Affordable and Fast Gaming Laptop

[Dan King]

Hey folks, anyone have some advice on a fast gaming laptop to load SkyTrak that's under $1K?

[tomcho]

This is under a $1,000 and will run anything I have last years model but with the same 6gb 1060 card

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CTHLX8C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-sSNCbZ403H93

[Dan King]

I ended up going with an Acer Aspire 7. Good reviews and should do the trick with TGC and others.

[Dave Lee]

Just to add another option for people looking at this thread in the future...

A lot of newer laptops have usb-c ports which allow for external video cards. If you're not familiar with external card cases, they're basically a small box with a power supply and one slot for a desktop video card. So you basically run a usb-c cable from your latop to this external card, and the laptop uses that video card instead of it's own.

The advantage of this is you can now buy a small ultrabook like a dell xps 13 and use it for other things rather than a dedicated heavy gaming laptop. Also, desktop video cards are significantly more powerful and will last longer, before being outdated. When it does become outdated, you can just replace the video card in the external box. For example my 1+ year dell xps 13 with a nvidia 1070 card can still run games released this year at high settings. In the past, laptops with built in video cards would start struggling the next year. (and generally couldn't run high settings to start)

Downside is you're basically halfway to the space footprint of a small desktop.

[Lgnir]

Here's a great gaming laptop Best Buy has on sale. AWESOME graphics card on it!

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/alienware-15-6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-1tb-hard-drive-256gb-solid-state-drive-black/6239219.p?skuId=6239219

[Dan King]

Just to add another option for people looking at this thread in the future...

A lot of newer laptops have usb-c ports which allow for external video cards. If you're not familiar with external card cases, they're basically a small box with a power supply and one slot for a desktop video card. So you basically run a usb-c cable from your latop to this external card, and the laptop uses that video card instead of it's own.

The advantage of this is you can now buy a small ultrabook like a dell xps 13 and use it for other things rather than a dedicated heavy gaming laptop. Also, desktop video cards are significantly more powerful and will last longer, before being outdated. When it does become outdated, you can just replace the video card in the external box. For example my 1+ year dell xps 13 with a nvidia 1070 card can still run games released this year at high settings. In the past, laptops with built in video cards would start struggling the next year. (and generally couldn't run high settings to start)

Downside is you're basically halfway to the space footprint of a small desktop.

When you say USB-C ports, you're talking USB 3.1 right? I believe those are compatible with USB-C devices.

[Dan King]

Here's a great gaming laptop Best Buy has on sale. AWESOME graphics card on it!

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/alienware-15-6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-1tb-hard-drive-256gb-solid-state-drive-black/6239219.p?skuId=6239219

Sure is, but more than I wanted to pay. I would assume any laptop with a NVIDIA GeFORCE GTX video card would be upgrade(able) if need be.

[Lgnir]

Well honestly, I needed a gaming laptop due to limited space and the need for mobility, and I looked around at a lot of them. Although there were some that had the GTX 1060 there were always something about them that I did not like. (I wanted a minimum of 256GB SSD, and 16GB RAM) I would have really liked to get something with the GTX 1080 so when I can, I can display in 4K, but that was going out of my price range.

Now I ran TGC1 on a GTX 960M laptop, and it ran in high resolution, but could get a little choppy at times. If you are not too worried about wanting to upgrade, do a google or amazon search for laptops with the GTX 1060. I'm sure you will find some great deals. I found a lot around $800, but they did not have a SSD drive and only around 8GB of memory. Just some patient searching is all you need!

[Dave Lee]

When you say USB-C ports, you're talking USB 3.1 right? I believe those are compatible with USB-C devices.

Would actually have to be an actual usb-c port. so the connection would be usb-c to usb-c. Reason being the amount of data that can go through a pure usb-c port is much much higher than usb 3.1. Which real time passing of graphic data would need.

Then you would need a box like the ones listed in the link I attached and a video card. It may not be the cheapest solution but I think the added benefits outweigh a gaming laptop..at least in my opinion.

[JackedUpSwing]

Yeah.... This is wrong...

USB-C is just a connector type. USB-C can be USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 etc...

You can just use an adapter, the only thing that matters is the USB bandwith type rating of whatever connector you're using. If the data transfer rate requires USB 3.0, using USB 2.0 would be too slow.

[Dan King]

Would actually have to be an actual usb-c port. so the connection would be usb-c to usb-c. Reason being the amount of data that can go through a pure usb-c port is much much higher than usb 3.1. Which real time passing of graphic data would need.

Then you would need a box like the ones listed in the link I attached and a video card. It may not be the cheapest solution but I think the added benefits outweigh a gaming laptop..at least in my opinion.

Got it, thx

[Gawlfa]

I bought a Dell G7 gaming laptop with a GeForce GTX 1060 from Best Buy for just over $1K.