"True gaming laptops are finally becoming a reality"...

Indeed. I by no means like any of the three companies, mind. But I'm always fair and I give credit where it's due. For all of its control, at least Apple looks after the bloody consumer's problems and improves the OS. Micro$haft does the opposite of improvement AND doesn't look after their customer's problems. That needs to be called out so badly.

 

Keep up the good work. You're right. They suck at what they do. They started to suck the day Windows 8 was released and now they are even worse with Windows 10. So, now all we have is gradauted variations of suckiness from all three.

 

Apple cares about Apple and no one else. And those using their machines for work or who want to keep their machine running are not their priority. No better than Microsoft, and in quite a few ways even worse.

 

Yeah, but we were all used to that and just avoided crApple if we didn't like them. Choosing the lesser among evils and having zero good options in an OS (unless you use an older one) isn't a nice thing. Older is actually better on a lot of stuff now, including a lot of the latest crippled hardware they are getting the kiddos so excited about..

 

Oh believe me, I know. You cannot submit anything for review for launch on even say... iOS app store without the submission coming directly from an apple computer, or they won't even bother with you.

Apple cares about Apple. But if you buy Apple, Apple looks after your crap as long as you have that warranty. OS issues? They'll fix that. Phone give trouble? They'll diagnose the entire phone to check for all problems and if they find it's not worth fixing, they hand you a new one. They make actual improvements to their OS' usability that consumers would find useful.

Micro$haft? No. They do the opposite. Both in "improvements" and in support.

Again. I can't stand all three companies, but if Micro$haft is going to be an Apple, they had better freaking have the support and improvements to match. Right now, they're just scumsauce.

 

This I agree with 100%. Their Geniuses are just about the most helpful CS officers I've ever met, and 99% of the time the problem I present to them is solved.

I wouldn't agree much with this, though. The OpenGL implementation in OS X has been lagging behind for ever. OS X itself now looks like a cartoon, a kid fest, and that's an insult to cartoons because the old-style Technicolour cartoons look really nice.

 

Spoiler: I'm typing too much lately

You're probably right, but that's what the customers are buying, honestly. Hence where I said, they improve things for the consumer. An apple product consumer is likely not a PC gamer.
There's three or four kinds of people who use Apple products.
- The idiot who wishes to remain an idiot and just wants their device to WORK DAMMIT
- The person who is "IT" for Apple products; be it at the genius bars or in private companies
- The person who bought it for content editing and/or rendering
- The person who just likes OS X

The last person is the only person who has a decent chance of being a PC gamer (somebody who only plays WoW and everything else is on their console doesn't count, either).

Their OS does what the majority of their users want. It looks new and shiny, it works almost all of the time, it has support if it breaks and they've bought OpenCL acceleration for many content creation programs. I keep running into users who claim that they can run OpenCL on Windows using adobe products or whatnot, but the people I know who have both Macs and PCs can't get it working to save their lives on windows.

Micro$haft admittedly sells their OS to a much wider audience: the "everyone" audience. But that's their problem to follow suit with, and issues plaguing OSes for many many years are left intact in each later version of an OS they've made. I still remember the downgrades from Windows XP's photo and fax viewer not being able to play .gif files in Vista and onwards. I remember them pushing updates that BROKE windows functionality in Vista for plug and play USB devices. You weren't allowed to "plug and play" because Windows asked for a driver and wouldn't use a generic one by default. Micro$haft's solution? Reinstall Windows. You couldn't even remove the update from the system, either. I remember when Windows 7 launched and it would disable and re-enable the audio service on log in/out and sometimes the service wouldn't start. I remember I had LISTS of downsides to Windows 7 over the then-mature Vista with SP1. Windows 7 eventually fixed their issues, but that was many months later, and even then, fixing those issues simply brought it in line with the already-mature Vista in terms of stability.

