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Grundulum posted:I have a question about a couple of Intel laptop chips. The i7-8665U lists a maximum turbo speed of 4.8 GHz, while the i5-8365U tops out at 4.1 GHz. This seems like it should be a substantial difference in performance for single-threaded tasks, but the Passmark scores are much closer (2215 for the i5 vs 2342 for the i7). Presumably the Passmark score reflects actual usage, but why does a 17% difference in clock speed only translate into a 6% difference in score? Those are basically the same CPU but the i7 has higher clocks. They have the same TDP, cores/threads, and although there's a 8 vs 6 MB cache disparity, the only other major difference is that the i7 has "Intel® Thermal Velocity Boost."  (That reminds me of when the Kaby Lake-R chips were released, they were all nearly identical in cores/threads/TDP, with slight clock speed and L3 cache variations.) You shouldn't expect to notice a huge difference between the two CPUs you're considering; if anything, treat them as being identical, and don't pay meaningfully more for the i7 because you're not likely to notice any difference in performance.
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Jan 17, 2020 09:08
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Grundulum posted:Thanks to you and everyone else who responded. Lenovo Japan wants $400 more for the i7 which is just Yeah, that CPU isn't worth $400 by itself, let alone the difference between it and the i5. $400 will get you way more CPU than anyone needs for basic productivity stuff. Generally, newer mobile CPUs will increase in performance and power efficiency over time, so those are important considerations. I'd say the 8th gen (so starting with the Kaby Lake-R stuff) was where Intel's mobile parts started to make a more revolutionary than evolutionary jump (i.e. 4C8T on ULV parts) so the systems you're considering are all likely to be recent enough to be competitive. If you were considering anything older, e.g. Kaby Lake, then it'd probably make sense to go with the latest version though. It all depends on the price difference between importing a 10th gen and what you can find locally however. As far as those even older systems are concerned, it likely has something to do with both the local market (i.e. prices are often higher for the same electronics outside the US) and also the fact that those are older, out-of-production components; even though they're not as good or desirable as current-gen devices, people will often price them higher due to rarity.
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Jan 18, 2020 07:55
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given what you wrote.
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FCKGW posted:Walmart has another one of their house brands on sale, this time it's their gaming series EVOO. This is a new model that replaced their "Overpowered" brand last year. This seems like a hell of a deal. The 1650 is like 1060-level performance IIRC, so that plus the good CPU, high-refresh display, plenty of RAM, etc., for only $650 is ridiculous. It's probably based on the same Tongfeng chassis too, and if the mobo is comparable to last year's version, then it'll have 2x m.2 slots and a 2.5" bay, so you have room for plenty of storage.
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Jan 19, 2020 08:16
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I'd take the 1650 4 GB over the 1060 3 GB just on principle ( ) even if the latter is slightly more performant. Plus, 4 GB VRAM is generally enough for the midrange gaming you'd likely be doing on that type of GPU, based on the results from plenty of benchmarking videos. The CPU is also kind of overkill for that GPU, and I'd probably take the i5 for $100-150 less if that were an option, but I'm not complaining too much for $650!
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Jan 19, 2020 08:39
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Yeah, I just watched that video and it's definitely the same 15" chassis and a comparably-equipped mobo with both m.2 slots as expected. The keyboard might not have mechanical keyswitches like the previous models though. It looks like the RAM is dual-channel, which is better out-of-the-box, but eliminates the temptation to add a 2nd 16 GB module (if you're susceptible to that sort of thing!  )There's a $900 version with a 1660 Ti and a 512 GB SSD that's totally not worth the price differential. Oh yeah, they're using BIWIN SATA SSDs, which are fine as a cheap OEM component, but are likely DRAMless. The m.2 slots are IIRC 1x NVMe and 1x combo, so you have plenty of options. I think the 17" version is worth $1k though. The 2060 should be around 1070-level performance IIRC, which is good at this price alone, but you also get a 1 TB SSD which is at the very least good for game storage should you choose to add another SSD. This also appears to be the same chassis as the OP one, which means it's a 17" display crammed into a 15" chassis. That's a pretty nice upgrade if you were otherwise fine with playing at FHD on a 15" panel.
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Jan 19, 2020 09:08
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Roluth posted:My computer is getting a bit long in the tooth now and problems are starting to crop up, so I'm looking for a laptop around the $1000 range that can run most games well on medium settings and is no larger than 15.6". From looking at the OP, 1660Ti is one of the recommended cards. Does this hold up? Otherwise, I don't really have any other specifications other than Windows 10 and a decent amount of space (256GB SSD + 1TB HDD sounds good). Anything that fits this? I don't need it tomorrow, but I'll be looking in a few months after tax season. Scroll up and look at the EVOO laptops we've been talking about on this very page, my dude.
