New Laptop for Gaming and General Use

[dancol]

Hi all,

I've been looking at getting a new laptop for a little while now and I'm stuck between a few options for a while now. I want something capable of gaming at reasonable although not necessarily the highest settings and something that will last me for a good few years (I'd hope maybe 3-4 years if reasonably possible). I'm thinking of going for either the 15.6" Optimus VII or Defiance II.

Whichever option I go for I would be looking at getting a quad core i7 6700hq, 240GB SSD, 750GB HDD but beyond that I have three options I'm considering:

1) Optimus VII, 16GB Hyper-X Impact RAM, 2GB GTX 960M: ~£960
Ideal from a budget perspective although it worries me whether the graphics card might not last as long as I'd like. Also not much potential for upgrades at a later date.

2) Defiance II, 16GB Hyper-X Impact RAM, 2GB GTX 965M: ~£1100
Seems a big jump in price from option 1 but seemingly little difference in specification. Is it worth discounting this option or is there more to this than meets the eye?

3) Defiance II, 16GB Hyper-X Impact RAM, 6GB GTX 970M: ~£1180
Decent graphics card and seems like it could potentially be a reasonable option, although would there be any risk of overheating?

4) Defiance II, 32GB Hyper-X Impact Ram, 6GB GTX 970M: ~£1265
Seems to be very good spec, more than I'd ideally like to pay but I would potentially be willing to stretch to this if it could be necessary. Would this be worth it or would it be overkill? Also, again, would there be any great risk of overheating?

Any advice would really be appreciated. I certainly don't want to spend a large amount of money on a machine that won't last but equally I don't want to pay far more than I need to for something that I wouldn't really use.

 

[Stephen M]

Other than gaming what will the uses be, 8GB RAM is enough for gaming and will be for a while, 16 might future proof it a bit but it is such an easy upgrade not really worth paying for until you need it, 32 is overkill.

 

[dancol]

Realistically gaming will be the main use, other uses will just be general day to day office use and potentially the odd bit of light photo editing in the future but certainly nothing too much on that front.

 

[Stephen M]

What about number three but up the GPU to the 980m for the best gaming and if that puts the price up too much drop the RAM to 8, as I said you can easily add more. I do not think overheating will be a problem, I have an Octane with the i7 4790 and that has not caused any trouble so I think you will be fine, although would always advise a cooling pad for any laptop.

 

[dancol]

Brill, thanks for the advice. Realistically I would normally be using a pretty basic cooling pad but I certainly want to be able to use it away from a cooling pad for short periods of time here and there. It might seem a silly question but will any cooling pad do or should I look for anything specific. I already have a pretty cheap one that I use with my current laptop that has a couple of fans and a (very pointless) LED light that serves no purpose whatsoever as you can't see it once you put your laptop on it anyway

Do you think I should I look into buying something better?

 

[Stephen M]

I have an old Xigmatek, cost about 15 quid, just one large fan but does the job. Probably worth looking at a few online reviews but the ones offered here are all OK. I would not worry about using it without a cooling tray for a while, only really needed for long period of intense gaming.