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Hey laptop goons. I’m looking at getting back into music production for myself, so I’m looking for something with a good CPU, a lot of RAM, and a good amount of ports to plug interfaces and the like into. HDMI Out for a second screen would also be nice. Gaming is not a concern for this at all; I already have a desktop I built specifically for that. Price range I’m looking at is flexible, but topping off at around $2500 at most. Windows or Mac is fine; I used a MacBook Pro back when I was in college a decade ago, so I wouldn’t mind being able to use Logic again (unless it’s gotten dramatically worse since Logic Pro 9 lol).
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Sep 3, 2021 16:54
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Hadlock posted:Have you blown out the vents with canned air yet Just following up on this. Thanks for the tip. I blew out the vents but didn't manage to open up the back to clear the fans/radiator manually as I managed to strip my T4 bit. Problem is still ongoing. I noticed some throttling while the device was plugged in and charging (CPU fixed at 30%). Throttlestop was showing temps in the 60-80 range. I disabled the PROCHOT again and the throttling stopped and the fans started up, everything went back to normal after. I wonder if there is something screwy going on with the fan control or some temperature sensor? The CPU is clearly sensing the overheat and throttling appropriately, but the fan response seems overly erratic. With regards to the CPU thermal break, can this happen even if the laptop hasn't been disassembled? Is repairing it a matter of sticking on more thermal paste?
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Sep 3, 2021 19:49
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Holy jesus Asus... https://www.asus.com/Laptops/For-Home/VivoBook/Vivobook-Pro-16X-OLED-M7600-AMD-Ryzen-5000-Series/ They just announced a laptop with... 4K+, 16:10 ratio, 16-inch HDR OLED panel, Ryzen 5900HX, and Nvidia 3050ti. That sounds so glorious that I'm having trouble parsing it. Zero VGS fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 20:01
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Zero VGS posted:Holy jesus Asus... https://youtu.be/PMRZWAVyerM There's also the studiobook too which, if the price really is under $2k, makes me wonder why in the hell I bought a G15. bull3964 fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 20:10
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bull3964 posted:https://youtu.be/PMRZWAVyerM Yeah the 3070 upgrade is nice... I'm really skeptical they can pull that off for under $2000 though. That physical dial looks terrible for lefties. edit: This Asus marketing guy made a pretty big fuckup talking about them here I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2XDA5B0P1g&t=334s He says they have Wifi 6 and so they use the 6ghz band, but I believe 6ghz is exclusive to Wifi 6E, which these laptops do not have. Zero VGS fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 20:21
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So I have a few different use cases I'm looking for laptops to meet. I'm open to buying multiples if needed over time, I figure this sale season may be my last chance for a while before chip prices get even more hosed. 1.) I need a simple laptop for the kiddo. He's 6 this year, I'm looking for something he can use to play edutainment stuff, maybe watch YouTube, play Minecraft. Looking for a rugged build, good battery life, nothing fancy. My understanding is that no version of Chrome OS plays Minecraft, though, and the kiddo is really itching to try it out, so a Chromebook won't work here. 2.) A chromebook. Are they all basically the same in terms of quality these days? My wife wants something she can use for writing, web browsing, Discord.
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Sep 4, 2021 00:28
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1. Refurbished Thinkpad t460 2. There's a separate Chromebook thread, there's at least two main tiers, trash consumer stuff, and business oriented ones, there is a huge canyon between the two
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Sep 4, 2021 07:27
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For a 6 year old an iPad or Amazon Fire tablet or something is probably better than a laptop. It'll run minecraft, roblox, pokemon quest and youtube, etc. If you do go with a laptop something with a touchscreen is better particularly if you can fold it and use it as a big tablet sorta thing. I got my daughter a ~$450 Flex when she turned 9 (with the Ryzen APU) and that's done great but there's a big difference in that 3 year difference. Will probably get my son the same thing in 18 months when he turns 9. Right now I don't see any good deals on a Lenovo Flex, but I'd bet there will be over the next month.
