Which Clevo 157 sm or Valkyrie cz-15 3?

[jravi]

Hello,

I am looking for a new laptop for gaming purposes because I will be living abroad and will be forced to travel a lot for work. I would like to play most games coming out for the next several years.

The two laptops I am looking at are the following:

Valkyrie CZ-15 15.6" Full HD 1920x1080 LED-Backlit Display Laptop w/HDMI Port, E-SATA, USB 3.0, Illuminated Keyboard, Li-Ion Battery, Universal AC Power Adapter - Original Metallic black
Intel® Core™ i7-4700MQ Mobile Processor (4x 2.4GHz/6MB L3 Cache)
Memory
16GB [8GB x 2] 1600MHz DDR3 SO-DIMM Laptop Memory - Corsair or Major Brand
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5 Video w/ NVIDIA Optimus [CZ-15]
120 GB ADATA S510 SSD - Single Drive
750 GB 7200rpm Serial-ATA Super Slim Laptop Hard Drive Single Drive
8x Dual Format DVD±R/±RW + 16x CD-R/RW Combo Drive [CZ-15]
Flash Media Reader / Writer
Built-in 4-in-1 Media Card Reader/Writer [Laptop]
Sound Card
HD Audio with THX TrueStudio Pro
Network Card
Killer E2200 Gaming Networking
Internal Wireless Network Adapter
802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Combo [CZ-15]
Operating System
Windows 8 + Office 2010 Trial [Free 60-Day !!!] - 64-bit
USB Ports
Built-in 2x USB 2.0 Ports + 3x USB 3.0 Port [Laptop]
Carrying Case
None
Video Camera
Build-in 1.3 Mega Pixels Digital Web Video Camera
Warranty
Standard Warranty Service - Standard One(1) Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support
1 x [FREE Game Voucher] - Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist Free with NVIDIA GeForce GTX660 or above Video Cards
Price: $1832

OR

- 15.6" FHD 16:9 "Matte Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Anti-Glare Sager Screen w/ 95% NTSC Color Gamut (1920x1080) (SKU - S1R303)
- Sager - 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4700MQ (2.4GHz - 3.4GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache) (SKU – SPU201)
- FREE! - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M 4,096MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 [User Upgradeable] (SKU – SGC304)
- 16GB - DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS) (SKU - S4S822AP)
- 750GB 7200RPM [Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache] - Default (SKU - S5T306)
- 6x Blu-Ray Reader / 8x DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive (SKU - S7R558)
- Sager - Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1202 + Bluetooth™ 4.0 (Dual Band) (SKU – S8S008)
- Internal 9-in-1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD/Mini SD/SDHC/SDXC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo)
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
- Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- ~Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (64&32-Bit CD Included (Supports up to 16GB of RAM)) + MS Office 2013 Trial
- None
- 2013 PC Security Essentials Software (Not Installed) (Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus + Security (2 Year Subscription) & Zemana AntiLogger)
- LIFETIME Ltd Labor* 1 Year Parts Warranty Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Telephone Support (Labor through XPC)
Includes FREE Shipping Both Ways for Parts Warranty Repairs (SKU - X9R009)
Price: $1808

My questions are regarding the Valkyrie (I think this is a rebranded MSI 60?) are related to the cooling/heating. Will this have overheating/throttling issues with extended game play sessions of 2-3 hours? (I read the anandtech review on the msi 70...) Is it worth the money for the solid state? The Clevo doesn't have that, but I could add it later on. Also the Valkyrie is a windows 8 product... How bad is windows 8 (the clevo I can get windows 7)? Any other thoughts or differences between the two?

I appreciate your assistance!

 

[Prostar Computer]

(I think this is a rebranded MSI 60?)

Yep. That is definitely a MSI design.

Will this have overheating/throttling issues with extended game play sessions of 2-3 hours?

That depends on how you treat it. It's not really any more prone to overheating than other gaming laptops, as far as I know.

Is it worth the money for the solid state?

Absolutely! The difference between SSDs and HDDs is like night and day.

How bad is windows 8

Let's just say that most people prefer Windows 7 still. 8 has a stigma attached to it largely due to the new Metro UI and lack of start menu, but under the hood, it's an improvement over 7.

 

[James Devenberg]

I cannot address the rest of your questions very well, but I can as far as Windows 8 is concerned. As Prostar said, under the hood it is actually better than Windows 7 (uses fewer resources and is faster), it only catches flack because of the UI, which I actually like. For now, you can download Classic Shell or something if you really want the UI of Windows 7 back, or when Windows 8.1 launches this fall, you'll get your start button back and an approximation of the Start Menu, it'll still be full screen, but you'll have the option for the start button (now called the Start Tip) to take you to a list view of all your programs instead of the Start Screen.

TL/DR: Performance of Windows 8 is better than 7, it comes down to how you feel about the new UI.