Vyper III 15" for photography/videomaking, gaming, VR and some basic 3D work

[TheMash]

Hi everybody,
I'm new in the PCSpecialist community as I've discovered recently this amazing brand and its products.
The ability to customise your own computer for your needs is totally awesome!
As I've already seen reading through various threads this community is amazing and I'm very happy to be part of it

I've been a freelance for years with my own photography studio but now I'm working for a company in London as a photographer and retoucher.

Actually I own a 13.5" Surface Book with Performance Base from 2016, i5 6300u with 8GB DDR3, 256GB SSD and GTX 965m 2GB.
Despite being a great machine it has a big downside: it can't be upgraded in any way.
Performance has become too bad for some workflows as well as I'm not able to even use my VR headset, Oculus Rift S, as Display Port is tied to Intel GPU.
I had a desktop PC but due to limited space (I moved to London last year) I had to sell it, so I'm looking for a powerful while portable, light e slim laptop.

After some research, I've found a good candidate to replace or work alongside my actual laptop. I think it could be the Vyper III ( configured specs at the end of this post).

I'd be happy if you'd share your opinions about my choice, which was made basing on the following requirements and needs:

- a good return of investment: I'd like to keep the laptop for 3-5 years, so I prefer to have higher specs to avoid earlier obsolescence, while avoiding spending too much for a small performance gain (e.g.: 2080 Max-Q isn't worth in my opinion);
- portability: I need a compact, lightweight and slim chassis, as I don't like heavy and bigger laptops;
- a simple, elegant and clean design: I prefer to avoid a laptop which screams "gamer" as I have to bring it sometimes to meetings;
- Windows Hello feature;
- a good screen for photography/video, which covers at least 90-95% of sRGB colour space;
- upgradability and maintenance: in the next years requirements for some software will grow up and the fact I'll be able to upgrade RAM up to 64GB is great! Also having two m.2 drives slots it's an advantage; I also know PCS allows light maintenance to be done directly by the customers, especially repasting which I was planning to do;
- performance for work: ULV processors are very good for battery life and packs some nice performance in them, but I think for heavy workloads they aren't very good as they tend to throttle very soon due to limited cooling and constrained chassis. So that's why I considered an H CPU with 8 cores instead of ULV CPUs or 6 cores, which links again with the ROI at first point;
My workflow includes using the following software: Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After FX, Capture One, DaVinci Resolve and some basic 3D graphics render, such Blender.
Photoshop workflow includes developing 30Mpixel RAWs from 5D Mark IV, retouching with many layers, smart filters and use of pen and tablet for retouch. Premiere Pro editing of 4K 500Mbit MJPEG/H264 footage, with colour grading, adjustment layers, LUTs. After FX for motion graphics design (although I'm still a beginner at this).
While Premiere Pro benefits up to a certain point of a powerful GPU, DaVinci Resolve really likes having a powerful GPU as it improves dramatically the performance during editing and export. With Blender I'm a total beginner but with time I'll probably do something more complex and having a good GPU would be very useful, especially that 2GB more than GTX 2060;
- performance for gaming: as someone already guessed, I'm a gamer, so I'll use the laptop for playing games as well. Titles I've been playing are and not limited to: No Man's Sky (VR), Fallout 4 (VR), Elite Dangerous (VR), Doom Eternal, Rainbow Six Siege, Grid (even the most recents), Dirt Rally 2, Star Citizen, Stellaris, and others.
Oculus Rift S requires a DisplayPort tied to the dedicated GPU, which I know Vyper III has.
- battery life: this is my only concern as it's a 63Wh battery. On my Surface Book PB I've 80Wh battery with a ULV CPU and I can reach 10-14 hours of battery life while writing on Word, and 8-10 hours on Youtube.
I usually work plugged in when I need most of the performance but occasionally I prefer to sit on the couch and do some light editing from there, as I'll be working from home sometimes.
I don't play games on battery as it's the best way to kill Li-Ion a battery pack in my opinion and it will probably last just 1-2 hours of gaming.
Let's say 5 hours would be good for light usage, such as Word, Excel, browsing and some Youtube videos to play.

Final thoughts
I was also considering the 17" version of Vyper III to have a bigger battery (and maybe better cooling) but I'm concerned it would be too big for me, as I'm really used to 13.5" form factors and compact chassis.
I planned to upgrade the storage and RAM in the future to save some money now. My plan is to upgrade to 32GB or 64GB and install a second m.2 drive for a super fast storage. Maybe I could buy the Vyper with a bigger storage now (but slower) such as Intel and move it as secondary drive and install a very fast Samsung SSD as first drive in the future.
As for the OS, I've already a spare retail Windows 10 Home license which I'll be moving on this laptop.
That's all. Thank you for your time reading my post and please feel free to share your thoughts about my choice, I'd be very happy to read them.
Advices are very welcome!