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Jan 20, 2020 01:11
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bull3964 posted:FYI, widespread thunderbolt 3 controller issues with Thinkpads, update drivers and firmware ASAP. Yo, how did you get that "Pixel Warriors" gang tag?!? 
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Jan 24, 2020 08:02
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Arsenic Lupin posted:My new Dell Outlet G5 just showed up (thanks, thread.) It was literally shrink-wrapped to a piece of cardboard inside the outer box; no other padding. Arrived undamaged, so whatever works. Is this a Dell outlet thing, or does Dell always ship like this nowadays? I've seen that packaging method a lot, especially on modestly-priced laptops. I'd expect higher-end premium/gaming ones to have more traditional packaging, but the "suspended cardboard" method seems to work surprisingly well. It's sturdy enough to resist movement but just flexible enough to absorb some impact energy.
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Feb 4, 2020 06:17
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:Looking at this fine model for light work use -- mainly I need a Windows PC for a few apps to supplement my Pixelbook. $313 on Amazon: I did a review of that exact model in this thread a few months back, if you want to check my post history here. Build quality is actually quite good, especially for the price. I can't recall any specific hardware complaints, it's just very much not a gaming laptop, despite the presence of the ~AMD APU~. My only real disappointment was with the RAM situation; when upgraded to at least 8 GB it automatically reserves 2 GB for VRAM which is overkill for such a weak GPU, leaving you with only 6 GB usable system RAM with no way to change the allocation like on plenty of Intel systems I've used over the years. I'd have been happier with, say, 0.5-1 GB VRAM allocation and the rest for OS use. On top of that, because it's such a cheap, entry-level laptop (that is nevertheless quite good and definitely worth the price) I don't think replacing the included 4 GB module and upgrading all the way to 16 GB makes sense. Your only real option is to add 8 GB like you mentioned, which should put it in a "flex mode" (or whatever they call it) configuration that operates in dual-channel mode up to the limit of that final 4 GB chunk in the larger module (but I have no way of knowing if the 2 GB VRAM is in the dual-channel portion!) This would leave you with 10 GB of usable system RAM, which is plenty.
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Feb 10, 2020 22:10
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I. M. Gei posted:Quoting myself because I think this got ignored. I don't think that XPS 15 is worth it because in no way do you need to spend anywhere near $2.5k to do all of the stuff you mentioned. A nice XPS 13 or something similar around $1k should suffice.
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Feb 11, 2020 00:25
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"Expensive software" doesn't necessarily require "expensive hardware" to run though. Here are the system requirements for Melodyne 4: quote:Windows - Intel or AMD Dual Core processor (Quad Core or better recommended), 4 GB RAM (8 GB or more recommended), Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 (64-bit recommended), ASIO-compatible audio hardware
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Feb 11, 2020 04:20
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Gonna Send It posted:drat! Well, they come and go back into stock daily. It was a Dell G5 Gaming with an RTX 2060, 16gb RAM, 512GB SSD, i7-9750H, for like $755 after the outlet coupon. poo poo, now that is definitely worth well over $750! 
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Feb 11, 2020 06:03
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I see it's got 8GB RAM, is there room in there for a second stick if I want to upgrade down the line? It's more of an issue for Ryzen, especially the APUs, but it's always going to be a good idea to run in dual-channel mode (i.e. it will either not matter but not hurt, or help in certain workloads.) Ideally if you didn't want/need to upgrade you'd get a 2x4 GB configuration to start, but if you get a 1x8 GB system then you really should upgrade it to dual-channel, one way or the other.
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Feb 12, 2020 07:04
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Thanks. FYI those Walmart-brand gaming laptops have all been Tongfeng systems, which make laptops that are rebranded by the various boutique vendors (e.g. CyberPower, Origin, Eluktronics, etc.) The brand is weird, yes, but the actual hardware is more common than you'd think and is well-reviewed.