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Sep 4, 2021 15:32
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUSB_PxaMKw lol that this is the one instance where "install linux, problem solved" is absolutely true learn your kids the command line early by telling them it's the only way they can play minecraft
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Sep 4, 2021 18:51
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Lockback posted:For a 6 year old an iPad or Amazon Fire tablet or something is probably better than a laptop. It'll run minecraft, roblox, pokemon quest and youtube, etc. If you do go with a laptop something with a touchscreen is better particularly if you can fold it and use it as a big tablet sorta thing. I got my daughter a ~$450 Flex when she turned 9 (with the Ryzen APU) and that's done great but there's a big difference in that 3 year difference. Will probably get my son the same thing in 18 months when he turns 9. I was thinking about that yeah, his online school is giving them Chromebooks in everything above Kindergarten though. I kinda wanted to give him something he could use to get familiar with all the stupid stuff you can do with a mouse/keyboard. Though I guess iPad does that now.
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Sep 4, 2021 18:51
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Looking for laptop recommendations for my sister, please. Her requirements are "basically any laptop ever", but price isn't much of a concern so I was probably going to recommend a nice ultrabook. She has a few-year-old Macbook Pro that's been a POS (keyboard issues, now magically bricked for no good reason) so she's considering a windows machine. Requirements: sister's email posted:While I get my Mac repaired (eventually) can you recommend a new laptop to me? It doesn’t have to be Mac since apparently they’re hot garbage for me. I’m looking for something with decent battery life, lightweight, quiet keys, something I can use an external mouse with. ... I also need it to run Microsoft Word and Excel, plus Scrivener. Used mainly for writing but will probably be called into duty to stream Ted Lasso at some point hehe. I've already recommended a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon and a M1 Macbook 13" both with 16GB+ RAM and 512GB+ SSD. The M1 MacBook seems to be a no-brainer, but her current MBP left a bad taste in her mouth and she's over an hour away from any apple stores for help/repairs. Any other portable, reliable, well-built machines she should consider? I remember before the thread doesn't like the XPS line of Dell, or Dell in general. LG Gram? Whatever HP has for an ultrabook?
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Sep 5, 2021 18:26
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I'd push again on the M1 Macbook, it's much different than previous Macbook Pros (I generally didn't recommend older ones, I thought they were too expensive and just generally outside the screen seemed mediocre), the M1s are basically an entirely new product. If she's already in the Mac ecosystem it's really a no-brainer. Show her the new battery ranges and whatnot. Otherwise X1 Carbon or the higher end Lenovo Flex's if she wants a touchsceen, or the HP x360. I'm not a big fan of the XPS or Dell in general but I wouldn't say that means to completely avoid em.
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Sep 5, 2021 18:32
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dreesemonkey posted:The M1 MacBook seems to be a no-brainer, but her current MBP left a bad taste in her mouth and she's over an hour away from any apple stores for help/repairs. I feel like the thing to point out here is that being an hour away from an Apple Store is literally a better case for laptop repairs than literally any other laptop manufacturer, who are all going to require a mail-in fix for anything beyond, like, the Geek Squad reinstalling Windows for you. (that said, higher end ThinkPads probably will be reliable enough this won't be a huge issue, though the price might be a bit rough) abraham linksys fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Sep 5, 2021 |
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Sep 5, 2021 19:25
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abraham linksys posted:I feel like the thing to point out here is that being an hour away from an Apple Store is literally a better case for laptop repairs than literally any other laptop manufacturer, who are all going to require a mail-in fix for anything beyond, like, the Geek Squad reinstalling Windows for you. I assume a business model with an on-site warranty could be an option.
