Home› Off Topic Chat
  • Categories
  • Discussions
  • Activity
  • Best Of...
    • Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.

    Best Gaming Laptop (UK)

    «134
    aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    in Off Topic Chat
    I'm ready to upgrade my 3 year old Samsung laptop for a gaming laptop.
    I was looking at Alienware, but I wasn't sure if it's the absolute best.
    Any suggestions?

    Comments

    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      Alienware is over priced for the specs they give you. Custom is better. What is your price range?
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      edited December 2016
      This is custom 1496.40 pounds. a New GTX 1060, i7 skylake processor , 500 gb samsung evo ssd plus a 1tb hard drive and 16 gb ram . Its a custom link and good for 7 days. http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saved/1128276

      1166.20 pounds This has a GTX 960m, i7 skylake processor, 500 gb samsung evo ssd plus 1 tb hard drive and 16 gb ram
      http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saved/1128277

      The first laptop is better
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      @phoebebebe13 - the alienware one that I originally built on their site was about £1800, so I'm glad to hear there are other cheaper options. I'll have a look at the links you provided! :)
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      I'll most likely be getting one after Christmas (hopefully the January sales will be on my side) - what do you think the must haves are besides an i7 processor? Would you say 16gb of ram would be minimum? And what's ssd? I'm completely technologically clueless. Ideally, I don't think I'd want to spend over £2000.
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      @aricarai You dont need an 1800 pound laptop for this game. Are you playing anything else more demanding than this game?
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      phoebebebe13 wrote: »
      @aricarai You dont need an 1800 pound laptop for this game. Are you playing anything else more demanding than this game?

      @phoebebebe13 - just the Sims 3 (all EPs, all SPs, and about 90% of the store, plus some mods and maybe a little CC eventually); I'm just hoping that if there are future iterations beyond 4, that it would be able to hold up (even though specs aren't known).
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      aricarai wrote: »
      phoebebebe13 wrote: »
      @aricarai You dont need an 1800 pound laptop for this game. Are you playing anything else more demanding than this game?

      @phoebebebe13 - just the Sims 3 (all EPs, all SPs, and about 90% of the store, plus some mods and maybe a little CC eventually); I'm just hoping that if there are future iterations beyond 4, that it would be able to hold up (even though specs aren't known).

      You should be fine with a 1060. No one knows if there will be a sims 5. No one can predict the specs either or what kind of hardware will be out in the future should there be a sims 5. Average life span of a laptop is around 5 years.
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      @phoebebebe13 - would 1070 be better, though? What does ssd do? Thank you for answering all my questions, you've been very helpful :)
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      edited December 2016
      @aricarai Here is the GTX 1070 Its a little over 1900 pounds. This comes with Gsyc on the monitor and a whole bunch of freebees. a tee shirt, headphones, mouse and a few games. If this is in your price range go for it! http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saved/1128492

      The ssd is a must with the sims 3. The game loads so much quicker . You will be thankful you got one. I play this game on ssd and would never go back to hdd hard drive. Windows will boot quicker too. 500 gb is a good size for ssd. You have plenty of room for windows, everything for the sims 3 plus cc, mods etc.

      The only thing with ssd is you should not defrag them. The ssd can get ruined. If you buy one of these laptops make sure you turn auto defrag off for the ssd hard drive. Defrag on hdd is fine which would be your second hard drive
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      I was going to come back and ask this too - will it run everything on high settings?

      I'm not sure what my current settings are on my Samsung laptop and it runs all EPs, SPs, a couple mods, and a couple pieces of CC on high settings, but it's a bit slow to load, but with minimal crashes, so I thought it was time for an upgrade.

      Thank you for coming back; I shall check out the one you've posted :)
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      PS your very welcome :)
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      @phoebebebe13 - that laptop looks amazing! Just another quick question, for the hard drive: is the 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SATA III Gaming MLC SSD better than the hard drive in the above link?
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      Or am I just being super greedy here? :lol:
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      edited December 2016
      @aricarai You want the ssd to be on your main c drive. It will boot windows a lot quicker . There is enough room to play the whole sims 3 on there too. Instead of having an hdd on the second hard drive, I could change the second hdd to a 1 tb ssd but it will be about 200 pounds more. You could have all ssd if you want. My laptop has ssd on c drive and hdd on my second drive. The only game I play that benefits from ssd is the sims 3. I did not notice a big difference with the sims 4 on ssd.

