Which MSI laptop would be better for me?

[Wolvojay121]

Hi guys

Really looking to hear from someone who has had experience with MSI laptops / notebooks recently or anyone who knows their stuff (I'm not completely clueless either). Okay so I am looking for a laptop at the £1000 budget or slightly under that will allow me to play MMO's and many newer games if I wanted to.

It's taken me 2 days to narrow down my search but I just can't make the final decision and would like some advice. I've chosen to go with MSI as they seem to offer the best value for money in terms of the hardware you get for your money.

So here is the notebook I was originally going to buy: http/www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/MSI_GE60_2PC-030UK_A_GE60_2PC-030UK/version.asp

Until, that is, I noticed there was no information on the graphics card inside the machine which would lead me to believe that the graphics inside the above notebook are integrated? If anyone could confirm this that would be great.

So this brought me to my 2nd option which is this: http/www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/GE60_2PE_Apache_Pro_4th_Gen_Core_i7_8GB_1TB_15.6_inch_Full_HD_Gaming_Laptop_GE60_2PE-029UK/version.asp

Also the MSI GX70 Dominator but I decided against that one as it's bulky compared to the above two and also runs on AMD tech which is well known for running hotter than intel.

My question is which would you choose? And, can the dedicated GPU's be changed if I ever wanted to? As I would hope so for that kind of money lol.

Please don't tell me to get a desktop or that laptops are rubbish or whatever, I already own a £2.5k PC at home but as I work nights and it's really quiet where I work I'm looking for something to keep me entertained in the meantime.

Thanks people

 

[Wolvojay121]

You don't want a GX70 Destroyer.

It has a powerful graphics card, but it's processor is weaker than an i3-4000M. This basically means that the processor is going to bottleneck the GPU so badly that it will never get to reach its full potential, making it effectively useless for its price range.

I don't know that I would get a GE60 either. The GE series MSI laptops have a lot of keyboard flex and are just generally flimsy in design compared to their more powerful GT series laptops. Although that link doesn't specify, judging by the price, I would venture to guess that that version has the Nvidia GTX 750M graphics card.

You could get more performance for the money out of the Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p which has dual GT 755M's on SLI which slightly outperform the GTX 860M which is in the more powerful and expensive GE60 Apache Pro. It also carries better build quality.

I do actually remember coming across this at a quick glance yesterday, and I know where you're coming from with the flimsy design, in video reviews the MSI ones do look a bit flimsy, especially when lifting the screen up but to be honest the performance mattered more to me than that, although having seen the Lenovo and having it confirmed as being as good / better than the MSI I may go for that instead as they also have that on the website I linked earlier. The fact it has SLI definately puts it in my good books, that's pretty cool to see in a laptop.

I'm more used to working with desktops and so this is my first time ever looking at high performance laptops.

 

[Wolvojay121]

Could you just tell me if all Lenovo y510p's come with SLI? I'm assuming this one does but again I can't see details of the graphics anywhere (which seems a bit stupid as you would think it would be a main selling point of this laptop), although it does mention that it comes without an optical drive so I can only guess it does have.

http/www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_Y510P_Metal_-_Core_i7-4700MQ_2.4GHz-3.4GHz-4MB_12GB_DDR3_1TB_15.6_H_59405430/version.asp#maindesc

 

[Wolvojay121]

The Y510p really takes the cake on price to performance ratio. They really had a good idea of making a laptop with 2 cheaper cards rather than a single more expensive card.

Yeah it certainly seems like a cool idea, okay I have decided to go with this laptop but I have one more question beforehand. If you could click on this link http/www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/search?w=lenovo%20ideapad%20y510p

On the left (top and bottom) you will see 2 of these ideapads however the one underneath is almost £100 cheaper and was just wondering if you could tell me why that is as they seem to have the same processor, same size screen, same amount of RAM etc. Just let me know which is the better choice in your opinion please.

Thanks mate