Buying a new laptop, looking for advice.

[rc-ham390]

Hi guys! I'm currently considering to buy a new laptop and would appreciate if I can get some advice on the laptop specs for a smoother game experience.

So... my old laptop battery is dying and I'm getting a new one because my old laptop is almost 6 years old and whenever I play Cities Skyline, it gets super laggy. It works fine for other games, only Cities Skyline gets super slow, even when I just started a brand new city, the loading of new game is super slow and I didn't even install any mods yet at that time..

For reference, my old laptop is Samsung Chronos 7 (15.6inch), I7-3615QM Processor 2.3Ghz, 8gb ram, Nvidia Geforce GT640M 1GB GGDR5, windows 7 pro


So for the new laptop, I'm considering to buy this one:
MSI GE63VR
i7-7700HQ
16gb ram ddr4
Nvidia GTX 1060 6gb ddr5
256ssd + 2tb hdd
windows 10


Will it run Cities Skyline smoothly? Although I'm pretty sure it will run faster than my old laptop, but I want to make sure that the difference in performance will be significant enough, because if not, it defeats the purpose of me buying a new laptop.

I am also using the laptop for Photoshop and some other video editing programmes (which should work fine).

It's just that Cities Skyline seem to consume much more CPU than other games and video/photo editing programs... so I can't be sure how well will the new laptop specs perform as compared to my old laptop.

I went through some discussion, saw some people were saying that the game gets laggy even in 1070gtx specs when the population gets bigger... So what specs should I get to make the game runs smoother? I probably won't be installing that many mods, only getting the basic few that are useful.

Would appreciate any advice given. Thank you.

[Internet Explorer]

CPU is the king in this game. GPU not so much. As laptops go, i7 7700 will be as good as it gets, 16GB also helps if you mod a lot.
I'm running on a desktop i7 8700K @ 5.1 GHz, 16GB RAM and 1080Ti and the game starts to slow down at about 150K population. If my CPU is not overclocked it happens at about 100K. So that 7700HQ should be smooth untill about 80K, and annoyingly slow at 150K -ish.

[MarkJohnson]

That's a decent laptop for this game. Graphics card should be fine. As long as it has DDR5 vram it should be fine. The 6GB version is a little better. 7700HQ is fine, but the 8700HQ should be out soon and will have 50% more power (6-core instead of 4-cores of the 7700) at slightly higher price. Not sure when it'll be released though. Hopefully within the month.

Performance should be good as you have an under powered video card right now. The 640m is weak at 384 shaders, but GDDR5 vram helps a lot as GT 640m uses ddr3 ram. But the 1060 should have over 1,000 shaders with GDDR5 ram and both at higher clock speeds.

The graphics should be smooth depending on your mod selection. CPU will be a bit better as the 7700 should have higher clocks and more efficient technology.

There's no way to tell. It depends on your city size (population and tiles unlocked and how efficient it is and number of agents on the map)

Your profile is private, so I can see what you may be working on.

But that laptop is much better than what you currently have.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by internet:

CPU is the king in this game. GPU not so much. As laptops go, i7 7700 will be as good as it gets, 16GB also helps if you mod a lot.
I'm running on a desktop i7 8700K @ 5.1 GHz, 16GB RAM and 1080Ti and the game starts to slow down at about 150K population. If my CPU is not overclocked it happens at about 100K. So that 7700HQ should be smooth untill about 80K, and annoyingly slow at 150K -ish.

Your city should be doing way better than that. I have a similar system and have 650k city and very little lag, although my x2 and x3 speeds are gone. lol but x1 speed is normal speed (9-seconds per day) My FPS haven't dropped and 30fps zoomed in all of the into heavy traffic areas. I don't use workshop though.

[Internet Explorer]

I mod a lot. Also I should have said that it's all on x3 speed.

[rc-ham390]

WOW, great insights from all of you. Thank you for the advice.


One quick question, does 32gb ram make a great difference as compared to 16gb ram in terms of game performance or does it only affect when we have lots of mods/assets?

Originally posted by ..:

Check out the Asus ROG Strix GL702ZC with a Ryzen 8-Cores/16-Threads CPU and RX 580 GPU. This is an awesome Gaming + Photo/Video Editing Beast.

While looking for a new laptop, I was torn between MSI and Asus because personally, I trust ASUS quality as I have their ultrabook and been loving it.

However, I'm not a big fan of ASUS ROG Strix screen and their keyboard (kinda filmsy for me for some reason, didn't really like how it pressed down) as compared to MSI's fantastic keyboard. It's kind of a deal breaker for me since I don't use external keyboard, so keyboard and screen must be up to a certain quality (I'm used to Macbook and Samsung keyboards and screens which imo are quite fantastic).

