ASUS GL551 vs Alienware 13

kyomagi

Honorable
Jun 3, 2013
11
0
10,560
So i have a GL551 on order and it will be here tomorrow.

The specs are:
i7 4720HQ
16gb Ram
15" 1080 screen
1TB HDD
GTX 960m

I paid about 975 for it but am having second thoughts for this reason.

I could have gotten an alienware 13 and a graphics amp from ebay for the same price and used my gtx 780 at home

However, what has me torn is the poor CPU in the alienware and the lower end gpu

Its a dual core i5 4210U, 8gb ram and a gtx 860

The Asus would be more of a mobile gaming unit able to handle games on high with no issue. but at the same time, when im home i could use the graphics amp and going on max/ultra settings with my video card. The other concern is the weak CPU.

Should i stick with the asus or go for the smaller alienware and hope the CPU does not bottleneck me?
 

Quixit

Estimable
Dec 22, 2014
62
0
4,610
Gaming laptops are an exercise in compromise. Normally, I'd say go from the GPU performance. But now a lot of games are requiring a quad-core processor, so I would personally go with the ASUS. It will also cost you significantly less money than the Alienware + graphics amp solution.

You could also get an Alienware 15 which is larger and more powerful, but then you need to deal with the extra weight. It's a good option if you just can't sacrifice any performance.