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Sep 5, 2021 21:11
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Hello, laptop goons. I have been doing a lot of browsing around online trying to find the best balance of price+performance windows laptop for hobbyist .raw photo editing in lightroom and photoshop. I am admittedly getting fairly overwhelmed by the options and having a hard time trying to decide what to get for under $1000 Canadian dollars, all-in. I have been looking at the MSI Prestige 14 and Asus Zenbook Flip 14 recently, leaning towards the MSI. But I have also been toying with pcpartpicker and other online resources to see what I can find. I've been in store shopping a couple times and nearly pulled the trigger but can't bring myself to do it because I'm just not sure how to get the best balance of value + performance. I'm not necessarily computer illiterate when it comes to this stuff, but I'm also simply just not up on the trends of what's good, what's bad, or what's coming when it comes to hardware these days. Specs on the two I've been looking at: MSI Prestige 14 Model#A10SC-036CA breakdown ($940 CAD): ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -1.1-4.7GHz Intel Core i7-10710U -16GB LPDDR3 RAM -Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 -512GB SSD Asus ZenBook Flip 14 Model#UM462DA-AB71-CA breakdown: ($776 CAD) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -2.3-4.0GHz AMD R7-3700U -CPU-integrated Radeon RX Vega 10 graphics -12GB DDR4 RAM -512GB SSD I would be very appreciative of anybody who can lend some advice or anything, especially from laptop photoshop users.
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Sep 5, 2021 21:34
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I'd assume the extra ram would come in handy. That Asus is more than a few years old in terms of components.
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Sep 5, 2021 23:20
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The CPUs in each came out in the same year, though. That said, I'd still pick the intel one.
Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Sep 5, 2021 |
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Sep 5, 2021 23:25
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So I'm gonna get the kid an iPad, he's had a low-end Fire HD but I'm so over the Android tablet experience; I don't know if it's the Fire version specifically or what, but it seems to be slow or laggy a different way every time the kiddo uses it, and the parental controls are poo poo. The wife, she's decided that she'd like to be able to game on her future laptop; mostly older stuff, but she wants to be able to play FFXIV on at least decent settings. Any of the stuff on sale for Labor Day worth a look? I'm eying a couple of things, but I'm so lost on all the new brand names. We need something with warranty coverage though; my wife is a major klutz (her words; she's managed some truly astonishing self-injuries), and we have the kiddo to contend with. I suspect for this to work well we'll need something with a dedicated GPU, like a 3060 or 3070. We don't need a bigger screen than 15", and we don't mind buying a chassis that's short on RAM or SSD if it's upgradable. It doesn't need to be top of the line, and if we have to turn some settings down, it's OK. I'd love to keep this under a grand, but if it's a matter of spending an extra $100 to get a big jump in performance, I'm willing. Here's a few I've seen: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-ome...p?skuId=6450804 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-gf...T&skuId=6456144 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo...p?skuId=6398969 I'm kinda leaning toward the Legion; the MSI is basically the same in benchmarks, and I'm not sure if the additional CPU power is going to be needed for this.
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Sep 6, 2021 07:48
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The mobile 1660 Ti can handle FF14 at max settings more than adequately (like, 90 to 120 fps at 1080p from what I'm seeing), so I wouldn't spend any extra if that's the most graphically intensive thing she's planning on playing on it. Its biggest issue will be the 8GB of single-channel memory (and knowing Lenovo, 8gbit memory modules instead of 16gbit). I don't expect that to be a problem for your wife's intended purposes though. And if it is, memory is easily replaceable on Lenovo laptops.
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Sep 6, 2021 08:27
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Alright, my current laptop is on its last legs after almost 8 years of loyal service and it's time to look at something new. I'm looking at midrange gaming laptops because most everything else I see here in stores is low-end cheap crap or tiny expensive machines. Currently I'm deciding between several 15" full HD screen systems that have fairly similar specs: RTX1650 with 4GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 8GB RAM and either AMD Ryzen 4600 or Intel i5-10300H CPUs. Brands vary between HP, Lenovo, Acer and MSI, all in pretty much the same price range. Would these be a good choice for the coming several years or so and what benefit would I have with picking either CPU type or deciding between manufacturers besides the looks? The Ryzen machines are a tad cheaper. I don't play too many recent games but have a decent Steam library that I'd like to be able to keep playing and maybe a bunch of emulators.
