WANTED: Opinons on new Laptop

[SunDowner]

Finance Minister has authorized funding of new hardware acquisition (laptop). I have a dell laptop in mind that I can purchase though my employer at a decent discount. The general specs are below. My concern is about any issues with the Matrix Games I play: WitW, WiptAE, and COMMAND. Any feedback is greatly appreciated:

Tech Specs
Processor: 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-8250U Processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz)
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit English
Memory: 8GB Single Channel DDR4 2400MHz (8GBx1)
Hard Drive: 1TB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive
Display: 17.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display
Primary Battery: 42WHr, 3-Cell Battery (Integrated)
Video Card: Intel® UHD Graphics 620 with shared graphic memory
Wireless: 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1

[zakblood]

Processor: 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-8250U Processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz) (barebone but ok ish) will be slower because of the low end cpu to power use etc
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit English (fine no issues)
Memory: 8GB Single Channel DDR4 2400MHz (8GBx1) again fine, but if onboard video etc again more is always better than less
Hard Drive: 1TB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive (low end and cheap, for me it's a slow drive, so maybe swap out for a combo sdd/sata one, loads quicker for a few $ / £ more)
Display: 17.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display much better than a useless 15 or 15.6
Primary Battery: 42WHr, 3-Cell Battery (Integrated) no comment needed, as with everything, most time you will be on mains
Video Card: Intel® UHD Graphics 620 with shared graphic memory (waste of space, get a low end 2 gb video card now for less than 50 inc included, no onboard)
Wireless: 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1

[PipFromSlitherine]

For me an SSD is #1 importance, it just radically alters your experience. I can't even deal with spinning drives any more.

After that a discrete gfx card will make a huge difference if you play anything that uses 3D graphics.

Cheers

Pip

[SunDowner]

Thanks for the input Zak. Below are the specs of what was my first choice, ~ $200 more than the above, but at the limit of what I have budgeted. The other benefits of this machine are dual 4K output via Thunderbird 3.0 among others.

Tech Specs
Processor: 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-8300H Processor (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit English
Memory: 8GB, 1x8GB, DDR4, 2666MHz
Hard Drive: 128GB Solid State Drive (Boot) + 1TB 5400RPM Hard Drive (Storage)
Display: 17.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display
Primary Battery: 56 Whr, 4-Cell Battery (Integrated)
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 with 4GB GDDR5 graphics memory
Wireless: Intel® Wireless 9462AC Card (802.11ac + Bluetooth 5.0, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, MU-MIMO/80Mhz, 1x1)

[SunDowner]

Thanks PiP, the SSd and Grafx card were something I though would be significant. Thanks for verifying that. About the SSD, I assume the OS install and app installs would default to the SSD, and I see the TB drive as a place to put lots of infrequently accessed information (pictures, download etc...) and Reserve the SSD for actual running programs.

[zakblood]

Hard Drive: 128GB Solid State Drive is a tough one also, as while speed is good, size wise its not so hot

so no, in though you can manage with 128gb with just windows only installed on it, to be one who thinks 128gb is alot, as tbh it's not, 3 updates to windows 10 can eat up over 100gb of wasted hard drive space which you manual need to recover each time the version and build number updates, as each new build is a completely new version of windows, which makes a new install on the pc, and upgrades whats there, but makes a dupe version for recovery needs

so for me, i'd opt for either a 256gb SDD or better still a combo drive eg like this one, 1 or 2 TB FIRECUDA 3.5" SSHD INTERNAL HARD DRIVE so not a pure SSD or a slower cheaper sata one either, but a combination of both, fast and large and cheaper than a pure SSD but yes not always as fast, but plenty fast enough for most.

info in a more readable and more understandable format in the link

Code: Select all

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-free-up-disk-space-after-updating-to-windows-10-april-2018-update/

[SunDowner]

Thanks again, will definitely look to upgrade the SSD. Disappointing about WIN 10, have not used that OS, but surprised that eats so much space.

