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Is there a performance hit using bitlocker on modern laptops? And is it pretty standard to have encryption enabled on laptops, like it is on a lot of phones? Also is this a bad time to be buying something like an XPS 15? The refresh came out at the start of the year, are they likely to update it again soon?
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Jun 20, 2017 19:25
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baka kaba posted:Is there a performance hit using bitlocker on modern laptops? And is it pretty standard to have encryption enabled on laptops, like it is on a lot of phones? If you've got a SSD on there, it shouldn't be too bad in most cases. If you're using a HDD...you'll notice. It's fairly standard for businesses and whatnot to do full-disk-encryption on laptops, yes. It's not standard for normal personal users to do so, unless they also plan on storing very sensitive information on it (tax returns or other documents with SSN's, for example), but it's not a bad idea if you plan on taking your laptop to places you could reasonably worry about it being stolen or lost.
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Jun 20, 2017 19:42
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Rex-Goliath posted:I'm on the road every other week for work and am looking for an actual gaming laptop. It looks like the Razer Blade is about what I'm looking for- slim and still powerful without getting into ridiculous money territory. Is there anything I should know about this thing before I pull the trigger? Are there better options that I may have missed? Bit late to the reply but I wanted to hold off suggesting Lenovo yoga 720 15" until I had some on the road experience with it. But after the trip (and playing a lot of overwatch at geforce experience recommended settings, which is around high setting level ingame) I'd suggest that yoy take a look at the yoa in your local BB as well. It really is more powerful than I had expected and the inking capabilities is awesome too (though you need to buy your own pen, and the system is not as light as other ultravooks).
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Jun 20, 2017 19:47
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DrDork posted:If you've got a SSD on there, it shouldn't be too bad in most cases. If you're using a HDD...you'll notice. It's fairly standard for businesses and whatnot to do full-disk-encryption on laptops, yes. It's not standard for normal personal users to do so, unless they also plan on storing very sensitive information on it (tax returns or other documents with SSN's, for example), but it's not a bad idea if you plan on taking your laptop to places you could reasonably worry about it being stolen or lost. Yeah I was more thinking about people using a laptop as a main computer, where they'd want everything to be safe if it got lost or stolen. Seems to be standard for a lot of other portable devices now, I was just wondering if the laptop world was doing it too (ideally with dedicated hardware support so there's no performance hit)
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Jun 20, 2017 19:53
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I have bitlocker on and I notice no difference in Windows 10. The SSD is super fast so any difference is negligible. I think Mac laptops have encryption on by default now so it's not a bad practice.
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Jun 20, 2017 19:56
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baka kaba posted:I was just wondering if the laptop world was doing it too (ideally with dedicated hardware support so there's no performance hit) Most modern CPUs have encryption hardware built into them, so that's not much of an issue. However, laptops without SSDs suffer noticeably from encrypted drives--just ask anyone working in a government sector where they're forced to use laptops as desktops and some penny-pincher decided a 5400RPM laptop drive would be perfectly fine to pair with the requirement for full-drive encryption. It's painful. That would--to me--seem the prime reason encryption isn't more standard on laptops; on phones and most other mobile devices, everything already is working off flash storage where the performance hit is much less noticeable (down to basically zero for many applications).
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Jun 20, 2017 22:41
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Bitlocker is also only available in Windows 10 Pro and higher so you're out of luck if the system has Home. I think my Surface Pro came pre-encrypted and it's the only device I've bought that shipped with a version of Windows that supported bitlocker (with 7 it was an Enterprise/Ultimate feature)
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Jun 20, 2017 22:53
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Ynglaur posted:Alienware also has a 13", though with the bezels it's closer to a 14" in size. The OLED screen is really nice but apparently they've been having temperature issues as well.
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Jun 21, 2017 00:01
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Bitlocker is often quoted at < 1% performance hit, which on an SSD is not noticable. As pointed out, CPUs already have hardware support for encryption going back to at least 2012.
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Jun 21, 2017 00:02
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I thought they resolved that after the first run.
