Laptop choice for solid neverwinter performance

vattara

Will not have access to my PC for two months early next year. Need some advice for a laptop model that gives the best/ solid performance for Neverwinter Online. They all look good on paper but what are your real time experiences?
Thanks in advance

Unknown

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kiraskytower

I have a pair of Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) Laptops I have used for Neverwinter for the past couple years. Both have built in NVidia GPUs and i7s and make for great machines for Neverwinter, even able to (with the help of an external monitor) run a session on both live and preview at the same time. The downside is they are on the more expensive side for a laptop ($1000 - $1500) but still cheaper than something like an Alienware. If you do get one, the solid state drive is well worth it for the speed boost.

kvet

My work just approved issuing me a top of the line HP Zbook 17 with all the bells and whistles. It's more powerful than our entire front-end production infrastructure (well, the part in front of the cache anyway). 8 i7 cores, 32GB ram, 8GB dedicated vram inside an NVIDIA Quadro K5100M, 2 512GB SSD and a 17" screen. The thing is huge, I'm not looking forward to traveling with it, but with the work I do, I need it. When I take breaks, I can do lifts with it for some exercise. I'm looking forward to seeing how NW runs on it, since if it runs in any way poorly there's not really any good excuse for it being the machine

BTW, Alienware is all lights and flash - you can get just as good a machine for way cheaper without all the external LEDs... wastes of money to pay for a "pretty" machine you don't even really look at much anyway.

Oh, also: I've never played Neverwinter (or STO for that matter) on a desktop machine. Not ever. I haven't owned a Desktop since probably 1999. Some machines have been better others, but the game has typically run fine on med-low settings on every machine I've had.

suicidalgodot

I got me 2x HD, separate GTX570M GPU board MSI i5 lap 3 years ago. Put an SSD in the primary slot, plus the original HD in the secondary.

It doesn't run NW on max spec, but when I take out Shadows and Ambient Sreenspace Occlusion, FPS is not the limiting issue. My 2x ADSL ISP line is a tighter bottleneck, some big problem in populated zones...

tantrumusmaximus

I bought this for a recent trip and NW was flawless. I added an m.2 drive and 500gb ssd. The m.2 has to be a specific variety, I've shared the one I stuck in as well below.

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-VN7-591G-70RT-15-6-Inch-Gaming/dp/B00WJSQRNK/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1446748761&sr=1-1&keywords=Acer+Aspire+V15

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KLTPVV8?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s01

Aside from my upgrades this is a very capable system for <$1100 with a GTX 960/i7

I would avoid 4K versions/options like the plague on a gamer laptop btw, keep to 1080 on the laptop and you will be happy gaming.

IMHO this is one of the best gamer laptops for the money, I have been very happy.

vattara

Fast responses! Thanks for the suggestions.
Have only had custom built PCs after my first disastrous experience with brand name hardware.
Modding out a laptop sounds like the best compromise.

silverkelt

Alien ware sold to dell.. its jut overpriced marketing now.

Dell is a sad shell of what was a good company, but as any corporation grows like that, quality is replaced with quanity , profit margins and market share, means a whole bunch more then customer satisfaction.

ambisinisterr

Yeah all laptops look good on paper because they are sold based on gimmicks. I hate shopping for laptops because as gamers the most important thing to us is the GPU yet it is never listed in standard laptops. I mean I look at all the things they try to advertise as reasons to buy the laptop and go "okay now really...why is this a good laptop because you just told me nothing."

Rant aside, a budget would be helpful.

I'll start off with you need to budget no less than $1,000 on a laptop that is able to run modern games.
Anything less and there is either not going to be a dedicated GPU or the specifications will not be high enough.

Additionally I had sworn off laptops years ago after dealing with all the heat issues. Good components create heat. Heat both degrades long term performance and results in thermal throttling for immediate performance loss. I had actually given up that manufacturers would realize thinner and lighter is NOT better when putting a lot of power into a computer...

That is until ROG created a line up of laptops. Normally I don't like it when things have a "gaming" label as it normally just means it has a price increase for no reason but this is not the case this time. They are in my honest opinion the only laptops designed to be used for gaming for a reason beyond flashy gimmicks. I bought one and I am really satisfied with it and honestly it was cheaper than some of the other laptops I had bought in the past.

This isn't the model I own and there are cheaper options. Just look at the exhaust ports and the way the laptop opens.
That thing is designed to make sure heat is dissipated. Too many laptops such as my last Dell laptop blocked the exhaust ports when you open the laptop...yes manufacturers are really that dumb.


So, TL;DR:
1. Budget for no less than $1,000.
2. Make sure the laptop manufacturer cared about heat dispersion. THINNER IS NOT BETTER! LIGHTER IS NOT BETTER!
3. Look into the CPU, GPU and RAM. Everything else is gimmicks.
4. Look up benchmarks of the CPU and GPU as numbers are not indicative of performance.
5. No less than 8 GB of RAM. 16 would be preferable.


And as an aside silverkelt is very much correct in my opinion. Alienware is all flash since they were bought by Dell. I would not recommend them as they have a huge price premium just for the brand name. You can find comparable options for hundreds (thousands) of dollars less from any other manufacturer.

vattara

All good advice folks, thanks again

urabask

kvet said:

My work just approved issuing me a top of the line HP Zbook 17 with all the bells and whistles. It's more powerful than our entire front-end production infrastructure (well, the part in front of the cache anyway). 8 i7 cores, 32GB ram, 8GB dedicated vram inside an NVIDIA Quadro K5100M, 2 512GB SSD and a 17" screen. The thing is huge, I'm not looking forward to traveling with it, but with the work I do, I need it. When I take breaks, I can do lifts with it for some exercise. I'm looking forward to seeing how NW runs on it, since if it runs in any way poorly there's not really any good excuse for it being the machine

Eh, it's a workstation laptop.