Also, I saw this review - http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/review-asus-rog-strix-gl702zc-review-better-content-creators-gamers

I had mediocre experience with AMD processors, the specs certainly sound awesome but still find the performance questionable. " gaming isn’t Ryzen’s strong suit".. hmm....

and I've heard similar reviews from other sites so the specs still sound questionable to me. Also, sadly, there's no 15.6inch option display for the Asus ROG Strix GL702ZC... 17inch is too space consuming for me as I don't have a very spacious table, 15.6inch is just right for me, also the weight of 15.6inch is more manageable. But I will certainly put ASUS in my potential purchase list.

Thanks!

Originally posted by -DI- rmjohnson144:

That's a decent laptop for this game. Graphics card should be fine. As long as it has DDR5 vram it should be fine. The 6GB version is a little better. 7700HQ is fine, but the 8700HQ should be out soon and will have 50% more power (6-core instead of 4-cores of the 7700) at slightly higher price. Not sure when it'll be released though. Hopefully within the month.

Performance should be good as you have an under powered video card right now. The 640m is weak at 384 shaders, but GDDR5 vram helps a lot as GT 640m uses ddr3 ram. But the 1060 should have over 1,000 shaders with GDDR5 ram and both at higher clock speeds.

The graphics should be smooth depending on your mod selection. CPU will be a bit better as the 7700 should have higher clocks and more efficient technology.

There's no way to tell. It depends on your city size (population and tiles unlocked and how efficient it is and number of agents on the map)

Your profile is private, so I can see what you may be working on.

But that laptop is much better than what you currently have.

I started a small city, I didn't play long enough in Cities Skyline because of the constant lag on my old laptop, it's aggravating because I would love to play more but it's soooo slow.

Yeah i7-7700 is about the highest specs for intel processor laptops right now.
Definitely a good insight. Thanks for your help :)

Originally posted by internet:

CPU is the king in this game. GPU not so much. As laptops go, i7 7700 will be as good as it gets, 16GB also helps if you mod a lot.
I'm running on a desktop i7 8700K @ 5.1 GHz, 16GB RAM and 1080Ti and the game starts to slow down at about 150K population. If my CPU is not overclocked it happens at about 100K. So that 7700HQ should be smooth untill about 80K, and annoyingly slow at 150K -ish.

I don't mod a lot so 16gb should be sufficient for me to occasionally play this game + some other sims stuffs (i'm more into management/simulation games) and do my video/photo editing.

This game optimization sounds really bad, because other "higher graphics" games work a lot smoother with similar CPU specs but I guess big map is really the thing that slow things down, the bigger the city and assets, the slower it gets.

The expected performance sounds reasonable to me. At least it's way better than my old laptop. I think I would be getting this spec but might look at other laptop brands to compare the price.



Thank you all for your help!

[rc-ham390]

Originally posted by ..:

1. Don't believe the saying that AMD Ryzen sucks for gaming. It's very over-rated. Yes, the previous AMD Bulldozer FX Series chips were poor, but these new Ryzen chips are totally different and does compete very well with intel. Yes, intel has a slightly faster IPC (Instructions Per Clock) single-core performance, and will probably generally be like around 7 FPS faster in games than AMD. Plus, the difference between 119 FPS vs 112 FPS is negligible to the naked eye. On top of that, the laptop screens are only 60Hz, so any frames past 60 will go unused and cannot be rendered, as the GPU is the one that will be pumping out the high frames already past 60.

Think of Intel like a Lamborghini Aventador vs AMD Ryzen as a Lamborghini Huracan going from 0-60. The Intel Aventador will get 2.9 while the AMD Huracan will get 3.2. Both are fast, but intel will technically win, but it is no where near a blowout, like most people believe. The reputation and "mindshare" of people was because of AMD's last generation of CPU's. The new Ryzen are totally different. You could even argue that AMD crushes Intel when it comes to productivity, but most people think if Intel beats AMD on gaming, then it's just totally superior and beats everything else, and that's not necessarily true and does not tell the whole story as their are other details and facts to consider. The Ryzen beats Intel in multi-threaded workloads like what you will be doing such as video editing, and just how people say "Gaming isn't AMD's strongsuit"... you can say the same for intel when it comes to heavy productivity professional workload tasks that "Productivity isn't Intel's strongsuit". Another analogy would be like Intel being the Lamborghini vs AMD being a Truck. Yes the Intel maybe quicker, but it can't carry the heavy load that the AMD truck can carry.

2. If you're playing just the basic vanilla game, then 8-16GB is all you need. If using a heavy amount of mods and assets, then 32GB would be better.