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Feb 15, 2020 06:02
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Bob Morales posted:Run it 
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Feb 15, 2020 20:19
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Woodenlung posted:If I'm mostly interested in a laptop with a decent cpu, is it worth waiting for the new ryzen laptop chips? Honestly laptop CPU's confuses me quite a bit. Seeing a lot of expensive laptops with low clocks (like 1.8 and poo poo) but with a high boost. Is that alright? The Ryzen mobile APUs are fine. They're not overwhelmingly performant over Intel like the desktop parts; the mobile ones offer good enough performance at good prices, but with worse power efficiency. Their iGPUs are between Intel's and low-end dGPUs in terms of performance. Any quad-core CPU should be fine for the uses you described though, and the boosting behavior you mentioned is how they aggressively manage power. That system you described is probably fine; it's actually kind of overkill (in terms of RAM and likely storage) but you didn't mention a price so we can't tell what kind of deal it actually is. Phone posted:I have a Mid-2014 MBPR 13" BTO that I basically only use when heading out of town, and using Mac OS hasn't gone swimmingly well, so I'm looking for something different. The one thing I'll tell you about eGPU use is that you should treat it as an add-on, i.e. a way to add functionality to something you already have, rather than intentionally build a gaming system around it. Prices are high (unless you find a good deal on something) and performance is constrained versus a proper gaming laptop or desktop setup.
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Feb 17, 2020 03:23
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BadMedic posted:3 problems I have with the laptop though: iGPUs generally don't have their own VRAM, this is not a new thing. Edge cases like an Iris Pro having 128 MB of eDRAM are the exception. It's well-known that AMD APUs use system RAM and thus benefit from a fast, dual-channel configuration. Hadlock posted:You should be able to adjust the gpu memory in the bios You'd think, but this is not always the case, apparently, and it may be a Ryzen-specific limitation; recall in my review in this thread of that Acer with the 3200U that it reserved 2 of 8 GB once I upgraded to that capacity, yet there's no way to reduce the amount reserved. And it's true, the Ryzen APUs, especially the mobile ones, aren't that powerful, so you really are unlikely to make use of that full 2 GB of pseudo-VRAM. It's a shame because that means it's going to waste, and being limited to 6 GB of system RAM is a further disadvantage. At least BadMedic's got an easy upgrade path from 1x8 to 2x8 GB, whereas the Acer I got went from 1x4 to 2x4 GB and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to upgrade to 16 GB for a light-duty, low-end dual-core system.
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Feb 21, 2020 04:16
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That's my assessment as well: Acers are perfectly fine as reasonably-priced laptops. You can definitely get better quality if you want to spend more, though. The one Rexxed mentioned was my long-time entry-level recommendation (definitely worth more than the $350 MSRP, especially after you throw in two cheap upgrades) and the one Combs mentioned is typical as an entry-level gaming laptop, where you can get that kind of performance on a new system for a good price, only being able to beat it on price and/or performance with a refurb or used system (e.g. a 1050 Ti as low as $500 but only intermittently available.) The easy-to access service doors on the bottom are definitely a nice touch!
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Mar 10, 2020 04:54
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fyallm posted:Looking for a laptop to use to download itunes, and manage files that might contain viruses and move music to an ipod. Under $250 Perhaps this or this? Neo Rasa posted:I need a laptop suggestion too. But first I want to thank this thread for being amazing, I lurked this thread several years ago and it helped me pick out a perfect one that's done well until, well, recently so it's time for me to get a new one. But it's been enough years now that I'm a again totally out of the loop on what's what. That's totally doable under your budget. I'm not 100% sure what it takes to run Illustrator well enough and what ~15-year-old games you have in mind, but here are some possibilities: Entry-level, dual-core, AMD APU. I have this one, it needs a RAM upgrade but offers good CPU & GPU performance for the price, and it may or may not work for your use-case. Solid dual-core CPU, Intel iGPU. Quad-core CPU, better GPU than in the first Acer. Entry-level nVidia dGPU. The Amazon "suggested" entry-level gaming laptop. Probably overkill for what you're asking, but at this point there are plenty of similar options, especially if you're willing to go used/refurb'd and look on eBay as well.
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Mar 13, 2020 09:14
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large_gourd posted:Are there non-obvious drawbacks to this? Like do ASUS make bad laptops or something, because this might be the kind of thing I go for. I see you can get a version of it (on the uk amazon anyway) with the gtx 1060 for £850 which is a good chunk less than i've seen for other makes. Some laptop manufacturers/resellers have a reputation for (or against) quality, customer service/warranty process, etc. A lot of it is YMMV however (e.g. some people have a good experience with Razer products and vice-versa.) It can even vary within a single brand (e.g. Lenovo Thinkpads are more highly regarded than the consumer Ideapads.) In this case, I don't think Asus has one of the larger volumes of laptop sales and as such they don't come up as often as say Dell, Lenovo, Acer, etc. There's nothing glaringly wrong with that model, and a system with a 1060 for under the equivalent of US$1k (at least based on what I'm used to in the US market) should offer good performance for the money. The OP laptop listed by FCKGW, for example, is a ridiculously good deal if it's still available for ~$600.