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Sep 6, 2021 10:34
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If you don't play recent games then I'm not sure what "the coming years" means to you, but the mobile 1650 is not likely to cope well with upcoming AAA games. The 1660 Ti is quite a bit faster (~50% faster) while not adding much to the cost from what I can tell, so laptops with that GPU give you more bang for the buck. This is the cheapest 1660 Ti laptop on Newegg, and it's just a little bit more than the cheapest 1650 Ti laptops. The 1650 would be just fine for playing your steam backlog and some newer indie games, so you'd be justified in saving the extra money and going with that if that's all you're aiming for, but it's not what I'd personally go with if I wanted something that might have a bit more longevity. Also for Jedi425, the laptop I linked to is the AMD version of the one you were considering. It's $40 less, and from what I can tell the performance between the AMD and Intel chips puts intel just a little bit ahead while AMD is ahead on power efficiency. Seems like it's probably worth the lower price? I'm not sure if last-gen AMD CPUs have any hidden pitfalls or anything.
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Sep 6, 2021 11:02
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It's more of an indie games/non-AAA games thing, I don't really have the time or the interest in the latest and greatest anymore(Unless there's a full 3D remake of Terranigma coming). I'm mainly looking for something that will stand up to daily use for about 5 or more years and that also just happens to play games well enough. I'll have to look at the availability of RTX1660 systems here in Bulgaria then. EDIT: Found one that's in a similar price range: MSI GF65 Thin 10SDR-1235XRO. Is MSI's build quality any good? Next one up is an HP Pavilion 15-ec1029nq with a Ryzen 7 4800H but that's about a hundred bucks more expensive. Smoke fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Sep 6, 2021 |
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Sep 6, 2021 11:29
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abraham linksys posted:I feel like the thing to point out here is that being an hour away from an Apple Store is literally a better case for laptop repairs than literally any other laptop manufacturer, who are all going to require a mail-in fix for anything beyond, like, the Geek Squad reinstalling Windows for you. She would likely pay for the premium on-site support. She bought a PC (non-laptop) as her daily driver a while back and she got premium on-site support to just not have to mess with it if something comes up. I'm going to recommend the M1 mac again, then the X1 carbon, and then maybe the Dell XPS line in that order. We'll see what happens.
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Sep 6, 2021 23:56
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goldrush posted:I would be very appreciative of anybody who can lend some advice or anything, especially from laptop photoshop users. I run out of RAM pretty easily when doing photo stacks using my 16 GB desktop, so I wanted a ton of RAM for my new laptop. Ended up with a 64 GB Framework (https://frame.work/) with a 2 TB SSD. Being able easily upgrade the storage in the future also seems like a nice perk of the laptop.
