I was just wondering if now is a bad time to buy a gaming laptop. Will new GPUs come out soon?
Is it a bad time to buy a new gaming laptop?
- Thread starter IHATENAMES
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There is never a good time to buy a gaming laptop. There's no replacement for displacement; the heat generated by the computer doing hard work has to go somewhere and the laptop form factor is ill-suited to disposing of it.
Sure there is disadvantages but also advantages. In my case the smaller size and mobility is what I desire.
Yup.
It amazes me that so many people are in denial about it. Gaming laptops overheat and die. It's just a matter of time.
Now, if you *don't play games* very much on your gaming laptop, it might last a while. But if you run that GPU at full-tilt for hours at a time every day...make sure you have the super-duper-extended warranty.
Seriously, for gaming, buy a desktop.
It's almost never a good time. The only instance where it was an OK time was last couple years of Massive GPU shortage crunches. Where you could barely get a GPU worth buying. Except for when it came in a laptop because scalpers/miners aren't buying a full system.
It doesn't matter when new GPU's come out for laptops. Because it will always be 6 months to a year later before they really show up in units. And something will always come out. So your two choices. Pay full price for brand new things that just came out. Or pay discounted prices for stuff that's going to be older.
It doesn't matter when new GPU's come out for laptops. Because it will always be 6 months to a year later before they really show up in units. And something will always come out. So your two choices. Pay full price for brand new things that just came out. Or pay discounted prices for stuff that's going to be older.
Depends.
If you don't need massive gaming power (GTX 1650/3050 level is fine) then you can get them pretty reasonable. If you need high end (3070+) then wait for the next release of chips so the current high end ones can take a price dive.
molo> For dedicated gaming, sure. For me, I've got 3 people who play games (not dedicated enough to be true "gamers") and we don't have space or money for 3 dedicated gaming systems. Laptops let us all play together and not have huge areas lost to a gaming setup.
If you don't need massive gaming power (GTX 1650/3050 level is fine) then you can get them pretty reasonable. If you need high end (3070+) then wait for the next release of chips so the current high end ones can take a price dive.
molo> For dedicated gaming, sure. For me, I've got 3 people who play games (not dedicated enough to be true "gamers") and we don't have space or money for 3 dedicated gaming systems. Laptops let us all play together and not have huge areas lost to a gaming setup.
Or, run a cooling fan under or into your gaming laptop. You can’t always do that on the go but for your primary gaming location that can help with heat. Haven’t had one die on me yet, from an old Gateway to a recent Asus ROG (both of which could otherwise cook dinner using the exhaust air).
This might actually be a decent time to buy, as 2022's models are so far not better than 2021's models but still are creating "clearance" prices for 2021 stock. The new Intel and AMD CPUs aren't a large step forward, and 2022 models are using the same Nvidia silicon. E.g., I just purchased a 2021 3060 laptop for a large discount. But it really depends on what you want to do, though: If you're looking to drive the latest games in 4K from a laptop a 4XXX GPU might be worth holding out for. Also note that gaming-capable laptops deal with difficult engineering trade-offs and really require perusal of reviews and testing.
I've also seen people who hook up to desktop monitors use 90-degree stands that allow the laptop to pull in ample fresh air while sitting on a desk.
Unless you have your heart set on the new 4000 series from Nvidia, I'd argue now is a good time to purchase.
Intel's 12th gen is a big step up from the previous year, and AMD's current CPU's are as power efficient as ever, particularly with a AMD GPU.
The 4000 series might come out, but who knows what jumps are in the future for CPU.
2022 seems like a performance vs mobility sweet spot to me.
As such, I jumped on the Asus G14 2022 and am very happy about it.
Intel's 12th gen is a big step up from the previous year, and AMD's current CPU's are as power efficient as ever, particularly with a AMD GPU.
The 4000 series might come out, but who knows what jumps are in the future for CPU.
2022 seems like a performance vs mobility sweet spot to me.
As such, I jumped on the Asus G14 2022 and am very happy about it.
Interesting; I just picked up the 2021 model. While the webcam, 16:10, and increased performance were tempting, I couldn't justify the price tag for an "occasional gaming" device. It looks like a fine refinement, as long as your target games play well with AMD drivers.
I was damn close to pulling the trigger on 2021's but could wait to see what they did with 2022's, which had all the refinements I was looking for. I wasn't as concerned with the price as the feature set, since I expect to use it into the long term.
Gaming wise, it was a tremendous step up from the Thinkpads I'd been using for the last decade+
On the Intel/Nvidia side, again, 12th gen is a significant jump vs previous CPUs and unless someone has their heart set on whatever the 4000 Nvidia line up brings, if the price is right, now is an opportune time.
Will prices drop when 4000's or new CPUs are announced? Of course, but that will forever be the case.
If a laptop has the right feature set at the right price currently, I don't think it's a bad time to buy a new laptop at all.
Right now Intel CPUs guzzle so many watts that I'm a bit confused why they are being recommended above AMD in gaming laptops. Surely with most games being GPU-limited, you want the majority of your power budget available for the GPU, even if it means restricting the CPU?
Or to put that into perspective: Nvidia RTX 3070/3080 mobile GPUs are designed to use up to 140-160W. Most gaming laptops can cool up to say 200-220W maximum. So fitting the gaming laptop with a CPU which will pull 125W or more at peak turbo, like the latest Intel CPUs do, means you can never get close to peak CPU and GPU performance at the same time.
