PC Will this be a decent laptop for 7 days to die?

AshaMarie

AshaMarie

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https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/gaming-laptops-notebooks/alienware-m17-r2-laptop/spd/alienware-m17-r2-laptop?~ck=bt

I keep my question simple. I want to know if this is a good laptop or not to enjoy this game with. I have no room for another desktop here so please do not suggest a desktop. It MUST be a laptop and also so I can take it with me easily as well in a computer bag. My current laptop is having overheating issues and it was over 3k on price but it is about 2-3 years old now and a MSI with some keys no longer working due to heating I guess. Thanks in advance for reply. If there is a better laptop option, please let me know. It also needs to be Windows 10 since non-windows not supported for some games I like I think.

 
I wish I could tell you but laptops are not my thing. What about upgrading your existing desktop? this game is a hog on a lot of mid range desktops so I don't know how a laptop would perform. Maybe on low settings it would be cool and the ability to take it places would also be cool.

Is your existing desktop a custom build or OEM like Dell or HP? If its a custom built you can just go with a motherboard, CPU, RAM and GPU combo for less than the laptop.

Yes, I did mention a desktop but only as an option for upgrade and not buying a new one.

 
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That is definitely a decent gaming laptop. It should have no issues running 7days (or any other game for that matter)

 
If you use the 1080 gaming setup it does sound like it will be fine but not at 4K according to this simple review

not too much information but at least it is a simple enough review without to much tech talk.
The 1,745.00 option in the third one over has the added 16GB ram which would be nice but I don't think the added NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2080 8GB GDDR6 with Max-Q Design for $2,829.99 is worth the price.

Going camping with this laptop in a travel trailer would be amazing, out in the wild with only the bare essentials and a beautiful gaming laptop of course. I envy you, in a good way.

 
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Your link didn't work for me (brought me to Dell homepage), but in the link it said alienware-m17-r2-laptop. After googling, I'd say that's definitely a laptop that meets the requirements to run this game on high settings, so long as it doesn't overheat which laptops are known for.

EDIT: Also keep in mind that any and all games aren't focused around supporting laptop hardware, so if you do get issues with this game on your laptop, it's not really the game's fault, it's just the way it is. Games are designed for desktops, not laptops.

 
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Just don't skimp on the RAM or available hard drive space. I put together a decent one, and the total was about 2 grand.

 
In all honesty, I can't reccomend anyone buying an Alienware computer. Seen too many issues, and I've never met anyone happy with their Alienware post whenever Dell bought them out. But, you can always return it if not anyway, and mayhaps you get lucky. Don't forget there are laptop-cooling pads you can get that have fan setups. Hell, I build one out of scrap fans and a side-panel to an old tower I had laying around for my laptop when doing stuff at home - lowered normal usage temps from 43~ C to 30 +- 3 C, and running 7 days on it it hits ~ 50 - 55C, other games like CSGO run at 45C~ range.

Also, for your current laptop, look into replacing the thermal paste and cleaning out dust, those both are 99% the case in overheating issues.

 
In all honesty, I can't reccomend anyone buying an Alienware computer. Seen too many issues, and I've never met anyone happy with their Alienware post whenever Dell bought them out. But, you can always return it if not anyway, and mayhaps you get lucky. Don't forget there are laptop-cooling pads you can get that have fan setups. Hell, I build one out of scrap fans and a side-panel to an old tower I had laying around for my laptop when doing stuff at home - lowered normal usage temps from 43~ C to 30 +- 3 C, and running 7 days on it it hits ~ 50 - 55C, other games like CSGO run at 45C~ range.
Also, for your current laptop, look into replacing the thermal paste and cleaning out dust, those both are 99% the case in overheating issues.
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Sound like a pain in the you know what to have to do to a laptop. I did find a review that had the CPU running really hot, so you are probably right. I did not add the link because it was too technical but I will now:

In the review the guy also overclocked the laptop which I think would be a bit dumb for a laptop but he did do a lot of thermal testing.
 
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Sound like a pain in the you know what to have to do to a laptop. I did find a review that had the CPU I think running really hot, so you are probably right. I did not add the link because it was too technical but I will now:
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Yep, that's the issue that everyone I stated above has had issues with. Lack of proper cooling which leads to throttling and life-reduction with Alienware (not just the one you posted for review). A year ago a buddy bought an alienware dutch-oven laptop and the thing over heated after throttling to the point where it had to thermal-shut down the system on CS-GO, of all games. Sent it back for repairs and they said nothing was wrong with it, and told him to not put it on carpet/blankets/etc. He just sent it back for a refund lol.

