A few doubts about buying a new laptop

[Peib]

Hello

I want to buy a new laptop but I am not sure about a few things.
I want it for playing non very demanding games in 1440p (age of Empires definitive edition) and watch movies on 4k in Plex. Given this, I thought about Elimina 17'3'' but I have concerns about three things:
1) Ram is ddr4 3200mhz. I dont know if there will be any noticeable difference between ddr4 and ddr5 but I want to keep this laptop for 7 years or 10.
2) Battery. The elimina pro has a 80 wh battery while the elimina 17'3'' only 50. Considering i would get a 1440p screen, I have been told that it will drain the battery. I will be using the pc plugged in the desktop the most of the time, but i expect at least three hours without being plugged if sometimes I want to be in another place
3) Intel 13th gen. I didnt know about the problems this generation has but recently i read about how "bad" in comparison with AMD ryzen the i7 13th is. Is it true? Is something noticeable?

I would go for elimina pro but it only has 16'', and elimina 17'3'' has the "problems" above mentioned.

What should I do?

Im not in a hurry, I can wait months for a new laptop, but I want to change soon because my msi with i5 5th gen and 940mx is dying.

Thanks in advance! Excuse my English pls, im not native speaker

 

[Ekans2011]

Hello

I want to buy a new laptop but I am not sure about a few things.
I want it for playing non very demanding games in 1440p (age of Empires definitive edition) and watch movies on 4k in Plex. Given this, I thought about Elimina 17'3'' but I have concerns about three things:
1) Ram is ddr4 3200mhz. I dont know if there will be any noticeable difference between ddr4 and ddr5 but I want to keep this laptop for 7 years or 10.
2) Battery. The elimina pro has a 80 wh battery while the elimina 17'3'' only 50. Considering i would get a 1440p screen, I have been told that it will drain the battery. I will be using the pc plugged in the desktop the most of the time, but i expect at least three hours without being plugged if sometimes I want to be in another place
3) Intel 13th gen. I didnt know about the problems this generation has but recently i read about how "bad" in comparison with AMD ryzen the i7 13th is. Is it true? Is something noticeable?

I would go for elimina pro but it only has 16'', and elimina 17'3'' has the "problems" above mentioned.

What should I do?

Im not in a hurry, I can wait months for a new laptop, but I want to change soon because my msi with i5 5th gen and 940mx is dying.

Thanks in advance! Excuse my English pls, im not native speaker

Non-native to non-native: don't buy a custom laptop right now because the chassis are already old and the new ones will arrive in a couple of months (march/april).

1. DDR5 has been the standard for a few years (2021 or so, if I'm not mistaken); I would not buy an old DDR4 platform in 2025.
2. Performance laptops must be plugged in at all times to reach their full capability; running on batteries will only allow for basic functions (web navigation, office, documents etc). For comparison, the 60Wh battery in my Ionico 2022 has a maximum battery life of about an hour at full power.
3. Because the chips in 13th/14th generation laptops are identical to those in desktops, they suffer from the same silicon degradation problem (to a lesser extent due to lower power limits and lower voltages); the only difference is that INTEL did not recognise the problem on laptops and thus did not release any microcode fix to mitigate the problems. I would try to avoid them.

 

[Peib]

Non-native to non-native: don't buy a custom laptop right now because the chassis are already old and the new ones will arrive in a couple of months (march/april).

1. DDR5 has been the standard for a few years (2021 or so, if I'm not mistaken); I would not buy an old DDR4 platform in 2025.
2. Performance laptops must be plugged in at all times to reach their full capability; running on batteries will only allow for basic functions (web navigation, office, documents etc). For comparison, the 60Wh battery in my Ionico 2022 has a maximum battery life of about an hour at full power.
3. Because the chips in 13th/14th generation laptops are identical to those in desktops, they suffer from the same silicon degradation problem (to a lesser extent due to lower power limits and lower voltages); the only difference is that INTEL did not recognise the problem on laptops and thus did not release any microcode fix to mitigate the problems. I would try to avoid them.

Thanks you very much!
I will go for ddr5 then. I wont even consider spending +1000€ in 2025 for ddr4.
Im not sure if i need specifically performance laptop but if you set the Eco mode or low energy mode do ur battery last longer than 2hours?
About chips, that is what i was afraid of.

What do new chassis mean in practice? That there will be new series with new components?

Excuse my ignorance but i dont know much about PCs

Thanks!!!!

 

[Ekans2011]

Im not sure if i need specifically performance laptop but if you set the Eco mode or low energy mode do ur battery last longer than 2hours?

To play with it, you'll need a performance (or gaming) laptop.

With energy-saving settings (e.g., no dGPU, minimum PLs CPU), the battery life is expected to be around 2 hours, but this may vary depending on usage. Personally, I never use my laptop on battery power, thus I can't be too specific about that.

What do new chassis mean in practice? That there will be new series with new components?

It refers to new models featuring new CPUs and GPUs.

 

[bladteth]

1. DDR5 has been the standard for a few years (2021 or so, if I'm not mistaken); I would not buy an old DDR4 platform in 2025.

I wouldn't buy a laptop with DDR4 now either, but in terms of game performance the difference is small, a few percent/frames. Lots of videos on YT to check how different games perform.

2. Performance laptops must be plugged in at all times to reach their full capability; running on batteries will only allow for basic functions (web navigation, office, documents etc). For comparison, the 60Wh battery in my Ionico 2022 has a maximum battery life of about an hour at full power.

Just expanding on what you wrote, full power on battery is not the same as full power on mains. On AC my Ionico on full power draws about 230W, nearly overwhelming power supply, while it is limited to roughly 65W when on battery. CPU which is rated up to 120W on AC, runs at maximum 25W on battery, GPU is 165W and 25W respectively. 92Wh battery lasts only about 1.5 hour at "full" load, but in very light use it stretches to about 5 - 6 hours.

 

[Scott]

I think gaming performance has moved a bit in the desktop world, thanks to lower latency, not so sure on laptops though as the CL tends to be a bit higher. It's worth keeping in mind that the initial considerations may have improved though.

Battery on my Octane was rubbish. If I did nothing I maybe got around 90 minutes, as soon as I did anything performance related it was around 40 minutes. That was a 6700K with a 1080 GPU though, so not exactly frugal on the juice

 

[Ekans2011]

Just expanding on what you wrote, full power on battery is not the same as full power on mains. On AC my Ionico on full power draws about 230W, nearly overwhelming power supply, while it is limited to roughly 65W when on battery. CPU which is rated up to 120W on AC, runs at maximum 25W on battery, GPU is 165W and 25W respectively. 92Wh battery lasts only about 1.5 hour at "full" load, but in very light use it stretches to about 5 - 6 hours.

That's right, and that is what I meant; as a non-native speaker, I most likely did not write correctly.

In any case, as previously said, I have never operated the laptop on battery power, therefore I cannot provide an exact estimate of battery life.

Anyway, I also believe you have another ''Ionico'' because mine has a 60Wh battery, a 115W + dynamic boost GPU, a 280W charger, and I can't set the CPU power limits to max if I want to prevent heavy thermal throttling (my regular set is PL1 45W, PL2 55W, and PL4 60W).