Best laptop currently for SL to run well - model or spec?

[JordonBanks]

Best laptop currently for SL to run well - model or spec?

[bigmoe Whitfield]

first, whats the price range you have in mind?

[Lindal Kidd]

PC Gamer has this one in their "best gaming laptops of 2022"roundup. The model with 32GB of RAM is right at around $2,000.

Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 6 (16") with RTX™ 3070

But if it was me, I would not buy ANY laptop for SL. They tend to run hot, and their displays are tiny. If all I had was a laptop, I would also want a great big 4K TV to hook up to it.

[cunomar]

Lenovo Legion recently struck me as interesting, mainly because while i don't need a rugged laptop it annoys me that the alternative is live wires wrapped in eggshell .

It was maybe an old lenovo Thinkpad somebody chucked a bucket of water over without killing it that i chanced upon via youtube .

Maybe it was old enough to be built before they banned quality ? , but yeah wow a fancy laptop thats unlikely to die if you sneeze on it .

My MSI with GTX1050 didn't blink when someone played nuclear tennis with me being the ball at a sandbox , after 15 minutes i hit the off button because i could feel the heat through the keyboard and i'd guess the RTX3070 makes the 1050 seem puny .

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Maybe a thing to look out for, and it's kind of personal, but I'd always go for the larger/17-inch option, if it's available. I find the smaller sizes, 13 and 15 inch, just not convenient for gaming (and designing). The alternative, hooking up a larger monitor for more convenient gaming, to me, just defeats the mobility purpose of the laptop all together.

[Nalates Urriah]

Getting the right laptop for you is a challenge. People will make recommendations based on how they use SL and like to see it. You haven't given us anything to go on.

Also, is price a consideration? i5 CPUs are the most performance for the money. Plus the SL viewers can't use ALL the horse power of an i5 or i7 and the 7s are overkill for SL. But if price is not an issue go for the i7. The i9 and Xs are massive overkill.

CPU Generation... the latest generation of CPUs is always best. Intel is currently selling 12th generation CPUs. Be careful because online companies and even RL stores will do price comparisons using previous generation chips. In some cases they are selling new computers made with 6th generation CPUs. They are NEW, meaning assembled recently and never previously sold. Still it is older tech.

Laptop cooling is a problem. Laptop CPUs are generally running at lower clock speeds to reduce heat. So while an i5-12600 in a desktop may run at 3.8GHz the laptop version is likely to run at only 1.5GHz. For use with Second Life that is a MAJOR bottleneck. I overclock my CPU by ~20% to 4.1GHz.

Graphics is best handled by a dedicated graphics card/chip. Otherwise the CPU has to do double duty as CPU and GPU and system memory, RAM, is used for graphics memory. With desktops graphics cards are used and can be updated easily. Plus they come with their own graphics memory. Laptops have a built-in graphics chip which cannot be replaced... well... replacing one requires soldering. Since GPU pin counts tend to vary... upgrading is not likely.

If you dig through the forum you'll find posts by people that have bought top of the line gaming machines and been disappointed. With the hottest gaming machine made, one can turn the draw distance up to 1024m and set Ultra for quality and in some places it is only going to give you 8 to 12 FPS.

Those of us that have been in SL for awhile have learned to balance performance and quality to our taste. No matter how hot a machine is, SL can overwhelm it. One does have to weak their system and viewer to provide the performance and quality they want.

So, we can't tell you what is BEST... because we don't know your preferences. But an i5 >=10gen fast CPU (>3GHz) with 32GB of RAM with a 512GB SSD drive will run SL pretty well.

Edited July 15, 2022 by Nalates Urriah
Oops

[diamond Marchant]

3 hours ago, cunomar said:

Lenovo Legion recently struck me as interesting

I have a 2021 Lenovo Legion 5 15IMH05 Laptop

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (2591.99 MHz)
Memory: 32676 MB
Concurrency: 12
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19044.1826)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 4096 MB

This laptop is light, runs cool, no fan noise...  I normally operate at High + graphics but go to Ultra for photography, 40+ fps typical. Also, looks like a business laptop, no gratuitous gamer styling.

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by diamond Marchant

[CandyCole]

5 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

PC Gamer has this one in their "best gaming laptops of 2022"roundup. The model with 32GB of RAM is right at around $2,000.

Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 6 (16") with RTX™ 3070

Besides preferring the 3070ti version of the above that Lenovo Legion 5i is exactly what I want.

My current laptop is a ASUS ROG Strix GL703 i7-8750H 1060ti 16GB and I want something to last me the next 3 years minimum so I don't mind paying for specs beyond my current needs. Sadly availability is currently non-existent in my part of the world and there is a Lenovo dealership nearby plus numerous other outlets.

I don't play any games other than SL** and Cities:Skylines (and slither.io) and these are both relics in the gaming world and focus on single processor performance. When I watch reviews I generally don't pay much attention to other game FPS because that's irrelevant regarding the games I play. Tend to focus more on other benchmarks and opinions towards content creators, even though I'm not one.

I've been putting money aside for the past few years for a new laptop and have made my decision over the past few months following YouTube reviews among several channels. My favourite being https://www.youtube.com/c/JarrodsTech.

Edited July 15, 2022 by CandyCole
** the word 'game' is used in the broadest of terms.

[Maitimo]

I agree, I wouldnt run a laptop as my sole access to SL. I tried this last year; the laptop itself was great; mid range gaming one that gave great performance in SL even at Ultra settings.

Within 18 months the motherboard was dead from the constant overheating.  

 

[Bree Giffen]

Normally I recommend a desktop computer for games but I have been on a gaming laptop for a few months since my desktop died and so far it’s running well.It’s a Lenovo Legion 5. It has an AMD processor  (5i versions have Intel). It’s 3070 video and 16gb ram. It seems to have 3 fan settings. A low silent mode for non-gaming, a medium mode where the fans can be heard and a high mode where the fans get loud. SL on the lower graphic presets runs silently but at a higher graphic presets the fans go to medium mode. With Cyberpunk 2077 it runs on medium mode or high mode so the fans are really working in high end games. I’m sure other gaming laptops with the same specs will also run SL the same way. 

Increasing or decreasing size or quality of components will change the price in a particular model of computer so that’s something to  look at if you want to save money. Mine has 16gb ram which is fine for gaming. It has a relatively small hard drive but I don’t run a large number of programs or work with audio/video files.

[Arielle Popstar]

With a laptop I make a regular habit of blowing out the cooling ports every 6 months or so with a fairly powerful burst of air. It is amazing how much dust can come out of them in that short a time. Best to use a thin tool to stop the fan from turning when doing it so as to not potentially damage the fan from overrunning.

[ShibariKate]

I have and use one of the Nitro Series from Acer. Graphics are set to Very high, and I generally have no issues.

[Marianne Little]

Now I want to buy a new laptop, but I squeeze as much out of my old one as I can.

I have 2 very interesting Lenovo legion laptops I am looking at .

Lenovo Legion 5 PRO 1tb/5800h/3060

GeForce RTX 3060, QHD 165Hz AMD Ryzen™ 7 5800H-prosessor 16 GB DDR4 RAM, 1000 GB SSD Windows 11 Home.

or

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16" QHD 165 Hz RTX 3070

RTX: 3070 RAM 16gb CPU RYZEN 5800H SSD: 1000 gb

This one look pristine. It can be misleading of course. But if it were used much, it should have some marks of use? This seller has images of it in real, not just images from the web.

What do you think? The first or the second?

[Antonioo Giano]

I own a 2022 Lenovo Legion 5i pro with 12th gen i7 intel, 32gb ram, 3070 nvidia. With this setting it costed around 2400€ in my country, it can be less or more depending from the country (vat and other stuff). Overall I think the 5i pro is the best laptop comparing quality/price.

If the budget is less is good also a 2021 version with a 11th gen intel processor or the amd processor.

You can use it as your only way to enter SL, those are gaming laptop used to manage stuff way more "hard" than SL. I played cyberpunk with all max settings with no problems, and as any new tech thing it will last those 3-4 yrs before you need to replace it

Edited July 17, 2022 by Antonioo Giano

[Bree Giffen]

6 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Now I want to buy a new laptop, but I squeeze as much out of my old one as I can.

I have 2 very interesting Lenovo legion laptops I am looking at .

