Hi everyone,
Looking for a laptop that is in the US$500 - $1000 range. Want it for general office work, but also some gaming. In particular, I'd like to play Valheim on medium to high-ish settings.
Primary issue: Valheim suggests 16GB RAM, but it seems like most laptops that have 16GB are all mid-range gaming laptops. If you try to go budget-ish range, they drop the RAM on all models to 8GB. Why?
I'm playing Valheim on a desktop with a very old Core i5-750, 12GB RAM, GTX 960, with medium settings and its fine, getting like 40 fps. I know desktops are usually better than laptops for similar specs, but yeah mine's old.
So I'd think I don't need the latest and greatest 2022 laptop. Like maybe an older 2020 would be ok with reasonable Graphics and RAM.
(1) It seems like the Budget gaming price-point for GPUs is the 3050, whereas the 3060 seems to be in mid-range laptops at prices > US$1000. Does anyone have an opinion on the 3050's gaming performance re Valheim?
(2) I'd like to attempt to have at least mediocre battery life. Obviously more performance drains the battery more. I've found a couple Dell G15 laptops that seem to have reasonable specs for ~$1000... i5 processor, 16GB ram, 512GB SSD, 3050 GPU. But then you look at reviews, and they are like "battery life is about 2 hours". Two hours? That's pretty poor. I'm ok having less performance for longer battery life, but does anyone have a suggestion on how to spec the laptop to target that?
And, of course, people aren't specifying what they mean when they state 2 hours... is that 2 hours while playing games at full throttle? Or just doing office work? Obviously the gaming will drain that battery... I wish the companies would actually list the battery type so the battery performance can be standardized. Is there a way to find that out?
(3) Yeah, hard to find that 16GB RAM in a laptop that will not be super-duper stellar mid-range. I've been looking at Dell and Acer gaming laptops. Maybe I should try a different company? I also noticed that these companies (or at least 3rd party sellers) don't seem to list what type of RAM it is (i.e. is it DDR4, DDR5? Who knows, they don't tell you). Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get the RAM up, and assessing the RAM performance based on generation, while keeping the other specs mediocre so that maybe the battery is longer lasting?
I wish we could build laptops like we build desktops, but I get that's just not where the market is. I know I've asked a lot of questions, any responses are much appreciated!
Looking for a laptop that is in the US$500 - $1000 range. Want it for general office work, but also some gaming. In particular, I'd like to play Valheim on medium to high-ish settings.
Primary issue: Valheim suggests 16GB RAM, but it seems like most laptops that have 16GB are all mid-range gaming laptops. If you try to go budget-ish range, they drop the RAM on all models to 8GB. Why?
I'm playing Valheim on a desktop with a very old Core i5-750, 12GB RAM, GTX 960, with medium settings and its fine, getting like 40 fps. I know desktops are usually better than laptops for similar specs, but yeah mine's old.
So I'd think I don't need the latest and greatest 2022 laptop. Like maybe an older 2020 would be ok with reasonable Graphics and RAM.
(1) It seems like the Budget gaming price-point for GPUs is the 3050, whereas the 3060 seems to be in mid-range laptops at prices > US$1000. Does anyone have an opinion on the 3050's gaming performance re Valheim?
(2) I'd like to attempt to have at least mediocre battery life. Obviously more performance drains the battery more. I've found a couple Dell G15 laptops that seem to have reasonable specs for ~$1000... i5 processor, 16GB ram, 512GB SSD, 3050 GPU. But then you look at reviews, and they are like "battery life is about 2 hours". Two hours? That's pretty poor. I'm ok having less performance for longer battery life, but does anyone have a suggestion on how to spec the laptop to target that?
And, of course, people aren't specifying what they mean when they state 2 hours... is that 2 hours while playing games at full throttle? Or just doing office work? Obviously the gaming will drain that battery... I wish the companies would actually list the battery type so the battery performance can be standardized. Is there a way to find that out?
(3) Yeah, hard to find that 16GB RAM in a laptop that will not be super-duper stellar mid-range. I've been looking at Dell and Acer gaming laptops. Maybe I should try a different company? I also noticed that these companies (or at least 3rd party sellers) don't seem to list what type of RAM it is (i.e. is it DDR4, DDR5? Who knows, they don't tell you). Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get the RAM up, and assessing the RAM performance based on generation, while keeping the other specs mediocre so that maybe the battery is longer lasting?
I wish we could build laptops like we build desktops, but I get that's just not where the market is. I know I've asked a lot of questions, any responses are much appreciated!
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