I am pretty sure that letting the GPU access the maximum power (140-160W) and ensuring the most CPU performance you can get in the rest of the power budget (i.e. 60W) is the way to go for 95% of games. So why would you fit an Intel CPU which needs double that to perform optimally, versus an AMD CPU which is slower than the Intel but still performs fast enough to not bottleneck games while sticking to the 60W power budget available?
P.S. I bought a 2021 16" 3070 laptop a few months ago, at significant price reduction and I'm very happy with the results - those 16" HDR/Gsync/165-240Hz/1600p IPS panels are awesome as long as you have a GPU capable of running them like the RTX 3070 or above.
In comparison, 2022 models come with faster but higher power consumption CPUs, identical screens and an upgrade to the 3070 Ti, but that GPU maintains the same power budget as the 3070 so performance gains are only a few%. I assume Nvidia 4000 series laptops will be released in early 2023, given the yearly cadence of almost all laptop manufacturers, so I'd argue that cheap 2021 gaming laptops are the way to go unless you can wait 6+ months.
Or to put that into perspective: Nvidia RTX 3070/3080 mobile GPUs are designed to use up to 140-160W. Most gaming laptops can cool up to say 200-220W maximum. So fitting the gaming laptop with a CPU which will pull 125W or more at peak turbo, like the latest Intel CPUs do, means you can never get close to peak CPU and GPU performance at the same time.
I am pretty sure that letting the GPU access the maximum power (140-160W) and ensuring the most CPU performance you can get in the rest of the power budget (i.e. 60W) is the way to go for 95% of games. So why would you fit an Intel CPU which needs double that to perform optimally, versus an AMD CPU which is slower than the Intel but still performs fast enough to not bottleneck games while sticking to the 60W power budget available?
P.S. I bought a 2021 16" 3070 laptop a few months ago, at significant price reduction and I'm very happy with the results - those 16" HDR/Gsync/165-240Hz/1600p IPS panels are awesome as long as you have a GPU capable of running them like the RTX 3070 or above.
In comparison, 2022 models come with faster but higher power consumption CPUs, identical screens and an upgrade to the 3070 Ti, but that GPU maintains the same power budget as the 3070 so performance gains are only a few%. I assume Nvidia 4000 series laptops will be released in early 2023, given the yearly cadence of almost all laptop manufacturers, so I'd argue that cheap 2021 gaming laptops are the way to go unless you can wait 6+ months.
purchased a gaming laptop more than 2 years ago with a 2080 super, raided ssd with 64gb of ram and it has been playing games everyday since then with zero hiccups. of course using throttle stop and a laptop cooler are essentials.
Right. Gaming laptops are not inherently doomed to die a fiery death. Are they as fast as desktops? No, but nobody in their right mind is going to argue that. (Most of) those of us that buy them understand the trade-off being made, but they're made out of preference or necessity.
I think that's the issue that others are pointing out. You need to augment the laptop with additional software and hardware to get the performance that's originally promised, while potentially shortening the lifespan of the laptop in the process.
Assuming mobility or physical desk space is not your #1 requirement, a desktop makes more sense than a gaming laptop for most people. Not to mention that it may be cheaper building a desktop in some cases.
you joking with me? of course a person buys a laptop for mobility, the only other reason i could think of is security? (can lock it away easier then carrying a desktop to your safe?)
now using throttle stop or a laptop cooler does not shorten the lifespan of a laptop so im confused! Anyway gaming laptops are awesome and buy a slightly used one at any time you see a good deal is my opinion.
You forget about vanity. People make a lot of purchasing decisions based on vanity.
Throttle stop forces the hardware to exceed the thermal envelope that the manufacturer deemed “safe”. It increases the time the processor is outside of the green zone. Sure, it doesn’t cut down the processor’s lifetime down to mere months, but it increases the wear and tear of the laptop, People have fried their laptops by overvolting or extending the time they ran the cpu at full tilt in ultra thin laptops. Hence “potentially shortening the lifespan of the laptop”
Throttle stop forces the hardware to exceed the thermal envelope that the manufacturer deemed “safe”. It increases the time the processor is outside of the green zone. Sure, it doesn’t cut down the processor’s lifetime down to mere months, but it increases the wear and tear of the laptop, People have fried their laptops by overvolting or extending the time they ran the cpu at full tilt in ultra thin laptops. Hence “potentially shortening the lifespan of the laptop”
Shit, I mostly used it for undervolting. I mean, you can use ThrottleStop to exceed limits, but it can also be used to reduce and limit power usage, and that usage gained a lot more popularity with the more recent processors. Until Intel locked that shit out too.
Even then, it's not really possible to prevent thermal throttling. That's baked into the CPU at a pretty low level.
A lot of the discussions I saw around ThrottleStop were about getting the CPU to, say, sustain running at 4.0 GHz at a manageable temperature instead of ping-ponging between 2.5 and 4.5 because of thermal throttling.
In the early Sandy Bridge days, I remember on the notebookreview.com forums people were killing their laptops with ThrottleStop by goofing with the settings. You're not supposed to overvolt, but people did, and it got them nothing but headaches and paperweights.
I'm not saying that TS is designed to cause harm, but it can.
I'm not saying that TS is designed to cause harm, but it can.