Lenovo Legion 5 PRO 1tb/5800h/3060

GeForce RTX 3060, QHD 165Hz AMD Ryzen™ 7 5800H-prosessor 16 GB DDR4 RAM, 1000 GB SSD Windows 11 Home.

or

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16" QHD 165 Hz RTX 3070

RTX: 3070 RAM 16gb CPU RYZEN 5800H SSD: 1000 gb

This one look pristine. It can be misleading of course. But if it were used much, it should have some marks of use? This seller has images of it in real, not just images from the web.

What do you think? The first or the second?

They seem to have the same specs except for the video card. They're both 'pro' versions which means they have better displays. Same HD, same ram, same processors. Does the 2nd one run Windows 11 too? What size are the displays..15 or 17 inches? If everything the same it boils down to the 3060 and 3070 which may just be a few FPS difference in Second Life. I don't think SL will benefit that much with the 2nd one but if you play other games it may be the better choice. There is also the general advice to buy the best laptop you can afford because it pushes back the date for needing to buy a replacement.

I have a Lenovo laptop for work and the matte finish on the area beneath the keyboard is glossy from wresting my wrists on it for years. I don't think you'll see many marks of usage on those newer laptops. 

[JordonBanks]

On 7/15/2022 at 12:06 AM, bigmoe Whitfield said:

first, whats the price range you have in mind?

up to about $2000.  But less if poss obvs

[JordonBanks]

On 7/15/2022 at 2:29 AM, Lindal Kidd said:

PC Gamer has this one in their "best gaming laptops of 2022"roundup. The model with 32GB of RAM is right at around $2,000.

Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 6 (16") with RTX™ 3070

But if it was me, I would not buy ANY laptop for SL. They tend to run hot, and their displays are tiny. If all I had was a laptop, I would also want a great big 4K TV to hook up to it.

Thanks.  I'll take a look.  has to be a laptop, as will be using it for work too, and so need portability

[JordonBanks]

On 7/15/2022 at 6:20 AM, diamond Marchant said:

I have a 2021 Lenovo Legion 5 15IMH05 Laptop

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (2591.99 MHz)
Memory: 32676 MB
Concurrency: 12
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19044.1826)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 4096 MB

This laptop is light, runs cool, no fan noise...  I normally operate at High + graphics but go to Ultra for photography, 40+ fps typical. Also, looks like a business laptop, no gratuitous gamer styling.

 

I was looking at this. 

LENOVO Legion 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 7, RTX 3060, 512 GB SSD

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800H Processor
• RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 6 GB
• 221 FPS when playing Fortnite at 1080p
• Full HD screen / 120 Hz

Any good.  Any issues.. What will my SL ecperience be like with this?

The main reason i am looking to get a new laptopo - curretly use a 32gb 2016 Macbook.  (intel based chip not M1)  So still reasonably high spec, and the last model before the M1 chips came out.  But using SL on it can be a very HOT and NOISY experience, and depending here I am in SL, drame rates can drop to as low as 4 or 5, and be very slow.  I also like photpgraphy is SL, and so do use ultra settings fior photpgraphy.  Size of screen not so bothered about.  My cyrret Mac is 16" and found that ok.

[Bree Giffen]

The only problem I see is the ram. 8gb is a little low. I don’t know if that can be upgraded. 16gb would be better.

[Antonioo Giano]

On 7/20/2022 at 8:37 PM, JordonBanks said:

I was looking at this. 

LENOVO Legion 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 7, RTX 3060, 512 GB SSD

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800H Processor
• RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 6 GB
• 221 FPS when playing Fortnite at 1080p
• Full HD screen / 120 Hz

Any good.  Any issues.. What will my SL ecperience be like with this?

The main reason i am looking to get a new laptopo - curretly use a 32gb 2016 Macbook.  (intel based chip not M1)  So still reasonably high spec, and the last model before the M1 chips came out.  But using SL on it can be a very HOT and NOISY experience, and depending here I am in SL, drame rates can drop to as low as 4 or 5, and be very slow.  I also like photpgraphy is SL, and so do use ultra settings fior photpgraphy.  Size of screen not so bothered about.  My cyrret Mac is 16" and found that ok.

