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baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

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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baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

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)

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

22 Eargesplitten posted:

What power status is it when the power button is flashing and you need to hit it for the computer to come back up? And how do I disable it? Is it hibernate? My wife's power switch broke (the bit inside with the actual button on it fell off) and it's going to be a few days before a new one gets here. I've had to jump the contacts twice now, and it just went into that status again after less than an hour. Not sure why. I would really like to not have to pull it apart any more times than necessary.

It's a sleep state but I think any power light action is down to your motherboard or bios or whatever

Just hit the windows key and start typing 'sleep' and you should get an option like 'choose when this computer goes to sleep' and tell it never. Or you could set your mouse to wake it up, whichever's good

e- oh I'm accidentally in the laptop thread :v: Hibernate does usually go to full power off, you'll have to look in your power options to see what it's set to do though

baka kaba fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Jul 4, 2017

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

f#a# posted:

Looking for a recommendation! No Apple, please. I don't particularly care about screen size, weight, or battery life, but I do care about screen quality and good product design. The more I look, the more interested I become in a 2-in-1.

Might be worth a look at this, especially if you're into the pens


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeMfCa9xOic

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

I posted it before but here's a comparison of some of the newer ones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeMfCa9xOic

Look on the channel because she posted a review of a new ThinkPad X1 convertible a few days ago and there's another one on there too now. Seems like it's a growing market and there's a lot of actual good machines with decent power and battery life. I mean the Yoga 720 has a 1050 in it if you're into that

Also depends what size she wants too, a 15" one might get a bit unwieldy depending on how she wants to hold it, but there's a lot of options

baka kaba fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Aug 1, 2017

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Atomizer posted:

not terribly gamer-y

:pcgaming:

It's covered in aggressive angles, red accents, red backlighting, edgy logo. It doesn't have the Bank Gothic keyboard font at least

I've only been looking at laptops recently and it's like everything with a decent GPU in it looks like this. Even stuff like that new Aorus one with the copper accents looks wicked sick when you open it up. Laptops that can play games aren't a bad-tradeoff paving slab niche anymore, why's all the styling still stuck looking like a custom Winamp skin? If you like that look then cool, but it's like, almost everything

I know there's that Zenbook Pro coming out but reviews have been saying it's a bit janky. I'll probably end up getting an XPS 15 but it'd be nice to have something that'll age a bit better

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

DrDork posted:

I'll give you a hint, and it's that most of the companies making gaming laptops are HQed in certain non-US countries with fairly different ideas of electronic aesthetics. See also: motherboards.

But all of these companies produce completely normal-lookin stuff too? The common factor here is games - see also: graphics card boxes and names, terrible overclocking UIs, 'gamer' anything, from American companies or otherwise. I honestly have no idea which country you think is imposing a cultural aesthetic on the entire gaming market

Atomizer posted:

The Helios definitely has a "gaming laptop" build, but it's more subdued than some alternatives. I think the trend is heading towards more subtlety; see the new un-branded Razer Blade Stealth, for example.

Yeah but honestly 'more subdued' says a lot about the standard! But it's definitely nice to see stuff getting dialed back, even aiming for a premium look and style sometimes :eyepop:

Speaking of, is there a reason they still stick with huge bezels? Is it sort of an excuse to have a larger chassis so they can get more cooling?

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Atomizer posted:

He was referring to most of these electronic components being made in China. Remember decades ago when PCs were in beige boxes? And you could occasionally find something nice like a metallic Lian-Li case? To stand out manufacturers started to create flashy "gaming" components, both in terms of materials and lighting (remember how just a few years ago RGB everything wasn't a thing?) Then everybody started copying each other and now we have the "gamer aesthetic." Now we're [hopefully] going back in the other direction.