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Jun 21, 2017 00:02
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What do people think about 2-in-1 laptops? I've had my eye on this for a couple days: https://www.costco.com/.product.1166381.html I like to do a lot of reading, browsing, and like to play fiddly, low-requirement RPG's like Torment, Shadowrun, The Legend of Heroes, older stuff, etc. Is that 4GB Radeon a bit overkill for that?
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Jun 21, 2017 01:58
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DrDork posted:However, laptops without SSDs suffer noticeably from encrypted drives If you're using any XTS-based encryption it's not going to have any different workload for the drive.
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Jun 21, 2017 02:00
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Ynglaur posted:Alienware also has a 13", though with the beseks it's closer to a 14" in size. Oh, yeah, I forgot about the Alienware, good shout. 13" OLED screen (really standout) in a 14" body with a 15" weight.
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Jun 21, 2017 02:12
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What's the general opinion on the Thinkpad 13? It seems to be less popular than the T470 and whatnot, but are there any laptops in the same price range I should consider before the 13? The comparisons I've done so far are: - ZenBook UX410UQ: figured I didn't really need the extra performance from the GPU, and from what I gather the battery life is slightly worse? Also it comes with two USB 2.0 ports whereas the Thinkpad 13 has two 3.0 and even a USB-C just in case. - Thinkpad L470: looks great, but is a tad more expensive, heavier and also doesn't have a HDMI port which is a dealbreaker for me. I won't really be using the laptop too much, mostly for watching movies on occasional long train/bus rides and for general web browsing, movies and some gaming when going home for holidays. My hard requirements are 1080p, 8GB+ RAM, 13-14" IPS screen, 256GB+ (512GB preferred) SSD, at least one USB 3.0 and one HDMI port. Something durable that'll last for a long time is also appealing, and one reason why I'm leaning towards Thinkpad, but I'd love to hear if anyone has any personal experience with it or has any similar machine to recommend instead.
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Jun 21, 2017 03:15
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If you want a ThinkPad but can't afford one, look at refurbished models on eBay
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Jun 21, 2017 03:58
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Mahuum Aqoha posted:What do people think about 2-in-1 laptops? I've had my eye on this for a couple days: 2-in-1s/convertibles are fine if you're going to make use of their touchscreen/tablet-mode functionality; otherwise you're just paying more for features you're not using, and may end up with a bigger/heavier device than a standard laptop with the same specs. Note that a 15" in tablet mode is going to be huge compared to any actual tablet, and it weighs almost 5 lbs. That HP is OK for what it is; the CPU, RAM, and display are at or above the minimum I'd recommend for a general-purpose PC. It'll work fine for reading, browsing, multimedia, and low-end games like the ones you mentioned. Note that that GPU is some new, low-end one that's probably comparable to modern iGPUs (like the one attached to that CPU) and I'm sure is laughably mismatched to 4 GB of VRAM (1-2 GB would be fine.) The only thing I don't like about that HP is that it has an HDD; a ~256 GB SSD would be a far better choice, both in general for a boot drive but especially for a convertible that is intended to be flipped around and handled frequently. If you do go for that device definitely do an SSD upgrade; it probably has an m.2 slot but you're going to have to do a little research yourself.