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Sep 7, 2021 19:08
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any major concerns with this? I'd like to be using a 3070 with and AMD CPU and 16gigs of ram and this is the first thing i've seen in a while https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-r...=0&mpid=2509325 If I want to run Battlefield 2042 all sexy is the 3070's approx 300$ price point justified over the 3060? thats my benchmark more or less. v https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-r...p?skuId=6452913 e: said i can't pay to add more RAM
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Sep 7, 2021 20:23
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Bubbacub posted:I run out of RAM pretty easily when doing photo stacks using my 16 GB desktop, so I wanted a ton of RAM for my new laptop. Ended up with a 64 GB Framework (https://frame.work/) with a 2 TB SSD. Being able easily upgrade the storage in the future also seems like a nice perk of the laptop. did this come in for you yet? I've been eyeing one of those, starting to feel like it's the best buy you can get right now if you're willing to gamble on a 1 year warranty, which... is a big of a gamble but at least the serviceable parts hopefully would help it's very reasonable in pricing for the specs from what I can tell. the only thing in the Windows space that seems like it'd beat it is some of the $700-900 AMD laptops, but those are all extremely out of stock now and don't seem to have any hope of getting replenished. I am debating just getting an M1 Macbook Air (I know Apple has an event next week, but it sounds like the only thing they might be announcing is the 16-inch M1X MBP, which supposedly starts at $1800 and will probably also be hit with supply delays), though
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Sep 7, 2021 20:31
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Waroduce posted:any major concerns with this? I'd like to be using a 3070 with and AMD CPU and 16gigs of ram and this is the first thing i've seen in a while Short answer: No major concerns, it's generally thought to be one of the best all-around gaming laptops. The TDP is lower than ultra-mega-extreme gaming laptops (bigger, more cooling), the Zephyrus line is a compromise between portability and performance. From what I've heard, if you're playing anything on the laptop display it's got more than enough power to play whatever you want. The lower TDP would only come into play if you're hooked up to an external 4k monitor or something (which it would still do, but the difference would be bigger). The G15 is $300 more but you get a bigger screen w/ 1440p resolution over the 1080p 14". I ordered a G15 and it's supposed to be in on Thursday so I can't give you any real world experience yet.
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Sep 7, 2021 20:39
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abraham linksys posted:did this come in for you yet? I've been eyeing one of those, starting to feel like it's the best buy you can get right now if you're willing to gamble on a 1 year warranty, which... is a big of a gamble but at least the serviceable parts hopefully would help Yeah, I got mine in the batch 2 preorder. It's definitely a very nice laptop, I like the configurable ports and being able to pop the chassis open very easily. Battery life is mediocre, but that's the tradeoff with non-soldered components. Bubbacub fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Sep 7, 2021 |
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Sep 7, 2021 21:57
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dreesemonkey posted:Short answer: No major concerns, it's generally thought to be one of the best all-around gaming laptops. The TDP is lower than ultra-mega-extreme gaming laptops (bigger, more cooling), the Zephyrus line is a compromise between portability and performance. If all I'm getting for the 3070 is 1440p and minimal performance I may just go with the cheaper option
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Sep 8, 2021 00:37
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Waroduce posted:If all I'm getting for the 3070 is 1440p and minimal performance I may just go with the cheaper option Whats your use case? Will it be portable or living on a desk? Monitor or using the screen?
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Sep 8, 2021 03:19
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Lockback posted:Whats your use case? Will it be portable or living on a desk? Monitor or using the screen? I intend to leave the house with it occasionally for work but generally on a dock wired to a monitor for a bit of a home office set up and some gaming. BF2042 specifically and anything else that comes out in the near future. The smaller cheaper one seems nice enough, I guess I'm a bit concerned going with the 3060 instead of 3070 as I don't want to be "left behind" as far as gaming goes, but I understand the next-gen console specs are lower than even that so perhaps not a risk factor
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Sep 8, 2021 15:37
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Waroduce posted:I intend to leave the house with it occasionally for work but generally on a dock wired to a monitor for a bit of a home office set up and some gaming. BF2042 specifically and anything else that comes out in the near future. The smaller cheaper one seems nice enough, I guess I'm a bit concerned going with the 3060 instead of 3070 as I don't want to be "left behind" as far as gaming goes, but I understand the next-gen console specs are lower than even that so perhaps not a risk factor The ASUS Rog is going to be a little slower on gaming across the board, but it's going to be far better portable gaming than anything else (and portable in general. Unless you're completely disabling it you'll use the GPU now and then even without gaming). Do you have a microcenter near you? https://www.microcenter.com/product/637182/lenovo-legion-5-15-156-gaming-laptop-computer-platinum-collection-blue Would be a bit faster and still quite nice. The 3060 is a pretty great GPU. I wouldn't feel like you'll be in bad shape from it for the life of a consumer laptop.
