Laptop compromise decision.

[Niten]

Hi all

I'm thinking about these two MSI Laptops

MSI
GL72M 7REX Intel® Core™ i7, 8Gb RAM, 1Tb Hard Drive & 256Gb SSD, 17.3 inch Full HD Gaming Laptop with GeForce GTX 1050Ti 2Gb Graphics at £989

or

MSI
GV72 7RE Intel® Core™ i7 Processor, 16Gb RAM, 1Tb Hard Drive, 17.3 inch Full HD Gaming Laptop with GeForce GTX 1050Ti 2Gb Graphics and includes MSI Rucksack at £929

Of course the compromise is the SSD vs another 8GB of Ram. Common sense tells me RAM all day long but, I have SSD on my desktop and I love it, this has 8GB of ram and I have no issues. Future proofing must be a consideration though.

Would love to hear any opinions on this, also, if anyone thinks this is a bad buy and has another laptop in mind, please let me know.

Many thanks

 

[JalYt_Justin]

Either one can probably be upgraded, whether it be to an SSD or a new stick of RAM. It also isn't stated what processor specifically it is, since Core i7 has a VAST range of CPUs, especially taking mobile CPUs into account.

I would take the one with the SSD for less headache. It's probably easier to add another stick of RAM than to add an SSD and re-install Windows (not taking into account the potential difference in processors)

 

[Niten]

Hi

In both cases the processor is a Intel® Core™ i7-7700HQ

 

[hang-the-9]

You can upgrade/change the RAM and drive easily so does not really matter what you picked. If I was buying it and could not swap anything in the future, I would take the SSD over the extra RAM.

 

[junii]

yea go with the one with the ssd, ssds don't come in cheap, you can easily pop the bottom add another stick of ram, but if you need future proofing go with the more ram, and the hdd isn't that big of a problem really.

 

[br00n0]

As above, your general experience will benefit more with a SSD instead of 16GB of RAM.

 

[robert600]

I don't necessarily disagree with anything anyone above has written but ... here's a few reasons to consider the 'higher ram' option.

While it's true that ram is easy to install ... there are a couple of potential problems (I'm going to assume those laptops have 2 slots for ram). The 1st problem is that the 'lower ram' laptop may have either a 8 gb stick of ram or ... it may have 2 4gb sticks. I would want to know the answer to that because if your ultimate goal is to have 16 gb of ram and the the laptop has 2 4gb sticks ... you would have to buy 2 8gb sticks (ram is not cheap). Ok, it may well be the case that it has 1 8gb stick ... in this case, you would only have to buy 1 8gb stick but this leads to the 2nd potential problem ... lots of folks say that for maximum performance - both ram sticks must be 'perfectly matched'. So ... the onus would be on you to 'perfectly match' the 8 gb stick that the laptop comes with. That may be trivial or complicated ... who knows? I think it's safe to assume that the laptop that comes with the 16 gb of ram has 'perfectly matched' sticks.

Another reason to consider the 'higher ram' laptop (assuming you want to upgrade to an SSD at some point) is that SSD prices are falling all the time whereas ram prices don't seem to be. So ... if you could hold off a bit on doing the ssd addition ... the upgrade would be cheaper than it is now (you've already got the 60 pound price differential in your favour too).

And of course, another reason is ... the supercool MSI rucksack ... lol

 

[Niten]

Thanks for your answers all you've helped a great deal.