Nova or Recoil - Most Future Proof

cg.stefan.this

Active member
Hi there,

What are your uses and needs for the system? What is your budget?
My budget is around 1600£-1700£. It's mostly for gaming but as a VFX artist I also use 3D softwares for personal work sometimes outside of the company. I will be in London for an other year and therefore don't have much space. I travel between countries for work but I don't really need to work on the go.
Basically what I like about the Recoil is the aluminium design and the battery life but I'm a bit concerned about the thermals and I have the feeling the Nova will last longer since everything is upgradable except the GPU. I really have mixed feelings.
Also, I'm thinking of plugging it on my 4K TV for gaming.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
From a professional basis I would personally choose the Nova. It's going to be more powerful with the desktop hardware. The highest affordable GPU should be selected with any laptop but the GPU can be swapped out on these laptops. It's just very often not worthwhile and crazy money.

Do you have a link to your build so that I could have a nosey?
 

cg.stefan.this

Active member
From a professional basis I would personally choose the Nova. It's going to be more powerful with the desktop hardware. The highest affordable GPU should be selected with any laptop but the GPU can be swapped out on these laptops. It's just very often not worthwhile and crazy money.

Do you have a link to your build so that I could have a nosey?

Here it is. I was thinking of swapping to a 1TB of lower performance SSD because the samsung EVO is quite expensive above 500GB. ANd also maybe a 7200rpm instead of the 5400rpm HDD.

Chassis & Display
Nova Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.4GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
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 Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3200MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated Micro-SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Nova Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 M.2 GAMING + BLUETOOTH 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x USB 3.2 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.2 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
15" NOVA SERIES UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
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 10 to 12 working days
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
 
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Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
That's pretty much spot on for me. Need the link to go in though.

What did that come to? Is that the budget maxed out?

The only room for improvement would be the RAM and the Storage. It may be worthwhile to opt for 32GB of RAM but it depends entirely on the software you are using and the level you are using it to. Visual effects and 3D software tend to LOVE RAM.

With that in mind, onto the storage. I would almost always opt for 1TB where funds allow (for the primary). Again, depending on your level of use, a cache/scratch drive would likely be advisable. A second M2 drive (the Evo would be recommended) would be ideal for this sort of work. 250GB is absolutely fine as you're only looking to support your RAM.

Obviously all of the above costs money and this is me purely looking at it from an idealistic point of view :)
 

cg.stefan.this

Active member
That's pretty much spot on for me. Need the link to go in though.

What did that come to? Is that the budget maxed out?

The only room for improvement would be the RAM and the Storage. It may be worthwhile to opt for 32GB of RAM but it depends entirely on the software you are using and the level you are using it to. Visual effects and 3D software tend to LOVE RAM.

With that in mind, onto the storage. I would almost always opt for 1TB where funds allow (for the primary). Again, depending on your level of use, a cache/scratch drive would likely be advisable. A second M2 drive (the Evo would be recommended) would be ideal for this sort of work. 250GB is absolutely fine as you're only looking to support your RAM.

Obviously all of the above costs money and this is me purely looking at it from an idealistic point of view :)
Here is the link.


To be honest we have dedicated machines at work to do our job. I do not consider buying this one for high end VFX work but mostly gaming and personal projects in softwares like Maya. I'am an animator and therefore don't need that much of RAM in general. On the other hand, 1TB of EVO storage is very interesting indeed, but very expensive once above 500GB. Is it worth swapping to a lower performance one to hit the 1TB required? like an Intel 660p ?
 
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Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
In that case I would suggest the build is spot on for your uses.

It'll be epic for gaming and hobbyist-level projects..... in fact it will smash those requirements.

With regards to the storage, my choice would be 500GB Evo and an additional 1TB PCS drive. The 660p is not recommended at all, it's not a great drive. The 1TB M2 drive can be added at any time going forward though. Would be purely for adding your games to so that you can have 1TB of fast loading games and if you want to format the 500GB drive you don't have the hassle of re-downloading or copying over the games again.
 

cg.stefan.this

Active member
In that case I would suggest the build is spot on for your uses.

It'll be epic for gaming and hobbyist-level projects..... in fact it will smash those requirements.

With regards to the storage, my choice would be 500GB Evo and an additional 1TB PCS drive. The 660p is not recommended at all, it's not a great drive. The 1TB M2 drive can be added at any time going forward though. Would be purely for adding your games to so that you can have 1TB of fast loading games and if you want to format the 500GB drive you don't have the hassle of re-downloading or copying over the games again.
My previous computer had a 120GB SSD and I could deal with it so I think I will do this 🙂
250GB M.2 EVO for OS and softwares
1TB M.2 PCS for games and cache files
1TB HDD for storage (is it worth taking a 7200rpm for 19£ more ?)
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I seriously wouldn't recommend 250GB to be honest. Especially in a laptop. Your choice of course but you will find that everything is growing substantially. With 500GB I don't think you would go wrong, I honestly think it's worth the investment.
 

cg.stefan.this

Active member
I seriously wouldn't recommend 250GB to be honest. Especially in a laptop. Your choice of course but you will find that everything is growing substantially. With 500GB I don't think you would go wrong, I honestly think it's worth the investment.
Well, it's done! I ordered the 500GB EVO M.2 with 1TB PCS M.2 and 1TB HDD 7200rpm. It's gonna be closer to a muscle car than a laptop 😅
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
You honestly won't regret it. It's painful when you look at the total but 6 months from now you'll be glad you did :)
 
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