I remember Windows 8's launch broke second monitor video playback and updates had to be rolled out. I remember updating to Windows 8 from 7 and trying to update to 8.1 and somehow I had Microsoft Security Essentials installed (and usable fully, I might add) in Windows 8, and it wouldn't let me go to 8.1 because it read that program as incompatible due to Windows Defender having the same virus scanning capabilities (though right-click scans do not work on Windows Defender, so it was inferior in functionality). And guess what? The UNINSTALLER for MSE was the same runtime as the installer, and Windows kept seeing the installer running and would kill the process because I had no need to install MSE, according to it. So I had to use a microsoft software removal tool to get it cleaned off the system.

Windows 8's CPU util bug with turbo boost. The fact that Windows ghostly uses RAM (I'm using 8.6GB of RAM right now according to task manager, but adding up from processes and checking the "users" tab only shows me at 6.3GB). There are hidden RAM-using processes that have a memory leak to them. The largest I've seen the invisible RAM count be was 4GB. Imagine that, 4GB of RAM for no reason. I tried putting my machine to sleep the other day and it crashed for a bugcheck. In doing so, it somehow changed my pagefile from my OS SSD to my HDD, and I didn't find out until days later when I felt things were slightly more sluggish, so I wanted to see if pagefile was set correctly.

Windows 10 updated for my friend the other day and reset screen brightness and power options. Rebooting Windows 10 re-enables its spying habits without warning or notification or even fine print. You can't just simply "turn it off" and have it remain off, because that would be disadvantageous, no?

These kinds of issues are basic, non-gamer issues. These are issues that plague everyday users. Issues Micro$haft has refused to bat an eyelash at. Issues Apple seems to make sure doesn't happen, so the majority of its users are happy. I can't stand Apple, but they look after their little brainwashed sheep like overbearing shepherds. Micro$haft has no such stance.

 

I love your last sentence! Have to agree though.

My parents have the last MacBook (now only Pro is available) plastic white thing. Anyway it is 4/5 years old (2.4ghz core 2 duo) now and it still works fine.

The same can't quite be said for an ordinary PC laptop. Even the battery still works well. I would never buy apple as I enjoy tinkering too much and h8 the way they keep changing proprietary connections and outdated hardware but still their products just seem to work and last a fairly long time if looked after.

 

Exactly. I've got an iPhone 4S from 2011, and it still works very well (when it's on iOS 6). If Apple products are looked after, they last very very long. I've seen iBooks and PowerBooks still going strong, and Apple still does fix them, at a price, of course.

The only really annoying thing is that Apple absolutely hates stagnating in software, and they are quick to kill support for old OSes. One of their first bits of advice: 'upgrade!' I say no way, because their new OSes look like ****e.

 

Yeah, same here. I used to have respect for the man until the latest antics. Not to mention he's the bastard behind the push for common core in the US. It's horrible and confusing to kids (and adults). I'm all for improving our education system, but kids need to learn long hand addition and subtraction first, then move them on to something like common core in later grades.

-------------------

Not directed at Mr. Fox but other users here about Apple.
I don't understand this praise Apple is being given here now, lol. If you spend a comparable amount on a PC laptop they will typically last just as long as any Mac counterpart, and usually have to spend less. Heck my parents (well just my mom now) have laptops that are 6-7 years old and work perfectly fine to this day. I have a few laptops that are at least 4 years old that wok perfectly fine. Not sure how this is praise. If you take care of your stuff it will last. Sure if you buy a $500 laptop and say that crapped out on you after a couple years it's going to be a substandard disposable laptop. If you buy a higher quality Thinkpad or HP or Dell business class notebook it will last a hella long time now. Heck my work laptop has been through hell and it's a crappy Dell and going on four years old now.

They don't necessarily cater to their users, just their users seem to be more complacent and if you talk to many die hard Apple users most just feel Apple can do no wrong, hence seeming like they help the end consumer. Apple controls every piece of software that goes on their devices including their desktop PC's. This is why the rest of us love (or loved) actual Windows PC's. You aren't forced into anything. Sure there can be more compatibility issues because of it, but you can also publish software instantly without meeting demands of Mac criteria.

