Deciding Between Four Different Sager Models

I am looking to purchase a 980m gaming laptop and looking to stay around a $3,000 or under budget with the aim to keep the laptop for around 3 years. I play a wide variety of games, but the majority of my time is spent on MMORPGS, Action RPGs and RTS games. I do play first person shooters such as Battlefield 4 as well.

Most of my laptop gaming will either be done at home on my recliner or my bed. I do take my laptop on travel or on work trips, but those tend to only be once every 2-3 months. I have a pretty solid desktop at the moment, so although I have typically owned 17.3" desktop replacement laptops in the past, I am not sure I really need to go that route this time around.

Based on reviewing these forums and other research, it seemed to me that there are three (soon to be four) excellent Sager/Clevo models that may meet my needs, but I am having a hard time choosing between them.

The models I am looking at are the following:

(i) NP8652

(ii) NP8258

(iii) NP9377-S

(iv) The new "Batman" Model.

To help decide between these models, I have the following questions:

1. How much of a gaming detriment will it be to go from a a 17.3" monitor to a 15.6" monitor? Does 15.6" still feel like enough gaming space for games like MMORPGs where a lot of information is displayed in various parts of the screen?

2. How much better do the 15.6" IPS monitor selections in the NP8652 look compared to the TN panels in the NP8258 and the NP9377-S? Is the response time in the IPS monitor selections going to be sufficient for FPS Games?

3. Is it worth getting the i7-4810MQ processor instead of i7-4720HQ processor to avoid bottlenecking the 980m gpu? While the size and weight of the NP8652 is very appealing to me (Most of my laptops have been of the 9+ pound variety), I just want to make sure the processor is competent enough to drive the 980m since I have seen a lot of people advise getting the 4810 over the 4710 and the 4720 is very similar to the 4710.

Thanks!

 

1. The same amount of information is displayed. 1920x1080 is the same on a 15" as it would be on a 17". The 15" would just be a higher pixel density and not as "large" as it would appear on a 17". Best way to see what size suits you personally the best is to just take a few for a test drive and see what you like.

2. TN panels have a faster response time and IPS have larger viewing angles. I personally had no issue with the quality of the default display on these things and my personal laptop is IPS and what I was comparing it to. I was able to make out the stuff on the screen from very respectable angles.

3. The 4720 is very unlikely to bottleneck the 980m. Typically don't see that start happening until you hit SLI setups.

 

1. No detriment, really. The screen size does not yield more information being displayed, as Derek said. The larger screen simply provides a larger picture. If you want more viewing area, you can extend the picture across external displays.

2. I have to agree with Derek in that, while the IPS has respectable image quality, the TN panels look fine and offer fairly good viewing angles. I haven't noticed the response time in IPS screens produce any ghosting either, but everyone's experience varies.

3. The 4720HQ is a perfectly capable CPU and should not bottleneck the 980M at all. The 4810MQ offers a higher/faster frequency, but it touts the same amount of cache, so it's not a glaring improvement.

Happy shopping! Hopefully you like whichever system you end up choosing.