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spotify95

Member Since 31 Mar 2015
Offline Apr 07 2024 08:33 AM

Posts I've Made

In Topic: Strat's Gaming Rig Build

07 January 2024 - 07:37 AM

Laptops are good for gaming now, but next time I'm not getting alienware. I'm dealing with dells tech support right now because their program that controls the lighting for it won't recognize it has lighting. They spent 2 hours before and instead messed it up so when they restarted it it took 2 hours, and that program still doesn't recognize my lights. Which is causing the keyboard to get extra hot, and likely putting stress on the fan system so much so it's now clicking.  Today they have to spend another 2 hours trying to fix it. 

 

To be honest, if anyone was thinking about getting a gaming laptop, my advice would be to get one that is slightly more powerful than what you think you will need. Laptop CPUs and GPUs generally use less power than desktop equivalents, due to the limited power supply that a laptop can receive (this also means slightly less performance). Additionally, one cannot simply upgrade their CPU and/or GPU when the time comes, they have to upgrade motherboards - very few laptop manufacturers would design a motherboard to be a slot-in replacement, they want you to buy a new machine. (The Framework Laptop 13, and soon to be Framework Laptop 16, have user replaceable/upgradeable slot-in motherboards, but they're not designed to be gaming machines.) Therefore, you want your laptop to last as long as possible, hence potentially over-speccing to start with.

 

As an example, I bought a gaming laptop (HP OMEN 15) because I couldn't have a desktop at that time. It was also when I was playing older games, and needed to upgrade from a standard HP Pavilion with on board graphics and a low power Intel CPU. My gaming laptop had an i7 CPU and a GTX 1050Ti (these components were not removable). The RAM and SSD/HDD combo were upgraded over time.
After about 2020 (and particularly 2021) most new releases started to become too much for the poor 1050Ti, with under 60FPS becoming more common, hence an upgrade. Had the machine had something like a 1070 in it, the upgrade may not have been as necessary.
Note - the overheating CPU was also a good reason to upgrade - the palmrest between the display and the keyboard was too hot to touch in games, despite having an internal clean every year or so. Oh yeah, the LED backlit keyboard had a particular pattern, which couldn;t be changed unless you downloaded a piece of HP software (that ran in the background), so over time the LEDs would start to fade out as particular patterns degraded over time (probably not helped by the overheating!).

So yeah - always do your research if you're getting a gaming laptop, and personally I would avoid HP and their OMEN lineup.


In Topic: Strat's Gaming Rig Build

19 December 2023 - 11:19 AM

I am 5000% jealous. I've got an alienware laptop, but that's it for my setup. 

 

I have been wanting a secret lab chair for ages but my place is tiny and it's hard to say if it'll fit properly. 

 

Laptops are still perfectly decent. For the last 2 to 3 years (until earlier this year) I relied purely on a HP OMEN 15 gaming laptop, which had a GTX 1050Ti in it.

 

Now I have a custom PC with much more modularity and upgradability - no more CPU overheating, no more running out of RAM, no more storage woes, etc.