Optimus VIII spec for gaming etc. (to replace Optimus V)

[tomaird]

Looking to replace my Optimus V (ordered from here 4 years ago) with something of a similar standard, since it is slowly giving up. Used for a variety of gaming and other applications. Doesn't need to be able to max out games for the next 5 years or anything like that, just the best I can get for under £1000. This is what I have so far with the Optimus VIII:


Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo)
FREE Halo Wars 2 with select INTEL® CPUs!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 - 2.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
FREE Rocket League with select GTX 10 Series GPUs!
1st Hard Disk
1TB SLIM SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 120W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 3
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0
USB Options
1 x USB 3.0 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Battery
Cosmos VI Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Keyboard Language
SINGLE COLOUR BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £988.00 including VAT and delivery



Any advice on any bottlenecks in the system or changes that might help would be much appreciated!

 

[Stephen M]

How much better is the GTX 1050 ti for gaming and would that in combination with the i5 CPU be better as that would still be under 1,000, in fact you could swap to the SM961 and keep in budget.

 

[tomaird]

I did consider the ti but it's an extra £52 for not that much gain (according to this). The standard 1050 should be plenty for my gaming needs. Do you think the graphics card is a bit of a bottleneck though?

 

[Oussebon]

The GTX 1050 ti is absolutely worth it over the GTX 1050 for a gaming laptop.

gain (according to this).

GPU boss link. Triggered.

GPU boss is one of a number of websites that I wish would slide off the face of the internet. They provide meaningless comparisons often based on garbage data. Like this one I screengrabbed last year that showed an R9 380 being better than an R9 380x for gaming. For goodness sake:


Furthermore, the GTX 1050 and 1050 ti for laptops and desktops aren't the same. It is true that the 1050 ti doesn't offer a vast amount more performance over a 1050 in desktops. However, even there the performance difference is much greater than the GPUboss chart would lead you to believe:


GPU boss's "0.1" score difference might suggest, if you gave any weight to it whatsoever and depending how you read it, a roughly 1% difference in performance. In reality it's more like 15-20%.

Furthermore:

1) The mobile 1050 ti is actually faster than the desktop one - it's clocked about 200MHz higher. The laptop 1050 is a similar base clock to the desktop one*.
http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/10series/laptops/#specs
http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/10series/geforce-gtx-1050/#specs
Thus the difference between desktop and laptop 1050s and 1050 tis is much greater, which is reflected in benchmarks and gaming performance measures:

So the difference is more like 35%

The frequencies listed on the PCS configurator seem to reflect the desktop GPUs but unless PCS are selling ones that are weirdly clocked compared to everyone else (Asus, MSI, Samsung, and other Clevo chassis I've found) I suspect the configurator info isn't fully up to date there. It's not entirely uncommon for the configurator to need an update. It used to claim they were selling 950Ms with DDR3 when in fact it was GDDR5.

2) You're stuck with the GPU you buy. You can't upgrade it.

The spec you have there is £979 in the configurator. Changing it to the GTX 1050 ti makes it £1021. That's a £42 difference, or about 4% of the £979 cost. So for an extra 4% you'd be getting a system a good 30% better at gaming. And obviously that extra horsepower is going to keep the laptop viable for more demanding future games than a card that's 30% weaker.

3) If you need to save costs to afford the 1050 ti, downgrading literally anything else would have a much, much smaller impact on gaming performance. The difference between 8gb and 16gb RAM for gaming even at much higher resolutions and settings than you'll be playing is somewhere from negligible to zero. At this kind of gaming level an i7 will have hardly any merits over an i5 for most games. And a laptop i7 doesn't have as big a performance lead over a laptop i5 as the desktop counterparts do either. Likewise RAM frequency can be a real asset in some games, but generally not as much as a GPU 30%+ more powerful. Storage has no impact on gaming performance.

If you need to trim costs to afford a 1050 ti, dropping the RAM to 8gb would probably be the best play. Since the gaming performance impact will be next to zero and you can always add more yourself in the future.

You say you have other applications to run as well, so you may have a real need for the i7, 16gb RAM, etc. However if you can get away with 8gb for a month, or however long it would take you to save up for another 8gb stick, then it may still be worth scraping by with that in order to afford the 1050 ti since in the long run it may mean you get to keep the laptop a good while longer before its performance is unviable for gaming.

4) The 1050 ti won't max out many demanding games today, let alone down the line. The 750 ti, a ~£100-120 entry level GPU from 2014 that was a decent little entry level card, is already technically below minimum requirements for some games including 2016 releases. In reality I'm sure it plays them fine with the settings turned down, but my point is that given the low relative cost of the large extra headroom afforded by the 1050 ti it's definitely worth having.

TL-DR:

Any advice on any bottlenecks in the system or changes that might help would be much appreciated!

The GPU is the major bottleneck. You want to get the 1050 ti.

 

[tomaird]

Ok wow, thanks for the detailed response, +rep for you. You've definitely changed my mind about the GPU. Think I'll take your advice and cut the RAM down to 8GB and see how I get on with that, and add another 8GB stick if I need it later on. Thanks again for your help!

 

[Oussebon]

Glad it was of interest. Sorry it was so long.