Octane VI with 17.3" FullHD panel
- Core i5-8400 (2.8GHz, 6 Cores)
- 1x16GB RAM
- RTX 2060
- Intel 660p M.2, 500GB

Otherwise, I'm looking at the cheaper chassis like the Recoil II with pretty much the same spec (apart from the GPU):
- 17.3" FullHD panel
- Core i7-8750h
- 1x16GB RAM
- GTX 1050 Ti
- Intel 660p M.2, 500GB

This would be around 500€ cheaper of course. Again, my main criteria is for the thing to keep quiet during my daily work. If the Recoil II can do that, I'll probably go with that.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Apparently the Recoil is alright on idle:
https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/m...-recoil-ii-i7-8750h-gtx-1060-laptop-review/3/ No worse than the next model along anyway.

It is relatively audible under load, but that goes hand in hand with the cooling, which it is quite good at.

The 1050 non-ti is the weakest Nvidia GPU that can be called a gaming GPU. Notebookcheck have some benches:
It's not perfect and there are anomalies, but it's worth checking out.

See this filtered list: https://tinyurl.com/y3yd854f showing relevant GPUs

A 1050 isn't really satisfactory in some modern titles even at medium settings (not that Anthem/Division are paragons of optimisation, but games are what they are,,.). A 1050 ti is ~30% more powerful. A 1060 would be quite a bit more futureproof. I think if spending the cash on a laptop for gaming, you may as well aim at the 1060. It would be a shame to break out the laptop in a couple of years and find that X game you've developed a taste for only runs on pixelsmudge settings.

Note Witcher 3, which let's remember is a game from 4 years ago now, with 1080p High settings on the 1050/ti/1060.
 
W

Wildcard

Member
Thanks. It's interesting to see that the 1050(ti) generally only achieves half the framerate of the 1060. That's a huge gap, which indeed might make the extra 140€ worthwhile. I'll think about it and probably either go for the Recoil/8750H/1060 or the Octane/8400-8600/2060 route. The main thing preventing me from the Octane (apart from the price difference) is that it seems a complete and utter waste to have that GPU sitting idle most of the time.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Also the point of the Octane is that it can support beefy desktop CPUs like the 8700k and so on.

Not much point buying it for an i5, when a laptop i7 is going to be pretty well as good. Feels like a waste of the chassis.

I'd also suggest that it's not prudent to assume that the Octane will be quieter because 'if it has better cooling potential, only tapping 2/3rds of that means fans will spin quieter' (if that's not an unfair paraphrasing). The cooling systems are different between systems. It's not like they're all designed to a fixed dB at max load. Sometimes effective cooling just means fans spinning very fast and making a lot of noise.

The Octane could be quieter on low loads, I don't know, but it'd be unwise to assume it is :)
 
W

Wildcard

Member
That's certainly not unfair paraphrasing, that was exactly my thinking. I don't know if my assumption is correct, that's why I'm asking here :)

The Octane is appealing to me because the cooling system (on kitguru) seems massive, the chassis layout seems well designed (quick access to M.2 and 2.5SATA slots), etc. The fact that it has 2 M.2 slots and 2 2.5 SATA compartments excites me too. It's essentially a compacted SFF PC with a screen.

On the other side it's a bit overkill for my requirements (I really don't need a desktop CPU and an RTX), and while I'm saying that the weight doesn't matter, carrying a power supply that weighs as much as entire notebooks is a bit weird. Also, the (alleged) benefits of the Octane don't really justify the ~500€ price difference.

Fair enough, Recoil II it will be, with a 1060 and an M.2 SSD. Thanks for the help!
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
One thing I forgot to mention earlier. If budget isn't a major factor I'd avoid the Intel 660p. Their speeds can be quite slow for some things. The ideal would be a WD Black or 970 Evo. Though to be honest just about any of the others might be an improvement.
 
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