New laptop help.

[Pagey279]

I'm building a laptop on PC Specialist (if this is a bad idea please say so) but I'm unsure what specs would be best, particularly in terms of processors. I want a fairly beefy laptop, which will be able to run things like iRacing and stuff.

So do I want the i7 dual core 3.0ghz 4mb, or one of the quad cores?

I only have one choice in terms of graphics cards, the NVIDIA Geforce GTX 860m. Any good?

And ideally what RAM would be sufficient?

 

[MHPALA]

Inb4 everyone comes in stating "build a PC". I'd personally get the quad core. The quad core with hyper threading will help from a computing standpoint since there is no overclockability on the mobile platform besides turbo boost. Make sure that their lineup is in tune with the soon to be released Haswell refresh (for the extra mhz, if there is any + chipset benefits).

Make sure you get a good chassis with a good BIOS (that utilizes everything that the chipset has to offer) and a MXM slot (so you can upgrade your GPU in the future).

8gb of ram should be sufficient enough.

The 860m is pretty much a GTX 750ti (lets the benchmarks do the talking): http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-860M.107794.0.html

 

[Exorcet]

The thing about mutlicore is that the program needs to be built for it. Example, I run Digital Combat Simulator. It's very CPU intensive, but only runs two cores currently. A dual core 3.5 GHz CPU would be almost the same as running a quad core 3.5 GHz CPU. The only potential difference would be with the quad core, DCS could have 2 core to itself while the OS and background PC stuff would run on the two other cores, but this probably won't make a huge difference.

If you're only interested in running a handful of programs, check to see how many cores they support. If you want some amount of future proofing, go quad core. As for CPU speed, I'd suggest 2.5 GHz or better. Note that Intel has a turbo function and it can get confusing determining what CPU speed is being listed. If you're not sure, note the name of the CPU you're looking at and look it up on the manufacturer's website. Example:

http://ark.intel.com/products/52219/Intel-Core-i7-2630QM-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-2_90-GHz

Notice that the base speed is 2.0 GHz, but max turbo is 2.9 GHz. You can consider the max turbo to be the true CPU speed since it can run that speed indefinitely. The base speed is for less power consumption.

The GTX 860M looks like a decent laptop card. I have a 660M in one of my laptops and I haven't found a game that I have trouble running.

For RAM, check your programs' recommendations. 6-8 GB should be fine for most games. Don't go below 4.

 

[Pagey279]

It sounds like the graphics card is capable of doing what I want it to do so that's sorted. 8gb of RAM is sorted too.

So with CPUs the i7 quad core 4710MQ 2.50 ghz will be the better choice over the i7 dual core 4610M 3.0ghz?

 

[Exorcet]

That depends on what programs you're running. You mentioned iRacing. I did a lazy search on iRacing and quad core and it looks like quad core is recommended. So go with the 4710.

Quad core is not automatically better though. For example, if you wanted to play DCS the 4610 would be better because of the higher speed. DCS uses 2 cores max, so quad core is no better than dual core in that case. There are also a few things to consider besides speed.


And actually I decided to look up the CPU's before posting. You posted the wrong speeds. They both turbo.

http://ark.intel.com/products/78931/Intel-Core-i7-4710MQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz

http://ark.intel.com/products/80345/Intel-Core-i7-4610M-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz

The 47 is 3.5 GHz
The 46 is 3.7 GHz

The speeds are very close and both should be fine for a simulator. The 47 has a larger cache which might slightly improve speed.

The safer bet is the 4710.

 

[Pagey279]

The speeds I posted were just the ones quoted by the website.

It looks like I will go for the 4710 then so it's all pretty much sorted, thanks for your help! 👍

 

[Mikeybc]

Don't skimp on the display, I'd get good quality 1920x1080 minimum, nothing worse than getting a good laptop with a weak display with grey blacks and poor viewing angles.

 

[Pagey279]

The one I've chosen has a QHD+ IPS screen, 3200x1800. Trouble is it's only a 13.3" screen.