Worried about gaming laptop spec.

[midnightL]

Hi all,

I have purchased the following gaming laptop from PCS. I wanted something that would last me into the future and allow me to play games at very high or the highest settings. I decided to go with a GTX 980m. I've had a look at the upcoming release of the 1080m (or notebook edition of the 1080) and everything I have seen says it really shines at 4k. I would not want to be making the upgrade to a 4k screen and getting a 1080m as what I have now is the upper limit of my price range.

I've been pretty excited about this laptop and when it will be delivered, I've checked some games that are about to come out to see if I can really test what I have. I have had a look at the min and recommended specs for deus Ex mankind divided and I've been extremely disappointed to see that it recommends a GTX 970. I've compared the 970 to the 980m and I will not have a card that matches the recommended card for the latest game.

I thought the 1080m would be overkill but is this something I should be getting even if I play at 1080p? Everything I have read said it was overkill and said the 980m would be able to play games for around 3 years to come.

My personal circumstances mean I will need a laptop for now, this can't change. I'll be getting my first desktop gaming rig in around 3-4 years.

Also, I've read a little about some people recommending 16gb ram for gaming. Should I be doing this to future proof or is 8GB enough. I would only be playing a game, not having loads of stuff open while gaming.

Also, is thermal paste worth it?

Here are the specs:

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 6700HQ (2.6GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
8GB HyperX IMPACT 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE HYBRID 2.5" SSHD Drive, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
128GB SAMSUNG SM951 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2000MB/R, 650MB/W)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8260 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
4 x USB 3.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (60WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 200W AC Adaptor
Keyboard Language
DEFIANCE SERIES 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
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month 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
Quantity
1

Thanks for all your help. Really appreciated.

 

[SlimCini]

I will be playing and enjoying mankind divided on my 680m which is pee'd all over by a 980m...relax.

My 680m is years old and can still play all modern games including Witcher 3 and GTA5. Settings turned down albeit, but they still look great and play fine. You'll be playing on a 980m for years.

 

[Oussebon]

In your position I would consider cancelling the order and wait and see what the options are with the new GPUs that are expected to be released shortly.

The GTX 970 (desktop one) is already struggling a little bit with the highest settings of a few new games (e.g. the Division).

The 980M is very likely to be able to play games for many years to come, but I don't think you'll be pushing very high settings on AAA title releases in 3 years time on a mobile GPU that's already almost 2 years old.

Even if you don't need a GTX 1080m, what we saw with the desktop cards of the -70 and -60 tiers was performance of high end previous generation cards being brought down significantly in price. So the GTX 980 ti's performance (£500+) became available through the GTX 1070 (~£380+) and the GTX 980's performance (~£400) available in the GTX 1060 (~£250). Not to mention the pascal GPUs performing better in DX12 games such as Ashes. So by waiting to see what the mobile pascal offerings are you would have the option to acquire a more powerful GPU, or to get something similar to the 980m, with somewhat better DX12 support, potentially at a much lower price.

There's also some expectation that the pascal mobile cards will have a proportionately smaller performance gap with their desktop counterparts than maxwell, though whether that's hype or not we'll have to wait a week or so and see.

Buying a top end GPU from an old gen days before the new gen is released is arguably not the soundest play.

On the point about the RAM, 8gb is fine and if you want to add more in a year or whenever you can do so yourself as there would be a vacant DIMM available.

 

[midnightL]

Does anyone know what the price difference might be? I have the laptop above ordered for 1300. Would a 1080m included in the same build be 1500? 1600? I guess that may be the deciding point.

Oussebon, do you think I'll be getting the 1060m or the 1070m for cheaper??

 

[Oussebon]

Your guess is as good as mine I'm afraid. It depends how powerful they are as to how they'll be priced. It could be that the GTX 1060(m) (though I don't think they'll actually carry the 'm' in the name) gives greater than 980m performance at a lower price by being closer to the desktop 1060 performance than the 980m is to the desktop 980.

If the need for the laptop isn't urgent, I'd suggest cancelling and waiting to see.

 

[Oussebon]

The new Defiance III seems to offer a 1060 (laptop) with g-sync screen for £30 less than the old Defiance II with its 980M. The 1060 is significantly better than the 980M:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-Pascal-for-Notebooks-In-depth-Benchmarks-for-the-Geforce-GTX-1080-SLI-GTX-1070-and-GTX-1060.171566.0.html

It is still slightly below the GTX 970's performance, but not by very much. And perhaps the better DX12 support will help close that gap in Deus Ex (assuming its DX12 is more like Ashes than WH:TW).

Depending on what your budget options are, there would be some argument for going for a GTX 1070 (laptop) as it offers 48% better performance than the 1060 (laptop), and 28% better performance than the 1060 (desktop), for an overall increase to the build cost of ~17%

Though if that's just too expensive, you'd still getting better value with the new 1060 (laptop) over the old 980M

 

[midnightL]

The new Defiance III seems to offer a 1060 (laptop) with g-sync screen for £30 less than the old Defiance II with its 980M. The 1060 is significantly better than the 980M:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-Pascal-for-Notebooks-In-depth-Benchmarks-for-the-Geforce-GTX-1080-SLI-GTX-1070-and-GTX-1060.171566.0.html

It is still slightly below the GTX 970's performance, but not by very much. And perhaps the better DX12 support will help close that gap in Deus Ex (assuming its DX12 is more like Ashes than WH:TW).

