General questions about gaming components.

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jbgarcia

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Apr 17, 2015
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I am planning on buying a gaming laptop, either this or next month, and I would like some advice on the right components to select. I am aiming for a $2000-$2250 budget. These are my questions:

1. Is an SSD worth getting over an HDD, aside from faster OS loading times? I don't know whether to get a single HDD, SSD or an SSD/HDD combo. I usually have about 6-8 games installed at one time, plus 100's of GBs of music, books, comics, PDF, photos and videos.

2. If so, is it a better idea to get a 512 GB SSD installed into an M.2 slot? Or a 1 TB SSD installed in the traditional 2.5" drive? They both cost exactly the same.

3. For gaming on ultra settings, is a GTX 1070 enough for 1080p output? How about 1440p? Will it be futureproof for about 3-4 years? Or should I upgrade to a GTX 1080 for futureproofing and/or aim for 4K?

4. Is 16 GB DDR4 memory enough?

5. Is it worth getting an i7-6700 over the mobile HQ variant? Is the K variant worth the extra cost? I don't plan on overclocking the CPU.
 
Solution
jazzy663
1. Yes, yes, and yes. It is best to install your OS and most-used applications on an SSD, then use a mechanical hard drive for mass storage. SSDs are cheaper than they were years ago, it is definitely worth it to get one.

Everything loads faster on an SSD, not just OS. A 1TB drive will probably hold 6-8 games plus the OS, you will see a marked increase in performance in both. For your music, books etc just use a mechanical drive, on your budget it wouldn't be out of place to get a 2TB+ one. Slap that together with an SSD and you'll have a nice bit of storage.

2. M.2 is faster than SATA. But that depends on the person, I think the 1TB of storage is worth more than the faster speed. You may think otherwise.

3. GTX 1070 will be overkill...
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jazzy663

jazzy663

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Feb 12, 2014
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1. Yes, yes, and yes. It is best to install your OS and most-used applications on an SSD, then use a mechanical hard drive for mass storage. SSDs are cheaper than they were years ago, it is definitely worth it to get one.

Everything loads faster on an SSD, not just OS. A 1TB drive will probably hold 6-8 games plus the OS, you will see a marked increase in performance in both. For your music, books etc just use a mechanical drive, on your budget it wouldn't be out of place to get a 2TB+ one. Slap that together with an SSD and you'll have a nice bit of storage.

2. M.2 is faster than SATA. But that depends on the person, I think the 1TB of storage is worth more than the faster speed. You may think otherwise.

3. GTX 1070 will be overkill for 1080p and more than enough for 1440p. Kind of the minimum for 4K, but if you want to go 4K I would get a 1080. Though you won't be holding 60FPS/Ultra with either of those cards, no single card can do that, yet.

4. That is more than enough. I imagine 16GB of memory will be the standard for gaming machines within a few years.

5. Desktop 6700 has a faster base clock than the mobility variant. If you move around a lot a mobile 6700HQ and GPU might be worth it, but I'd still be worried about thermal issues. Power consumption as well. I know they started shoving full desktop 970s/980s/10xxs into laptop form factors but I don't know how long they'd run on battery. The tech is still kind of in its infancy so I wouldn't trust it just yet. Play it safe, build a desktop, is what I would do.

Also if you do not plan on overclocking, getting the 'K' variant will serve no purpose and will be a waste of money.

All the best.
 
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Solution
ocer9999

ocer9999

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Oct 28, 2014
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If you want a beast of PC with 2200USD budget:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/nqGF8K
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/nqGF8K/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-6800K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($419.99 @ B&H)
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Ultimate 99.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme6/ac ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($223.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 32GB (8 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($186.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Mushkin Reactor 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($241.21 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($67.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB FTW DT GAMING Video Card ($659.88 @ OutletPC)
Case: NZXT H440 (Blue/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $2215.01
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-24 19:38 EDT-0400

But yea, if you plan to just play with 1440p this is way over kill.
 
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