Oh ok, I get yas. So really it's more 'US companies are the ones starting to reverse this trend', to a degree anyway. Just seemed a bit weird to be pinning the blame for this look on other countries' aesthetics, it's definitely a style that's been around a long time (it looks 80s as hell to me). But I can definitely see the market being stuck with it, I mean it's obviously working for them :awesomelon:


DrDork posted:

Also remember that many of the "gaming" laptops, like Clevos and Sagers, are not nearly as custom-built and hand-fit/engineered as a lot of the smaller and lighter ultraportable ones are. The advantage is they can use the same or similar casings for multiple setups, and drop in replacement parts fairly easy. The downside is space efficiency isn't as good.

Yeah that makes sense, thanks! I wonder if this MaxQ thing will help push the industry towards putting out nice low-key designs, instead of leaning into the 'literally a spaceship' model. It's obviously going to be niche, but if there are enough proof of concept designs floating around people might start expecting slicker gaming builds

Or at least from the other side, expecting a decent GPU option without having to sacrifice the basic look and feel of a normal laptop (which is all I want anyway). I mean there are nice convertibles now with 1050s in them! Surely we can start getting 1060s or something as a standard option in the normal form factor

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Not that much more though right? I've seen people complaining that the throttled MaxQ 1080 is around the performance of the 1070, but it's also about the same power consumption too. And you're getting smaller energy savings with the lower cards because they don't ramp up as much between models. I haven't looked at the actual numbers though

I mean yeah more power means more heat to dissipate than before, but there's engineering going into these new models that helps with that. The big GPUs have the tradeoffs like moving the keyboard forward to add venting and hilariously low battery life, but it feels like small improvements would be enough to make the more moderate cards doable where they weren't viable before? They got that low-end 1050 in a 2-in-1, isn't that some kind of progress? Or am I overselling that

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

So with this Coffee Lake launch in 2 weeks, and Dell and others apparently planning some announcement soon, is this a bad time to be getting an XPS? I'm not expecting new laptops to drop the second Intel's wrapped up or anything, but is there usually a price drop in anticipation of the new stuff? Or does it tend to hold until the refresh actually happens?

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Hey thanks! That's helpful. I wasn't expecting stuff to drop immediately, I've just heard mentions of 'an upcoming announcement' from Dell coinciding with the Coffee Lake release, so I was wondering if they're likely to be announcing new lappies and if that would have any immediate effect on pricing. It's only this 'announcement' that's got me wondering, otherwise I'd just assume new stuff coming out in January

Still, if the performance/efficiency boost is what they're saying it sounds pretty cool. Cooler/quieter/longerer is good stuff

e- could be Inspirons what with this price cut on the 7567

baka kaba fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Aug 15, 2017

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Hadlock posted:

Coffee Lake is the same size technology, 14nm, I think performance per core is supposed to go up, slightly, but we're talking the single digit improvement over two generations ago. Big changes in Coffee Lake is that it supports Many Cores, which only really matters if you're buying high end workstations and servers.

Peformance increases for each generation really fell off a cliff after Sandy Bridge (2011?), everything after Haswell (early 2014?) has been more of the same, slightly better performance per watt, it's great to get the latest and greatest, but Kaby Lake laptops already have USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 and 4K displays, you're not getting much here. Intel has already explored most of the physical limits of the 14nm process after four generations of it.

The official line from Intel is that it's a 30% performance improvement over Kaby Lake (instead of the usual 15%), mostly because they're doubling all the cores, but they're keeping the same 15W TDP. So all your dual core lines are now quad core with no extra power draw, that kind of thing, plus a peak clock speed boost. I mean, I wouldn't say no to that? Especially if it means you can get current performance at cooler and quieter levels

Guess we'll (sorta) see on Monday anyhow

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Someone's got a Kaby Lake Refresh laptop with a 15W i7-8550U in it (the upgrade from the i7-7500U in things like the XPS 13 and the Spectre X360) and their benchmarks are showing 50% better performance. And it's not even far behind the full 45W i5 and i7 chips in some ways :eyepop:

Also a bunch of new model SKUs have been spotted for things like the XPS 13 which might be why they were selling them cheap

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Hadlock posted:

There's not much point in putting a fire breathing quad core CPU and GPU if you can't vent the heat, early fanless haswell laptops (google "yoga 3") were widely criticized because even though they had great specs on paper, they couldn't vent the heat appropriately and throttled down so much they actually performed worse than the Yoga 2 doing the same tasks.