      I put a 500 gb samsung evo on drive C. They do not offer the 1tb samsung on c drive. They do offer the 1tb samsung evo on the second drive.
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      phoebebebe13 wrote: »
      @aricarai You want the ssd to be on your main c drive. It will boot windows a lot quicker . There is enough room to play the whole sims 3 on there too. Instead of having an hdd on the second hard drive, I could change the second hdd to a 1 tb ssd but it will be about 200 pounds more. You could have all ssd if you want. My laptop has ssd on c drive and hdd on my second drive. The only game I play that benefits from ssd is the sims 3. I did not notice a big difference with the sims 4 on ssd.

      @phoebebebe13 - What's the difference between ssd & hdd for Sims 3? Is it just the speed in which it boots up? I think graphics being on high settings is important for me too and the link above has a good graphics card doesn't it? 1080 is the highest, right?
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      @aricarai You dont need a 1080 for this game. 1080 is for some of the most powerful games out there. The sims 3 does not fall under being that powerful. You should be able to play on ultra with a 1060 or 1070. If you want to future proof go for the 1070.

      With ssd your games will load in 5 minutes or under no matter how large the save. Ill page @sparkfairy1. She is from the UK and just got an ssd the other day and pmed me to tell me what a difference having ssd makes for the sims 3. A lot of people that post in here have been playing on ssd and they will tell you the same thing should they see this thread
    • sparkfairy1sparkfairy1 Posts: 11,453 Member
      Absolutely the ssd has made a huge difference and I had no issues running sims 3 anyway. Just made it more responsive and quicker.

      I'd absolutely recommended ssd. And if you are buying I'd say it would be easier with a pre installed ssd rather than installing after you buy like I did!
      toddlersig3_zps62792e0c.jpg

      https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      I think future proofing is what I'm after as well. Hopefully there will be sales in January - I think I read that Cyberpower tends to have more sales than other custom building sites?
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      And yes I would love to hear others experiences with ssd cards and high end graphics cards too.
    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      @phoebebebe13 - what does defrag mean? Is it easy to turn it off?
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      aricarai wrote: »
      @phoebebebe13 - what does defrag mean? Is it easy to turn it off?

      defrag will consolidate your files from having fragments . Wiki actually describes this better than I can. :phttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation

      Cyberpower seems to have better sales in the USA than UK. They are having a sale right now. Your buying all new hardware. You will get better deals on older hardware but not something you want if you have a budget to buy newer hardware. If your not buying right now, ask me when your ready and I can redo the custom configuration.

    • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
      Okie dokie. Thank you @phobebebe13- I'll be back after Christmas!

      @phobebebe13 & @sparkfairy1 - are two ssds better than a ssd and a hdd?
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      aricarai wrote: »
      Okie dokie. Thank you @phobebebe13- I'll be back after Christmas!

      @phobebebe13 & @sparkfairy1 - are two ssds better than a ssd and a hdd?

      SSD has come down in price. There are people that will go all ssd. My ssd was a lot more expensive than they are now. Its up to you but having at least 1 ssd with 500 gb is good. Depends on if you want to spend the money for two ssd. I only have a 250 gb ssd and wish I had 500. I have to move all my sims extra saves, downloads, screen shots to my second hard drive just so I have enough room. You need to leave 50 gb hard drive space at all times for this game. The sims 3 is the only game on ssd. The rest of my games are on hdd. The other games I play don't benefit from ssd like the sims 3 does.
    • sparkfairy1sparkfairy1 Posts: 11,453 Member
      @aricarai ssd's and hard drives have different positives and negatives. I am now using my old hdd as a storage drive and to run programs I don't want taking up space on the ssd. Personally I would choose one of each. But @phoebebebe13 knows best I'd imagine :)

      Good luck anyway! I hope it all works out well for you :)
      toddlersig3_zps62792e0c.jpg

      https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
    • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
      edited December 2016
      sparkfairy1 wrote: »
      @aricarai ssd's and hard drives have different positives and negatives. I am now using my old hdd as a storage drive and to run programs I don't want taking up space on the ssd. Personally I would choose one of each. But @phoebebebe13 knows best I'd imagine :)

      Good luck anyway! I hope it all works out well for you :)

      I do what you do. Have one hdd for storage and other games that don't benefit from ssd stored on the hdd. The sims 3 is what I put on the ssd. Its better to keep your saves on the second hard drive for safe keeping. If you main drive goes bad or you have to reinstall windows, your info on the second hard drive is safe
    Sign In or Register to comment.
    Return to top