gaming laptops?

[GaryG]

I see a few people mention them recently (Bones etc), always kind of discounted them due to fisher price keyboards etc but seen a deal that's made me think twice.

Looking at the lower end of the market, seems this laptop with a pretty chunky processor (ryzen 5 4600H, 6c/12t) is available for about the same as the refurb home dells/lenovos I was looking at but with heftier build, advanced (allegedly quiet) cooling etc. Memory and storage are kind of basic but it has scope to upgrade (two proper slots, no soldered ram, spare 2.5 sata bay etc). Just seems a good base for an audio system, I'm generally coping on a 3rd gen i5 mainly so doubt I'd push it that hard even. Any thing I should consider..?

Cheers.

[chk071]

I've seen many gaming computers or laptops in people's sigs here. Especially the Dell XPS line seems pretty popular.

As far as I can tell, any gaming machine should be good for audio as well.

My next desktop PC might be a Dell XPS as well.

[BertKoor]

One thing to be aware of is that gaming rigs mainly focus on graphics performance.
The last time I fiddled with hardware and installed another graphics card, I had to download a specific tool (might have been PCI Latency) to change the config of it (lowered the priority, decrease time slot allowance) so it would not hog the PCIe bus that much, and allow my audio interface to use that bus as well.

[mcbpete]

Regarding the 'fisher price keyboard' aspect (presumably referring to the RGB garishness), it's a small thing but definitely something that put me off too. However I now own such a laptop when I realised the whole thing is programmable via the keyboard utility app and more importantly 'turn-off'-able: My keyboard is now just a very dimly white backlighting (a la Macbooks) which fades off with 30 seconds on inactivity (and again that timing was selectable - sometimes I don't have any lighting on at all)

[whyterabbyt]

FWIW, I very recently got an 8-core, RTX 3060 based laptop from work. Scan Evolve laptop, and although its mooted as 'workstation' its very similar in spec to their gamer laptops. It runs hot, and gets hotter, with -very- loud fans. Not tested audio software on it yet, but I kinda suspect the fans will be intrusive enough to need headphones when doing so.
So yeah, fan noise, that's a thing to think about.

(It has a very 'chiclet' looking RGB keyboard, definitely looks on the FP side, mostly because of the font they chose but it feels surprisingly decent.)

[mcbpete]

So yeah, fan noise, that's a thing to think about.

*THIS* - Absolutely, my laptop has a RTX2080 in it (along with an overclockable i9-10900k processor) so requires extreme cooling. The lappy is an absolute beast speed wise but sounds like an absolute jet engine when exporting/rendering/anything using a significant amount of power

[GaryG]

Thanks all.

Re: Fisher Price - yeah, the keyboards but mainly the ones that look like dodgy star trek props, all angled vents and red highlights etc. This model (lenova legion 5) looks quite normal, suits my minimalist aesthetic. Also my son has a full on gaming KB, how the hell you can concentrate with a fricking rainbow strobing away under your fingers...

Re: Noise - Yeah, this model has a pretty lowly 1650 gfx card and the reviews all seem to mention it's well designed thermally, dual fans pretty quiet (though on all the time), I think at full stress ~40db which is kind of ambient office level if I remember correctly.

Biggest selling point: full size arrow keys, would miss those for scrolling around.

Edit: should mention I have no interest in modern games before anyone mentions the card, I recently pick UT2004 (£1.89) and that does me fine.

[chk071]

I also looked into the Lenovo Legion computers. My conclusion: Too expensive for what they offer.

I rather have my eye on Dell now. I'll wait though, The prices are completely nuts at the moment.

[GaryG]

Well, I'm only asking as this one is very cheap, £549, a good three hundred pounds less than the cheapest XPS on Dell UK (obvs may get better deals elsewhere). About the same price as a scratch and dent Dell G3 gaming rig which doesn't seem to get reviewed as well.