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4K on a laptop screen is insanity. I have an xps 13 with the qhd resolution and it's basically a very expensive pain in the rear end since half my programs don't scale too well.
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Sep 3, 2016 16:40
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For a laptop that's going to be a 1080p, what is the benefit of 1070 over 1060? I mean, I know that objectively, it is a better (and more expensive) card, but does the laptop need it? Or is the 1070 more just of a "future-proofing" option? Or just higher FPS in the short run?
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Sep 3, 2016 17:09
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Katreus posted:For a laptop that's going to be a 1080p, what is the benefit of 1070 over 1060? I mean, I know that objectively, it is a better (and more expensive) card, but does the laptop need it? Or is the 1070 more just of a "future-proofing" option? Or just higher FPS in the short run? 1070 running 1080p starts to get into VSR/future-proofing territory because the 1060 can already do 1080p/ultra at 60FPS on pretty much any game. If the laptop has a high refresh rate screen then it might be justified.
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Sep 3, 2016 17:30
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Basch lives! posted:That Acer gaming laptop is pretty cool. If only it weren't so drat ugly. And expensive. I've thought of doing similar stuff with a small gaming desktop pc, but for much less than 2-4 grand. Ergonomics on laptop keyboards are bad enough. The one screen shape that would allow them to add an ergonomic mound split to the keyboard and they don't do it? 
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Sep 3, 2016 17:40
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The new Razer Blade Stealth still uses an i7 U processor  Too much to ask for an HK/HQ ultrabook Razer? That's what I want to pair with the Core!
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Sep 3, 2016 18:17
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NewFatMike posted:The new Razer Blade Stealth still uses an i7 U processor This is known as a cooktop. Putting a 45w tdp chip into an ultrabook is essentially committing arson.
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Sep 3, 2016 19:28
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Boiled Water posted:This is known as a cooktop. Putting a 45w tdp chip into an ultrabook is essentially committing arson. Eh,they're putting a 100W TDP GPU in the 14" Blade. Maybe that's why it's a soft launch though. 
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Sep 3, 2016 19:45
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Hadlock posted:I used to think the air was out of date, but if you look at the Macbook (non air/pro) out has a tiny cellphone like Intel chip. The Air actually outperforms it in cpu. Battery life is comparable too. The Macbook is more like an Apple Chromebook. Also the keyboard on the new MacBook is terrible compared to the Air and Pro. So that's reason enough, for me. I enjoyed my Macbook while I had it....except that keyboard was a giant piece of gently caress. I really thought I could get used to it, and even tried to convince myself it wasn't a big deal and I should keep it, because hot drat its a sexy laptop (especially in space gray). Battery life was atrocious if you did any sort of light streaming on the internet; the 13" Air has WAYYYY better battery life. I ended up selling it for $200 more than what I bought it for, and picked up a Haswell 11" Macbook Air and enjoy it immensely more, even with the somewhat crappy screen. I forgot how good Macbook keyboards were.
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Sep 3, 2016 20:22
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How does one compare GPU performance in a meaningful way, when looking at laptop options? For example, according to "Passmark", an Intel Iris 550 performs approximately the same as a GTX 860M ( http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Intel+Iris+550&id=3437 ) Is that realistic? I assume not since in a very friendly review of a machine with an Iris 550 it's described as performing comparably to an 840M, whose passmark is half as high. Or... there's no passmark entry for an HD 620, but some cross-referencing around the internet suggests an HD 620 has comparable performance to an Iris 540, which scores a passmark of 1345 to the 860M's 1600. Would it be reasonable to think of comparing those numbers as approximately expected framerate ratios? (The HD 620 being the GPU in the Razer Stealth the thread mentioned recently.) And then I imagine the whole comparison becomes meaningless without some sort of consideration of the heat properties of the laptop's case, which also requires some additional knowledge as to how hot the chip itself runs (I assume an Iris 550 runs cooler than a GTX 860M, since it's an integrated thing, so if they're really otherwise equivalent that would be a huge win, given that my experience of gaming on laptops is that it tends to become heat-constrained at some point.) Does it end up at a point where it's not even really worth considering the properties of the chip in isolation? I realize all the chips I'm mentioning here are not high-end, I'm not looking for "don't even think about those chips, only consider a 1060". What I'm wondering is, given that I currently have an 860M in a laptop that adequately plays things I want to play, whether a Razer Stealth would also be tolerable for most of those same things, or if something with a high-end Iris might be. Not actually planning to buy anything at this time, my current laptop remains acceptable. Mostly I'm thinking ahead to some magical future when a proper thinkpad with buttons on the trackpad and a trackpoint comes equipped with a GPU that isn't poo poo for games from 2014 and earlier.
