Worth the extra cost for 2060 to 2080 maxq + 8750h to 9750h?

[Pacman99]

Hello all,

My clevo p650re recently died, it was one of the old "defiance" laptops from pcs. I was very happy with it and probably would have used it for another year, but sadly it wasn't to be.

So I've been looking for a new laptop and was about to pull the trigger on the 16.1" defiance VI, with 8750h cpu and 2080 max-q gpu. The price was around £1600. However I just went on to it and only have the option for 9750h cpu, at some point between 3 hours ago and now the 8750h options disappeared and I simply don't want to pay the extra ~£150 for it.

So I went back to one of the earlier builds that I made today on the 15.6" Recoil III. It has 8750h cpu and 2060 gpu, and costs ~£600 less than the Defiance!

It seems from benchmarks that the 9750h cpu isn't much better than 8750h, so I don't mind about the cpu (why I don't wanna pay so much more). However I'm not sure I wanna drop from 2080 maxq to 2060. Does anyone have some advice? Would it be very noticeable?

It doesn't seem like upgrading from 2060 to 2070 maxq is worth it.

I should add that I travel internationally very frequently and am drawn to the defiance and recoil as they are very thin laptops. I know the proteus and vortex can probably be made at better spec but they just seem a bit... Bulky. The vortex can be made with a 2070 though for around ~£1500, but yeah... I'm attracted to those thinner laptops.

Overall I suppose I'm just wondering how great a performance loss there will be between a 9750h + 2080 max q v 8750h + 2060.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Oussebon]

I'd advocate for the Vortex as that is 15.6" and offers a 'full' laptop 2070 (i.e. not a 2070 max-q).

Also has gsync unlike the others, so if you game that's a bonus.

It also sports thunderbolt, and while I'm not a massive eGPU advocate, it's not bad to have the option...

It's not as thin, but the weight isn't too bad (2.5kg).

Part of the Recoil and Defiance being thinner seems to mean that the cooling capability is a little more limited, hence why the only offer Max-Q GPUs, versus the full 2070 in the Vortex.

as for performance numbers, it will vary depending on chassis, but for an example:

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q Review

Following our coverage into Nvidia's laptop RTX GPUs, today we're reviewing the top-end RTX 2080 Max-Q. As an "RTX 2080" Turing part, this GPU comes with 2944...

www.techspot.com

Desktop vs. Laptop Gaming with the RTX 2070

Gaming laptops have earned their place in the market and that's not up for debate. The idea is to show laptop buyers exactly how their systems will...

www.techspot.com

 

[barlew]

I was in the same boat as you last week Pacman, after Oussebon and others gave me advice i decided to go for the Vortex over the Recoil and the Defiance (previously i had a defiance).

The vortex does not seem much bigger than the other two laptops but you get way more options for configuration.

 

[Scott]

I notice there's a 240hz 9980HK option now too. Very pricy though, interesting none the less. 8 cores, 16 threads and 5.0ghz boost on a laptop chip..... curious to see how that runs!

 

[phitol]

Some good info above.

If I was only buying the laptop primarily for gaming using the inbuilt screen, I'd have chosen the Vortex with G-Sync as well, it might be thicker (~30mm vs ~20mm for the Defiance) but obviously it does appear to have a little more cooling capacity. I'd also go with the full fat 2070 over the 2060 to maximise the performance.
Note, the Vortex (from reviews on here) seem to be running CPU 55W/ 90W PL1/2 power limits (assuming the owners left those stock) vs the defiances 50W / 78W, this does mean it can generate (and clearly dissipate) a little more energy.

Mobile GPUs are a mess in general, the only saving grace for PCS is the various implementations they have perform well and you can't really go wrong.

In general, the only card to avoid is the 2070max-q, that seems to have no place at all..

Also, I would not be scared of the 2080mq, the price of the defiance is a bargain relative to the larger brands and in benchmarks such as 3D Mark it seems to score a little higher than the Vortex with 2070 (based on reviews on these forums) which is also in line with the 3D Mark results database, but it's not a huge gap and can be swings and roundabouts depending on the games, I'd just put them roughly on-par, however you don't get G-Sync on the Defiance, it's just a solid very thin gaming laptop.

