New to PCS and just ordered this. Thoughts?

[roblan]

Ok guys, just ordered this. looking for views on it as a gaming laptop. what are PCS like on delivers and posting times. i wanted to have it delivered to another address as i work full time, however it said the billing and delivery address had to be the same.


Chassis & Display Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) 16GB HyperX IMPACT 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk 500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
Memory Card Reader Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor 1 x 90W 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, vPRO
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 Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language United Kingdom - English Language
DVD Recovery Media Windows 10 (64-bit) Home DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
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 4 to 6 working days

 

[keynes]

delivery dates would vary and depends on how busy they are, if you need it soon you may want to consider fast track.

 

[Stephen M]

DPD will give you a one hour delivery slot on the day it is arriving and my experiences with them have been good, always within the hour stated. Could you take a bit of time off or get someone to be at the house for the delivery.

 

[roblan]

DPD will give you a one hour delivery slot on the day it is arriving and my experiences with them have been good, always within the hour stated. Could you take a bit of time off or get someone to be at the house for the delivery.

time off isnt an option for me really as i need all my holidays at work for my baby which is due in August! i guess i could ask a family member to nip round. how soon would i be given the delivery date?

 

[Oussebon]

For the i7" Optimus, the i7 costs £66 more than the i5 and isn't necessarily worth it. While perfectly respectable, the GTX 1050 ti isn't a super powerful gaming GPU and in most cases I imagine performance would be very similar with the i5.

Likewise 8gb RAM should be more than sufficient for gaming and general use at that kind of level.

The storage you've selected is slow and quite limited in capacity. With the economy on the CPU and RAM you could get a larger and faster HDD, and a very fast M.2 SSD that will significantly speed up the loading of the OS and any programs and games you put on it. It seems to work out the same price or slightly less:


Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 7300HQ (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
8GB HyperX IMPACT 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SLIM SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG SM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3100MB/R, 1400MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 90W 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, vPRO
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
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 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,008.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/optimusVIII-17/dW9UDyyVCd/

 

[Stephen M]

PCS will email you when it is ready for dispatch.DPD email the delivery slot on the morning of delivery. You can keep up to date with progress on your account page, I think you can specify a date to be delivered after but not an exact date. May be worth giving PCS a call.

 

[roblan]

For the i7" Optimus, the i7 costs £66 more than the i5 and isn't necessarily worth it. While perfectly respectable, the GTX 1050 ti isn't a super powerful gaming GPU and in most cases I imagine performance would be very similar with the i5.

Likewise 8gb RAM should be more than sufficient for gaming and general use at that kind of level.

The storage you've selected is slow and quite limited in capacity. With the economy on the CPU and RAM you could get a larger and faster HDD, and a very fast M.2 SSD that will significantly speed up the loading of the OS and any programs and games you put on it. It seems to work out the same price or slightly less:


Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 7300HQ (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
8GB HyperX IMPACT 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SLIM SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG SM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3100MB/R, 1400MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 90W 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, vPRO
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
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 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,008.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/optimusVIII-17/dW9UDyyVCd/

well ideally if im spending 1k id like to know ill be able to play most games with some ultra settings?

 

[Oussebon]

The GTX 1050 ti may play some games on ultra settings, but others it won't.

BF1 it will just about manage if you don't mind some drops below 60, likewise GTA V. Witcher 3, Total War Warhammmer, The Division, Far Cry Primal, etc. It's like a GTX 960 in terms of performance.

If a desktop was a viable option you could get one capable of running many games on very high or ultra settings for the same price including the monitor, but gaming laptops are more expensive than gaming desktops, and generally weaker at the same price level.

 

[roblan]

The GTX 1050 ti may play some games on ultra settings, but others it won't.

BF1 it will just about manage if you don't mind some drops below 60, likewise GTA V. Witcher 3, Total War Warhammmer, The Division, Far Cry Primal, etc. It's like a GTX 960 in terms of performance.

If a desktop was a viable option you could get one capable of running many games on very high or ultra settings for the same price including the monitor, but gaming laptops are more expensive than gaming desktops, and generally weaker at the same price level.

dont get me wrong im not looking for ultra 4k visuals or anything like that. im just looking at being able to play games such as Alien Isolation and Firewatch at a high setting at least

 

[Oussebon]

I wasn't referring to 4k, I was referring to 1080p (the native resolution of the screen) with ultra settings. But yeah, I imagine it'll handle those two games.