[zakblood]

it doesn't eat space, it upgrades it self, which makes a dupe copy just incase of recovery errors and since windows 10 has come out, there has been 1511, 1607, 1703, 1709 and 1803

5 versions out so far, each version un packed takes up 20GB of free hard drive space, so 5 X 20GB equals my 100GB i mentioned, most will remove the older and recover the lost, some have no idea about it until they run out of space, so imo and was mentioned in the beta stages was after 2 builds imo it should delete the older one it self so you can only go back one build etc and not 5 which you can do now if you make the recovery points etc manually [:D]

[Kuokkanen]

I have now several years old hybrid tablet with 1,46 GHz Atom processor. It runs Panzer Corps and Battle Academy demo just fine. Age of Wonders 3 runs too, but I don't call that enjoyable experience.

[chris_merchant]

Its easy enough to delete the old OS versions of win10. Or.. upgrade to win 10 pro and delay any feature updates for up to a year. SSD, discrete graphics card and 8+GB RAM are a must for decent laptop performance. Another thing to do is to buy the Microsoft Signature Edition of the OS, which is a clean win10 install without all the third party rubbish which will slow things down and even cause BSOD's.

[budd]

Get the biggest SSD you can, wish i did. I have a 250 gig SSD in my 17 gaming laptop, boot real fast and just runs faster all around, but my 250 gig filled up fast. Hope your going to be plugged in all the time, that 4 cell won't last long.Cram as much memory in as you can afford.The games you mention aren't graphically intensive comparable speaking. From the last specs you mentioned i'd add more memory and a bigger SSD, the rest should be fine with the games you mentioned.

[MrsWargamer]

I play ALL my wargames on A nice pink Sony Bravia TV screen, run by a desktop with a senile motherboard, and a cobbled together computer full of 'he no longer wanted them' parts he gave me for peanuts components as he upgraded ('he' refers to a computer guru buddy of mine). The system is at least 6 years old.

My point.

You're kidding yourself if you think you need the latest and the most powerful to run even our biggest monstrosity wargames.
You don't.
And I can prove it with this desktop I have twice tried to give away, and 3x thought it was dead before reinstalling the OS 'just one more time'.
I'm running Windows 8.1 and it hasn't been updated since I last installed it 2 years ago.

I also have a laptop, it's ok, no better than the desktop really. Also long in the tooth, also running Windows 8.1, not recently updated. Runs WitE just fine.

My machines won't run the latest version of Civilization. Likely won't run the latest not a wargame, mainstream kill fest MMOs or RPGS or shooters.
But we are not talking about running the latest not a wargame, mainstream kill fest MMOs or RPGs or shooters.

My advice, ask the wife err I mean Finance Minister, if the household needs anything more urgently. If no, then buy the new toy I suppose.
Otherwise, you don't need it. Your rig is likely several orders of magnitude better than mine. And mine runs our wargames just fine.

[PipFromSlitherine]

I have never had W10 eat that much space in truth, and it's pretty easy to clean off. I run my email machine on W10 from an old 60GB SSD without any issues at all, and with tons of other stuff on the drive. I think it can use secondary disks when upgrading which likely explains it.

A real SSD is going to be a ton better than any combo drive. I think your SSD+HD approach is best. Unless you can get away with just a 256GB SSD and an external drive for other stuff. Depends on how many very large game install you are going to want on the fast drive. If you mainly play wargames then I think you are likely to be fine. You'll only really need more than 8GB of RAM for AAA titles.

Cheers

Pip

[SunDowner]

Thanks for all the input, will decide this weekend and maybe upgrade the SSD to 500GB as well. Cheers to all!

[demyansk]

This article was on PC World today about buying a gaming laptop
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3237991 ... p-gpu.html

[hadberz]

Agree about the SSD drive. It is well worth it even for a slower CPU computer. Even my work computer has an SSD now. Night and day difference in how much better the computer runs.