Which laptop to last 3 years? Video editing and some gaming Fangbook or Cosmos????

[gobhoblin]

Hi, Ive always had i3 laptops with 4gb RAM. Now I need something faster and more powerful.

Torn between two. Please help me pick.

Cyberpower FANGBOOK EVO HX6-100
INTEL® Core™ i7-4710MQ Mobile Processor 2.50 GHz 6M Smart Cache, Max Turbo Freq. 3.50 GHz
8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-1600 SODIMM Memory
NVIDIA GTX 860M 2GB PCIe Video
120GB (1x120GB) INTEL 530 Series SATA 6Gb/s SSD - 540MB/s Read & 480MB/s Write (Single Drive)
HDD: 500GB Western Digital Black WD5000BPKX SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
8X DVD±R/RW/4X + DL Super-Multi Drive
1920x1080 screen 15.6
price- £891.60

or

PC Specialist Cosmos II
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 850M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 1
120GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
2nd/3rd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY (12.7mm)
1929x1080 screen 15.6
price- £828

option 3-??????

Thanks for your help

 

[HWlover]

First one, better gpu.

 

[loki1944]

I don't know if they have one with a GTX 880M or higher where you are, but I would recommend that. I have an 880M in one of my laptops and compared to my 765M it's a huge difference; I can actually play newer games on high settings and maintain over 30FPS at 1080p, which bodes well for medium/low settings 3 years from when I bought it. I've had two intel SSDs and they've been great.

 

[gobhoblin]

Laptop buying is crazy. I started off with £600 budget and now its up to £900. With the Fangbook you get a backlit keyboard which is pretty tasty and an disk drive.

Unfortunately I cant change the GTX card. Its the only one available in the build.

Will the laptop be good for most things though? i dont want to have to change for 3 years or so.

 

[loki1944]

Oh yeah it should be fine, just as long as you're cool with turning down some settings for some games. I mean to get a laptop that can get close to 60FPS on max settings at 1080p you pretty much have to get one with SLI mobile GPUs which is crazy expensive. I have an old M11X with a 1GB GT335 that can play most games still, just on the lowest settings and I got that one in February 2011. If you're like me and you buy laptops for gaming away from home, then a single GPU system with a recentish GPU will be good enough, put the maximum $$ towards a desktop which is more powerful for cheaper. Go down to the benchmarks portion of this page and you'll get an idea of what kind of performance the 860 will give you: http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-860M.107794.0.html.

 

[gobhoblin]

Yeh Im cool with turning down settings. I have an xbone for gaming. I will mostly use the laptop for video editing.

My head was always set on the Cosmos as the price was good, but for the additional 10% I think the better gpu, optical drive and backlit keyboard is worth it right?

 

[loki1944]

Absolutely.

 

[gobhoblin]

Im pretty sure Ive found my answer then. Thanks all for your help.

Keep replies coming in though if you have anymore thoughts. Positive/ negative always appreciated

 

[loki1944]

Let me just put it like this, I have an alienware 14 laptop with a GTX 765M and it's fine for games and any work stuff I do and the 860M is better than that. I can play any game with a mix of medium and high settings at 1080p on this 765M laptop. Also turning off some of the eye candy on a 14 or 15 inch screen to get more fps is much less noticeable than doing it on a 24+inch monitor.

 

[gobhoblin]

Ive just ordered the fangbook. For the money and spec I couldnt find anything prebuilt that came close.

I wanted an i7 with seperate ssd and hdd, good graphics card and a great warranty service.

Hopefully this is it and I'll post a review when it arrives

 

[gobhoblin]

Been reading up on reliabilty issues for the INTEL 530 Series SSD. Not being recognized at boot? Anyone seen this?

 

[loki1944]

I've had an intel 530 240GB for about 13 months and never had any issues like that; now on my X99 build I had lots of issues with drives not being recognized and I had to reformat brand new drives via console commands for windows install. Bad drives I've had: WD Velociraptor: fried upon connecting to computer (1 of 2, the other one works fine), Corsair Force LX 256GB SSD: DOA, Mushkin Chronos 480GB SSD: DOA.
Drives I have working: 240GB ROG RAIDR PCIE SSD, 256GB Corsair Force LX 256GB SSD (replacement), 2xOCZ Vector 150 SSDs), Intel 530 240GB SSD, WD Velociraptor 1TB 10,000 RPM HDD, 2x2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDDs, 1x320GB Seagate Barracuda HDD (6 years old).

My recommendation is to ensure you get a good warranty, I know it costs $$, but they've saved me money in the long run.