I'm certainly not an expert in computer stuffs but I think intel works pretty good for my photoshop/indesign/illustrator works with i7-7500U processor on my ASUS zenbook ultrabook with 16gb ram (great to bring around and for overseas trips). For video editing, I honestly don't really do much so that's a secondary issue.

Let's say I have trust issues with AMD, because I had it for my olddddd laptop toshiba and it was not a very pleasant experience imo. But I'll take note of what you said. Anyways, for me, the keyboard of ASUS ROG is still a major deal breaker for me so I might have to try more of a few other brands to know which is the one I will really like.

Thanks for your insights :)

[Metacritical]

there is a big performance difference between the HQ and the U editions, with the joke being that the U stands for underpowered.

[Matt]

Here is some advice, never buy a laptop for gaming.

[Lantea]

If you can affort it, I would go for a GTX 1070 minimum;

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by rc-ham390:

One quick question, does 32gb ram make a great difference as compared to 16gb ram in terms of game performance or does it only affect when we have lots of mods/assets?

RAM doesn't affect performance. It has no processing power. It is just basically a super fast hard drive tied directly to the CPU. However, if it's too slow or runs out, it can bog the system down from waiting for data. otherwise known as bottnecking.

While looking for a new laptop, I was torn between MSI and Asus because personally, I trust ASUS quality as I have their ultrabook and been loving it.

Whatever you choose make sure to look it up on youtube on disassembly to make sure it has 2 heatsinks. 1 for the CPU and 1 for the GPU. Most of them only have 1 that is shared and causes them to overheat and die an early death. This is probably the #1 thing to be looking for. If your system overheats, then it slows down. FYI, these turbo modes are a joke. It actually slows (throttles) the processors down to make them not over heat. Go by base clocks.

Also, never play game on your lap. Despite the name laptop, it is extremely bad to use them on your lap. It blocks cooling vents and sucking in lint and other stuff off of your clothes.

I highly recommend a desktop over a laptop for gaming if possible.

I started a small city, I didn't play long enough in Cities Skyline because of the constant lag on my old laptop, it's aggravating because I would love to play more but it's soooo slow.

Yeah i7-7700 is about the highest specs for intel processor laptops right now.
Definitely a good insight. Thanks for your help :)

For you it sounds like the video card was holding you back. Otherwise, you should get a fairly large city with that laptop of yours.

This game's optimization sounds really bad, because other "higher graphics" games work a lot smoother with similar CPU specs but I guess big map is really the thing that slow things down, the bigger the city and assets, the slower it gets.

It's less about optimization than priority. This is a simulation that has to control over 80,000 units, while other games may only need to control a few dozen units (other players) so the CPU is set to a higher priority over graphics so the CPU get all the processing time. It takes a lot of power to manipulate 80,000 other players. bit optimization could be better, but that's always the case.

But other games prioritize the GPU and you get good frames, especially directx. It supports GPU over CPU as shooters and other high graphics quality games are the best selling games.

[rc-ham390]

For my Asus zenbook 3 ultrabook, I don't use it to play high requirement games since I bought it for the sake of bringing it overseas and outside of my house (and on my bed sometimes). I do some photo editing on it too and it works fine for me. It weighs less than 1kg so I don't expect to play heavy games or heavy editing on it.

The reason why I don't get a desktop is because I live in a rented house and it would be troublesome when I move out once the contract ends. I did consider lighter desktops like All-in-one but I don't think it's value for money for the specs.

I'm getting a laptop that could replace desktop in terms of specs. Although I'm pretty sure a laptop's specs can never be up to par with desktop but as I don't game much, any specs that's good enough to run my photo editing processes and this game smoothly should be sufficient for me. Anyways, my new laptop will be on my desk 24/7 so I won't be playing it on my lap (too heavy for that anyways)

The reason why I was considering MSI is because...
1) It's well-built. The ports, the keyboard, the screen are pretty good
2) It's relatively quiet when I tested on the site
3) The cooling system seems decent but I can't be 100% sure since I didn't really get to test it with CPU consuming game.

So any other brands with the above features and similar specs can be considered since MSI is frankly not very cheap.

Anyways, thanks for all the info guys!

I will research some more before I get a new one :)

[MarkJohnson]

Those MSI ones are very good. Most people like them and are very popular. Going cheaper means lower quality components. So you'll need to investigate other options very closely. Especially the cooling solutions. Remember, if it doesn't have enough cooling, then it will throttle the CPU and GPU and you'll lose performance. I mean like 25% or more.

Laptops are very vulnerable to heat and performance loss. The desktop would be significantly more powerful and stable and probably cheaper, even considering you'd need a monitor, keyboard and mouse, but big and bulky for movement. But do you really move that often?