 

[Pacman99]

Thank you all for the replies and info.

I decided in the end to go for the 15.6" Vortex with 9750h cpu and 2070 gpu.

Though I would have liked the thinner models it was hard in the end to justify to myself paying the money when I could get a better spec in the vortex for same or less cost.

 

[phitol]

Definitely gets a thumbs up from me!

I agree on the VFM front, I recommend the vortex to most people for this exact reason.

 

[barlew]

Thank you all for the replies and info.

I decided in the end to go for the 15.6" Vortex with 9750h cpu and 2070 gpu.

Though I would have liked the thinner models it was hard in the end to justify to myself paying the money when I could get a better spec in the vortex for same or less cost.

Has it arrived yet and have you run any benchmarks? I would love to know what sort of heat your CPU is kicking out so i can compare it to mine.

 

[Pacman99]

Has it arrived yet and have you run any benchmarks? I would love to know what sort of heat your CPU is kicking out so i can compare it to mine.

Yes it arrived on Wednesday 28th. Been out of the country so havent been able to thoroughly use it yet. I will get benchmarks soon. What benchmarks do you run? I will try get a direct comparison.


*edit* As ive said ive not had time to run full tests yet but I tested Assassins Creed Odyssey on the benchmark, ultra settings and averaged someting like 55 fps. HWMonitor showed 97 degrees max cpu temp.
One thing thats concerned me a bit is whilst installing various programs and downloaded games the cpu fan was running 100%. I checked temps and was sitting around 78 degrees. Cores were sitting at 3888Mhz on average. I expected it to sit with lower fan speeds when doing general tasks.

 

[Pacman99]

Has it arrived yet and have you run any benchmarks? I would love to know what sort of heat your CPU is kicking out so i can compare it to mine.

15.6" Vortex IX Benchtesting results

Hello all, I recieved my Vortex last week and after playing around have run some benchmarking for anyone who is interested to see. Additionally if anyone has any suggestions or improvements they can see then let me know! Intel Extreme Tuning Utility Stress test. I used this program to...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[phitol]

Yes it arrived on Wednesday 28th. Been out of the country so havent been able to thoroughly use it yet. I will get benchmarks soon. What benchmarks do you run? I will try get a direct comparison.


*edit* As ive said ive not had time to run full tests yet but I tested Assassins Creed Odyssey on the benchmark, ultra settings and averaged someting like 55 fps. HWMonitor showed 97 degrees max cpu temp.
One thing thats concerned me a bit is whilst installing various programs and downloaded games the cpu fan was running 100%. I checked temps and was sitting around 78 degrees. Cores were sitting at 3888Mhz on average. I expected it to sit with lower fan speeds when doing general tasks.

The CPU ramping up through relatively light use is fairly normal for a gaming laptop it's because in 'performance' power mode it maxes out the CPU power limit so the CPU can through as much processing power at even small tasks.

A couple of things to note
1. use the 'fn + 3' keyboard shortcut to switch power modes (Quiet is actually the lowest power mode).
2. Alternatively / additionally left click the battery icon in the systray, you should have a slider appear, if you set that in the middle it will allow the CPU to ramp down more when idle, if it's all the way to the right it is pretty much max'd out all the time and it takes almost nothing to get it hot. This slider is adjustable for AC and on Battery so I tend to have it one step from left when on battery, and one step from the right on AC.

 

[Pacman99]

The CPU ramping up through relatively light use is fairly normal for a gaming laptop it's because in 'performance' power mode it maxes out the CPU power limit so the CPU can through as much processing power at even small tasks.

A couple of things to note
1. use the 'fn + 3' keyboard shortcut to switch power modes (Quiet is actually the lowest power mode).
2. Alternatively / additionally left click the battery icon in the systray, you should have a slider appear, if you set that in the middle it will allow the CPU to ramp down more when idle, if it's all the way to the right it is pretty much max'd out all the time and it takes almost nothing to get it hot. This slider is adjustable for AC and on Battery so I tend to have it one step from left when on battery, and one step from the right on AC.

Ah thanks for pointing that out, I have not yet explored all of these options yet. I will change the settings to keep it quieter and cooler unless I am gaming.