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Jun 21, 2017 07:35
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Aero 15 Trip Report - this is long, don't give a poo poo if you won't read it, there ain't no TLDR. So, after almost a year of wanting a laptop to replace my gradually dying Surface Pro 2 (you served me well, little buddy), I finally splurged on an Aero 15. I made the choice of the Aero 15 because of the following: 1. Portability for a 15-incher 2. Thin bezels 3. GTX1060 is 1080p gaming sweet spot 4. Thermals were apparently amazing 5. Thin-rear end loving bezels I am totally on this bandwagon 6. 2 (!!!!!) M2 SSD slots (what the gently caress literally every other thin and light gaming notebook manufacturer?) 7. Big loving battery (94.2whr). Okay, so it wasn't exactly how I expected. I've never owned a 15" laptop before and I was not prepared for how big this would be. Playing on a laptop in a store is way different to actually having to use it on your desk / lug it around etc. The Aero 15, like the XPS 15, is smaller than basically every other 15" laptop because of its thin bezels. The marketing claims it is a 15 inch screen in a 14 inch body. But even if those claims are exaggerated, a 15 inch screen is still a 15 inch screen. It's pretty big. So, for portability-seekers, just try and use a 15" laptop for some time if you can. You'll realize that for a portable computer, 15" screens are actually pretty drat big. Beyond that, I have only one other complaint: the keyboard. It is stiff. It takes more force to depress a key, or actuate or whatever the terminology is I'm a nerd but I'm not that nerdy okay. But in the week or so I've used it, I've found it a bit more tiring to use. Since I write a lot of words every day, this has been something negative for me. I suppose I'll just have to sack up and get used to it. Literally everything else is great. I love the "bezel-less" display. It makes the screen look larger than it is, while simultaneously making the laptop feel more compact than it is. It is truly capitalizing off my prior experiences, where inch thick bezels were the norm. I'm looking at you, Surface Pro 2. The hardware is fantastic; I have liquid metal thermal interface between my CPU/GPU and heatsink, and I maintain turbo clocks on the CPU, and have achieved 12.3k FS graphics score on my GPU (GTX 1060) with an aggressive overclock, which is only 500 points away from a desktop GPU. Basically, I've closed the 15% gap to a 5% gap between desktop and mobile which I'm pretty happy with. The other choice I was considering was a Razer Blade, and that doesn't have the thermal headroom for those kind of scores, and is hard to repaste to boot due to heatpipe-on-die design (no copper plate). All while on default fan speed (ie. not the included MLG420 m3g4-5p33d fan profile), which means the laptop is inaudible, while gaming, over my refrigerator. I sit about 2 meters from the fridge if that helps you estimate sound. So, thermally, the laptop is performing very well. Granted, I've got liquid metal paste and not the stock crappy stamped-paste, but what I'm trying to say is the cooling solution has a lot of headroom for the hardware it cools. The screen is not as slow as I dreaded it would be. I was concerned about ghosting but I'm not detecting any with my eyeballs. I play a variety of games, but shooters are common, and I haven't detected anything particularly different over my 2ms TN panel that I use on my desktop. This could mean I have eyeball-defects, that my TN panel isn't truly 2ms, I dunno,  The speakers are lovely, and down-firing, and so, yeah, well, it's a laptop not called a Macbook so... use earphones, for the love of god. The hinge on the Aero 15 is a little funny in that you can't set it to about a steep-degree angle. Basically anything less than 45 degrees and it'll snap shut. Not that this bothers me particularly since my screen is either open or shut properly, but it might do for you if you're one of those folks that closes the screen 3/4 of the way for some inexplicable reason. I got this laptop with a carbon fiber skin over the top lid to hide the silly envelope-esque stylings. I'm not a huge fan of carbon fiber looks, but the stock design is super naff. Since every prospective laptop buyer seems to really give a poo poo about this, the wrist wrest does collect fingerprints. A ton of them. I dunno maybe you should try and reconcile the fact that human skin is oily naturally, and that while it may mark your hardware, it doesn't actually besmirch your hardware? Stop being so uptight you Niles Crane wannabe! Just a suggestion. To correct all the misrepresentations of this laptop out there, and there are a surprising amount from laptop reviewers, the body is almost entirely aluminium except for the very top shell of the lid, which is plastic. That is, the only majorly plastic part is the sheet that sits on the back of the screen, aka the lid. The interior is all metallic, and that contributes to its fingerprint-seducing tendency. The keyboard has full per-key RGB backlighting but I honestly don't give a poo poo about that, I set it to blue on day 1 and never touched it again. The webcam I haven't tried, don't care if it looks up my nose, I trim my nasal hairs thank ye very much, plus if you're Skyping me it's a goddamn privilege you get to look inside my body. Battery-wise, at 50% brightness+wifi, I'll get 6~8 hours depending on what I do. Less than I expected, and I think there's something more to it and I'm investigating that because I'm sure it can be improved. And that's about it. Thanks for reading my blog, folks!