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Sep 3, 2016 23:03
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Yeah if that new Macbook keyboard is going to be put into all the future laptops I might sit out this generation completely.
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Sep 3, 2016 23:29
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roomforthetuna posted:How does one compare GPU performance in a meaningful way, when looking at laptop options? From what I've heard, the Intel GPUs do better in benchmarks than in games (up to 2x higher than comparable other GPUs), so the Iris 540 should be similar to a bit better than an 840M but not yet the same as a "real" gaming laptop's GPU. Probably best to wait another generation.
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Sep 3, 2016 23:39
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Boiled Water posted:This is known as a cooktop. Putting a 45w tdp chip into an ultrabook is essentially committing arson. So for the uninitiated. do you think that will overheat the ultrabook, just bust the charger, and/or shorten the life of the laptop alltogether? Sorry I am bad at understanding computers. But a cursery google searche talked about broken overheating chargers in macs.
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Sep 4, 2016 01:37
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I'm looking into picking up an XPS 13, most likely with an i5 and an FHD display. I might do some light gaming but most likely not. I'm fine with waiting for sales for around the $800 price range later this year, but is there any reason to wait for a newer model or otherwise holding off until next year?
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Sep 4, 2016 01:40
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Toalpaz posted:So for the uninitiated. do you think that will overheat the ultrabook, just bust the charger, and/or shorten the life of the laptop alltogether? It means battery life will be very short. Doesn't really matter if you just use it as a desktop replacement but what's the point of an ultrabook with short battery life.
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Sep 4, 2016 02:01
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Mu Zeta posted:It means battery life will be very short. Doesn't really matter if you just use it as a desktop replacement but what's the point of an ultrabook with short battery life. Thanks! To clarify though, I think you mean overall battery life right? Like in total operating hours over the laptop lifetime. Cause one of the selling points of the new Razer Blade Stealth over the older one their supposedly longer battery life from full charge to empty, 9 hours. Or are they being very optimistic about their test scenarios? Toalpaz fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Sep 4, 2016 |
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Sep 4, 2016 02:36
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I mean whatever ultrabook has a quad core 45w tdp processor will run for like 2 hours on battery
Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Sep 4, 2016 |
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Sep 4, 2016 02:37
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Toalpaz posted:Hey I was thinking of buying the Razer Blade Stealth qhd 250something gigs. I don't need a gaming laptop and want something fast so I dont get frustrated when it gets choppy and I have like 20 tabs open. I also like it because its keys can glow and do funny things, can someone talk me out of this before I spend 1500 (CAD) on it? I'm also not interested in the 4k screen because of the battery life drain, massive price increase, and I have a 2 TB external to use for portable storage of media so I dont need the memory. A co-worker just bought a Stealth and brought it to work. It's pretty nice, admittedly, and while he says he's going to get the Core I struggled to give him a recommendation on the video card to put in it once I realized he doesn't really know what he's doing (he's not into tech.) I mean he wants to play semi-recent games, would like to be able to play with decent details, but is willing to play at a lower resolution to get everything to run fine (so in other words, we're all over the place here.) I told him to get a 1060 if he'd be fine playing at 1080p (on his TV) or 1/4 his laptop's native res (QHD) or the 1070 if he wanted to run at QHD. So it's a little derail but that's my topical Razer Blade Stealth anecdote. As far as your situation goes, sure, buy one because it really is a nice laptop, as long as you realize it's a luxury (it's overpriced for what you're going to do with it.) roomforthetuna posted:How does one compare GPU performance in a meaningful way, when looking at laptop options? This is why you don't focus on synthetic benchmarks. You compare GPUs by looking at benchmarks of their performance in applications relevant to your purposes. If you want to know how much of a difference your current system is compared to a potential future purchase, look up benchmarks from say CoD or whatever you play. There's no real trick to this, that's why when someone asks for a recommendation I ask what games they play so I can find actual benchmarks.
