Got a Christmas Bonus at work, need advice for basic gaming laptop

[talmar]

I got $800 bonus at work and would like a gaming laptop. All I really do is pretty basic gaming...WOW, D3, HotS, Hearthstone, some Steam games like Boarderlands 2 and such.

I've always built my own gaming pc's but my wife and I have downsized our lives to a smaller apartment etc. No real space for a big computer rig anymore. Laptop and Headphones for me now.

Any advice for a good, solid gaming laptop in that price range?

Thanks

[Fascinate]

We are at a funny time in gaming laptop history, with the release of the gtx 10 series mobile GPU's there is a major advancement in mobile graphics performance, but since they are so new there is a bit of a premium for these. If you can take your 800 and somehow find a way to add another 350 dollars you should get a gtx 1060 laptop, it is on the order of 75-100% faster than something you could get for 800 dollars that has a gtx 960m.

It would be a very poor decision to buy anything less than a gtx 1060 laptop, there are gtx 1050 and 1050 ti laptops coming i believe, but i have not seen any on the market yet. These would still be quite a bit faster than 960m but more in your price range.

This is the cheapest gtx 1060 laptop i know of, if anyone knows of anything cheaper feel free to link:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...C&A=details&Q=



Ok well it seems you lucked out today @talmar, even tho i said 960m laptops would be a poor purchase, the sale on this model is a shell shocker one day only deal: (sale is active 7 more hours)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-111-_-Product

For 650 bucks after mail in rebate, i would give this a buy recommendation. It seems the 1060 laptops are finally bringing down prices on 960m models, and as a bonus this particular model has a gaming grade i7-6700hq that you never see at this price point.

So you do have two choices now, i still say the 1060 is the better buy and will stay relevant for a much longer period of time, but i would not fault you for picking up the 960m model because that is a stellar price and the lowest ive seen on a laptop with a 6700hq processor.

- - - Updated - - -

Man i hope this guy checks the thread before the sale ends, i private messaged him as well lol. It really is that good of a sale, would hate to see him miss out if he has the bonus check already.

[Denpepe]

It's not a latop I would recommend for a gamer or anyone, there is no SSD and a 5400 rpm hdd's are slow as hell, but if you can live with that I guess it could do the trick.

[Fascinate]

It's not a latop I would recommend for a gamer or anyone, there is no SSD and a 5400 rpm hdd's are slow as hell, but if you can live with that I guess it could do the trick.

Windows 10 does not benefit from SSD's near as much as 7 did, the laptop has a 6700hq processor i dont think you realize that is the highest end CPU you can get in a laptop lol. For 650 bucks its an absolute no brainer, i just hope the dude sees the thread before it goes out of stock.

Also per the Q and A it says this laptop has an M.2 slot for expansion. Just find it odd you would discount the machine entirely because it doesnt ship with an SSD. 650 bucks for a 6700hq laptop is the cheapest ive ever seen. You could also of course install a regular sata III ssd but it will void factory warranty, a lot of manufactures do this.

Just like to add i got my mom a i3 laptop with windows 10 about a year ago, it has a 5400rpm HDD and it boots up noticeably faster than my desktop with a 7200 rpm drive. Cant really equate disk speed to what you experience in windows.

[talmar]

Hey Fascinate, wanted to let you know I have seen it and I thank you very much for posting it. I can order an SSD through my work pretty cheap and replace the existing HD. The cost per GB on SSD keeps dropping so upgrading it, even down the road will be easy. And RAM is cheep. I can live with the Graphics as I don't push top end games anyway. And even with the 960M it'll still be good for a few years.

I still have my gaming rig I primarily game on. I'll only use this when traveling or when I want to team up with my daughter in Heroes or WOW.

[Fascinate]

Hey Fascinate, wanted to let you know I have seen it and I thank you very much for posting it. I can order an SSD through my work pretty cheap and replace the existing HD. The cost per GB on SSD keeps dropping so upgrading it, even down the road will be easy. And RAM is cheep. I can live with the Graphics as I don't push top end games anyway. And even with the 960M it'll still be good for a few years.

I still have my gaming rig I primarily game on. I'll only use this when traveling or when I want to team up with my daughter in Heroes or WOW.

Cool man just wanted to let you know it was for sale for a limited time. If you do end up purchasing it i believe it has a M.2 slot for adding a SSD, that way you could keep the included 1tb HDD that the laptop ships with. Its the cheapest laptop with a 6700hq and 960m by about 200 bucks


Edit:
Yup i just looked it up, from MSI website:
1x M.2 SSD Combo (NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 / SATA )

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GL62-6QF....-specification

And in the reviews someone said they added a samsung 950 pro m.2 which is the 2280 version m.2, it also probably supports the shorter one as well if that is the case.

This way you can keep the HDD and just buy a M.2 SSD. Cool thing is it supports PCI-E nvme drives, they are expensive atm but in the future they should come down a lot in price, and are a lot faster than sata m.2 drives.

Let me just add the CPU in this thing would be spectacular for the games you listed, i am still amazed at the pricing of this laptop 6700 HQ's are what ship in even the highest end laptops, heck 3000 dollar macbook pros have this CPU lol.

[talmar]

I did pull the trigger on purchasing this. Can't beat the price for the hardware. Easily upgrade to SSD and max out the RAM and it's a damn solid laptop for what I need it for.

Really appreciate the heads up on this deal.

[Logwyn]

It's not a latop I would recommend for a gamer or anyone, there is no SSD and a 5400 rpm hdd's are slow as hell, but if you can live with that I guess it could do the trick.

Ummm... what are you talking about no ssd in a laptop? I have a laptop sitting next to me with a SSD drive in it.....I flipped out a 500GB SSD drive in a laptop last week for a customer.....

This lovely Dell comes with one....
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/produ...op/dncwdb1303h (sucky but proves the point)

Hell I'd say you are better off with an SSD in a laptop due to banging around a mechanical HDD tends not to be good for it...

[Fascinate]

I did pull the trigger on purchasing this. Can't beat the price for the hardware. Easily upgrade to SSD and max out the RAM and it's a damn solid laptop for what I need it for.

Really appreciate the heads up on this deal.

Very nice you should be happy with it even in its stock config. But if you do upgrade to an ssd see if your work carries this m.2 version, its a great bang for the buck drive:
http://pcpartpicker.com/product/34Ny...ct525mx300ssd4

They also make a 275gb model if thats enough for you.

[Denpepe]

Ummm... what are you talking about no ssd in a laptop? I have a laptop sitting next to me with a SSD drive in it.....I flipped out a 500GB SSD drive in a laptop last week for a customer.....

This lovely Dell comes with one....
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/produ...op/dncwdb1303h (sucky but proves the point)

Hell I'd say you are better off with an SSD in a laptop due to banging around a mechanical HDD tends not to be good for it...

I meant "THERE IS NO SSD IN THIS MACHINE" not that you can not ever in the existence of the human race add an SSD to a laptop but then you have to make additional purchase which in turn negate part of the cheapness of this machine.

I have an MSI laptop with a 128 GB SSD and a 5.400 rpm mechanical HDD, I first inwtalled Wow on the mechanical HDD and after seeing how long it takes to load the game I quickly put it on the SSD as I prefer to play my games then that I have to wait on it to load.

And I did have wow on my main machine for a long time on mechanical HDD's (albeit 7.200 rpm ones in raid).

[Fascinate]

Well SSD's are easy to add, the laptop was a good deal cause of the CPU mainly, next cheapest model with a 6700hq and a gtx 960m was in the 850 range. Cool thing is this one has m.2 slot so he can keep the HDD that ships with it.