You can buy warranties for components for Windows PC's as well that cost as much as Mac and get similar service. Same with phones. I have a warranty on my phone for $10/mo if it breaks it gets replaced. Used it once and voila, new phone, no questions asked. You just need to take into account overall costs too. Spend twice as much on an Apple product that gets serviced and replaced if not fixable or buy two Windows PC's over time and have newer updated hardware.

Windows PC's traditionally have been very flexible and open and what most of us enjoyed about it. Apple has always been about a locked down environment. My experience with Apple has been, they are nice, and OK to use, but if you want to do anything outside of *THEIR* realm forget it. Unfortunately Windows is going down this same path, but in a worse way.

But I digress.

 

It can be said about any tech. As long is it's looked after right, it will serve for a long time. My M60J works just fine even today, and I had it since 2009.

 

Well, sometimes stuff just dies for no explainable reason even when you take good care of it and baby it. But, it seems that more often than not, computer hardware that survives the first year (usually the length of the warranty) will keep on working for a very long time. Most of the electronics garbage that dies on me doesn't survive the first 90 to 120 days due to defects. Quality control ain't what it used to be. It used to be that most computer components I bought, especially for building desktops, were either DOA or misbehaved new out of the box, or they worked for many years without missing a beat.

Dirty power, power surges and lightning strikes can sometimes ruin things and it may not be obvious what caused it. You may end up with a couple of messed up systems when that happens.

 

Apple machines are mainly repairable by Apple. Apple does not sell parts to independent servicers. And once Apple hardware gets discontinued on support, tough luck. Sometimes, older machines are needed to run some software which does not play nice on newer hardware. Apple's last truly stable OSX which was built for workflow was Snow Leopard, which was supported well by developers. Apple is a PITA.

 

Still using an ancient HP envy as my primary laptop (recently replaced CPU fan / heat sink assembly). We also have even older 2008 MBP and Compaq Presario CQ50 lying around, both of which run about as well as they did when they were new; however, the CQ50 keyboard is missing a few keys (my own fault, removed some keys while cleaning it but couldn't put them back on).

Budget class laptops don't need to be replaced as often these days (even less frequently if you are inclined to upgrade the memory and storage). Setting aside aesthetics of the external appearance & display, obsolescence seems to be more a matter of the end user either switching to more demanding applications or perhaps growing impatient with the same level of sluggishness that initially seemed fast when they bought it.

Back in the early 2000s, however, we went through a string of low budget laptops with all sorts of problems with HDD failure, display giving out, etc., and usually repair would have been more costly than buying a new one.

 

Oh yeah. I wasn't particularly saying that their hardware is anything special. Indeed, I actually spoke AGAINST it being good. But what I said was indeed true: they don't skimp on material. Their cheapest macbooks are multiple times better in construction materials and quality than cheap dells in the same power class, etc. I mean, you do pay for it, sure, but even higher end dell notebooks (consumer) still fall short. I've watched things over the years.

But what I spoke about Apple was from the software standpoint and the way they deal with their hardware support. I don't have that kind of support with Windows, from all the windows support I've tried doing through many many many years. And while Dell has some of the better hardware support for consumers (not considering business-level gear here), even at their best, they weren't as good as what I've seen (without even owning an apple product, mind).

Micro$haft has a long way to go if they're trying to be an Apple. Which they mostly are, really. So they just have no excuse.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely cannot stand Apple as a company for their proprietary-ness and their incessant desire to control. Hence why I refuse to own their products. Because there was choice.

But lack of choice is the key for my complaints right now. Same as my complaints about laptop screens. Same as my complaints about SLI and inability to get enough power from single GPUs. Same as my complaints about BGA CPUs and inability to get good socketed ones, or good performing ones (though Skylake seems to have relaxed on this). Same as my complaints about most things, where there's no choice.

 

I have had a Razer blade pro 2013 500 gb model.. and its a head-turner...