Chassis & Display
Vyper Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor 10875H (2.3GHz, 5.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 660p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 1500MB/sR | 1000MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated Micro-SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
2 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Vyper Series Integrated 62WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + THX Spatial Audio
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 3 PORT + 3 x USB 3.1 PORTS
Keyboard Language
VYPER SERIES RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Keyboard & 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)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Chassis
TongFang GM5MP7Y (8GB RTX-2070, i7-10875H, 144Hz, Blank KB)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Promotional Item
Get Rainbow Six Siege: Gold Edition with select NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs!
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
Price: £1,411.00 including VAT and Delivery

 

[TheMash]

As I'm unable to edit the main post, I'm adding this here:
- fan noise: I prefer to have a laptop that could be quiet during normal light operations, such as Office usage, web browsing and Youtube videos but if it's a bit loud while gaming as well as while working isn't an issue for me; compute power comes also with heat so I know it would be perfectly normal having fans spinning fast ;

 

[TheMash]

What is you maximum budget? Just gives an idea of any wriggle room.

Ordinarily, a 2070 Super is the recommended minimum for VR to avoid side-effects......mobile GPUs aren't as powerful as their desktop namesakes so a 2070 would be the equivalent of the 2060 Desktop. A 2080S would be the equivalent of the 2070S. However, I am not sure if the underlying architecture on laptops makes it different to desktops when it comes to VR. @SpyderTracks Could you shed some light on this please? Thank you

Hi @Nursemorph, thanks for your reply!
I totally forgot to specify the budget, sorry. Ideally, I woudn't go above 1500£.
To have a comparison I've been playing VR on a desktop GTX 1060 6GB (+135Mhz Core overclock) with a i7 3930K (stock frequencies) and I was happy with performance, but Super Sampling was out of any reach due to limited performance on the 1060.

 

[TheMash]

Fair enough...I shall leave the VR advice to others as that was the limit of my knowledge

I think what you said about different performance on laptop compared to desktop is right, but my knowledge is limited as well.
I don't have any direct experience with GPU laptop and desktop equivalent.
However the 1060 was the bare minimum to play VR, sometimes there were some side effects such as stuttering or sudden lower frame rates, but I was happy with that.
But when I started to move the Super Sampling slider in Oculus Tray Tool the framerate was bad and you get all the bad effects of motion sickness

 

[SpyderTracks]

What is you maximum budget? Just gives an idea of any wriggle room.

Ordinarily, a 2070 Super is the recommended minimum for VR to avoid side-effects......mobile GPUs aren't as powerful as their desktop namesakes so a 2070 would be the equivalent of the 2060 Desktop. A 2080S would be the equivalent of the 2070S. However, I am not sure if the underlying architecture on laptops makes it different to desktops when it comes to VR. @SpyderTracks Could you shed some light on this please? Thank you

That would be absolutely spot on. There is no difference in laptop architecture to desktop, only that mobile parts are less powerful than desktop counterparts usually due to the voltage constraints to keep them effectively cooled.

But everything you said was spot on

 

[TheMash]

Do you know what TDP is configured on the 2070 8GB? Is it the 115W version, right? On the website Vyper III it doesn't state if it's a Max-Q version so I suppose it benefit from the full TDP for mobile chassis, which is 115W (Max-P).
Also I'd like to know how frequently PCS roll out new bioses and if they usually add similar features as some competitors do.
I couldn't find any info about this.
I'm asking because before buying a product I prefer to have a clear view about the support.

Thanks!

 

[TheMash]

Hi everybody,
at the end I pulled the trigger on the Vyper III 15.6"! Ordered this morning, hope it will arrives soon.
Compared to the original Quote I've changed the Intel SSD, which I discovered is a QLC and has some speed performance issues in the long run, with a Samsung 970 Evo Plus. I've changed the warranty as well with a 3 years Gold coverage.
I've ordered it with stock paste as I'll be replacing it by myself with a Thermalright TF8/TFX.
I hope I'll receive it soon. I'll share my thoughts for sure here on the forum then.

 

[TheMash]

The laptop has been dispatched today!
So far I can say: amazing! Just one week ago I've made the order on PCS website.
I've amended it increasing the RAM from 16GB to 32GB using my admin area. Super easy.
I should receive it tomorrow.
I'll prepare a nice review with nice photos in the following days.
As soon as I'll get it I'll do some benchmarks to write down some temperature values. I'd like to check any improvements with stock paste and the Thermalright TIM.
So excited, this laptop will be (I hope) my main machine for work, personal projects and gaming for the next 3-5 years.
Stakes are high :-D
Many thanks to @SpyderTracks and @Nursemorph for all the help in choosing the right laptop and config for me.

 

[OldGamer20769]

Hi @TheMash
Thanks for posting. I am also looking at buying the Vyper 15” with the same spec and have pretty much exactly the same questions as you. I would be very interested to get your initial thoughts on how your new laptop meets your expectations and particularly what battery life, heat, and fan noise are like in normal “office” mode use. Thanks!

 

[TheMash]

Hi @TheMash
Thanks for posting. I am also looking at buying the Vyper 15” with the same spec and have pretty much exactly the same questions as you. I would be very interested to get your initial thoughts on how your new laptop meets your expectations and particularly what battery life, heat, and fan noise are like in normal “office” mode use. Thanks!

Hi @OldGamer20769!
Thank you for your interest!
I've been doing some tests in the last days but I'm a bit busy and I'd like to do some tests in details. Unfortunately I'm starting to realise my time is limited so I'll probably do some basics tests but very thorough.
I've ordered it with stock thermal paste but this evening I'll replace it with the Thermalright TF-8, which is 13.8 m/K TIM, and compare the differences!
Please be patient and I'll give you all the answers you need
I'll probably open a dedicated thread.
Meanwhile, thank you for your interest!
Have a lovely evening