I'm sure there's also a desire to push performance users to the XPS 15 which has higher margins.

For GPU, the 10 series was just released last year, nvidia is doing cool things with the Volta arch but we're going to be using Pascal (10 series) arch in laptops for at least another year, probably two.

So three years is your answer. Unless you're ok with immediately being thermally throttled.

The new ones are still 15W though - probably won't help the stuff that was already using the low wattage chips (maybe letting them run more efficiently and giving a little bit of headroom).

But if you can take something that was already using a 45W chip and replace that without losing much performance, that 30W difference (I know it varies) might be enough to let you cram a decent GPU in there. Not a huge shift but maybe enough to blur some lines

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

There's meant to be an 8th gen HQ chip out there too, so there might be some announcements soon about that, maybe some price drops? I guess that's always the case when you're looking to the future though!

baka kaba fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Sep 4, 2017

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

How long does it usually take the HQ stuff to officially pop up? Are we talking weeks or months?

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

What counts as expensive? There are 1050s and 1060s in all kinds of things

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Empress Brosephine posted:

the nobodies 940

Ah another Google keyboard user

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Atomizer posted:

:stare:

So that's another Core m7 version, with 16 GB of RAM, a ~$1k laptop, that I got for $250 (with tax/shipping.) It's still going (refurb'd) for $530 (or ~$570 after tax & shipping) right now. :magical:

I know the internet is death by a thousand javascripts but does a Chromebook even do anything with those specs?

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Dr. Fishopolis posted:

There are much better options at less than half the price from MSI or Gigabyte.

I don't think anyone's mentioned it but there's a 1070 MaxQ version of the Aero 15 now if anyone's into that

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Dell's been showing off their next XPS 13




quote:

Dell also introduced the updated Dell XPS 13 with a new Alpine White and Rose Gold color. The palm rest is made of a new woven glass fiber material that feels. Similar to carbon fiber material involves weaving a crystalline medium and a clear resin that give it a soft but firm structure.

Dell explained it had to develop the new material because it couldn’t produce an authentically white carbon fiber and it was unsatisfied with just giving it a coat of white paint.

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

I'm guessing they'll still have a black version for the other finishes, but an all-white device is pretty cool

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Look up 'gaming on GTX 1050' or 'MX150' or whatever on youtube, there are tons of videos showing you what to expect. Honestly you'll probably be happy either way, depending on what you want to play and how high you want to crank it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJo0bRL6Qak

There's someone with an MX150 and an i5 HQ. Newer games need to be turned down and get more console-like framerates but that might be completely fine!

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Pyronic posted:

Anyone have any first hand experience with any of these laptops or have any gems that i'm missing?

How much do you care about the display and colour gamut, since you mentioned creative work? That's probably your sticking point, there are a bunch of cheaper 1060-equipped laptops with decent but not great screens. The XPS 15 (especially the 4K) has a display everyone raves about, the Aero 15 (and the new 14 with the 1050Ti) has a fancy calibrated screen out of the box, but this new Inspiron is more 'fine':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efkQrXv4ckc

While I'm at it there's this new one which is sort of an XPS rival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTDResMIK_w

And if you're cool with gamer... aesthetic there's a ton of other options, they're cramming them GPUs in everything on the whole price range

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

CFox posted:

I just got my Inspiron 7577 in the mail yesterday and really like it. I guess the display is just ok but coming from a normal LCD screen the IPS on this laptop looks fantastic. Gaming performance is good and I got it for 799 with a slickdeals rebate so it was unbeatable at that price. My only real problem with it is that it's not detecting a second hard drive I added. Looking online it looks like an issue others are having so hopefully a bios update will sort it out.

