Tough choice! NOVA 15.6 or Opt. Pro 17.3

[AidTra]

I have configured two laptops and I'm struggling to decide on which I should order and buy. I want to buy a laptop to play the latest titles such as Cyberpunk, and assassins creed etc -primarily story rich single player games, and hopefully play future games to come at high settings. I have each listed below for comparison:

Base	CPU	RAM	G.card	Drives
15.6'' Nova	AMD R.5 3600 (3.6-4.2GHz)	16GB 2.67GHz	RTX 2070 - 8GB	1TB SeaG.B 120
17.3'' Optimus Pro XI	AMD R.7 4800H (2.9GHz-4.2GHz)	16GB 2.67GHz	RTX 2060 - 6GB	1TB INTEL M.2 NVMe PCle

My desired upper spend limit is £1300, and I would like a 17.3 inch screen, however for this much money I'd be sacrificing the RTX 2070 graphics card for the bigger screen. There's only a £50 difference between the two options and I can't decide weather the better graphics card (and slightly worse CPU) is worth it or not. I'd really appreciate any pointers, opinions or expert knowledge. Also on a side note, is it worth spending extra for certain SSDs? ie the more expensive Samsung SSD, what's the benefit here? I'm pretty sold on AMD processors and would like to stick with those!

 

[FerrariVie]

My 2 cents:

CPU - I don't agree that the R5 3600 is slightly worse than the R7 4800H. The single-core performance of the 3600 is better than the 4800H, the latter just having more cores and better multi-core performance at stock. So it actually depends on your type of usage, if it benefits more from single x multi core performance. But then you also need to take into account that you can overclock the 3600 and keep the same (or even lower) voltage, so better performance for the same heat generated. It's also worth mentioning that on the Nova you can also upgrade the CPU to a R7 or R9 in the future, when they start getting cheaper because of newer CPUs being released.

GPU - Remember that GPU is not upgradeable on most laptops, so if you game, a better GPU will always be beneficial.

Storage - Don't get the Seagate drive as your windows drive. Even the Intel 660p (which is not a fast drive) is preferable over the SATA ones. You'll have more performance on file transfers, app opening times, boot times and game loading as well, etc. What you could do is get a smaller drive for windows boot (256Gb minimum) and then a bigger and slower one for games. You'll still have the smoother performance on windows and apps, just games won't benefit from it because you'll need to store them on the slower drive. And regarding Samsung x other SSDs, it's just a matter of getting that performance even higher... but you'll notice the difference a lot more between SATA x slowish NVME then when comparing slowish NVME x Samsung NVME.

15.6 x 17.3" - Totally personal preference, can't add anything here

RAM - Just make sure you're getting 2 memory modules (2x8Gb) and the faster clock available (2666)

 

[FerrariVie]

However, you also need to bear in mind the Nova, due to it's desktop processor uses much more power and so battery life is not very good (90 minutes max, maybe a bit more). It is designed to be used on ains power really so if you need a laptop for on the go, it's not a good choice

I would say maybe a bit less than 90 min

 

[AidTra]

My 2 cents:

CPU - I don't agree that the R5 3600 is slightly worse than the R7 4800H. The single-core performance of the 3600 is better than the 4800H, the latter just having more cores and better multi-core performance at stock. So it actually depends on your type of usage, if it benefits more from single x multi core performance. But then you also need to take into account that you can overclock the 3600 and keep the same (or even lower) voltage, so better performance for the same heat generated. It's also worth mentioning that on the Nova you can also upgrade the CPU to a R7 or R9 in the future, when they start getting cheaper because of newer CPUs being released.

GPU - Remember that GPU is not upgradeable on most laptops, so if you game, a better GPU will always be beneficial.

Storage - Don't get the Seagate drive as your windows drive. Even the Intel 660p (which is not a fast drive) is preferable over the SATA ones. You'll have more performance on file transfers, app opening times, boot times and game loading as well, etc. What you could do is get a smaller drive for windows boot (256Gb minimum) and then a bigger and slower one for games. You'll still have the smoother performance on windows and apps, just games won't benefit from it because you'll need to store them on the slower drive. And regarding Samsung x other SSDs, it's just a matter of getting that performance even higher... but you'll notice the difference a lot more between SATA x slowish NVME then when comparing slowish NVME x Samsung NVME.

15.6 x 17.3" - Totally personal preference, can't add anything here

RAM - Just make sure you're getting 2 memory modules (2x8Gb) and the faster clock available (2666)

Very interesting, I've learned a lot from your thorough explanation! This has really influenced my decision and I'm certainly leaning towards the Nova now. Thanks very much for educating me! I'll hopefully post here when I've purchased my final choice.

 

[AidTra]

You can't really compare the 2 CPUs...whilst on paper, the R7 looks better having more cores etc, you have to bear in mind it's a mobile processor so lower powered...the R5 in the Nova is a desktop processor so has more power, which is shown by the much higher base clock speed. For purely gaming, I would go with the 3600 and the 2070 as gaming is almost always single core based so an R7 would be wasted.

However, you also need to bear in mind the Nova, due to it's desktop processor uses much more power and so battery life is not very good (90 minutes max, maybe a bit more). It is designed to be used on ains power really so if you need a laptop for on the go, it's not a good choice

Thank you for explaining this, really clears the decision up! Fortunately I will always be using with the laptop plugged in, I only need portability from place to place because of my work.

Thanks again, much appreciated!

 

[FerrariVie]

Very interesting, I've learned a lot from your thorough explanation! This has really influenced my decision and I'm certainly leaning towards the Nova now. Thanks very much for educating me! I'll hopefully post here when I've purchased my final choice.

Great! Just keep in mind the drawbacks of a Desktop Replacement laptop, as @Nursemorph said: Poor battery life, a bit heavy, thick and with more fan noise than usual. The advantages being pure performance, better thermal solution and price

 

[FerrariVie]

In that case, the Nova would be an excellent choice for gaming (assuming you don't need intenseive multi-core stuff for work of course). I would invest in a good cooling pad if you plan to game for extended periods as it can get a little warm. @fevieira knows more about that than me though as I have no actual experience of the Nova, merely what I've read

I don't have a cooling pad, but I do have a laptop stand to keep it raised and with better airflow on the bottom. A cooling pad would definitely be better, but at least a stand will already help a lot.

The major difference that I noticed between my old laptop (not DTR) and the Nova is that you need to tweak it to your usage on control centre (default pre-installed) or similar app. What I mean by this is when you're just browsing, streaming or playing light games, use the quiet mode and the fans will stay a lot quieter. I play FM20 on quiet and it's just fine at 144 FPS (capped)

Then when you're going to a heavier game, go into the control centre again and change it to entertainment mode... It will bring your CPU clocks and power to stock levels, while also spinning the fans faster. Then if you find the need to overclock (which I do on the Ryzen 3), you need to forget about control centre and use Ryzen Master or Zen States to tune the CPU to your needs at each moment.