However, I have had HORRIBLE experience with razer systems support and with the laptop in general...

Had it replaced 5 times IN A ROW and didn't have it for half a summer. That and from week 4 they virtually discontinued all driver support. now I cant do &*(* on it without a bsod. they even closed the forum for the SBUI development which they said they would always keep up to date and always add new apps (hmmm false advertising...). More than half the apps no longer work, including the Youtube app and Twitch app. Im lagging just typin this into the forum. THeres also the software issues where keys repeat indefinitely or where the number keys don't work on the logon screen - forcing reboot to get into laptop

Performance is subpar (cant even max World Of Tanks) and the drivers right now make it worse than my father's ultrabook which has an integrated core i5.

Razer should stick with what they are good at making - gaming accessories and 14 inch laptops. The RBP should have been discontinued or purchasers given upgrade options to the 14 inch versions.


Soooo.... i decided to get a GT80

 

"Stuck" Key Example1: http://1drv.ms/1l8G4JF
"Stuck" Key Example2: http://1drv.ms/1PeV2uQ

 

Sounds like you've had some terrible luck there. As much as I bash Razer (I do it so much I could probably call it a job at this point) I've never heard of such awful experiences.

I'm not sure Razer is actually good at anything other than Mice... and even then, their mice are nowhere NEAR the best (especially for their price). Their headsets are garbage and their standalone desk mic was reported to be trite and please don't get me started on their notebooks.

Have you considered the P870DM? There are few reasons to buy a GT80 when the P870DM is for sale.

 

Speaking of mice - I'm looking for a decent wireless one. The only Razer wireless mouse is the Mamba, and that's $200. Any other brands where I might get a wireless mouse for less than $70?

 

Try THE NEW OROCHI. Had old one and support can't give me a working replacement for that either...

 

Not looking for bang for buck but for quality. The hing on that laptop really threw me off.. Looking for quality as well as performance and bling. That and the touchpad layout on he gt80 closely mirrors my razer

 

Razer systems are kind of like macs. It's all focused on looks

 

Erm... well if you say so. I see much better quality with the P870DM in terms of performance, cooling, internal design, etc but to each their own.

Less than $70? I don't know. How about one of Logitech's mice? The G602 I think is somewhat cheap, or can be found somewhat cheap. There should also be the G700 and G600S but I don't know much about those, really.

I haven't ever considered wireless mice so I don't know a large amount about them really, unfortunately. I just know that Logitech's new gear (G303, G402, G502) is great, and the G602 is new too.

 

I recommend the Logitech G602. I love them. Be prepared for it to only last 2 years though. I'm on my second.. Bastards

 

Warranty is 2 years so it should be fine.

Unlike me who is waiting for my replacement G502 to be shipped...

 

This thing is fantastic, ever tried it?

 

Not enough buttons for me, and on the wrong places. I've never felt that that in itself was so useful. I think if it was a little bigger, maybe, like a smaller version of a tenkeyless keyboard. But I like all my buttens

 

It has a switcher with three modes (as well as a scroll wheel), so multiply the number of buttons by three.

Was never quite comfortable using laptop keyboard for gaming, perhaps because I have a mouse on the right side of the laptop, the angle was always a bit wrong. Previously, I used a numpad but after I bought this thing a few years ago, I've been hooked - can't play any games without it. If you remove the little round thing where your thumb goes, underneath there is a directional pad, perfect ergonomic fit for the contour of your left hand.

Anyways, they have a 50% off sale today starting at 6pm: https://insider.razerzone.com/index.php?threads/insider-ces-2016-appreciation-event.10666/

 

Well, to each their own. It's still just not for me though, however I have a friend who uses one.

 

Found this on Razer's Twitter thread "The @Razer Blade Stealth is our first product that caters to gamers and non-gamers alike. And we plan to make those non-gamers...gamers."

That was their advertisement for mine as well.... For Work.... and For Play....