As far as gaming benchmarks the GPU is a bit better than a 750ti so I wouldn't really expect much.

kvet said:

BTW, Alienware is all lights and flash - you can get just as good a machine for way cheaper without all the external LEDs... wastes of money to pay for a "pretty" machine you don't even really look at much anyway.

Still kind of interested in their external GPU solution. MSI does one too but that's about the only way I would really consider buying a laptop for gaming (especially if they can get the enclosures to a reasonable size eventually).

ambisinisterr

urabask said:

Still kind of interested in their external GPU solution. MSI does one too but that's about the only way I would really consider buying a laptop for gaming (especially if they can get the enclosures to a reasonable size eventually).

This was one of those technologies that seemed interesting but I really don't like the way they are implementing it.

My family used to mock me for carrying around my desktop saying it was big and bulky. I had and have no problem with it though. It was more annoying having to set wires up and worry amount monitor damage than anything regarding bulk and the only reason I bought a laptop was because I couldn't justify the risk of moving a monitor if I was only going somewhere for a couple of hours.

However these holding cases for the GPU's are just plain massive for what they do and it really unnerves me. I don't see a reason why they can't reduce the size drastically to roughly the size of a GPU and power source and I definitely would prefer seeing it be treated more like a peripheral than a laptop stand. It just doesn't look like it would be comfortable to use. I think even one of the reviewers said he would only consider using this if you had an external keyboard as well and it just brings to too close to the realm of "why not just lug around a desktop?" to me. For a very similar price point you might as well take the ease of the laptop and sacrifice some power.

Interesting technology...but not only is it not ready for purchase IMHO but I also don't feel like they are truly designing it with the right perspectives. They know there's people who want power and portability but it doesn't seem like the people who are designing it are in the niche crowd that would want such a device so they are kind of flying blind.

urabask

ambisinisterr said:

However these holding cases for the GPU's are just plain massive for what they do and it really unnerves me. I don't see a reason why they can't reduce the size drastically to roughly the size of a GPU and power source and I definitely would prefer seeing it be treated more like a peripheral than a laptop stand. It just doesn't look like it would be comfortable to use. I think even one of the reviewers said he would only consider using this if you had an external keyboard as well and it just brings to too close to the realm of "why not just lug around a desktop?" to me. For a very similar price point you might as well take the ease of the laptop and sacrifice some power.

Probably airflow problems. I see it more for someone that doesn't want to have a gimped GPU when they get home.
IMO the main problem is that mobile GPUs are gradually becoming closer in performance to desktop GPUs. So by the time they have it at a reasonable enough size to lug around there won't be a reason for it to exist.

l3thin4th

magenubbie said:

Real time experiences? Simple. Don't. The average laptop has a slow hard drive and a horribly under-performing "hybrid" GPU.
Unless you're willing to spend a LOT on that laptop for just 2 months of NW, I'd just accept not playing NW at optimal performance. For the price of a laptop that runs NW at optimal performance, you can buy a 2nd desktop.

To quantify: my laptop costs $1,000 (heavy discount, bought 18 months ago) and it has an Intel® Core™ i7-4510U Processor at 3.1 Gh, 16 MB Ram DDR3 (can't remember the manufacturer), HGST 1 TB5400 rpg SATA HD and a Nvidia GTX 850M.

I like high FPS so I run on low graphic details (and here and there I hit 70 FPS).
If I max everything, I go as low as 20.

ambisinisterr

urabask said:

Probably airflow problems...IMO the main problem is that mobile GPUs are gradually becoming closer in performance to desktop GPUs. So by the time they have it at a reasonable enough size to lug around there won't be a reason for it to exist.

Regarding airflow, really the main reason cases exist are to protect components. When you spend a few hundred dollars you don't want them to break because you dropped them. Airflow is a secondary concern as they can help force airflow over components.

In the case of GPU's though they are really self sufficient. Either you own a blower style in which it is a more or less self contained unit which forces it's on airflow or you own an open air blower in which technically having as open of an enclosure as possible would be a better option. The latter means that the enclosure could just be a frame and mesh (and filter) to protect the GPU from being hit directly and the size of the "case" wouldn't truly matter as the "case" wouldn't be keeping much heat contained within it unlike the closed confines of a traditional case.

IDK though. Think of me as an elf. I can think up the concepts but I lack all the the mechanical skill to do anything with it if I require tools larger than handheld tools. When I need metal work done I'll call a dwarf.


As for the part about them being too little too late. Highly probable. However that's when the people like me who want to scream with rage every time I see a "gaming" laptop which is thinner than my keyboard will still want such a product which doesn't put way too much performance in such a small box. You might not need monstrous cases with all of these more power efficient components they are releasing but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to put as much concern removing heat as a UPS Truck...

theoddis1

lol this game has no "solid performace" on any system it runs like a fat kid carrying a barrel of rocks

vattara

Thank you to everyone who offered suggestions.
I went with the ACER V17 Nitro Black Edition ( very sexy)
I can run NW on high graphic settings and even in IWD, the frame rates are good

http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/NX.MUTAA.005