Which gaming laptop should I keep?

[zamardii12]

I have two gaming laptops ordered and i'm torn which one I should keep. Some quick thoughts of mine...

• I HATE the "gamer" design language of the Asus, but I am sure I can paint that red bit black and turn off the stupid RGB glow around the front. I like the look of the Alienware... all black.
• I've never bought an ASUS laptop before so no idea what to expect. Not sure about quality or warranty support. I've had Dell "G" series laptops and Alienwares in the past and they were fine and lasted.
• Alienware is $500 more for the same specs and is used. Same specs meaning from what i've read the AMD GPU and AMD CPU in the ASUS rivals the mobile RTX 3080 even in some cases. Idk about the Ryzen 9 5980X vs the i7-12700H...
• I've never owned an AMD laptop, desktop, or anything before. I've always had Intel and Nvidia so I am unsure whether the AMD setup of the ASUS can rival the Alienware with respect to performance.
• Despite my hatred of the ASUS design... the price for the specs is unreal... only $1,100 compared to the Alienware refurbished at $1,600.

Refurbished "Like New" from Dell Outlet Alienware M15 R7: $1,600

Specs:

• Intel Core 12th Generation i7-12700H Processor (14 Core, Up to 4.70GHz, 24MB Cache, 45W)
• 1TB PCIe M.2 NVMe Gen 4 Class 40 Solid State Drive
• 16GB (2X8GB) Up to 4800MHz DDR5 SoDIMM Non-ECC
• 15.6 inch QHD (2560 x 1440) 240Hz 2ms with ComfortView Plus Non-Touch Display, NVIDIA G-SYNC & Advanced Optimus
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB GDDR6
• 6-Cell, 86 WHr Lithium Ion Battery
• Killer Wi-Fi 6 (6E* Pre-certified) AX1675 802.11ax 2x2 Wireless LAN and Bluetooth 5.2

Total: $1600 after 13% off with Flash Deal coupon and additional 2% off because order placed through Sales Chat. Also was given free 2-day shipping.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition: $1,099 at Best Buy right now on sale. Link.

Specs:

• AMD Ryzen 9 5980HX Processor
• 15.6" 2560x1440 QHD 165Hz 3ms 100% sRGB Color Display
• 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive SSD
• 16GB DDR4 RAM (3200MHz)
• AMD Radeon RX 6800M GDDR6 GPU
• WiFi 6 2x2 w/ Bluetooth 5.2
• Backlit Keyboard/IR Sensor
• 4-Cell Battery (90 Whr)
• Windows 11 OS (64-Bit)

 

[gvx64]

CPU	Passmark Single Thread	Passmark CPU Mark
Intel i7-12700H	3,677	26,862
Ryzen 9 5980HX	3,359	23,225

Source: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4721vs4602/Intel-i7-12700H-vs-AMD-Ryzen-9-5980HX

Video Card	Relative Performance
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	124%
Radeon RX 6800M	100%

Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-6800m.c3786

The Alienware is definitely a bit faster, but it probably isn't $500 faster. I agree that the ASUS is a better deal price-wise.

I don't know if this is true but I heard that Alienware PC's are relatively friendly towards hardware enthusiasts and folks that want to upgrade components, etc. I do not know if this extends to laptops as well but my experience with ASUS laptops in this regard has been hellish at best.

I bought an ASUS laptop for school a few years back and then last year after a windows 10 update it got trapped in an infinite loop at startup where the OS would not load while ASUS's custom bootup procedure prevented me from being able to enter safe-mode or do anything for that matter. As a result, I made the horrible mistake of opening the laptop case to try to take the battery out to give me a chance to get a clean boot. Opening the case was an absolute nightmare, the number of tiny screws were insane (ASUS clearly did not want people opening it up). When I finally did get it open the ribbon cable for the matrix keyboard immediately got pulled out and with it any way to turn the laptop on because laptops don't have hard power buttons anymore (it's just a soft button that is a part of the keyboard). I spent an entire day trying to get that ribbon cable back in but the keyboard simply would not function (the ribbon was so short that you basically had to have the laptop case closed to even get it to reach from the motherboard to the keypad bottom). Eventually I ended up wrecking the motherboard when a soldered component popped off and so I just gave up and threw the whole thing out, minus the hard-drive. Fortunately, I was able to use EaseUS to dump the hard-drive components.

Honestly, the whole experience turned me off ASUS and laptops in general. It was a big part of my decision to build a PC this year and get back to large form-factor computers that allow easy access to components. If it were me I would at least see if Alienware is more friendly to users working inside the chassis. If so, I would definitely go with the Alienware, myself. ASUS is clearly not.

 

[chameleoneel]

The Alienware is strictly better.

Better CPU
Better GPU
Better monitor
larger and faster SSD
Faster RAM
Intel Wifi/Bluetooth
Bigger battery

 

[GotNoRice]

I don't have any experience with those exact two models, but as someone who spends a lot of time fixing and/or refurbishing other people's laptops, I have an entire bin full of dead ASUS laptops, whereas Dell laptops are usually built much better and don't usually break unless you really abuse them. There is a reason why most business laptops are Dell. The ASUS is like an ACER with RGB lights (not a good thing).

 

[somebrains]

I don't have any experience with those exact two models, but as someone who spends a lot of time fixing and/or refurbishing other people's laptops, I have an entire bin full of dead ASUS laptops, whereas Dell laptops are usually built much better and don't usually break unless you really abuse them. There is a reason why most business laptops are Dell. The ASUS is like an ACER with RGB lights (not a good thing).

Dell business laptops aren’t that loved.
Lenovo has been the frontrunner.

Alienware hasn’t gotten much love from the gaming laptop testers, cooling and component quality just isn’t evident for the premium name brand.
Alienware desktops have been taking a beating for a while.

Agreed about Asus littering work tables dead.

Legion gaming laptops tend to get the nod.

 

[DooKey]

I'm not a fan of ASUS laptops. Owned one in the past and the build quality was garbage. It also only lived three years.

Go with the Alienware. Better all-around laptop than the ASUS.