Gaming Laptop recommendation for Strategy Games

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jorge_medion

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Jan 20, 2018
9
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510
Hi,

I started looking and making a budget for a new gaming laptop to play Strategy games. My top budget would be 3,000 € (~2600 £). The games I want to run:

- The heaviest or most demanding: Empire Total War, Napoleon Total War, Shogun 2 Total War, Rome 2 Total War.

- Medium demanding: Scourge of War Waterloo, Ultimate General Civil War, Medieval II Total War, The Seven Years War.

- Lowest or less demanding: March to Glory, Pike and Shot Campaigns, Take Command - 2nd Manassas.

I have been looking at some of them, I am interested in CPU i7-8750H or i7-7820HK and GPU Nvidia GTX 1070 or Nvidia RTX 2060 with 16 GB DDR4 RAM and SSD. What is your opinion?
 

geofelt

Distinguished
Strategy games tend to depend on the cpu more than graphics.
The newer gen i7-8750H will be stronger of the two you listed.
I doubt you can do much better.

How much do you need the portability of a laptop?
Perhaps you could build a stronger desktop for the same budget.
 

jorge_medion

Prominent
Jan 20, 2018
9
0
510
I need to have a laptop since I am not living in the same place and I need to travel and work abroad. I understand your concerns about using a gaming laptop to play games, but I now have a gaming laptop I purchased in Mexico in 2016 when I was living there, now I am living in Spain (my home country) and this laptop is still with me and runs fine, is the best computer I've ever had and still works great. Since I do not have much time, neither I don't consider myself as a gamer since I do more things with my free time, I don't expend much time playing, just as a casual player, but I play few games, just strategy games.

In this gaming laptop I have Total War games and the games mentioned: Empire Total War, Napoleon Total War, Shogun 2 Total War, Rome 2 Total War, Attila Total War. Except for Attila, where I have the settings on medium/high and Rome 2 where I have shadows on ultra and alpha vegetation off, I play the other Total War games with everything maxed. The fps while are not great, are good enough to provide a good gaming experience. For Rome 2 Total War and almost everything maxed, with the old patch I have 46.9 fps on average, and Attila in medium/high settings I get 39.2 fps on average in the test tool. These are my computer specs.

Alienware 17 R3:
CPU: Intel Core i7 6700 HQ (Base frequency: 2.2 GHz, Turbo frequency: 3.5 GHz)
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (2132 MHz)
HDD: 1 TB SATA 7200 RPM
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M 3GB DDR5
OS: Windows 10 Home 64 bits
Price: ~1500 € (back in 2016)

I can wait until I have a better financial situation and this computer is still working fine. Considering the limitations of gaming laptops I don't play more demanding games and I decided to stop in Rome 2 Total War. According to my experience with my Alienware, is perfectly possible to have a good gaming experience in the games mentioned since I still play most of them with max. settings (Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 are older games). Nowadays, there are better gaming laptops than mine, for the same price or a little more expensive with a GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 which is more powerful than GTX 970M and with a better CPU than Intel Core i7-6700HQ. I may consider Thrones of Britannia Total War as well since it is said to have a better performance than Attila Total War, that doesn't work well even in the best deskptop gaming computers.
 
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