This page gives benches of the GTX 1050 ti (notebook) in quite a few games at ultra 1080p: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti-Notebook.168400.0.html

The laptop 1050 ti is quite similar to the desktop one in terms of performance so you can get a rough idea from googling reviews of that:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1269-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050/page5.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1050_Ti_Gaming_X/16.html

 

[roblan]

Well after trying to take everything into consideration and looking at what's best for what I'm after. I'm still unsure on downgrading to the i5 over the i7 although I do understand your point.

At the moment I'm looking at the HDD aspect of my order and agree that the one chosen may be a little slow. With this in mind and the fact I can't unfortunately afford and SSD at this time I'm wondering what my best option would be out of the ones in the picture.

 

[Oussebon]

I'd stick with the one selected in that image, the generic 1TB one. The WD Blues aren't really worth the premium in my opinion.

You can afford the SSD if you make the changes I outlined. It works out a few quid cheaper. If you're only using the laptop for gaming and general office-type use, there's not much point to having the i7 or 16gb RAM. If you were video editing then there might well be, but for most uses you'll see little difference.

 

[roblan]

I'd stick with the one selected in that image, the generic 1TB one. The WD Blues aren't really worth the premium in my opinion.

You can afford the SSD if you make the changes I outlined. It works out a few quid cheaper. If you're only using the laptop for gaming and general office-type use, there's not much point to having the i7 or 16gb RAM. If you were video editing then there might well be, but for most uses you'll see little difference.

The thing is ill be keeping this laptop for the next 5 or 6 years so ideally I like to keep try my best to get what I can within the budget. Hope that makes sense I know for example that say in 12 months time I'll able to upgrade the HDD if I like whereas I won't be able to upgrade the processor later on.

Is the HDD selected not a slow rpm also? I do see it has a larger cache

 

[Oussebon]

Unfortunately PCS don't sell the fast WD Blacks in that chassis. Presumably because they wouldn't fit. So the 1TB HDD is probably your best bet.

In 5-6 years the laptop's GPU will be painfully obsolete. Indeed that will happen well before 6 years time. It won't be the CPU that makes the difference to whether you can run X game or not.

The i7 is slightly faster than the i5, but the main difference is that it has hyperthreading. Not many things at all benefit from the hyperthreading.

I take your point about wanting the best non-replacable parts at the outset, indeed it's a path I normall advocate very strongly for, but I do feel like it's basically a total waste of £60-70 if you're not encoding video.

 

[roblan]

Thanks for your comments. I may actually go for the i5 then if ithe really is the case that I won't see any difference is game performance. What about the seagate SSHD at 1TB?

 

[Oussebon]

I doubt you'd see any difference in most games, as with a rather mid-range GPU you're going to be limited by that a lot more than the CPU in the great majority of modern games.

The consensus on this forum seems to be that SSD + HDD is better than SSHD. If you can only have one drive in a system, an SSHD will help your OS load faster than just an HDD. But if you're going to get an SSD anyway there's not much point since the SSD will be faster than the flash part of the storage on the SSHD, much larger, and you're reliant on the algorhythm from the SSHD manufacturer to decide what goes gets put on the flash part of the storage - you have no control over it.

 

[roblan]

I doubt you'd see any difference in most games, as with a rather mid-range GPU you're going to be limited by that a lot more than the CPU in the great majority of modern games.

The consensus on this forum seems to be that SSD + HDD is better than SSHD. If you can only have one drive in a system, an SSHD will help your OS load faster than just an HDD. But if you're going to get an SSD anyway there's not much point since the SSD will be faster than the flash part of the storage on the SSHD, much larger, and you're reliant on the algorhythm from the SSHD manufacturer to decide what goes gets put on the flash part of the storage - you have no control over it.

Haha there are no easy choices for me here! Such a shame I can't upgrade the GPU! I'm really torn as to what to do!

 

[Oussebon]

I should apologise, there was an error in my spec that I posted before - I'd put it up with the GTX 1050 rather than 1050 ti. You can get a slightly cheaper but still pretty fast SSD to help offset that:


Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 7300HQ (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
8GB HyperX IMPACT 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SLIM SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB INTEL® 600p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 1570MB/sR | 540MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 90W 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, vPRO
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
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 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,027.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/optimusVIII-17/Ep!7bN0qKq/

 

[roblan]

I note that you can have 2 HDD installed would this mean I can add a second at a later date?

 

[Oussebon]

The Optimus VIII has one HDD bay that takes 2.5" drives, and 1 M.2 slot that takes M.2 SSDs.

So you can have one sata drive (like an HDD or a regular sata SSD) and one M.2 SSD.