So,.... High End Gaming laptops, on a delivery deadline?

[363rdChemicalCompany]

To me, the term gaming laptops has always been a bit of an oxymoron.

I think we all understand that laptop hardware is performance throttled in comparison to its desktops equivalents.

BUT, I am about to do a lot of traveling, a lot of hotel stays, next 2-4 months in Foreign countries.

Should I spend my money in hotel bars and Euro stripclubs?

or Should I invest into a machine that despite being a laptop can handily run my heavily modded Fallout 4, at 4k with Luxors HD pack (as my desktop can)?

Yes its "only",fallout 4, but with all the mods I run (340 same time enabled)  the former recommended specs have been left long behind.

I decided I want as a minimum:

13th Gen CPU

RTX 4080 (because the trottled laptop 4080, I expect to run like my well running well cooled desktop 4070, which is what I have now and runs my game 4k with the HD mods at acceptable fps )

32GB DDR5 RAM. With Win 11 being the bloatware/spyware it is, 16 GB RAM simple wont cut it. My last 16GB rig had fully a 3rd of its memory used, just on idle, by Win 11 bloatware , my anti virus and steam)

2T SSD. My current 1T SSD is starting to get close to full despite my HDD taking up some of the slack for reserve storage. 2T is minimum.

I figure I am willing to pay 2.5k ish for a machine that meets my minimum

This one I could hold in my hand in a  few days:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-strix-18-240hz-gaming-laptop-qhd-intel-14th-gen-core-i9-with-32gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-2tb-ssd-eclipse-gray/6570224.p?skuId=6570224

What I ideally want though is this:

13th or 14th gen Chip

RTX 4090 (to future proof it a bit, also the laptop 4090 "only" has the VRAM it seems, of the desktop 4080 , but at least this way I am moving  a step up from my desktop 4070)

64GB DDR5 RAM. I am used to 64 GB DDR4 RAM on my desktop. Its nice to have all that reserve memory.

4T SSD. (this way I can go maybe with a 2nd game and not worry about savgeame bloat and mod bloat too much.)

I found this that meet this spec exactly.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/razer-blade-16-16-gaming-laptop-dual-mini-led-4k-uhd-fhd-intel-i9-hx-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-64gb-ram-4tb-ssd-black/6571554.p?skuId=6571554

There are 2 issues with this unit for me:

-its 2 weeks ordering and I may fly out in 10 days to 2 weeks and it only takes a couple days delay and the laptop misses my flight.

Plus I wanted to take a couple of days with fast internet here in the US to load my games and mods for a couple of days.

Also I already moved out of my house and my shipping address is my hotel so thats another issue. connected with my inability to pick up the computer. The hotel DID say they will accept any delivery thoughso I am good for almost 2 more weeks to accept shipping. but still, I dont have anyone "holding" the laptop for me, even though my likely return in a few weeks to arrange for my household goods. I may be able to use a buddys house as an address in a pinch. Still I really want to take this laptop with me in 2 weeks.

- Price, I make good money but this is the price of some used cars... I may do it, but its a lot and I suspect some lesser units could do the job too. Then again I am tired of buying new laptops every 2-3 years because I cheapened out and they no longer have the Horsepower I need.

 

I know there are some hardware Gurus on here and I invite people's thoughts/comments.

I seem to recall there was a commercial builder on here as well and I welcome any reasonable offers that can meet a tight deadline.

 

 

 

[HeyYou]

4700 bucks for a LAPTOP????? Holy smokes...... I could build two nice desktops for that kind of scratch...... I am going to vote for the bars and strip clubs. Probably be cheaper.

[7531Leonidas]

When I was running a desktop with a GPU with only 8 GB, the system RAM usage was up into the 20-24 GB range, as monitored by Skyrim Performance Monitor.  Just a warning - make sure that the onboard GPU has enough RAM, also.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Still looking into this

On 2/18/2024 at 8:23 AM, HeyYou said:

4700 bucks for a LAPTOP????? Holy smokes...... I could build two nice desktops for that kind of scratch...... I am going to vote for the bars and strip clubs. Probably be cheaper.

HeyYou are you the gent who is building computers?

[HeyYou]

11 hours ago, 363rdChemicalCompany said:

Still looking into this

HeyYou are you the gent who is building computers?

Yep. I work at a small computer shop in town. We deal mostly with businesses, but, we do get the occasional gamer. Do a couple gaming builds every month, and see machines in for service on a regular basis.

I just LOVE when someone brings in their gaming rig, and says something like "Fallout 4 doesn't run very well. Can you fix it?" My boss just rolls his eyes. :D

[363rdChemicalCompany]

8 hours ago, HeyYou said:

Yep. I work at a small computer shop in town. We deal mostly with businesses, but, we do get the occasional gamer. Do a couple gaming builds every month, and see machines in for service on a regular basis.

I just LOVE when someone brings in their gaming rig, and says something like "Fallout 4 doesn't run very well. Can you fix it?" My boss just rolls his eyes.

I am sure you can fix it real quick for them since you are a genuine expert in this very subject.

[HeyYou]

2 hours ago, 363rdChemicalCompany said:

I am sure you can fix it real quick for them since you are a genuine expert in this very subject.

I have to milk the job for play time. (the customer doesn't get charged for my milking though. :D)

[363rdChemicalCompany]

51 minutes ago, HeyYou said:

I have to milk the job for play time. (the customer doesn't get charged for my milking though. :D)

Do you every find interesting playthrough set ups you will then try on your own game?

[HeyYou]

11 hours ago, 363rdChemicalCompany said:

Do you every find interesting playthrough set ups you will then try on your own game?

I HAVE found some cool mods from playing other folks games. So, yeah. :D

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Update, this is what I just ordered, it will be delivered on Monday with with 5 days to spare before I fly to Europe.

I dont know much about gmaing laptops and hadnt really read any reviews. Now after I bought it  , I am reading reviews and they seem universally positive .

That gives me time to donwload FO4 with all the mods I like.

Sadly the display is not 4 k, but some compromises had to be made to keep the price from going too crazy, so I will DL the 2k HD pack from Luxor instead of the 4k HD pack I have on my desktop.

MSI GE Series Raider GE78HX 14VIG-600US 17.0" 240 Hz IPS Intel Core i9 14th Gen 14900HX (2.20GHz) NVIDIA GeForce RTX ...
Color: Black
CPU Type: Intel Core i9 14th Gen
CPU Speed: 14900HX (2.20GHz)
Screen Size: 17.0"
Touchscreen: No
Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64-bit
GPU/VPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU
Video Memory: 16GB
SSD: 2 TB PCIe
HDD: No
Memory: 64GB

What do you guys think?

I have no illusions that a laptop 4090 is going to be anywhere close to a desktop 4090, but I still decided in the end to go with one anyway because I wanted some room to spare and i hope for desktop 4080 level of performance from this 4090 laptop. (not sure if that is realistic)