Seeking a gaming laptop, budget $1,200-$1,500

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RAD

Limp Gawd
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My brother, an engineer, just secured a raise and wants to celebrate by getting himself a gaming laptop.

His budget is in the $1,200 to $1,500 range. His main concerns are performance and reliability, portability is less of a concern (though he does travel enough he can't just buy a desktop).

I was asked for advice but I haven't paid attention to laptops for years, so I am turning here to get him some good info... His main types of gaming are stuff like the upcoming Fallout 4, RPGs, etc (and of course his various rendering software for his engineering) and he definitely wants brand new rather than refurbished or used.

What do you folks recommend? Is there any new stuff about to drop so he should wait to buy or is now a good time? Which laptop manufacturers are the bomb and which should he avoid these days? Thanks for any info you can provide!
 
Sager 8651-S best gaming laptop in that price range hands down imo.

Upgrade the screen to the IPS version, 16GB ram, and if you need an OS it will bring it to about $1500.
 
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Have the same one from eurocom. I love it and use it as my main computer now. I got about 4 hours off battery also before under-volting.
 
If he can spare an extra $100 I'd recommend the Sager 9752-S over the 8651. The 9752 offers a desktop CPU and you get that extra compute power for running his engineering programs. I use Navis works and a few others and while I can't compare the two personally I do know that benchmarks have the 4790k CPU in the 9752 as beefier and better than the mobile equilivants. That might be worthwhile to your brother if he plans on using it as a desktop replacement. Battery life sucks though, you'll be lucky to get 2 hours on battery on it.
 
Climber said:
Sager 8651-S best gaming laptop in that price range hands down imo.

Upgrade the screen to the IPS version, 16GB ram, and if you need an OS it will bring it to about $1500.
Click to expand...

Concur here. It's not the prettiest gaming laptop and is a bit chunky, but it's one heck of a bang for your buck.
 
Thanks for the information everyone, tremendously appreciated. I will pass the recommendation on. Regarding which vendor to build out and buy a sager from, is xoticpc the clear winner, or should he also be looking at others?

I've never heard of xotic, but their web presence on the various review sites seems pretty decent, if a bit sketchy on the customer service responsiveness front for when problems come up and a fair bit of bbb issues that have had to be resolved over the years.
 
On another question, how is the quantity of bloatware from xotic? I remember back in the day bloatware from laptops vendors being nightmarish. Should he expect to need to do a wipe and clean install on arrival or is it not so bad anymore?
 
The Sager (Clevo) resellers don't put any of their own software/bloatware on machines. They are essentially delivering a factory Sager laptop which may or may not have some of their own branding. As for Sager's preloaded software it's very minimal, nothing like Dell or HP. From memory, I don't actually think they come with anything preloaded that I'd consider bloatware.

As for a reseller, Xotic is exceptional (my own experience with several laptop purchases from them), and I've heard stellar feedback with Powernotebooks as well. You won't go wrong with either.
 
Xotic is the one I'd recommend but there are a couple others. Mythologic, power notebooks, and a couple others as well. Don't buy barebones from Cleve though their customer service is a joke.

I believe power notebooks. Com has a presence on the site here though. The 8651 is one of the thinnest gaming laptops I've ever seen. The razer is thinner but way more expensive

Also as stated there is no bloatware from sager except for some controls for the lighting. You can buy it without an OS and install it yourself if you want.
 
Wow that 8651 looks nice! I wonder if it has the same problems the gigabyte with overheating and loud fans.
 
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