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Jun 21, 2017 13:13
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Does anyone know if you still get a $100 coupon for the Razer Core when you purchase the new Razer Blade Stealth? Also, this is the first time in awhile that I've been looking for a new laptop; should I wait for the Zenbook 550 or an AMD Ryzen laptop if I'm going to be working on Machine Learning? (Otherwise I'll likely get the Razer setup)
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Jun 21, 2017 16:32
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Any recommendations for an ultrabook to replace a dying t420? Criteria: - display no smaller (or not much smaller) than 14 inch, and lighter than the current 4.8 lb, the lighter the better - able to run the odd R/python script once in a while. Current processor is a i72620M - at least 8GB RAM - something I won't have to replace for another 5 years. I'm pretty careful with my laptops, so something that can withstand the normal wear of opening/closing - I know it's an impossibility, but a mechanical keyboard or something with decent ergonomics would be nice. Price < $2k. Longevity really is the key, so I don't mind going over a little if it's a quality product.
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Jun 21, 2017 17:01
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Shrimp or Shrimps posted:Aero 15 Trip Report - this is long, don't give a poo poo if you won't read it, there ain't no TLDR. Thanks for the write up, do you think you found it to be big due to how small the surface 2 pro was that you upgraded from? Did you apply the repaste yourself or did a reseller do it?
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Jun 22, 2017 01:59
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What are the advantages of the Surface Pro i7 compared to i5 or M3? Much higher price, and can't really run games or 3d rendering due to poor graphics chip. Is it for CPU-bound number crunching? I assume computers these days run modern OS functions and web browsers smoothly, so what's the point of the i7 version? Video editing? I should probably just buy the i3 since it'll be mainly to replace my piles of paper I use for math/science problems. It looks like they released the SP 2017 without the pen and slim keyboard, so going to wait for those. Dominoes fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jun 22, 2017 |
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Jun 22, 2017 02:50
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Lenovo has gone on something of a marketing binge in the last week Announced a 25th anniversary Thinkpad (with no details) Interview with lenovo's chief designer about thinkpad features Usually these kinds of campaigns last a couple of weeks, I'm curious to see if they release a new product in ~6 weeks after they've whipped up the appropriate amount of hype
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Jun 22, 2017 02:53
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The only detail is that the 25th anniversary Thinkpad won't be $5,000.
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Jun 22, 2017 03:00
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Shrimp or Shrimps posted:Aero 15 Trip Report - this is long, don't give a poo poo if you won't read it, there ain't no TLDR. Envelope-like is the best description I've heard to describe the unfortunate styling choices of Aero's top covers. I still haven't gotten a case/skin for mine but really should.
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Jun 22, 2017 03:47
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Trickyrive posted:Thanks for the write up, do you think you found it to be big due to how small the surface 2 pro was that you upgraded from? I think that's probably part of it. Before the SP2 I owned a Vaio Z1 which was a 13" laptop which also had thin bezels so it was small itself. But 15" is still 15" if you know what I mean? If you know how big a 15" is then by all means the Aero 15 will feel svelte and compact. But if you've never used a 15-incher before, if you have a chance, try one out in a store and get a feel for how they're sized. Even with the thick bezels, a laptop like the Aero 14 or Razer Blade is still smaller than the Aero 15 / XPS 15. The repaste was done by the previous owner, but you can get resellers to do it for you. Some resellers won't do the GPU with LM but you can get IC Diamond on that instead. Fusion Restaurant posted:Envelope-like is the best description