Should I buy this laptop?

[connortheskunk]

Hey everyone,

My laptop is 5 years old now, and it is starting to break down, so I've decided to buy a new one. When I get my new laptop, I'd like to be able to run games at 1080p, 60fps on it AND be able to stream them to Twitch at the same time. Additionally, I'd like it to have Windows 10 (so not a Mac or any other type of computer). I don't know a lot about computer specs or anything, though. Pretty much all I know is that more RAM and more CPU=good. My budget is $1500.

I found this laptop on Amazon just now, and it seems pretty good, but I want to make sure that it will still work with what I am trying to do with it. Could somebody please give me some insight on whether or not this laptop is actually good enough to game and HD stream simultaneously? It would be greatly appreciated. If it's not up-to-par, I am open to suggestions.

Here is the laptop: https://www.amaQzon.com/dp/B06Y4GZS9C/ref=psdc_13896615011_t1_B01N0THPHM
The specs can be found by scrolling down about halfway. Link was not working when I posted the exact link so just remove the "Q" in the middle of Amazon and it should work.

 

[Crimcyan]

I dont know much about computers but this is the gaming laptop I have, and I love the thing so far after having it a little over a year and a half https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MRW12RC/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1518757579&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=asus+gl553ve&dpPl=1&dpID=51hqA2dWK9L&ref=plSrch&th=1&psc=1

 

[BahgDaddy]

Well since you're not getting a Mac I'm basically obligated to hate you.

JK.

If I hadn't bought a MPB the last couple times, I would have bought this thing instead:


ETA: Well that's annoying.

 

[defunct]

I strongly recommend getting yourself windows 7 when you do get it, 7 outperforms 10 in practically every aspect

 

[connortheskunk]

Well since you're not getting a Mac I'm basically obligated to hate you.

Pretty much everyone where I live has a Windows computer because the Microsoft Headquarters is only a few miles from Seattle. Windows computers are all I--and most other people living in my area--know how to use.

Honestly I would just get a desktop if I were you, more performance for your price. Unless you're traveling on a weekly basis for work laptop is really not necessary imo. I move pretty often for work and its not much of a hassle at all. As for vacations, they're for getting away from the comp.

>run games at 1080p, 60fps on it AND be able to stream them to Twitch at the same time

>laptop

I'd prefer a laptop because I'd like to be able to move my setup between rooms quickly, though I understand that desktops perform much better than laptops. However, they also seemed more expensive when I was researching, up to $3k, $4k, and even $5k in price, which is way out of my budget range. Regardless, do you have any suggestions?

 

[BahgDaddy]

Honestly I would just get a desktop if I were you, more performance for your price. Unless you're traveling on a weekly basis for work laptop is really not necessary imo. I move pretty often for work and its not much of a hassle at all. As for vacations, they're for getting away from the comp.

I can run Logic Pro X and Photoshop and a few other programs at once on my lithe MBP.

Pretty much everyone where I live has a Windows computer because the Microsoft Headquarters is only a few miles from Seattle. Windows computers are all I--and most other people living in my area--know how to use.

No worries sweetie, I twas jokin'!

 

[Sagt]

Pretty much all I know is that more RAM and more CPU=good.

Don't forget about GPU.

Edit: I wouldn't focus too much on RAM, by the way. At your price range, all gaming laptops should have enough.

Here is the laptop: https://www.amaQzon.com/dp/B06Y4GZS9C/ref=psdc_13896615011_t1_B01N0THPHM
The specs can be found by scrolling down about halfway. Link was not working when I posted the exact link so just remove the "Q" in the middle of Amazon and it should work.

I don't know if you're planning to use this laptop for tasks other than gaming, but if so, then you'll probably want more space. 256 GB can be used up very fast, depending on your habits; and in order to avoid that hassle, it might be worth the bigger investment.

While SSD is great for storing your OS and games, you'd ideally have HDD too, for general storage. I'm not entirely sure if they do something like that for pre-built laptops, but I think it would be worth having a look.

 

[Saiko]

I'd prefer a laptop because I'd like to be able to move my setup between rooms quickly, though I understand that desktops perform much better than laptops. However, they also seemed more expensive when I was researching, up to $3k, $4k, and even $5k in price, which is way out of my budget range. Regardless, do you have any suggestions?