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Mar 15, 2020 01:14
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VelociBacon posted:I had a horrible ASUS RMA experience (it was sent back for a fan bearing replacement) where someone at their warranty place went into my email accounts (I didn't wipe the laptop before sending it), tried to reach out to contacts on my various messaging apps to get answers to account recovery questions, etc. I had no other computer at the time and the IP addresses that Gmail reported accessing my accounts was the same area as the RMA address. It was a massive headache and ASUS outright refused to acknowledge that anything had happened at all and I could never get on the phone with someone there to talk about it. Noone returned emails or phone calls, I basically had to reset a ton of account stuff on everything from my bank accounts to school emails to gaming profiiles. Well that sounds like a bad actor rather than anything dictated by Asus policies & procedures. And you definitely need to restrict access to your accounts including by wiping or removing system drives when appropriate, although you should certainly expect a level of professionalism in the first place. As far as the actual hardware issues go, those are going to be model-specific and you shouldn't expect the same experience from every other laptop with the same brand. Also, some of those same components are of course used in laptops sold by other manufacturers, etc. My own apprehension is towards Toshiba, except it goes back waaayyy longer than you'd think (and also I don't think they make consumer laptops anymore.) I had some hand-me down 386/486 laptops in the mid-'90s, and then constantly locked up, perhaps due to overheating. Obviously we're many generations removed from that hardware, although I did have a couple of unreliable Toshiba Qosmio media-center laptops in the mid-2000s as well.
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Mar 15, 2020 02:51
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:With all due respect, this is a profoundly lovely take. Even if it was a "bad actor", the company is still liable and responsible for it, and they refused to even acknowledge anything happened despite clear evidence to the contrary. If it was worth spending the time and money to hold them accountable, you'd get a guaranteed settlement out of this. That's absolutely an individual bad actor, and the company should indeed take responsibility for it, but actually proving it was one of their employees/contractors rather than someone else is the challenge; it's entirely possible to have your system compromised remotely, so they have plausible deniability on their side, unfortunately. You kind of shouldn't have to wipe your system drive, but then again you're responsible for the security of your own data, so compare it to someone leaving a sticky note with their login credentials under their desk; you "should" be able to trust other people not to use someone else's account, but this is the real world and you need to safeguard your own things.
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Mar 16, 2020 05:03
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Pegnose Pete posted:Hey thread, I'll leave the specific model recommendations to others to provide, but I can answer a few questions, and in general yes, the business Thinkpad models are still highly recommended. The Ryzen mobile CPUs are perfectly capable, but Intel has still had an edge in terms of performance and power efficiency (and thus battery life.) That may change with the upcoming 4000 series APUs, but current events may delay their deployment. The only issue I had with a low-end APU (I think it's the 3200U) was that it reserves a large chunk of RAM (up to 2 GB) and isn't user-configurable, but this would be less of an issue with a larger total amount of RAM to work with, and this parameter may be adjustable on a higher-end system with a different board & BIOS. More portable systems tend to come with soldered, non-user-replaceable RAM (or in some cases, that plus a single DIMM slot, or just the latter) but once you've narrowed your selection down to specific models then you can pretty easily do the research to figure out how each laptop is constructed.
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Mar 23, 2020 07:01
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Elwood P Dowd posted:Question, on the comment about the price range of $500-ish, the warning of 'thar be dragons' is mentioned. The off-lease business line Thinkpads (e.g. T-series) are the go-to recommendation; they're generally pretty tanky, and as long as the price is right and the base specs are good, you probably can't go wrong (assuming nothing's broken to begin with.) I'd be less concerned about the stuff you can upgrade yourself (e.g. storage, RAM) so just make sure the CPU's decent (Intel Core or AMD Ryzen; ignore the previous-gen A-series like in that 2nd link.) Since it's for a kid, you might also be able to go with a Chromebook or something like this Acer, which was surprisingly good for the price and is one of the few super-cheap Windows laptops I'd feel comfortable recommending (just switch it from Windows S to full Windows and drop in another 4 or 8 GB RAM module.) TITANKISSER69 posted:In Canada, what's a good source of used, thread-preferred laptops? For general use - no gaming, occasional video calls, lots of audio streaming and many, many tabs open. Probably eBay.ca, unless there's some other Canada-specific retailer of used laptops that I'm not familiar with. You'd just need to find one with a decent CPU (e.g. Intel or AMD quad-core) and the ability to configure it to 16 GB of RAM (even if you have to do it yourself.) You'd likely be looking at an off-lease Thinkpad, as above.
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Apr 26, 2020 02:49
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