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Sep 4, 2016 02:56
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roomforthetuna posted:And then I imagine the whole comparison becomes meaningless without some sort of consideration of the heat properties of the laptop's case, which also requires some additional knowledge as to how hot the chip itself runs (I assume an Iris 550 runs cooler than a GTX 860M, since it's an integrated thing, so if they're really otherwise equivalent that would be a huge win, given that my experience of gaming on laptops is that it tends to become heat-constrained at some point.) That was my experience, you're spot on imo. I got an XPS 13 with an Iris 540 and the thermals were terrible, it ended up running at like 50 to 66% of the benchmark. Like, I could play overwatch at 720p resolution, 50 percent render scale and 30 to 40 fps which was pretty terrible. My old laptop had an 870m and the performance was nowhere near comparable. I think a big part of the problem is that the xps 13 really wasn't designed to cool well, so even if the Iris is naturally cooler in practice it ran much hotter. I would definitely read notebookcheck reviews etc. to find out what the thermal situation is like with whatever laptops you're considering.
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Sep 4, 2016 03:22
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RIP ZEEZ
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Mu Zeta posted:I mean whatever ultrabook has a quad core 45w tdp processor will run for like 2 hours on battery And the cooling fans will never turn off even for the lightest tasks.
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Sep 4, 2016 08:23
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That's why as nice as the mobile 1060 GPU is, its still right outside the feasible TDP limit for true ultrabook spec. quad core machines.
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Sep 4, 2016 23:42
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So if I wanted a laptop to play some older games and as an all around use laptop, what should I be looking for? Like I"m basically looking for something I could load up Dark Souls on and have a good framerate but not necessarily jack all the details up, and play some stuff like Pillars of Eternity, etc. Nothing crazy in terms of games, but also not crazy in terms of price. That said, something that in theory wouldn't fall apart in a few months...
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Sep 5, 2016 19:21
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Levitate posted:So if I wanted a laptop to play some older games and as an all around use laptop, what should I be looking for? Like I"m basically looking for something I could load up Dark Souls on and have a good framerate but not necessarily jack all the details up, and play some stuff like Pillars of Eternity, etc. Nothing crazy in terms of games, but also not crazy in terms of price. That said, something that in theory wouldn't fall apart in a few months... This is frustratingly nonspecific. What's your budget? Cuz you got your $600 y50 with a 960m, refurbished or used laptops around $900 with 970m dGPUs or above, 1060 systems at $12-1300, and 1070 systems at $1700 and up. What's your poison and budget? I would strongly recommend a 1060 or better if you can afford it. Though for dark souls a 970m would probably suffice, though it won't last you as long.
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Sep 5, 2016 19:25
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Cat Army 
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The Iron Rose posted:1070 systems at $1700 and up. What's your poison and budget? Speaking of 1070s, what do you think of the SAGER NP8153-S? It looks OK to me (although why don't the laptops come with a Windows installation?), but I don't know laptops that well.