Old model, low RAM, small SSD. That's a no for me. 8GB ram was ok in the laptop i had in 2010.
At least 16 and 1TB SSD would be better. For 500-600 more (if that is 2000) you get an medium/high spec. so is totally not worth to get stuff that is not functional to save few bucks.

[Henri Beauchamp]

Any laptop with:

• A discrete NVIDIA GPU (forget about Intel iGPUs or AMD APUs, for they are too weak, and forget as well about AMD GPUs, for their OpenGL driver sucks rocks and is way too slooooooow).
• A fast CPU; the better the mono-core performances the better frame rates: once the GPU taken out of the equation (i.e. with any modern NVIDIA GPU in the system), the fps rates in SL scale almost proportionally with the CPU mono-core performances). Intel or AMD, it does not matter.
• Lot's of RAM: I'd recommend 16GB as the minimum, preferably 32GB.
• A reliable storage solution (no eMMC and the like: it would get worn out very fast due to the SL cache writes). Go for either a HD+SSD or a good SSD (and in the latter case, 32GB of RAM is best since it will let you the option to use a RAM disk for the SL cache, thus preventing consuming precious write cycles on your SSD).
• A good cooling: if your GPU or CPU overheat, they will scale down their frequency and SL fps rates will drop.

[Marianne Little]

I didn't buy any of the two I posted, since they were located so far away from me, I could not see it in real. I am looking at one now that's only a 15 min drive away.

It is 18 months old and I get the receipt, it still has 6 month left of the warranty.

Is it "good value for the money" for a used laptop? 690 US.

Lenovo legion 5 15imho5h Specs:i7-1075h 2,6 ghz,1 tb ssd m2 ,16gb ram,Rtx 2060 gpu.

 

 

 

[Antonioo Giano]

40 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

I didn't buy any of the two I posted, since they were located so far away from me, I could not see it in real. I am looking at one now that's only a 15 min drive away.

It is 18 months old and I get the receipt, it still has 6 month left of the warranty.

Is it "good value for the money" for a used laptop? 690 US.

Lenovo legion 5 15imho5h Specs:i7-1075h 2,6 ghz,1 tb ssd m2 ,16gb ram,Rtx 2060 gpu.

 

 

 

Personally I'm against buying used technology as they tend to have already a short lifespawn. Anyway if you are ok getting a processor of 2 generations old (that is a 10th gen we are at 12 now) it could be ok if is in good conditions (but they can say whatever).

[Henri Beauchamp]

5 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I didn't buy any of the two I posted, since they were located so far away from me, I could not see it in real. I am looking at one now that's only a 15 min drive away.

It is 18 months old and I get the receipt, it still has 6 month left of the warranty.

Is it ”good value for the money” for a used laptop? 690 US.

Lenovo legion 5 15imho5h Specs:i7-1075h 2,6 ghz,1 tb ssd m2 ,16gb ram,Rtx 2060 gpu.

The specs are OK (but the cooling is still a possible issue that would have to be checked under load).

If it is that close to your home and the seller is OK, you could install the SL viewer on it and test it, to see if it runs fine with it...

Also, being a second hand PC, do check the SSD health (for example, with gsmartcontrol, smartmontools, CrystalDiskInfo or any other software able to read the SMART info from the SSD): verify there is no reallocated sector or read error (there should be zero for such a recent SSD) and run a short SMART test (it lasts 2 minutes only and will ensure no obvious defect exists)...

Edited July 25, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[cunomar]

Cheap and nasty but will extend the life of your laptop indefinitely i reckon . https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trust-Laptop-Cooling-Laptops-16-inch/dp/B073SC6V36/ref=asc_df_B073SC6V36/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=430752237789&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3199077410331113983&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007410&hvtargid=pla-724481919548&psc=1&th=1&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=108575012348&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=430752237789&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3199077410331113983&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007410&hvtargid=pla-724481919548

This

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GP72-7RD-Leopard/Specification

handles SL with ease but maybe 2 years in i had to replace a fan and then the other a month later and while looking to buy the replacement chanced upon a similar cooling pad .

4 years on i'm not sure my laptops own fans still work and despite having replaced the screen and keyboard recently I didn't bother to check the fans because theres no real need for them any more as far as i can tell .