Oh goodness, I have no idea what desktops you were looking at; but I can guarantee you they were either overpriced or overpowered. Here’s a build I put together last month that would outperform that laptop by a chunk while staying in your budget. Bear in mind that you probably would have to get a desk and peripherals which would cost at least another $350 ($100 desk, $200 monitor, $50 mouse and keyboard). I understand if the hidden costs throw it out of your budget. In that case, though, it’s worth considering waiting until the next wave of GPUs. NVidia’s 10-series cards are WAY overpriced because of the crypto-craze, and that’s adding about $200 to the price of the build I linked. With luck, the 11-series won’t have this problem.

Now, as far as that laptop goes, the main problem I see is the same as Lcs did. 256GB won’t last a week. You’re going to need at least 1TB for gaming, and most people I know can fill up 2TB. Thankfully this laptop has a second 2.5” drive bay, so you could buy another HDD to expand your storage. Otherwise I think it’s up to the task, provided you don’t mind lowering the antialiasing and anisotropic filtering settings on the more demanding or poorly optimized titles.

 

[connortheskunk]

Oh man, I didn't even think about how much space the laptop would give. Luckily, I do have a 1TB external Hard Drive I can connect via USB. That should work, right? Even if it doesn't, I'm not too worried about space. I guess I should have mentioned, I'm really going to be using it mainly for console gaming; there's only one or two PC games I ever play. I just needed a laptop powerful enough to run OBS, run the capture card software, and stream to Twitch all at once. Right now my current laptop can *barely* do the first two even with all the performance settings turned down most of the way (480p, 22fps... just really crappy all around), and you can forget about even trying to stream with it.

Thanks for your replies, @Saiko and @Lcs . I think I am going to go ahead and go with this one. I'll let you guys know how it works when I receive it in the mail. ^-^

 

[Saiko]

I just needed a laptop powerful enough to run OBS, run the capture card software, and stream to Twitch all at once. Right now my current laptop can *barely* do the first two even with all the performance settings turned down most of the way (480p, 22fps... just really crappy all around), and you can forget about even trying to stream with it.

Wait, hold off on the purchase if you haven't done it yet. How does video capture work with your current setup? There might be I/O requirements that I didn't know to check for, and laptops can be very picky about video.

Also in this use case 256GB will be okay; but the external HDD won't work in the long term if you start playing more PC games. The external HDD just won't have enough bandwidth to be enjoyable, and it probably wasn't rated for that much usage.

 

[Crimcyan]

I still recommend the asus rog gl553ve, 246gb ssd 1tb hdd. The only main problem is that it has a 1050ti graphics card which isn't recommend for vr, then there are also a few more asus laptops but they start getting more expensive.
The asus rog hero edition looks good too

 

[connortheskunk]

Wait, hold off on the purchase if you haven't done it yet. How does video capture work with your current setup? There might be I/O requirements that I didn't know to check for, and laptops can be very picky about video.

Also in this use case 256GB will be okay; but the external HDD won't work in the long term if you start playing more PC games. The external HDD just won't have enough bandwidth to be enjoyable, and it probably wasn't rated for that much usage.

Haven't made the purchase yet, thankfully. It is the Elgato Game Capture HD system. How it works is you connect the TV HDMI-Out to the capture card, then there is a second HDMI cable that runs from the capture card to the Xbox. Then there is a Micro USB running from the capture card that connects to your computer with a regular-sized USB. Then you download this software Download and Support | elgato.com and launch it. It has worked on my current laptop and my previous laptop without issues.

 

[Saiko]

Haven't made the purchase yet, thankfully. It is the Elgato Game Capture HD system. How it works is you connect the TV HDMI-Out to the capture card, then there is a second HDMI cable that runs from the capture card to the Xbox. Then there is a Micro USB running from the capture card that connects to your computer with a regular-sized USB. Then you download this software Download and Support | elgato.com and launch it. It has worked on my current laptop and my previous laptop without issues.

Alright, it should be fine then. The laptop has plenty of USB ports, and even USB 2.0 can support the 40 Mbps the HD60 puts out.

 

[connortheskunk]

Alright, it should be fine then. The laptop has plenty of USB ports, and even USB 2.0 can support the 40 Mbps the HD60 puts out.

Thank you for checking. You've been very helpful. I'll probably order the computer within the next couple days and let you know how it goes when I receive it.

 

[Wolfrix]

If storage is a problem later, it looks like there's a second drive bay in the laptop where you can add a hard drive to go along with the solid state. (I'm not positive).

