Which laptop for gaming?

[Arney11]

Hi there everyone!
I'm looking to upgrade to a new laptop as my current one a Defiance that I brought in 2015, which has served me well is now on its last legs! I have a few questions on my choices and the laptops I've looked at if anyone can help 🙂

I have narrowed down my choices to the follwing- 17" Recoil III RTX, 17" Defiance V RTX, 15" Vortex IX, and 15" Viper II. All of which will have the following spec-

Intel i7 6 core 9750H
1x16gb RAM Corsair 2666mhz
Geforce RTX 2060
1 TB Samsung 860 QVO SSD

The prices range from £1350-£1500 and I will be using the laptop mainly for gaming (Football Mananger, Warhammer TW 2) and some video editing.

I am learning towards the vortex as it has g sync and has had some good reviews but would a 17" Defiance or Recoil be better for cooling as my understanding is (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the bigger the chassis the more room there is for airflow? From what I've read so far, having a hot laptop is just something you have to put up with if you want to use it for gaming. Unfortunately I cannot go for a desktop as I need it to be mobile about my house.

Is it worth me paying the extra £280 for the RTX 2070? Is there any noticeable difference in performance?

And is the performance better with 2x8gb of ram instead of 1x16gb of ram?

Many thanks

Craig

 

[SpyderTracks]

What's wrong with your defiance and what were the specs?

 

[Arney11]

It's running alot slower and gets ridiculously hot, to the point now where it overheats and shuts down when playing games. It was a 17.3" version that I brought in 2015-

Intel i7 quad core 6820 HK
16GB Hyper X 2400 RAM
Geforce GTX 970M
750 GB HD DRIVE
256 GB SSD M.2 2280

 

[SpyderTracks]

It's running alot slower and gets ridiculously hot, to the point now where it overheats and shuts down when playing games. It was a 17.3" version that I brought in 2015-

Intel i7 quad core 6820 HK
16GB Hyper X 2400 RAM
Geforce GTX 970M
750 GB HD DRIVE
256 GB SSD M.2 2280

Have you serviced it since you got it?

 

[Oussebon]

As above, you can probably clean its insides and repaste it to fix the temps, and running slowly may also be fixed by that - or a clean Windows install.

but would a 17" Defiance or Recoil be better for cooling as my understanding is (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the bigger the chassis the more room there is for airflow?

That's not always true. It depends on the design of the cooling system.

But probably best to try pepping up your old system first.

 

[Arney11]

As above, you can probably clean its insides and repaste it to fix the temps, and running slowly may also be fixed by that - or a clean Windows install.

That's not always true. It depends on the design of the cooling system.

But probably best to try pepping up your old system first.

Tbh, I've never had it serviced- it never really occurred to me to do so. Thanks, I will look into doing what you suggested as I still want to keep my old defiance for storage and web browsing.

But primarily, I still want to upgrade to a new laptop.

 

[Scott]

There's no way that laptop is done and dusted. It is crying out for a clean out with both the hardware and the software. You would be amazed at the life left in it IMO.

If you really want to upgrade then by all means, but I would strongly recommend you at least see what it's like after some routine maintenance. Purchasing a new laptop would see a fresh install of windows anyway, so start there. Backup everything and do a full root install of Windows with a complete wipe of all the partitions etc on the drive.

Once that is done. Get yourself some Grizzly CPU paste and strip all the coolers off, clean all the old solid paste off using either some alcohol or vodka (I just use cheap vodka, IPA is often said to be best). Be sure to completely clean the chips AND the heatsink.

Apply a thin layer of the paste to the chips (I like to spread, some like a pea, some like a cross etc.... for a beginner I would recommend spreading as you can be sure you use enough and remove any excess).

Put it all back together, switch it on and bask in your handywork and newly brisk laptop performance.