It is NOT the first device they designed for both...


"The @Razer Blade Stealth is our first product that caters to gamers and non-gamers alike. And we plan to make those non-gamers...gamers."



VERSUS:


FOR PLAY AND WORK
The new Razer Blade Pro is the ultimate gaming machine and creative mobile studio with the latest high-performance technologies yet remains just 0.88 inches thin.

 

The ironic thing is that my razer blade pro has always struggled to run basic software such as premiere pro. It cannot run maya or after effects at a usable speed...

 

Which CPU does it have? Is it throttled severely or something?

 

4700 HQ

 

Much better than my own processor, but I work with these programs pretty often. When you say it struggles to run After Effects and Premiere, what do you mean? Are you talking about waiting for long render times, or some other issue where the timeline preview window is choppy, for example?

Maybe some setting just needs to be changed. Do you have enough RAM allocated in the memory settings? And you can try dropping down the preview resolution in your sequence settings (try below 720p) or disabling GPU acceleration. If it is already disabled, try enabling it. Might also want to check whether video rendering and playback is set to software only in the project settings.

There are always workarounds, even on extremely low spec machines (lower than mine), for example, you can do most of the work, finish your sequence using low resolution proxy copies of your video files and then replace them with the high resolution versions when you are ready to do your color grading, polish and render.

 

on lowest settings it said it would take 300 years to render a basic keylight chroma key

Cant even run sub hd preview in Maya... I saw a 33% minimum throttle in the event viewer set by bios. It really throttles when unplugged due to not enough power for the already sub-gaming quality gpu
Ram is 8gb transcend (ugh) ram. Soldered down and not upgradable. Had it fail in a model once.

 

Hey guys

Just thought I'd get some opinions here.

With so many manufacturers going down the BGA route and making their laptops harder to upgrade, could external graphics be something to consider in the (near) future?
Would performance even be the same?? For example a 980TI in a desktop pc and one in say, the new Asus core thingy. Is thunderbolt3/USB-C fast enough for this?

Because if I honestly have to choose between a bulky laptop that is barely upgradable or a much cheaper ultrabook like the new Asus UX501 with external desktop GPU, I think I might very well go for the latter... Provided of course the gpu isn't castrated by the external enclosure or usb-c itself...




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

A couple years back, someone rigged up 780Ti to MBP with Thunderbolt 2 and it was reportedly utilizing the card at around 85% efficiency. Thunderbolt 3 is double the bandwidth of TB2 (40 Gb/s vs 20Gb/s), so these new eGPU enclosures are certainly viable options. I'd make sure to get a laptop with quad core CPU, though - otherwise it will bottleneck the performance.

 

Yeah that's why I mentioned the Asus that's using the 6700 cpu... The only thing I don't like actually is the 4k screen. Ridiculous and a gimmick.


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Well thunderbolt 3 is roughly like PCIe 3.0 at... 5x? It's certainly not ideal and might not be a viable choice for future stronger GPUs. But I think the main bottleneck of going the eGPU route is selecting an adequate CPU. At least a quad core, hopefully a non throttling one (or that does not throttle severely) and it should be alright.

 

So someone getting this ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW-DS71T 15.6-Inch UHD Touchscreen Laptop (Core i7-6700HQ, 16 GB DDR4, 512 GB Gen 3 PCIe x4 SSD, Nvidia GTX960M GPU) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018AX3OHO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_NNsMwbJSSRXX0
would be getting a good gaming rig when coupled with a eGPU?



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If it's the same as this one ( https://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks/ZenBook_Pro_UX501/ ), it looks like it only uses TB2 (20Gbps) port. Not going to work with the new TB3 eGPUs.

 

The one in the link is last year's model. The new ones use TB3


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@moviemarketing

The ZenBook Pro UX501VX is the model/variation with the "optional" TB3 port:

"Thunderbolt® 3 and USB 3.1 – on a single Type-C port!
ZenBook Pro UX501VX introduces the latest Thunderbolt® 3 connectivity from Intel®, which uses a USB Type-C port to give you unprecedented flexibility and hyper-fast data transfer speeds — up to 40Gbit/s via Thunderbolt® 3 , and up to 10Gbit/s via USB 3.1!

