Gaming Laptop...2G Budget...Few Questions...

[acenglish]

Howdy,

Going to be buying myself a laptop here shortly, and my budget is roughly 2000.00

Now I have looked into a few things, however I am by no means an expert with this stuff, which is why Im here seeking help.

I was told by various people to stay away from Alienware because they just stack prices because of their name. I was told to check into Asus laptops, specifically the G750 series I believe it was.

Now I did look into one of those, and it was within budget, but it has an 870M GPU, and I was told that I would want an 880M....I can get one of those placed in it, but it apparently bumps the price by about $400.00

Is it really worth it to pay 400 extra bucks to go from an 870 to and 880?

Im looking to keep this thing for the new few years, so I really need something solid, I do a lot of traveling for work, so this thing will be a main part of my life when on travel every month. Now, Im not partial to Asus in anyway, if someone has a different option, dont hesitate to throw it my way.

Heres a link to what I was looking at, hows it look for the price? http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231631

Thanks for the help,

-Allen

 

[azguard4]

For the cost difference, IMO, it's not worth it.

Here's some benchmarks comparing the two:
http/gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-880M-vs-GeForce-GTX-870M
http/www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-800m-graphics-performance,3800-5.html

The gain of the 880M is marginal and not justified by a $400 price tag.

 

[baka187]

http/www.networkworld.com/article/2169206/computers/eurocom-panther-5se--the-incredible-hulk-of-notebook-computers.html

 

[acenglish]

Well, the 400$ extra includes going from 16GB of ram to 24GB of ram....So I mean does that change anything?

 

[azguard4]

You don't need 24GB of RAM, that's ridiculous. I have 16GB in my rig and even when playing BF4 on max rez and all settings on ultra I don't utilize more than 40% of my 16GB.

 

[acenglish]

Sounds like this Asus could be the one then. Anyone got anything better than the one I posted in the link, for the 1750 pricetag?

 

[Dblkk]

Sounds like this Asus could be the one then. Anyone got anything better than the one I posted in the link, for the 1750 pricetag?

I went through all asus models but rendering on them caused cpu to throttle. Gaming wise, god I loved them.
Ended up with an MSI GT&) Dominator Pro. For $1800 I got i7 4810, 16gb ram, blu ray burner, and gtx 880m.

But I'd still recommend Asus G750 hands down any day of the week.

I ended up with the msi only because the single fan for both cpu/gpu cooled the cpu enough. Asus has one fan for each, but a smaller on cpu, which for gaming is more than enough. But I took out the 880m from my laptop, and bought a quaddro k5100m to replace it with. Now its a workstation. Only reason I went msi wasn't the ability to change out graphics, but just cpu cooling wasn't enough. I still to this day (this happened like 4 months ago), still miss the Asus laptop, and kind of wish I gamed enough to warrant buying it just for gaming.

 

[Dblkk]

But as far as 870m vs 880m. Not worth $400. I'd personally opt for the JM model with the 860m. Its pure Maxwell, and a beat. $1200, for that config, buy a good sized ssd like the Samsung 840 evo 500gb for $300, and save $500. The 860m plays games on high settings. Uses just over half the power that the 870m uses, which means more battery savings and less heat.

Honest differences between 860m 870m and 880m are like 5 fps (maybe up to 10 on specific games) between each chip. If 5fps more is worth $400 to you, then opt for the 880m

 

[acenglish]

Yeah, Im pretty much done on thinking about getting an 880M now....So the difference between the 860 and 870 is really only 5-10 frames? If thats the case, I can probably just drop down to something with that inside it.

And thanks again for the input everyone.

 

[Dblkk]

Yeah, Im pretty much done on thinking about getting an 880M now....So the difference between the 860 and 870 is really only 5-10 frames? If thats the case, I can probably just drop down to something with that inside it.

And thanks again for the input everyone.

actual real world. Yes. Although 860m vs 870m. Some games like titanfall meant high settings 860m and ultra on 870m. Although on a 1080p laptop 17" screen, you'll be hard pressed to see a difference.

I started off with 860m JM asus version. Then swapped out for jm 2 more times, had two js models (870m), and ended with a jz (880m) model before going 'sadly' to msi.

If I were going for a gaming laptop. I would hands down, quote me on it, swear on my mother, go jm 860m model and a 512gb ssd for $300. Throw the 1tb hhd into the second bay D for big data. 512gb for os and programs, yes overkill. But speed and longevity are based on % total drive written to. Larger the drive, longer it takes to write over an individual cell. Cells only have limited number of writes (still a long time), but for the price, and speed, better to get a bigger now, than a cheaper and upgrade later.

Edit~~ There are two versions of the 860m, so be careful. THeres the kepler and Maxwell varients. So far all I know to be 100% is that asus uses Maxwell. MSI gigabyte, Lenovo and alienware use kepler. No performance differences, (maybe a frame), but power consumption, never cuda drivers, better physics, doesn't make sense to stay with kepler if Maxwell available on same chip. Out with old, in with new.

 

[03321]

http/www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-800m-graphics-performance,3800-5.html

This is what azguard linked earlier. According to benchmarks you're looking at more than a 5 FPS gap . More like 8-15 FPS each step for 1920x1080. In some cases, as mentioned, that means being able to change from High to Ultra settings. I still agree, though, that $400 for an 880M is not particularly cost-effective.

At this price range AMD's R9 M290X / 8970M is also in the mix. From what I've seen if you can save $100 going from the 870M to the M290X it's worth it, and it will outperform the 860M. Just don't pair it with an AMD CPU or you will lose performance, gaming and otherwise.