Looking into 15-17" Gaming Laptop - Desktop Replacement

Not to long ago I upgraded my PC. Got a nice CPU, good clocks, decent running all around. Only thing I'd upgrade on it in the near term is probably the GPU as its now I think close to almost 4 years old! Yikes. Anyways a bit ago I was curious on downsizing my PC case to something smaller. Been looking into it and digging into it more and more. Really now the conclusion I've come up with is to maybe just consider really decent gaming laptop to replace the PC but still can utilize a monitor if I'd like to.

That being said I've been looking at the 15-17" laptops. I'm leaning more on the 15" due to a little easier on the portability standpoint but we'll see. That being said here are some of the pointers I've been coming aiming at. Just started digging around in this section of the forums just last week so might of missed something but I know its not typically what we do here on the site

i7 7700HQ / i7 7820HK - While still a laptop, I will like to tweak the CPU for what I can get out of it. Undervolt / OC it if possible! Not sure if the HQ would be fine for that without spending the extra to try getting the 7280k which seems to have more options for OCing?
16GB of ram - 2400Mhz, with the potential option at least maybe to get 2667Mhz ram with minor up charge, don't think I can OC this so little extra performance all the better.
Display - 1080p at least, 1440p would be nice, no 4k. IPS panel would be great (not sure if they come in 120Hz versions but I've seen some that can OC to 90Hz), also G-Sync option?
GPU - Looking at 1070GPU, unless really think the 1060 or 1060ti will potentially last for some years (guessing 5) with decent gaming (maybe not maxed out) on the display selected. Maybe potential OC of the GPU's if possible?
HDD - Primary drive would be a M.2 or PCIe based, 500-512GB drive would be preferred. I do have a 1TB 2.5" I'd at very least transfer over to the new laptop so secondary drive I could care less about. Potential option maybe for an additional M.2 or PCIe card in the future is always a plus
Battery - would love to be able to get 3ish hours out of a battery under normal, surfing, video watching, document typing conditions or even more if better. Gaming I understand I won't get much out of it on battery but 75+ min would be wonderful.

Ability to take apart relatively easily and apply appropriate thermal compounds! Was looking briefly into this and yeah with 10-15C drops potentially on some hardware with additional OC's... yeah that would be nice.

Brands to stay away from? Best of the Best brands?


This still has to pass the wife on this one since it will most likely be a pricey purchase (offset by selling of hardware of course). But I'm looking into this option and curios what others takes on it.

Unfortunately most consumer products like laptops are inevitably a race to the bottom so there isn't a best of the best per say other than Apple. Say what you want but they're the only ones doing true custom PCBs and designs that are genuinely cutting edge rather than cookie cutter nonsense. The second closest *maybe* is Alienware. So for a laptop I would try and get the cheapest one you can get from a tier 1 vendor and troll through slickdeals to do so. It might be Alienware, it might be HP, it might be Dell or Asus who knows. The other option is Apple and I know you don't want to hear that but if you're talking thin and light that's it.

Example
https://slickdeals.net/f/9837203-al...070-1-367-free-shipping?src=SiteSearchV2Algo1

I have an MSI GT72, and couldnt be happier!

Sentential said:

Unfortunately most consumer products like laptops are inevitably a race to the bottom so there isn't a best of the best per say other than Apple. Say what you want but they're the only ones doing true custom PCBs and designs that are genuinely cutting edge rather than cookie cutter nonsense. The second closest *maybe* is Alienware. So for a laptop I would try and get the cheapest one you can get from a tier 1 vendor and troll through slickdeals to do so. It might be Alienware, it might be HP, it might be Dell or Asus who knows. The other option is Apple and I know you don't want to hear that but if you're talking thin and light that's it.

Example
https://slickdeals.net/f/9837203-al...070-1-367-free-shipping?src=SiteSearchV2Algo1

Click to expand...

Good to note thanks. Yeah guess I wasn't thinking custom PCB designs, more so casing/cooling solutions. Limit flex, good airflow, etc. I know most don't think laptops as true desktop replacements but they are getting so close thanks to the recent nvidia GPU upgrades its within throwing range of them.

R_Pierce said:

I have an MSI GT72, and couldnt be happier!

Click to expand...

I know I've been looking through the MSI 15" versions. So many different options haha.


At work we've used Dell laptops for years. We had a 17" Workstation beast up until about a year ago got a nice 15" Dell Precision 7510 (6920HQ CPU, 32GB Ram, nvidia quadro 2000M GPU). Its worked nice had good battery life and just started playing around with the "OC settings" on the CPU.

deathman20 said:

Good to note thanks. Yeah guess I wasn't thinking custom PCB designs, more so casing/cooling solutions. Limit flex, good airflow, etc. I know most don't think laptops as true desktop replacements but they are getting so close thanks to the recent nvidia GPU upgrades its within throwing range of them.

Click to expand...

That's part of what I'm trying to say; Apple laptops actually under-volt their chips by a substantial amount which is why they only use 85W or 90W chargers as opposed to 300W. The opposite is true for folks like Alienware, especially on the 17s their cooling systems are way overbuilt and do genuinely overclock (I've done it before on a friend's) so that's going to be your options if you want to shell out good money for something "high end". Or buy a thin and light and use TB3 to install an eGPU. That might be your best bet if you don't want to go over 15"

But as stated before; wait for a sale or buy a refurb and you'll do much better. Lurking @ slickdeals is your best bet.

Look into clevo/sager laptops. They seem to be fairly customizable and there are quite a few resellers around. I just got my Evoc p650hs-g from HIDEvolution.

Specs:
i7 7700hq, 16gb DDR4 2400, 1070 gtx, 1tb 7200 HDD (have a 950 pro NVMe drive laying around I wasn't using so I used that), 15.6" 1080p 120hz TN gsync monitor.

Prema bios (don't know too much about this but I think it unlocks better options of overclocking/undervolting and stability on both the mobo and GPU).

I've been out of the mobile computing game for a while but this thing I feel is Built like a tank, at least compared to my SO's low end Asus laptop ( I guess that probably doesn't say much... lol).

Taking it apart is just 14 screws at the bottom (2 of these can be removed to get underneath the keyboard if you just needed access to the other 2 ram slots).

There's room for 2x 2.5" drives and two m.2 drives. Only one of the m.2 slots can use NVMe, or you can run 2 sata in raid.

I just received it today so when I have more time to play with it I'll throw out a bit more info. So far I've just been able to throw in the 950 pro and now installing windows onto it.

Falcon Northwest makes some hardcore desktop replacement laptops, fully customizable. Not cheap, though. https://www.falcon-nw.com/laptops/overview Second time today I've mentioned them. LOL

I recommend you buy a MSI gaming laptop, I have a MSI GT73VR (i7-6820HK, GTX1080), it is really great gaming laptop.
this blog has some MSI laptop internal pictures https://www.laptopmain.com/category/msi/ , hope to help you!