I've heard to describe the unfortunate styling choices of Aero's top covers. I still haven't gotten a case/skin for mine but really should. Yeah, I think someone in the design department probably got too clever. Also the ridges around the sides are another design bit I don't like. Having it just be a flat surface would give the laptop a more premium look. But how a laptop looks tends to be pretty low on my important-list. I also realise I forgot to put temperatures. Under combined load (XTU stress test + Firestrike loop), my CPU will hit mid-80s while my GPU will hit mid-70s. This is on the maximum fan profile which is audible. Under gaming loads, CPU usually sits around 59~64, and GPU at 60~75 depending on the game, obviously, and this is in the default fan profile which, as I mentioned in my write-up above, is just about inaudible over my fridge. I've yet to do gaming testing on the max fan profile because I simply haven't needed the fans to spin up that fast. Another thing I forgot to mention is that the fans don't kick in until the CPU hits 60c I think it is, which means it's silent when using it for web browsing etc. This is pretty standard nowadays on laptops, I think, but not entirely sure. Shrimp or Shrimps fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Jun 22, 2017 |
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Jun 22, 2017 04:01
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Shrimp or Shrimps posted:6. 2 (!!!!!) M2 SSD slots (what the gently caress literally every other thin and light gaming notebook manufacturer?) I'll just add since you mentioned it, the XiaoMi Mi Air 13 has 2 m.2 slots; one is NVMe (and it comes with a 256 GB SSD) and you get an empty SATA slot on top of that. It's a nice touch, like you said. As far as the keyboard is concerned, have you considered adding an external one? You can get an inexpensive mechanical keyboard to use for the bulk of your actual typing.
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Jun 22, 2017 07:45
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Dominoes posted:What are the advantages of the Surface Pro i7 compared to i5 or M3? Much higher price, and can't really run games or 3d rendering due to poor graphics chip. Is it for CPU-bound number crunching? I assume computers these days run modern OS functions and web browsers smoothly, so what's the point of the i7 version? Video editing? Active cooling means it can stay at turbo levels longer. If you have sustained loads it will be a lot faster then the passive cooled versions, meaning anything that stresses the CPU will run a lot better (as well as it can run on a 15 Watt dual core). Also, MS isn't stupid, and you only get 16 GB RAM if you pay the i7 markup.
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Jun 22, 2017 13:54
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So, I'm looking to get the cheapest reliable M.2 PCIe SSD for my laptop and I wonder if the thread has any recommendations. Internet consensus seems to be the Samsung 960 Pro series but they're too pricey for my liking. Just need enough space to store Windows 10 on the SSD. Games and media will go on the HDD. Backstory: I decided to cheap out on my Lenovo Y520 purchase which was going to reintroduce me to PC gaming. Turns out Windows 10 is a very disk-intensive OS and a 5400 RPM 1TB HDD won't cut it when gaming. Smooth gameplay will be punctuated by 1-2 second freezes, and it happens frequently enough that I'm annoyed by it. A 5400 RPM HDD is good enough for my PS4 but that's not the case for Windows 10 I guess. I've tried a bunch of "fixes" (closing all apps, running games at super low settings, disabling Superfetch and prefetching) but they didn't really work. Disk usage stuck at 100% whenever a game is running points to the 5400 RPM HDD being the bottleneck.
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Jun 22, 2017 17:27
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What about a 950 instead?
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Jun 22, 2017 17:32
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Mini trip report: got to say, this chromebook (acer 740) is exactly what I was looking for. While ChromeOS is a touch limiting (but great as a general use/play box), dual booting to GalliumOS (via chrx) allows me to run all my work apps and things like network sniffers and the like. All in a 3lb box with full day battery length. So yeah, if you're in IT and need a laptop to run around with, a chromebook should be close to the top of your list.