Depending on what your budget options are, there would be some argument for going for a GTX 1070 (laptop) as it offers 48% better performance than the 1060 (laptop), and 28% better performance than the 1060 (desktop), for an overall increase to the build cost of ~17%

Though if that's just too expensive, you'd still getting better value with the new 1060 (laptop) over the old 980M

Thank you so so much for your help! I really do appreciate it.

I've arrived at the same conclusion and will be going for the 1070 in this laptop. Do you know if a laptop like this would ever get the 1080? Or is the 1080 just too big?

Also, I was considering the Octane laptop and putting in a i7 6700 but so far I have read that it isn't really worth it for me. Seems like it would only be useful on CPU intensive tasks and I do not see myself doing many of those. And I didn't see much of a difference in the i7 6700hq and the i7 6820hk. I think the power efficiency from the i7 6700hq would be best for me.

The Octane does look better though.

 

[Oussebon]

It seems I misread earlier - I'm not sure that the Defiance III does have a g-sync panel (the GPUs in the configurator say g-sync, but on reflection I think that just means they support it rather than the monitor has it). It's not necessarily a big deal, but I mention it as a correction, and as it it something the Octane has that the Defiance doesn't.

At 1080p there's not much point to a GTX 1080. Even the cut-down laptop version of the 1070 seems to be plenty.

Here are some benchmarks of the various CPUs: http://tinyurl.com/jedfsr9

 

[midnightL]

Thank for your help. PCS has to refund me my previous order and then I can make a new order.

 

[midnightL]

It seems I misread earlier - I'm not sure that the Defiance III does have a g-sync panel (the GPUs in the configurator say g-sync, but on reflection I think that just means they support it rather than the monitor has it). It's not necessarily a big deal, but I mention it as a correction, and as it it something the Octane has that the Defiance doesn't.

At 1080p there's not much point to a GTX 1080. Even the cut-down laptop version of the 1070 seems to be plenty.

Here are some benchmarks of the various CPUs: http://tinyurl.com/jedfsr9

Ah! FFS, this is getting really frustrating now

I've had a look at G-SYNC and it seems like a worthwhile feature. I think I might go up to the Octane iii and get the i5 6600k. It will be a £150 increase for the monitor and for the processor.

This will be the third laptop I purchase, PCS will have around £4000 of my money. Please don't go bust!

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ah! FFS, this is getting really frustrating now

I've had a look at G-SYNC and it seems like a worthwhile feature. I think I might go up to the Octane iii and get the i5 6600k. It will be a £150 increase for the monitor and for the processor.

This will be the third laptop I purchase, PCS will have around £4000 of my money. Please don't go bust!

Lols! Gsync is fantastic. Even at low frame rates it makes for a seamless experience. I'm on a 60hz 4K monitor with a 1080, maxing out rise of the tomb raider goes as low as 45fps which would have been a bit glitchy, but with Gsync, I don't even notice it's running slow. Well worthwhile!

 

[midnightL]

Lols! Gsync is fantastic. Even at low frame rates it makes for a seamless experience. I'm on a 60hz 4K monitor with a 1080, maxing out rise of the tomb raider goes as low as 45fps which would have been a bit glitchy, but with Gsync, I don't even notice it's running slow. Well worthwhile!

Jesus! Well at least it's a resounding worthwhile for this feature.

I'm just a little frustrated at thr process but I'll be happy once I have great laptop, to be fair, PCS have been great.

 

[midnightL]

OK so I have called PCS and some have told me it is a gsync monitor and some have told me it is not.

I now have an email saying it's a gsync monitor enabled at the dgpu level.

My question is, is that a gsync monitor? Or is that just saying the gpu is gsync enabled and the monitor is normal?

 

[SpyderTracks]

OK so I have called PCS and some have told me it is a gsync monitor and some have told me it is not.

I now have an email saying it's a gsync monitor enabled at the dgpu level.

My question is, is that a gsync monitor? Or is that just saying the gpu is gsync enabled and the monitor is normal?

The Octane III 15" definitely has a gsync monitor, 17" not so sure

 

[midnightL]

The Octane III 15" definitely has a gsync monitor, 17" not so sure

They said there would be no difference in the Octane iii and the defiance iii monitor. So I think it should be the same.

I called them again and they said the monitor would support gsync. I think it's fine. I'll get the laptop and if I find its not gsync then I can return it. It should be though.

I got them to send me an email confirming it was but he said it was gsync via being enabled on the dgpu, which I think just means it's controlled by the gpu and the monitor supports it (what they said).

 

[midnightL]

Does anyone know what clevo laptop the Defiance iii will be?

I can see they are finally listed on the website. Not sure if this will be a P650RS P65ORS-G P651RS or a P651RS-G.

Any help with that would be appreciated.

I've also not figured out a difference with the P650RS and P651RS.

 

[Scott]

17.3" Clevo P670RS-G
15.6" Clevo P650RS-G

 

[midnightL]

You're amazing. Take all the internet points I have.

That means it's 100% gsync.


Edit:
It also looks like PCS have the ports listed wrong. They just say 4 x USB 3.0's when it comes with:


• 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 port (Type-C)
• 3 x USB 3.0 ports (USB3.1 Gen1, 1 x powered USB port, AC/DC)
• 2 x Mini Display port 1.3
• 1 x HDMITM output port (with HDCP)
• 1 x 2-in-1 Audio jack (Headphone / S/PDIF Optical output)
• 1 x Microphone jack
• 1 x Line out jack
• 1 x RJ-45 LAN port
• 1 x DC-in jack

 

[Scott]

There isn't an internet points button but there's a rep button

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/reputation.php?do=addreputation&p=370178