Yeah I didn't mean that the display is bad (just going off what I've heard anyway), just that there are others with 'better' screens that might be more suitable if you're doing editing work. I think it's pretty much all pros and cons really - seems like you're choosing between a better display or a fast refresh rate, more accurate colours at 4K or better 1080p frame rates on a 1080p screen. Which option is better and whether you care at all is really up to the person and what they want to do with it

799 sounds insanely cheap for that :eyepop:

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Dr. Fishopolis posted:

A 1060 pulls 120w. It does not even out.

80W isn't it? And the Max Q version (which you'd expect a thin laptop to have) is 60-70W

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

There's also these Vostros - looks like they're only really available in Asia though?





Looks a lot like the 7577 only not gamery... but you can have a 1060 in it

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Statutory Ape posted:

so i keep checking hoping that i am somehow gravely mistaken and yet i keep reaching the conclusion that the only way i am getting an xps 13 with 16gb of ram is by also getting a qhd screen

which, i admit, i am partially excited at the prospect of it because I bet it looks amazing but i don't need it and wouldnt mind the extra battery life :-(

Tried speaking to them in chat? The UK site has FHD versions of the new model with 16GB, they might let you spec it

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

caps on caps on caps posted:

For some reason I thought that 5 years of CPU research would have lead to some fuckton huge improvements in performance. But if Intel sat idle all this time then I guess I have to build a real workstation and just carry it around with me or whatever lol.

You could get this 8-core thing if you really want

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUccVeV4I0

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Delivery companies don't exactly arrange and pack their cargo with loving care either. Someone might have hurled your laptop from the end of a conveyor belt and then thrown a few more boxes after it, stuff might come loose if you're unlucky

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

RobertKerans posted:

Very secondary concern, but I do a lot of illustration, so a screen I could draw on would be a plus (hence Surface book looking attractive), but it's a very secondary concern as my options seem very limited & impact getting a good deal on the above points.

Edit: in the UK as well

Dunno if there's anything better now, but there's a Yoga 720 with a 1050 in it (2GB instead of the usual 4) which means you get a decent GPU in a convertible you can scribble on. Some of the other convertibles are shipping with MX150s which can play games decently on low settings, but you might want something a bit more capable if you want to actually develop games

Probably some new stuff coming out in the next few months though? There's a surface with a 1060 at least

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Atomizer posted:

2 GB VRAM is the correct amount for the 1050. The 1050 Ti should have 4.

How do you mean? A lot (most?) of the laptop 1050s come with 4GB and it seems to help some games run better at higher settings, probably just because it can handle the bigger textures. Probably helpful if you're doing dev work (with unoptimised assets) but I think your options are limited if you want to use a pen too

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Oh right, it's just you said that 2GB was the "correct" amount for a 1050, like the 4GB stuff is out of spec or something. I agree that it's silly to put out cut down versions of the faster GPUs though, unless the idea is to make them cheaper and assume the user will be happy to cut down on texture quality and the like

I just wanted to point out that the Yoga 720 has a more limited 1050 than you get in other laptops, so that's a tradeoff to be aware of. Probably not a big issue for games (if you have a 1050 you're gonna be making compromises on newer stuff anyway) but maybe more for game dev

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Animal posted:

Anyone has any experience/thoughts on the new Microsoft Surface Book 2? I'm considering selling my 2017 Razer Blade and my 2013 rMBP 15" to fund one, but would like some opinions.