Seems like a really good computer for the price. Graphics card is the most important part for gaming, and the gtx 1060 should be good for that.

 

[modfox]

any thing that isnt a asus x553m

 

[Ciderfine]

Desktop, never ever get a laptop unless its for school.

 

[GrowlBurger]

I strongly recommend getting yourself windows 7 when you do get it, 7 outperforms 10 in practically every aspect

There's no actual (well designed) tests which show that. It's performance is very similar to Win 7. Some things it does slightly faster, some things, slightly slower. There's no significant difference for the average user.

 

[Rochat]

There's no actual (well designed) tests which show that. It's performance is very similar to Win 7. Some things it does slightly faster, some things, slightly slower. There's no significant difference for the average user.

I borrowed a laptop with win 10 and I honestly liked it. It's so much better than 8 and considering it's the current thing I'd probably go with 10.

 

[defunct]

There's no actual (well designed) tests which show that. It's performance is very similar to Win 7. Some things it does slightly faster, some things, slightly slower. There's no significant difference for the average user.

I have seen a few, probably couldn't find them if I tried though. My biggest problem with it is stuff like adding candy crush and minecraft to the start menu, flattening everything, and removing small utilities like snipping tool and such. In the tech department, our school has like 30 or so pretty powerful computers for cad drawing that ran windows 7 last year and now run windows 10. If anyone is unfortunate enough to get stuck on a computer other than the one they used last time, the logon process takes, no joke, around 30 minutes. It's an eternity of "lots of new features to get excited about" and it's excruciating. By the time it finishes, the chances of getting any work done before class is over have dropped to zero. We never once had this problem with windows 7

 

[GrowlBurger]

Why are the computers not already set up in preparation for them? That seems to be the issue here, not Windows 10 its self... The added garbage is an understandable annoyance, but can be removed easily, both from start menu and HDD.

 

[defunct]

every computer at our school is networked together and any person can log on to any computer in the entire district. Windows 7 worked well with that, windows 10 does not. The worst part is that district office is requiring all computers to be updated to 10, even though every teacher, at least in the tech department, has complained about it

 

[GrowlBurger]

I admittedly don't know much about Windows Domain logon environments, but I would be VERY surprised if there wasn't a way to have that initial setup process done already in advance. Anyways, even if not, that's entirely irrelevant to an average end-user for a gaming/productivity desktop.

As for the performance issues, many organizations and people have tested it. The differences are negligible.

 

[Deleted member 106754]

I have seen a few, probably couldn't find them if I tried though. My biggest problem with it is stuff like adding candy crush and minecraft to the start menu, flattening everything, and removing small utilities like snipping tool and such. In the tech department, our school has like 30 or so pretty powerful computers for cad drawing that ran windows 7 last year and now run windows 10. If anyone is unfortunate enough to get stuck on a computer other than the one they used last time, the logon process takes, no joke, around 30 minutes. It's an eternity of "lots of new features to get excited about" and it's excruciating. By the time it finishes, the chances of getting any work done before class is over have dropped to zero. We never once had this problem with windows 7

I am a bit late to the party, but please..

Please, do not recommend someone that just want to play games to get windows 7, by also saying that it's better in every aspect than win10 while you're at it.
Recommending your average user to get Win7 today over win10 is honestly pointless when buying new hardware, actually a bad trap they might get shit for later.

Unless the user themselves is a power user and know exactly why they need and want win7, anyone on the outside telling them win7 is faster in a one sentence post is quite the misleading pointer. Updating old school hardware for work to win10 is not equal to getting a new pc with win10 pre installed and actual hardware made for it.
Anyone can also remove bloatware that comes with a new system today. The OP did not specifically ask for a cad machine, nor a machine being a part of a school network that could be controlled anywhere.

The OP asked for a machine they could play games and stream on, Win10 does it just as well if not better than win7 does and we cannot forget that win7 doesn't even support a new API like DirectX 12 which could be of way more importance when wanting to play and stream new and upcoming games.

I used to be on the anti 10 bandwagon as well, in a sense I still am. I myself do not like Win10 for the data collecting they do, and in general how UI works compared to an old Win7, but for a hard boiled game and stream machine win10 takes the cake with good boot times too.
It's more about the hardware and pre-loaded software than it has to do with the OS anyway. You have to take into account what the actual user want first and what would be better for them, not what you believe is a good/bad thing in a completely different environment.