Gaming laptops: performance vs reliability

[twitch_uk]

Hi all,

I'm looking for input from people with a bit of knowledge/experience of reliability of gaming laptops, from a thermals point of view.

I've had a couple of gaming laptops in the past, and they're great for gaming away from home. Unfortunately, in my experience the GPUs are prone to failure. Although I don't have any hard data, I suspect that the OEMs that make these kinds of machines are a bit too over-optimistic as to how much heat a chassis can get rid of, which results in severe temperature cycles. My theory is that it as soon as a bit of dust builds up, the temperature cycles from gaming sessions become very severe, and eventually BGA pins start popping. Even if you religiously prevented dust build, the temperature cycles might still be severe enough to drastically shorten lifetime.

I'm in the market for a gaming laptop, but I'm wary of getting another machine which may prove unreliable within the space of a few months or a year, as has generally been the case in the past. For example, right now SCAN are offering a tasty-looking 15.6" gaming laptop:

http/3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=1609

I'm wondering how feasible that laptop really is. The TDP of the GTX 765M is apparently ~60-65W. The TDP of of the i7 4900MQ is ~47W. Throw in another 10W or so for other functions makes ~125W. Am I right in thinking that 125W will create some pretty severe temperature cycles on a 15.6" chassis without some kind of fancy cooling solution?

I'm starting to think that unreliability may just be something that comes with the territory if you want a gaming laptop good enough to run up-to-date games.

Any opinions?

 

[bthizle1]

GSW, I´m interested in how that laptop treats you. What kind of games are you running? You don´t by chance happen to play any of the Total War series? I´d love to know how the laptop is with FPS and temps on some more taxing games.

 

[GSW]

GSW, I´m interested in how that laptop treats you. What kind of games are you running? You don´t by chance happen to play any of the Total War series? I´d love to know how the laptop is with FPS and temps on some more taxing games.

I really don't do a lot of gaming, at least not to this point. I do on occasion get on Secondlife, which depending on settings and location, can be rather difficult for many computers to handle well. I can tell you, that when in secondlife, and having turned on virtually all graphics options, the worst I saw it run about 14FPS. With my old computer.. I was never able to turn on all options, or run like this.

Turning off a few fancy options in SL, like shadows , I went from about 14FPS, up to 29FPS... and quite frankly I don't really need shadows very badly. if I run with more modest settings, I can easily get 50 to 60 fps..

Playing around with settings in SL, it seems one of the most intense settings, has to do with shadows.... if you turn on all atmospheric options, including shadows, that's when you take the biggest hit... Since, SL, is not really a game , unless you RP etc... this level of graphics, is mostly used for pure visual effect, taking photos and such... Well I can tell you that when running like this for about a hour, the GPU pegged at 99% usage , 901Mhz... the CPU temp was about 75C, and the GPU was around 66C. ( I did buy the IC Diamond paste installed by Sager, not sure how much this is really helping). This was with ambient room temps right around 75 degrees F. Based on this experience, I would say the NP7352, is capable of playing pretty intense gaming, for indefinite periods of time, that is, it would seem that the cooling system is able to keep things under control.

As for how well it will actually play the games you want... Well I would recommend comparing the GTX 765M to other GPUs that you may be familar with and decide for yourself if the GPU is capable of performance that you feel you need. What I know for sure, is that the 765M, running at 99% load, 901Mhz... the NP7352 cooling system will keep it within reasonable temperature limits...

If there is some way to make this thing run at a faster clock rate then 901Mhz... I have no idea what it would do, but it would seem that if you wanted to push GPU temps a bit higher then 66C, it may have a little more left in it. For me, I'm fine with the way it's running