The dave did a review on it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJEFIQSdsqw

tldr, it's very cool if you can justify the cost and if it meets your needs, but it's not the most powerful machine and it has a few weird decisions for a flagship (like no Thunderbolt 3)

This is the 13" though, not the 15. And lol that the 15's power brick can't even power the laptop

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

The Surface Book 2 can give you an 8650U and either a 1050 or 1060

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Isn't that screen pretty meh too though? They have a 4k option but obviously that costs more

And that Helios is definitely gamery as far as I'm concerned. The 7577 is pretty sedate (even trying to minimise the look of its vents) but even that still has :pcgaming:red keyboard:pcgaming: going on. It feels like they're slowly getting less garish, but there's still a huge gulf between gaming laptops and the nice design language we're seeing in ultrabooks and the like

On the plus side MaxQ 1060s are appearing in more stuff, so if you're lucky the XPS 15 refresh in January might have one to power its 5K screen

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

roomforthetuna posted:

Now I'm mad at those people who suggested I get the $750 MSI with the 1050 at Newegg, because the screen is TN.
I don't actually care, because I'm not a very visual person, but given how much everyone here shits on non-IPS panels it's disappointing to have been recommended a machine with one, with no caveats. You jerks.

It honestly depends - you can have decent TN panels, and crappy IPS ones. Generally TN is preferable for pro gaming because they can hit way faster response times, so you'll see them a lot in gaming laptops and it doesn't mean they look terrible. Gotta hit up some reviews

Atomizer posted:

You're not going to find amazing displays on cheap gaming laptops; that's an area of frequent compromise on all budget laptops.

With that Dell specifically I've seen some reviews complaining that it's a poor display compared to other laptops in the same price range like the Helios, unless you spring for the 4K panel which has way better colours and contrast

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Response time isn't about buffering frames, it's about how quickly the pixels can change brightness, and it depends on how much of a change is happening in each one. The monitor's still refreshing at its refresh rate, it's just the display can't necessarily keep up perfectly

So you can have a monitor running at 60Hz with a game comfortably putting out 60fps, but some of the pixels might be refreshing at half that speed - and basically you end up with ghosting and blur, which is bad for games (especially fast ones). TN panels were always faster, so it's probably a lot cheaper to put in an acceptable TN than an IPS that can match the same performance

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

anothergod posted:

Yeah, I guess I could've been more explicit than using an analogy. AFAIK this is what happens. The PC tells the display to change and the time it takes to fully change is the response time. Most IPS response times are <10ms (mine is 5), and the best TN panels have response times of 2ms. Compared to the 16.67ms for one 60FPS frame, the differences are highly negligible. I don't think pro gamer advice is within the scope of the thread, so the 3ms edge you get doesn't really help. And since the refresh times give you ample of time to view an unchanging pixel, I'd bet most people don't notice the relative amount of ghosting.

That's for fancy desktop monitors though - there's a comparison against a few laptops in the display part of this 7577 review, it's common to see rise and fall times over 16ms and even in the 20s and 30s. That's not because you can't get faster IPS panels, they're just not using them

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baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

I know what you mean, I've been looking for something similar...

First up the 1050 will play a lot of stuff - go on YouTube and search for "games on GTX 1050" or something, you'll get videos showing new and old games running at a range of settings. Unless you want to play demanding new games at high settings you'll probably be fine

And on that note, there's a less powerful GPU - the MX150 - that's popping up in a bunch of nice ultrabooks now. Same deal - there are videos, it runs older stuff really well and newer stuff on less demanding settings. If you can settle for that, you'll have more, way nicer options

Here's hella details if you're into that
https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-MX150-Benchmark-and-Specs-of-the-GT-1030-for-Laptops.223530.0.html
Benchmarks for a ton of games, and a list of laptops with that GPU. They have them for the other GPUs too

The XPS 15, Zenbook Pro UX550, Yoga 720 all have 1050 options. Gigabyte's Aero line has 1050 Ti and 1060 laptops, they're not really elegant looking but it's more a different style than GAMERZ. Everything's a bit over your budget though

If the Inspiron 7577 looks ok to you (I think we get a white keyboard and backlighting so the red is just around the trackpad and logo) they were selling the 1060 model for £1099 around Black Friday - limited stock but they didn't sell out, so they might do it again over Christmas, or have some sale at least. Supposed to be a bit big and heavy though

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