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Jun 22, 2017 17:59
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huhwhat posted:So, I'm looking to get the cheapest reliable M.2 PCIe SSD for my laptop and I wonder if the thread has any recommendations. Internet consensus seems to be the Samsung 960 Pro series but they're too pricey for my liking. Just need enough space to store Windows 10 on the SSD. Games and media will go on the HDD. If you're looking for something cheap, you don't need a PCIE/NVME M2 drive. If your M2 slot supports the SATA protocol, which I would assume it does but definitely double check that, you can get a cheaper SATA3 M2 drive, and probably get a bigger one for the same price as a smaller NVME one. For example, the Sandisk X400 512GB (SATA3) costs the same as a 256GB NVME drive: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W03S85958&cm_re=M2_512gb-_-0D9-0006-000G4-_-Product It is arguable that the day-to-day operation of an OS is basically indistinguishable between SATA3 and NVME drives. I certainly don't notice the difference between my 850 EVO and Toshiba XG4, despite the latter being more than twice as fast. *Maybe* NVME boots up a little faster, but since I turn on my PC once and then don't turn it off until the end of the day, I'm not bothered by that. Where you'll really feel NVME shine is if you do stuff (video rendering? copying large amounts of files constantly?) that takes advantage of the faster speeds. So while the internet pcmasterace consensus is telling you to go for the absolute best in a professional-use-case-grade 960 Pro (a laughably poor-value recommendation for an average user) I think that for what you sound like you'll be using the PC for, an SATA3 drive is more than enough, and already in itself a massive, ridonkulous upgrade over a 5400rpm spinner. Atomizer posted:I'll just add since you mentioned it, the XiaoMi Mi Air 13 has 2 m.2 slots; one is NVMe (and it comes with a 256 GB SSD) and you get an empty SATA slot on top of that. It's a nice touch, like you said. Definitely a nice touch, and too many manufacturers are going to single M2 slots and that sucks. Considering 2TB drives are still way too expensive, topping out at 1TB is disappointing. Yeah I mean the hope is I can break myself in on this keyboard and get used to it. On top of its stiffness, I still am making quite a lot of typos because of the way the keys are spaced. If I don't take to it with another week of practice I'll probably just switch to using an external KB when I'm in the office.
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Jun 22, 2017 22:46
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Yep SATA3 is fast enough unless you are doing computational math BS as an engineer or scientist or weird database stuff. SATA2 is mostly fast enough for most everyone. Very rarely in desktop computing do you have sustained burstable data that can blow out your bandwidth available. I'm sure there's some magic game that seems tremendous gains from SATA2 vs SATA3 but point is don't pay more for extra unless you're doing something exotic.
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Jun 22, 2017 23:17
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Whats the best reasonably portable 15" laptop with a 1060 or 1070 that has gsync? I tried gsync and I dont think I can ever go back. edit: vvv Yes, I know... doesn't matter. adaptive refresh is what I want. greasyhands fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 00:38
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greasyhands posted:Whats the best reasonably portable 15" laptop with a 1060 or 1070 that has gsync? I tried gsync and I dont think I can ever go back. Laptop gsync is technically just a variant of freesync I think.
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Jun 23, 2017 00:41
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What would be recommended for gaming if both money and mobility wasn't an issue? (1070/1080 and ideally not the bulkiest thing on the planet)
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Jun 23, 2017 00:48
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tote up a bags posted:What would be recommended for gaming if both money and mobility wasn't an issue? (1070/1080 and ideally not the bulkiest thing on the planet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTUJqajxhJ8
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Jun 23, 2017 00:51
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Oh my god those two power plugs
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Jun 23, 2017 01:14
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greasyhands posted:Whats the best reasonably portable 15" laptop with a 1060 or 1070 that has gsync? I tried gsync and I dont think I can ever go back. Buy my Clevo p650rp6-g 
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Jun 23, 2017 06:37
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Alright let me ask in a way that's less useless. I'm looking for something with a 1070/1080 that ideally will handle AAA for the next 4ish years, not planning on VR, and ideally doesn't run at the temperature of the sun or weighs 500lb. I'm moving continents next year or I'd probably just grab a tower. I'm not super fussed about screen size either as I will probably hook it up to a monitor. Ideally I'd like something mid pricerange but I can splash a little bit if I tactically organize my finances.
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Jun 23, 2017 08:33
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The Aorus x5v6 if you want a good, sleek laptop that'll handle anything and everything. The 3k screen gives some nice longevity as well. I'm unaware of any 1060 laptops with gsync, but if you can stomach the lack, then the aero 14/15 are your friends.
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Jun 23, 2017 08:54
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Cat Army 