It depends on the case, but a lot of times it's not as hard as you think (unless you're not very patient with tiny screws and fragile pressure clips lol). Sometimes, though, the engineers are hell-spawns and make a breakdown very hard and time consuming. But, thermal paste replacement and dust cleaning will resolve heating issues -- unless it's due to the case, which I assume is why 90% of alienware laptops overheat.

Is a gaming laptop that requires a high-powered cooling pad really a mobile gaming platform? Sorta defeats the purpose imo, but there are laptops that don't overheat too bad, but generally they will always run hotter, it's a tiny oven. Improvements have been made, certainly though.

As far as recommendations go... tbh not too sure. I know HP builds workhorse laptops that don't die, so maybe look into that. Always check reviews though. Btw, "gaming" and "regular" is a thing of the past, just look at specs, battery life, etc.

 
I actually had only one laptop, an Acer of some kind, I booted up once and then sold it. I think your suggestion for a more reliable laptop and less focus on top performance would be a good idea. I had no Idea they were so unreliable and what good would a high performance laptop be if you just send it back in a month.

 
It will definitely run it without many issues. You will get frame drops but you could spend 2 grand on building a new desktop yourself (saving money and min/maxing performance) and still get frame drops since the game is optimized quite poorly. The weakest point on that laptop is the memory, only 8 gigs. You have enough VRAM on the GPU to where it shouldn't bottleneck performance in-game but if the system memory is upgradable I would do it because you will get quality of life performance increases in other areas (like browsing with a million tabs open or keeping that browser with it's tabs up while running other programs without longer load times and pauses). It seems it's only upgradeable on the most expensive option and TBH the rest of the components aren't quite worth all that extra expense but if you aren't that worried about expense I would go for that if you can't just upgrade the amount of memory on the base model.

If you don't have the money don't worry about it though as it's definetly a solid laptop and priced competitively. With a 17 inch screen the resolution will be low enough that you will be able to play even AAA games on it for years to come, albeit at medium settings.

 
Okay, thanks for info. I am not into that 4k stuff so it did not bother me. I know it is risky to use Alienware, but at this point, I do not know what else to use. It must be a laptop though. I plan on taking it with me to places and need something powerful for the games. If not alienware, what else would anyone recommend? The important part is if it will run this game well on higher settings without overheating. I really love this game <3

 
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Okay, thanks for info. I am not into that 4k stuff so it did not bother me. I know it is risky to use Alienware, but at this point, I do not know what else to use. It must be a laptop though. I plan on taking it with me to places and need something powerful for the games. If not alienware, what else would anyone recommend? The important part is if it will run this game well on higher settings without overheating. I really love this game <3
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Honestly, I like MSI, HP, Asus, Acer. Lenovo is a brand I'm sketchy on sometimes, I've seen too many with broken screens / do things like have only 1 memory slot and such. I can definitely go and pick some out, but I found this link that has some reviews:

https://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-gaming-laptops-top-5-gaming-notebooks-reviewed-1258471

Notice how all of the Alienware laptops are reported on there to have high-temps, loud fans and inefficient cooling lol

If you desire high settings, make sure you go for 16GB of ram.

And for additional cooling, I recommend something like these

Note, if this was 5+ years ago, I'd suggest you to Cyberpowerpc, but I've heard nothing but bad negativity about their customer support and cheap methods of production, so steer clear.

HP, I've had nothing but positive things to see about their computers. MSI is a renowned brand, Asus is decent, Acer is... sorta a good budget brand?

 
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All name brands mentioned, I have quite a bit of experience with all of them... and in my experience, they all have good products and bad products, and while I do have my personal favorites, they're probably all pretty much equivalent to each other.

Ok, I don't think I have any experience with Cyberpower.

 
Bringing this back up because I found 2 possible choices and not sure how well they will perform with this game. Here they are:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-17-3-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-2070-1tb-hybrid-drive-512gb-ssd-black/6351542.p?skuId=6351542

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/alienware-17-3-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-2070-512gb-ssd-1tb-8gb-hybrid-hard-drive-epic-silver/6320424.p?skuId=6320424

This will be something I will get next month hopefully. I feel the ASUS will probably be better option cause it has better CPU, but I am a dum dum when it comes to computers anyways.

 
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The Alienware is 11.7 lbs, the Asus is 6.28 lbs. This seems like a huge difference for

otherwise nearly identical laptops.

Asus has better CPU.

Alienware has webcam, Asus does not.

I'd get the Asus if I had to pick between the 2.

 
While I agree with Beelzybub and would suggest the Asus one over Alienware, I'd definitely research more and find out why such a massive weight difference. If it relates to cooling, then find out if Asus is even up for the task of cooling an RTX 2070 and hot CPU. Cuz if you find out it overheats, then you might even up having to attach an external blower like I had to do with my laptop. (For the record, I went with an Opolar which works great)

 
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