Which laptop to buy?

[kol12]

I've singled out a few laptops I'm interested in but can't come to a final decision. One question I have is how important is an i7 vs i5 in laptop computing? No different than desktop scenarios?

Obviously I figure it's best to get the current generation hardware but I'm stuck between the 7th gen 7700HQ with a 1050Ti vs the newer i7 8550U CPU and Geforce MX150. Some benches I've seen seem to indicate the 8550U outpaces the 7700HQ despite being a low TDP processor. On the other hand the 1050Ti outpaces the MX150.

So the laptops are below and I would appreciate any thoughts/opinions and recommendations.

Acer Aspire V Nitro VN7-593G Black Edition (NH.Q24SA.004)
Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G (NX.GT0SA.001)
Asus VivoBook S14 S410UN-EB158T
Asus TUF Gaming FX504GD-E4152T

 

[jaguarskx]

If you want to play games then get the laptop with the GTX 1050 Ti. I forget how the GTX 1050 Ti ranks, but the GTX 1050 is basically equal to the GTX 965m from the previous generation. The mx150 performance is basically between the GTX 950m and GTX 960m. The GTX 965m is about 30% more powerful than the GTX 960m. When it comes to playing games you definitely want the GTX 1050 Ti.

The i7-7700HQ will be more powerful than the i7-8550u CPU which is considered to be an "ultra low power" CPU hence the "u" at the end of the model number. The i7-8550u cannot sustain high clockspeeds because it was not designed to do so so that it stays within a certain power consumption envelop. Even if the i7-8850u was a lot more powerful than the i7-7700HQ, gaming performance will definitely be lower because for the vast majority of games the GPU is definitively the limiting factor.

 

[kol12]

Thanks for the reply @jaguarskx. The 7700HQ + 1050 Ti does sound like the better package. Some videos show the 8550u ahead of the 7700HQ in certain benchmarks, that could be a generational change, but the latest video I've seen shows the 7700HQ well ahead of the 8550u. To go with the newer high power KabyLake CPUs would require a bump up to the 8750H which is too expensive.

I just found another potential candidate - ASUS FX53VD. It would probably be that vs the Acer Aspire V Nitro VN7-593G. Can you offer any recommendations between those?

 

[kol12]

Can anyone make a recommendation on these selected laptops? If I can save some money to get one with 8GB of ram but can be upgraded later I'm would be interested in that.

ASUS FX503VD-DM334T - (8GB ram) can this be upgraded to 16GB?
ASUS FX53VD-RH71 - (16GB)
ASUS FX504GD-E4179T
Acer Aspire V15 Nitro VN7-593G-70Y7 GTX1050Ti - Can ram be upgraded to 16GB?
Acer Nitro VN7-593G-73CP
Acer Aspire 7, GTX1050 (8GB)

Or open to further recommendations.. Preferably i7 7700HQ and GTX1050/Ti

Edit: The Acer Aspire V15 Nitro is the only one to feature the 1050Ti while the rest have the GTX1050. The V15 may lack an SSD from factory and have 8GB but if the ram can be upgraded and an SSD installed maybe this would be the best buy due to having the 1050Ti vs 1050...