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Sep 5, 2016 19:49
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Yeah I'll see if I can be more specific... Basically i have an old rear end laptop and who knows how long it is for this world. It's mostly for browsing, throwing pictures off my phone onto it, etc. I have a couple of older games that I enjoyed playing back when I Had a computer that could run them, but it's quite unlikely that I'll actively be buying much in the way of new games that I want to play a lot going forward, and hell I don't even need to run the older games at max detail or anything. So basically something to replace what I use my current laptop for and some somewhat light gaming but I'm not super worried about "future proofing" it when it comes to games. I'd like to keep it under $1000 Now maybe that's an awkward set of parameters...I dunno, that's why I asked. If it's not really worth trying to get something that has some basic game playing abilities at that price point then I'll re-evaluate
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Sep 5, 2016 20:37
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Levitate posted:Yeah I'll see if I can be more specific... I concur with The Iron Rose, you're looking at a 960/970m and a Core i5/7 at your budget. You don't need to and shouldn't spend >$1k just to play PoE and DS (1?). You might be able to get away with a recent Intel iGPU (e.g. 5000, or the newer 5xx series.) As I just recently posted you need to look for benchmarks for the stuff you specifically play, although for some reason it was difficult for me to find results for those games on mobile devices, albeit with only a brief effort. You should be fine with the recommendations above though. You'll need to be looking for used laptops on eBay, Amazon, woot.com, even SA-Mart. I post good deals here periodically as I find them. For example this is available again. It should handle those games as per the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyrMP-JFfI https://gameplay.intel.com/GamesSettings/8711/88193/Intel%C2%AE%20Core%E2%84%A2%20i5-6200U%20Processor%20(3M%20Cache,%20up%20to%202.80%20GHz) https://www.reddit.com/r/willitintelhd/comments/4xpa3n/wiih_pillars_of_eternity_using_a_520/ You'd probably have to lower the details and resolution (this Lenovo Flex only has a 720p display anyway) but both of those games you mentioned should "run" on that particular laptop. Atomizer fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Sep 6, 2016 |
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Sep 6, 2016 00:39
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Katreus posted:Speaking of 1070s, what do you think of the SAGER NP8153-S? It looks OK to me (although why don't the laptops come with a Windows installation?), but I don't know laptops that well. looks fine to me, though i'd probably go with the asus gl502-vs it's lighter, thinner, and apparently remarkably durable. also for playing any sort of gaming I strongly, strongly recommend buying a computer with a dGPU. even maxwell series tend not to run too expensive, so look for a discounted laptop with a 970m if possible, 960m if not. I would not recommend trying to run souls games on integrated graphics. I wouldn't recommend running anything on integrated graphics honestly, not with dGPUs as cheap as they are.
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Sep 6, 2016 01:42
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The Iron Rose posted:I would not recommend trying to run souls games on integrated graphics. I wouldn't recommend running anything on integrated graphics honestly, not with dGPUs as cheap as they are. I'm excited about integrated graphics gaming because of size, not because of cost. Now that it's "good enough" to run most games, including stuff like Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch, really thin and light ultrabooks can play stuff.
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Sep 6, 2016 01:48
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iGPUs will play pretty much anything a PS3 or 360 could play at the same resolution.
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Sep 6, 2016 03:20
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anothergod posted:iGPUs will play pretty much anything a PS3 or 360 could play at the same resolution. This is grossly optimistic. iGPUs are getting better, but I wouldn't say they're suitable for playing non indie games that have come out in the last six-seven years.
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Sep 6, 2016 03:32
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It's easy. Just turn down the resolution to 1280 x 720
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Sep 6, 2016 03:35
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The Iron Rose posted:This is grossly optimistic. iGPUs are getting better, but I wouldn't say they're suitable for playing non indie games that have come out in the last six-seven years. So, uh, my real world X230's i5-3200U had an HD4000 and ran PS360 era games at 1366x768 just fine. There are videos of people doing this on youtube. Now check this out: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/three-generations-intel-hd-graphics-tested/ "Fortunately, HD 530 arrives to save the day, and it pretty well stomps on every other IGP. Its score of 7,621 represents almost exactly a 100 percent improvement over HD 4000, and a nearly 50 percent increase over HD 6000. That actually exceeds the 40 percent improvement that Intel claimed to the press." Also there's this dude that pretty much does this thing getting 70+ FPS for CS:GO with high settings. This is a dude overclocking a desktop 530, but you're looking at 10-15% difference in performance, so, whatever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXxqd6sPXpw So, uh, yeah. I have a dGPU-less T460p with an i5-6440HQ CPU and an HD530 iGPU and you've just convinced me to boot up CS again what the gently caress.