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Sep 8, 2021 16:41
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Lockback posted:The ASUS Rog is going to be a little slower on gaming across the board, but it's going to be far better portable gaming than anything else (and portable in general. Unless you're completely disabling it you'll use the GPU now and then even without gaming). thanks for this! i think i'm going to pull this trigger. It apparently doesn't have an ethernet adapter but I'm planning to dock it anyway so meh. If i want a nice dock is it worth spending for the Lenovo branded offical dock or just grab a thing off amazon if I want two monitors, a mouse and various periphials/harddrives? It's faster even though there's only 6gb on the gpu? Waroduce fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Sep 8, 2021 |
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Sep 8, 2021 21:24
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Waroduce posted:thanks for this! i think i'm going to pull this trigger. It apparently doesn't have an ethernet adapter but I'm planning to dock it anyway so meh. All 3060 have 8GN of VRAM. They copied the description from the 2060, I'd guess. You're fine.
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Sep 9, 2021 00:11
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Vendors are starting to bake in thunderbolt 4 into their monitors https://www.tomshardware.com/news/lenovo-unveils-thinkvision-p27u-20-monitor Lenovo think branded 27" 4k display with 100w output to your laptop, photography grade color reproduction; $750 As soon as these are available, this will probably be my annual WFH equipment spend
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Sep 9, 2021 00:56
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Lockback posted:Do you have a microcenter near you? Anybody know what would happen if you plug something like this (that only has USB 3.2) into a Thunderbolt 3 dock? I've got a very nice Dell Thunderbolt3 dock at home that drives 3 monitors on my Thunderbolt3 laptop, and I'm considering replacing my nearly-7-year-old Lenovo Y50 with that Legion 5. Mostly I'll be sitting on a couch with it, but I might occasionally want to sit at my desk and plug in. I know my TB dock won't power the laptop, but I'm curious how it will handle the 3 monitors that are there already. Lockback posted:All 3060 have 8GN of VRAM. They copied the description from the 2060, I'd guess. You're fine. You sure about this? The specs for the 3060 on notebookcheck list it as 6GB, and I looked at the first 3 models in their list of laptops that include the 3060, and all of them say 6GB of VRAM, not 8.
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Sep 9, 2021 16:21
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FISHMANPET posted:You sure about this? The specs for the 3060 on notebookcheck list it as 6GB, and I looked at the first 3 models in their list of laptops that include the 3060, and all of them say 6GB of VRAM, not 8. Oh whoops, you are correct, all 3060s are 6GB. I got messed up on the 3060 vs ti thing. Still would say you'll be alright. "Not enough VRAM" isn't really a big thing on games at 1080p. If you are going to be running on 1440p or 4k monitor then yeah, you might want to strongly consider a 3070 then. I don't think its going to stop you from any games though, but you might end up having to turn down texture details on certain games.
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Sep 9, 2021 16:28
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Ah I already ordered it. I'm not super concerned about the 1440 v 1080 thing, gets here in about 7 days woo! Thanks guys
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Sep 9, 2021 17:32
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FISHMANPET posted:Anybody know what would happen if you plug something like this (that only has USB 3.2) into a Thunderbolt 3 dock? Nothing, Thunderbolt clients aren't backwards compatible with plain USBC hosts. The exception is docks that are built with separate fallback controllers for USBC, but that'll be a listed spec and often in the product title.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:01
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Good to know, it looks like my Dock (Dell WD19TB) might actually support backwards compatibility with USB. Worst case if I ever really want to use all the monitors I can get some adapters to plug in directly or get a different USB-C dock. But I probably shouldn't have too much fun in my designated WFH office anyway! Also to be clear, by "nothing" I'm assuming the interfaces are smart enough to know they're not compatible? Or is the dock going to try and stuff 130W of power into the USB port and fry my new device?
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Sep 9, 2021 18:17
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