Clevo P650SG vs P750ZM

I'm looking to buy a laptop that will last me 4-5 years, but I'm buying the laptop in China and bringing it to use in UK so I will not have warranty, therefore I want something that has a very good build quality that will not have problems during the 4-5 years.

The laptop will mainly be sitting on my desk at home, so portability is not a big factor. I will be using it to play games and programming for chemistry. Also I do not want to spend any extra money during the 4-5 years on upgrading the laptop.

If I decide to go with the P750ZM which CPU should I buy? I want the cheapest cpu that won't bottleneck the 980m when gaming, I'm thinking of the i5 4460.

I'm thinking about overclocking the 980m, would overclocking it significantly reduce the lifespan of the graphics card? The P650SG has a 180W PSU and the P750ZM has a 230W PSU, can I do any overclocking with those PSU?

Also I have the option of upgrading the P750ZM to P750ZM-G at a cost of 1000rmb (~155usd), is G-sync worth the extra money?

The P650SG will cost 8400rmb (~1309USD)
The P750ZM with i5 4460, gtx 980m will cost 9400rmb (~1465USD)
The P750ZM-G with i5 4460, gtx 980m will cost 10400rmb (~1621USD)

Owners of the P650SG and P750ZM please share you thoughts.

Thanks in advance!

 

naturally, ill take the ZM side

reasons:
- since you wont be covered by warranty its best to have a laptop where every component is exchangeable like in the ZM series. if your P650SG has a defect then your whole machine is ripe for the trash!
- 4-5 years future proofing, even if u dont plan to do any upgrades NOW (which could change 2-3 years into ownership) would require the best components that your budget can buy right now. that would again point to the ZM due to double vRAM amount, stronger CPU and also the ability to.....upgrade!
- portability doesnt seem to be an issue for you, so u dont need maxxed out battery life: again, ZM it is!
- as for the CPU: the rule of thumb is, as long as its a quadcore and at least a sandy bridge, it wont significantly bottleneck you in games and everyday applications. and good thing: if u DO happen to need moar cpu power down the line, guess what: u can upgrade the ZM
- if you want the best of both worlds concerning the 980M, u can do overclocking while leaving the voltage and vRAM at stock. vRAM is more likely to be defective when overclocked and the GPU more likely to break when overvolted. this way ull still get a nice performance boost but ull be on the safe side. although i must say: i doubt ull NEED to overclock the 980M for some time to come i myself love overclocking and tweaking but still, when gaming, i leave my gpu at stock clocks and voltages and it eats up everything ive thrown at it thus far!
- since u only plan to overclock the gpu and will have a locked CPU, the 230W stock psu will be more than enough. u can check the OP of the batcave (see my signature) for power consumption in overclocking scenarios summary: the 230W psu is sufficient for overclocking either the CPU or GPU to its max or do a mild overclock on both. if u plan to absolutely max out both then go for the 330W psu
- as for G-Sync, i cant comment on that since i havent seen it in action with my own eyes yet. but my opinion thus far is, that its pretty much a gimmick and not really absolutely necessary to have...

btw, how much time will u be able to spare before buying the machine? if u can wait a little bit, then maybe u could get urself a P750DM, being the skylake successor of the ZM series... but that again would probably exceed the budget limit uve set for urself...

cheers!

 

That answer has it all covered, IMO.

 

@xaqutor - I'm not saying this to push for a sale, but if you are moving to the UK for 4-5 years or if you will be spending the majority of your time here then have you considered buying one of these two model laptops from either us or another UK system integrator? You would have pretty strong peace of mind with full warranty coverage, as this seems to be an important factor for you.

 

the only advantage i see between the 650 and ZM is portability and cost. If it will be sitting on the desk and portability isn't a factor, the ZM will most definitely be the better choice.

 

Damn laptops in China are so cheap...

 

haha ikr? thats probably the reason why he wants to buy it there in the first place

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G Sync is a nice touch to have, but I wouldn't say it is a necessity. Nothing wrong with having it though, when you can.

 

well, its an option, and choice is always good in the end

 

Free sync and gysnc types will become default in time.

 

@ jaybee83 I read the review that htwingnut did on the P750ZM and saw that at stock clock the CPU temperature was quite high, if I use a i5 4460 would the temperature be lower?

Also whats the CPU and GPU temperature like after a 2-3 hour gaming session on your P750ZM?

 

you can actually check temps for the 4460 in the batcave OP, since that was the initial CPU in my system



so yeah, the 4460 runs insanely cool in the batman

as for gaming, it always depends on your settings... GPU at stock after 2-3h of gaming rarely, if ever, exceeds 70C, more in the range of 60-65C. CPU at 4.2 Ghz all cores with undervolt on VCore & Cache and CLU applied would be in the 70s-80s. Also depends on the game, of course...

 

Can't argue with those temps really It's designed to keep going for hours

 

Thanks for the info! BTW nice job on the batman owner's lounge.

 

thx the OP needs an overhaul though, just cant find the time to take care of it *ugh*

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