Need help picking between these 3 laptops for Work/Gaming

KingofBaktria

Commendable
Feb 27, 2016
6
0
1,510
Hi all, I got a new job thats gonna have me on the road a lot and I want to invest in a Work/Gaming Laptop that I can use on the road, so Far I have decided on these 3 models, and I was hoping you can give your opinion on which you would use and any others you can suggest for a budget of $2,500:

MSI GT73VR Titan Pro
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154680&ignorebbr=1

Asus GL702VI
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234744&ignorebbr=1

Alienware 17 R4
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834861161&ignorebbr=1

For reference, the games i'm currently playing are Total war Warhammer 2, Shadow of War and Witcher 3 and I usually play at High/Max Settings so I think the 3 I've chosen could run these games. Also which of the 3 has the best cooling in your opinion. thank You
 
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I meant where you going to use it. it's well above 30C where I live. When I was a student (and even now at work) I liked to do things outdoors. So my laptops could get very toasty and even throttle (especially MBPr 2015 from my last job).
If you are going to use it mostly indoors (for serious load), you shouldn't worry. Alienware is loud under load, so be prepared to use headphones while gaming.
Other things to consider when picking a laptop is what exactly you are going to do with it and how long you want to keep it without changes.
Those laptops are upgradeable in terms of RAM and storage so some things could be changed later.
so, for a 17.3" a 1440p screen is optimal. if you are going to play on laptop's monitor, high refresh rate...

n0ns3ns3

Commendable
May 25, 2016
136
0
1,710
should be fine if you are not living in over 40C environment.
the reason behind the recommendation is the 120Hz G-SYNC panel and GTX 1080. you will have a lot of fun in gaming for quite a few years.
As for the work, quad core i7 + 16GB + SSD are on all of them, so there is no difference.
but why you have skipped this one ?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G5WM2861
it has the best resolution (1080p is a bit too little for 17" and 4K is overkill). 1440p@120Hz is kinda perfect for the size.
 

KingofBaktria

Commendable
Feb 27, 2016
6
0
1,510


Well, I kinda live in an area that can get as hot as 49C, I didn't see that one, how is the cooling on Alienware Laptops?
 

n0ns3ns3

Commendable
May 25, 2016
136
0
1,710
loud :)
MSI laptop you linked will run cooler and quieter due to much thicker chassis.
the thing is that 49C is a lot. I can't think of a gaming laptop that will be able to run games without throttling at over 40C room temperature.
I guess you will want to keep the room temperature at 30C or less to run any gaming laptop at full load.
 

KingofBaktria

Commendable
Feb 27, 2016
6
0
1,510


Ah, you meant indoors, Outdoors it reaches 49c, indoors its about 25c, and since I mostly game at home temp shouldn't be a problem.
 

n0ns3ns3

Commendable
May 25, 2016
136
0
1,710
I meant where you going to use it. it's well above 30C where I live. When I was a student (and even now at work) I liked to do things outdoors. So my laptops could get very toasty and even throttle (especially MBPr 2015 from my last job).
If you are going to use it mostly indoors (for serious load), you shouldn't worry. Alienware is loud under load, so be prepared to use headphones while gaming.
Other things to consider when picking a laptop is what exactly you are going to do with it and how long you want to keep it without changes.
Those laptops are upgradeable in terms of RAM and storage so some things could be changed later.
so, for a 17.3" a 1440p screen is optimal. if you are going to play on laptop's monitor, high refresh rate and adaptive sync are very welcome.
GPU, for 1440p@120Hz the ultimate treat is GTX 1080. but 1070 will do just fine in games where high FPS really matters (CS:GO, Overwatch, BF, DOOM, Quake Champions etc.)
RAM = 16GB is perfectly fine unless you going to do things like running multiple virtual machines.
storage - HDDs in laptops are slow, so you don't really want to load games from HDD - it might be annoying. I don't know how much space you programs and games take, but it's really nice to have them all on SSD. so the ~250GB is the recommended min. Something like 512GB-1TB is perfect but might be costly. The practical solution is to buy a large M.2 SATA SSD like Crucial MX300 and put it in a spare M.2 slot. in Alienwaer there are 3 M.2 slots, one is used by the NVMe SSD that comes with it, one is a bit short for most SSDs and the last one is normal 80mm long slot. And you can get them for really low price. Last year black friday I got 750GB Crucial MX300 SSD for 99$ from Amazon. Those SSDs are not as fast as the NVMe ones, but still way more faster than HDDs.
About Alienware 17 R4, it's one of the highest rated laptops in the class. So really recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fURkRSbO20k
And you know, it's Alienware :). When I was younger Alienware was a wet dream of every geek just for the brand :)
 
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