Gaming Laptop Assistance Please

Discussion in 'Laptops & Notebooks' started by scrapser, Jan 9, 2017.

  1. scrapser

    scrapser Master Guru

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    I'm abandoning my previous article to clear the way for a new discussion. I will be receiving my new laptop on Wednesday (11 January) so I thought I would ask for anyone who is into gaming laptops or laptops in general to please share any links they have for sites that are valuable in this regard. I have been doing my own research and will continue but it's always great to have input from others.

    For the record, I'm getting an Alienware 17 R4 with a GTX 1070 gpu, 256 SSD/1 TB HDD, and Intel i7-6700HQ (Quad-Core, 6MB Cache, up to 3.5GHz w/Turbo Boost). It has Windows 10 Pro installed. I also purchased an external optical drive and a flash drive to create a backup image of the recovery files for the OS.

    Maybe this thread will be of use to others down the road. Thanks.
     
  2. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    What exactly is the assistance needed?
    What links do you want?
     
  3. scrapser

    scrapser Master Guru

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    I'm drawing on my experience with sites dealing with home-built desktops, overclocking, gaming and such. I'm assuming there are sites where the focus is on tips and tricks with laptops (software and hardware alike). So I'm asking for any info in that regard.

    As an example, I found a discussion where a laptop owner was asking how to create a USB flash drive image for Windows 10 recovery. Someone posted a link with instructions on how to do this in detail. That's not such a big find but it shows what I mean.

    With desktops there are plenty of sites discussing all aspects of building, analyzing, optimizing both hardware and software. If there are sites and they could be posted here it saves time in finding that information piece meal.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2017
  4. scatman839

    scatman839 Ancient Guru

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  5. scrapser

    scrapser Master Guru

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  6. UZ7

    UZ7 Ancient Guru

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    Yeah notebookcheck I frequently visit but mostly the MSI section since I have an MSI laptop. Not really a big fan of Alienware aside from their Graphics Amplifier and personally if I were to spend $1.5-2K on a laptop I would make sure it would last me a while so I would've opted for an HK series CPU, only because HQ CPUs arent OCable or rather are the non-K version. Not a big fan of AW's cooling either as its uneven on the design. I do give them props to the build because its built like a tank lol so if you're travelling a lot it'll hold up.

    You may or may not get any hickups, usually the HQ series do good on games but when pushing the 1070/80 to its limits you'll probably need a more powerful CPU. The 6700HQ will get you about:

    4 cores @ 3.1GHz
    2 cores @ 3.3GHz
    1 core @ 3.5GHz

    So you can see where it tops off at 3.1GHz when all cores are at play, where as an HK (K-series) CPU you can OC them to 4.0GHz on all cores giving you a big boost and giving you more than enough to power the 1070/80 etc...

    Though I wouldn't worry too much about it if you're on more of the gaming side, it should perform more than enough. Lol sorry for posting this biased sounding post, I just want people to get more for what they pay for.
     
  7. scrapser

    scrapser Master Guru

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    Thanks UZ7 for your feedback. It's all good information when actual users pool their experiences. I received the laptop today and spent a few hours setting things up. This time around I feel much better about it all.

    One thing I will say up front. Windows 10 is set up by Microsoft to be an identity theft poster child. There are so many settings I needed to turn off. It's like they want people to send as much data as possible into cyber space. I feel really bad for people who don't know computer tech all that much.
     
  8. UZ7

    UZ7 Ancient Guru

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    Yeah for Windows 10 I did the following:

    Anniversary Update
    Update Chipset
    Update Intel RST
    Update nVidia drivers
    Update Sound drivers

    Install Spybot Anti-Beacon and disabled most of the stuff
    Uninstall preloaded software (if you're not on clean windows) like anti-virus, winzip or whatever lol

    The BIOS and firmware updates are more of a preference thing or if you're having those specific issues.
     
  9. scrapser

    scrapser Master Guru

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    A little update....
    I have updated all drivers and adjusted Windows settings to my liking. It's been a week or so now and I'm finding it to be a good experience. I've loaded up a lot of games already and put them on the D drive without issue.
     
  10. f14dude

    f14dude Member Guru

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    While I usually game with my desktop PC because I like the larger screen than my 15.4", I do game on my laptop when I'm traveling.

    I'm currently using an Acer Aspire V15 Nitro - Black Edition which I got it back in the summer of 2015. It has the i7 4720HQ 2.6GHz, 8GB DDR 3, Geforce 960m GTX 4GB and a 2TB HD 128M Cache (just replaced my old 1TB drive from running out of room), Windows 8.1 which I promptly upgraded to Windows 10 as soon as it was released.

    So far I can run any games but I'm thinking of selling it soon and use the money to get me a newer model with a 1060 or 1070 card just to future proof it for a few years. Then again, I'm still happy with it so might just keep it longer. Getting For Honor next Tue so will see how it will run.
     

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