This incredible technology makes UX501VX the ultimate mobile powerhouse, allowing you to transfer even the largest files in mere seconds.

And that’s not all — ZenBook Pro also has three SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports, which feature exclusive ASUS USB Charger+ technology that charges mobile devices much quicker than standard USB ports — even when ZenBook Pro is powered off."

The ZenBook Pro UX501VX model doesn't show up on google yet, only the "parent" model, the ZenBook Pro UX501VW is listed at Asus, but it is mentioned down the page - that's where the above quote comes from:
https://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks/ZenBook-Pro-UX501VW/Features/

The ZenBook Pro UX501VX with TB3 isn't available, and no one is listing it for pre-order.

 

Strange. I guess lots of people are confused about that as I read many reviews on Amazon (for the VW) that it had a TB3 port.
Anyhow, now that this has been clarified, would you personally buy such a laptop (coupled with a eGPU) ?
Unless you're into benchmarking and plan on upgrading your CPU, RAM and other components, I think this could be a pretty decent option for gamers, considering the one component we tend to upgrade is the GPU.

 

Many newly released laptops come with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C port. I don't think it's anything special to any specific laptop. Just if the eGPU is universally compatible or not is all I care about.

 

It's too early to say. First the Asus eGPU isn't released, and no statement as to further support for it other than the unnamed Mystery laptop.

Also, if a laptop is released before an eGPU is released I would think support is less likely, but possible. It might take some effort from Asus to modify the BIOS/vBIOS to support the eGPU function cleanly.

I would ask Asus Support, if the VX is planned to be supported with the Asus eGPU, and if not then ask for it to be supported.

Again, it's too early to expect compatibility, but it seems likely

Remember, the released GS40 isn't supported by the new GS40's physical dock format, so that's a good example for not assuming it's going to work.

 

Won't be hard to code in specific motherboard compatibility into the eGPU itself. Like, it won't activate if it doesn't see an ASUS board, or something.

But that's dumb, and I don't think they could justify that, so it'll likely be universal and only require a TB3 port.

 

Nope it's not, Bios restrictions and the way the computer "hands over" tasks to the Gpu (intel) are not always the same for each laptop . But it should work on most laptop in the future imo.

 

LOL @ Pascal. Not even interested at this point. They brought Maxwell into CES to "demonstrate" Pascal. So much fail it hurt. They don't even have samples to demo at this time. NVIDIA used to really make something great, and I'll admit the 970 was actually pretty good. But their rebranding needs to stop. I actually made the sales guy at best-buy open the box on the Lenovo I was buying so I could turn it on and make sure the 860m was actually Maxwell based instead of Kepler, because there are two distinctly different versions of the same damn card.

Now, Polaris on the other hand... I want to see something with HBM2 in a notebook, and AMD is already well underway with this new arch. They had actual live demos of real silicon.

Another reason to love Apple. If I can make my eGPU setup work with my Macbook Air, it will work with anything Apple that has a Thunderbolt port. Thunderbolt/USB-C should be a fully standardized port from top-to-bottom in the way it's implemented.

 

To be frank, we don't know if Nvidia used Maxwell to 'demonstrate Pascal'. I don't think it was ever confirmed... merely implied due to how identical the chips looked... however, a distinctive lack of proper information regarding Pascal and subsequent delays in its release could point towards the problem of that not being Pascal at all at CES, but as it was speculated, Maxwell.

AMD as you mentioned H.A.L.9000 already demo-ed a live Polaris and its highly efficient (even though AMD stated they still have more optimizations to do).
I'm personally waiting to see if AMD pulls high end mobile Polaris with HBM2... they could certainly do it. , and that architecture seems more interesting to me right now vs Pascal.