gaming laptop

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milomak

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especially fps type games on say a 15" or bigger screen

what's the experience like compared to playing on a desktop pc (assuming you buy a powerful enough laptop)?
 
Gaming laptops with GTX 1060 can now actually be called "gaming" laptops, as they are just shy of the performance of their desktop equivalents.

But for what they gain in speed, they also gain in price.

What bugs me with laptop gaming is the heat. Most "gaming" laptops have awful thermal dissipation mechanics and the keyboard tends to heat up rapidly. (asus makes the best laptop cooling it seems.)

After any amount of time, 10-15 minutes my gaming laptops have all had unbearably hot keyboards and playing games is unbearable.
Screen size is also an issue as mobile displays usually have poorer colour than standalone monitors and the smaller screens are unpleasant to look at after an hour or so.
If you want to fix this, grab an external keyboard and monitor, but at this point and price, it's easier to make a mini-itx desktop system.
 
Faux_Grey said:
Gaming laptops with GTX 1060 can now actually be called "gaming" laptops, as they are just shy of the performance of their desktop equivalents.

But for what they gain in speed, they also gain in price.

What bugs me with laptop gaming is the heat. Most "gaming" laptops have awful thermal dissipation mechanics and the keyboard tends to heat up rapidly. (asus makes the best laptop cooling it seems.)

After any amount of time, 10-15 minutes my gaming laptops have all had unbearably hot keyboards and playing games is unbearable.
Screen size is also an issue as mobile displays usually have poorer colour than standalone monitors and the smaller screens are unpleasant to look at after an hour or so.
If you want to fix this, grab an external keyboard and monitor, but at this point and price, it's easier to make a mini-itx desktop system.
Click to expand...

+1 to hot keyboards.

I set an fps limit, so only if the game has been running for a while under a taxing load does it really heat up, e.g. Dark Souls III.

Else everything is fine, depends on the specs you get. If you don't like the keyboard, get a USB one. The screens are also often not that great, you have to go higher budget, but they're usually fine for gaming.

The new GTX/AMD GPUs will hopefully be here by Christmas (some stores have GTX laptops listed already, no stock though).
 
Never had any issues with my (now old) gaming laptop when it came to heating. No matter what temps the gpu got to (even when dust was clogging it all up, the gpu got close to 90'C at some stages) the keyboard was cool as a cucumber...and I'm not talking about gaming for 15mins...I'm talking about gaming for days on end. :)

(The laptop is now 4/5yrs old: i7, GTX560M, 8GB RAM and still performs like a beast. Well, ok...a "mini-beast" considering its age, but the point is it's still going strong -touch wood- )
 
http://tinypic.com/r/2mmuvj6/9

Wont recommend these gigabyte "thin" gaming laptops ,heat is terrible as per picture.

Cpu does throttle ,but games still run fine at these temps. GPU temps are fine around 72c.

This laptop has i7-4720HQ and gtx 965m.
 
Gtx Gaming said:
http://tinypic.com/r/2mmuvj6/9

Wont recommend these gigabyte "thin" gaming laptops ,heat is terrible as per picture.

Cpu does throttle ,but games still run fine at these temps. GPU temps are fine around 72c.

This laptop has i7-4720HQ and gtx 965m.
Click to expand...

That runs a lot hotter than my laptop, Lenovo Y5070, i7-4720HQ GTX960M and it's thin enough not to be able to support a disc drive. (Quick google: 24.5 mm)
 
Gtx Gaming said:
http://tinypic.com/r/2mmuvj6/9

Wont recommend these gigabyte "thin" gaming laptops ,heat is terrible as per picture..
Click to expand...

I would recommend them, because I have one. i7 6700HQ + 980M - It's my everyday driver. Yes, if you're monitoring temps, it looks really bad. I was really surprised that those (what I call) insanely high temps are the norm when it comes to these laptops (look for the Temperature heading here).

But, a couple of things:

- If heat concerns you, don't go for the "thin" one (To get it so "thin", there had to be sacrifices. Heat I guess, was one of them). I was concerned when I got it. But now I don't check temps, I let it do it's thing. I was thinking about replacing the thermal compound with something better, but I'm not sure if it would help, and well, there are more important things to do.
- I have seen all the graphs and stuff on notebookreview, it also looks bad. But I don't really feel the heat through the KB. At worst it's warm. Far from what I'd call hot, and definitely not unbearable.
- The biggest inconvenience is the noise of the fans under load. It's dead quiet when idling though. But if you're like me, and roll with earphones, you don't notice it.
- Screen size on mine is 17", great for when I'm not at home. It's colour, brightness, contrast, etc, is also fantastic. Would not say that it's poorer than any monitor I have used in the past. Sometimes I think it looks better.

My two biggest gripes though, are:

- No 10xx series GPU for me. I'm married to the 980M for life!
- No Thunderbolt port. There is USB 3.1 / Type-C, but external GPU's will not happen with that.

To answer OP though. I plug my laptop into my old KB, mouse, and my big monitor. It sits on the side. Besides being able to unplug everything and use it elsewhere for a few hours, without having to plug it in, it's like a normal desktop for me, but convenient. It's great to have that sort of power relatively portable, but it comes at one hell of an expense. I mean, the 980M is great, but I fear the day that I'll have to play things on low settings, for now, it's pretty much handled everything I've thrown at it. The 10xx series is definitely the way to go though.
 
i should not buy one then as i should just get a desktop
 
milomak said:
i should not buy one then as i should just get a desktop
Click to expand...

What do you want to use it for? Gaming laptops are useful if you need a machine on the move, else I would always recommend a desktop due to the price being so much cheaper and having an easier upgrade path.
 
Stay away unless you need the mobility.

The laptop form factor means you take a hit on performance, bang per buck, customisability, repairability.

They're also bigger/heavier than non-gaming laptops so that sucks for travel, esp when carrying work laptops too.

Source: Have gaming laptop. Miss my gaming desktop. :(
 
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