laptop Laptop Recommendations

[Drakisha]

What would be the best/decent  laptop for someone who spends up to 5 hrs on SL, sim hop to events constantly (uses mid settings), who does photos and/or videos (uses high settings). Also that can run games like World of Warcraft or Sims 4 etc. Preferably able to change components for later upgrades if that's possible? And within $500-$1000 price range. I am not tech savvy so any advice is greatly appreciated!

[Cindy Evanier]

12 minutes ago, Drakisha said:

What would be the best/decent  laptop for someone who spends up to 5 hrs on SL, sim hop to events constantly (uses mid settings), who does photos and/or videos (uses high settings). Also that can run games like World of Warcraft or Sims 4 etc. Preferably able to change components for later upgrades if that's possible? And within $500-$1000 price range. I am not tech savvy so any advice is greatly appreciated!

I got this one about 6 months ago.  Love it.  I use high settings. ALM always on and occasionally have had to have 3 viewers logged in.  Not able to upgrade things though as far as I know but I am not tech savvy either

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GV72-7RE.html 

[Lindal Kidd]

My recommendation would be...no laptop!

Cindy's suggestion, and many others in the same price/performance range, will work just fine.

However, laptops tend to run hot when using resource heavy applications like SL and games.  You'll want to at least get some sort of auxiliary cooling solution.

They have small screens.  Even a gaming laptop has only a 17" screen.  I'm used to seeing SL on at least a 24" monitor, and a 27" is even better.

They cost more than a desktop computer of equivalent performance.

They are not upgradeable, as you say you'd prefer.  With a desktop, you can configure it any way you want to start (if you build it yourself or hire it done), and later on you can change out anything you like.

[Cindy Evanier]

1 minute ago, Lindal Kidd said:

I'm used to seeing SL on at least a 24" monitor, and a 27" is even better.

I would love that but sadly for my health issues I have to use a laptop.    

[Nalates Urriah]

The considerations are numerous.

Where do you live? Is the room you are in sweater-sweatshirt temperatures? Or shorts and halter top? It makes a difference in how much cooling your computer needs. Cool places will allow you to get by with the builtin cooling. Warm places will require more than the standard cooling.

Marketing hype targets the non-techie with misleading claims. The most annoying for me is the sale of NEW computers built with 2006 Core-2 tech. Also 2nd and 3rd gen Intel CPU's sold as new when the current Intel CPU is a 9th generation chip.

ID Intel CPU's by their number, bottom to top i3, i5, i7 and 2#### to 9###. So, my 6th gen i5 is designated i5-6600k. The 'k' meaning it can be overclocked, run faster than its advertised rating. For SL the i5 is the performance-cost sweet spot, debatable but my position.

CPU speed is very important for SL performance. So, you are looking for 3.? to 4.? GHz CPU. The 2.?GHz are cheaper but you take a disportionate hit running SL.

Also, ad hype will push the Intel HD Graphics as something great. If you want to stream YouTube, they are right. But, they make it sound like it is a good thing for gaming. Facebook games, yeah. And not too bad for WoW. WoW is nowhere near as graphics intense as SL. If you can run SL well, you can run most any game very well.

For the money, you get more with a desktop. Laptops and mini-tower and other small footprint desktops are pretty much way too difficult to upgrade, if not impossible and then they severally restricted. If you really want to upgrade you probably need to stay with mid and full size towers.

For SL you need a dedicated video card. In laptops it is not a card but, a chip built into the motherboard (generally not upgradable). As to brand of video card, AMD and Apple have not been supporting OpenGL or very weak when they do. So, NVIDIA is the choice. But, on the PC Windows side you can get by with AMD/ATI. It is debatable how good an idea that is. I argue it is the difficult-to-live-with choice.

If portable is not a primary requirement then go desktop. You might even want to consider using your TV as the monitor for it and use a wireless keyboard and mouse to be able to move away from the desktop.

 

Edited September 15, 2018 by Nalates Urriah
added stuff

[Rolig Loon]

I agree with Lindal that a desktop is likely to be less expensive and more easily upgraded than a laptop.  It's also more likely to be able to connect directly to your router/modem with a cable rather than with wifi. Her point about the monitor is a little less convincing, since you can drive a larger monitor from either a desktop or a laptop. 

On the other side, a laptop offers you portability, which can be important for many SL residents, like students and others who move around a lot.  Sometimes, mobility can be more important than price or versatility.  It's a very personal decision.

I own a desktop that was built in 2007 and has almost none of its original components -- including the case itself -- left.  Virtually everything has been replaced at least once, except the motherboard, which is now essentially obsolete.  As we speak, therefore, a friend is replacing it with a modern motherboard with significantly more memory.  I figure that over the past eleven years I have spent about $1800 in graphics cards, power supplies, hard drives, and whatnot -- enough to have bought another new desktop and a half.  In that same time, I have replaced my laptop three times, mostly recently just two weeks ago, for a total of something over $3000.  I always buy machines and components from NewEgg and I look for quality products on sale to keep cost low. 

The bottom line is that over an eleven year period, I have spent almost twice as much keeping laptops fairly up to date as I have spent on my desktop.  So why do I have both?  Because I do need to be mobile.  I am away from home often enough that I would not be able to maintain a SL business if I only had my desktop to work with.  So why not just use the laptop and be done with the desktop?  Because the desktop has more memory, a better graphics card (GTX 1070), a larger keyboard -- important for older, clumsy fingers -- and it doesn't run hot when I am in SL.  And -- yes, Lindal -- because I have a nice big monitor.  Besides, I really like it and I feel a weird sense of loyalty to it..  It has grown with me since just before I joined SL back in 2007.

The new laptop, BTW, is an Acer Aspire 7, which I bought on sale from NewEgg for under $1000.  (The sale ended yesterday, I believe. The non-sale price is something like $1400.)  It has a GTX 1060 graphics card, 16 Gb of DDR4 memory, an Intel i7 CPU, and a 17" screen*.  I always run it with an extra fan blowing air under it, because it does get warmer than I like under heavy load, but it is handling itself well in SL. 

*EDIT:  Oh, yes, and a 256 Gb SSD.

Edited September 15, 2018 by Rolig Loon