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Sep 6, 2016 03:58
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anothergod posted:So, uh, yeah. I have a dGPU-less T460p So how do you like it, generally speaking?
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Sep 6, 2016 04:00
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sarehu posted:So how do you like it, generally speaking? I kinda like it. I came from the X230 which was way small but heavier than a "small" PC should be, so having this slightly heavier, slightly bigger, slightly beefier box is pretty cool. I think the quadcore is helping my productivity as I do more gamedev/videoencoding/etc but that might be my subconscious justifying my purchase. I do wish I went for the 1440p screen instead of this 1080p. It wasn't much more expensive and when I run graphically intensive stuff I run them < 1080p. Dumb dumb dumb. But the crazy thing is I don't really notice gross aliasing issues that you'd get normally from 720p images on a 1080p screen. Maybe I'm getting old.
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Sep 6, 2016 04:30
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I can play a bunch of games at very decent settings on 1280x850 on my chomebook pixel. Intel iGPUs are getting drat good at games, they just need to do something about the resolution now. Not sure they can without more ram bandwidth though. Maybe they'll do HBM? I'm very hopeful for a potential AMD Zen APU ultrabook though. If AMD doesn't do a low power HBM APU in the next 2 years, they're dumb af.
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Sep 6, 2016 05:36
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anothergod posted:So, uh, my real world X230's i5-3200U had an HD4000 and ran PS360 era games at 1366x768 just fine. There are videos of people doing this on youtube. I played any UE3 game just fine on my Suface Pro 2 (HD4000). Heck, I beat Mass Effect 1 ~ 3 on it and it was great. All low settings, of course, but still looked pretty okay. I also played X3: Albion Prelude and SW:TOR (ehh... i know) on it just fine. With that said, I can't wait for the day when we get an ultrabook with a graphics chip capable of driving AAA games at medium settings at 1080p or whatever standard that is around when that time finally comes. Wondering if the 1050 makes it a reality.
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Sep 6, 2016 07:24
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The Iron Rose posted:This is grossly optimistic. iGPUs are getting better, but I wouldn't say they're suitable for playing non indie games that have come out in the last six-seven years. I know from experience that Skyrim, MGSV, Diablo 3 and WoW all will work fine on integrated graphics from at least Haswell. I'm sure there are lots of recent games that aren't a great experience with integrated but it's not categorically unsuitable.
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Sep 6, 2016 08:02
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Purely anecdotal but I have a 2013 rMBP with GT3e Crystalwell and a GT750m. Forcing some games to run only on the iGPU in some circumstances gives me higher minimum and average framerates than with the dGPU. It took me a while to figure out why. Long story short, the rMBP charger has an output of 85W but both chips combined have 95W TDP (+- 5W, I don't want to look it up but it's higher than what the charger is rated for and that's not even accounting for the screen, memory, drives and all other hardware in the machine). When both CPU and dGPU are stressed to their absolute limit for extended periods of time, the SMC throttles the CPU to 0.8 Ghz because the GT750m is using all the power.  Disabling the dGPU frees up power envelope for the CPU and lets it run unthrottled which results in better framerates than the GT750m being bottlenecked by a 0.8 Ghz CPU. I've been trying to find a way to underclock/undervolt the GT750m for better performance but there's no way to do that in OS X.
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Sep 6, 2016 08:50
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A friend of mine is looking for pretty much the best laptop he can get for £400. I suggested a Thinkpad as I have one and love it, but he needs HDMI for plugging it into a TV and my Thinkpad (and I'm assuming all of them) doesn't have HDMI. In terms of refurbished models that can be had from eBay, what are some of the best alternatives to Thinkpads? I just checked some regular laptop deals not on eBay and they all seem pretty lovely. SSD and IPS are obviously preferred, particularly IPS, but I understand if they're not really attainable in this price range
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Sep 6, 2016 11:25
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Chromebook?
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Sep 6, 2016 11:46
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Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear, it would ideally be a Windows laptop with some decent power (i.e a Thinkpad, but not). I've found this which seems good, but would certainly be interested in opinions on this model
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Sep 6, 2016 11:54
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