Help me decide on which gaming laptop to purchase!

Jonnyb484

Estimable
Jul 22, 2015
2
0
4,510
I have spent several weeks and many hours going through the major brands model by model. Gaming is the most important thing for me with this laptop and I want the best experience possible. I will have to take this laptop with me a lot, so while portability and battery life is of no concern, However It will still have to be a laptop.

My wants/needs

- $2900.00 budget, not a penny more.

-A laptop I can be proud of with bells and whistles. I do not want to be left wanting more.

- A fantastic display. while I will be gaming mostly away from home with this laptop I would like an all in one package.

-Bang for my buck. I would prefer that my money be spent on horsepower opposed to convenience. While I do require some ssd space, I don't need 1000gb in a raid 0 set up.

- to contradict my previous statement a little, I am leaning slightly more towards an sli laptop. While I know the performance may not be worth the power per dollar ratio, it will still be a boost in horse power and again I do not want to be left wanting more.

.... With all that said these are the models/builds I have been considering. I would also like to take a moment to all those who will help me with this decision... THANK YOU!!!

Sager NP9377-S
-17.3" FHD "matte" 1080 LED display
-I7 4810MQ, 2.8 up to 3.8 turbo w/ 6mb cache
-GTX 980m w/ 8gb GDDR5 x2 SLI
- 16gb ddr3 1600mhz Kingston CL9
- 256GB Micron M600 mSATA SSD

MSI GT80 TITAN SLI
-18.4" (60Hz) WideFHD WLED (1920x1080) Matte
-i7-5700HQ (2.7GHz - 3.5GHz, 6MB cache
- GTX 970M 6GB GDDR5 x2 SLI
-16GB DDR3 1600mhz
- 128GB SSD x2 raid 0

MSI GT72 DOMINATOR PRO 445
-17.3" FHD IPS 1080 matte display
- i7-4980HQ (2.8GHz - 4.0GHz, 6MBcache
-GTX 980M (8.0GB) GDDR5 w/ Optimus
-32GB ddr3 1600mhz
-128GB SSD x4 raid 0

MSI GT72 DOMINATOR PRO G 1423
-17.3" FHD IPS 1080 Matte
- i7-5700HQ (2.7GHz - 3.5GHz, 6MB cache
-GTX 980 8GB GDDR5 W/ G-sync
-32gb DDR3 1600mhz
-256gb SSD x 2 raid 0

What else should I be looking for? Is there anything new on the horizon that I should wait for? Last of all THANK YOU again.
 
Solution
I would stay away from SLI especially in a laptop because of driver and game issues when using SLI. While it can speed things up in many cases, in some it does not and sometimes can even lower performance. I'd probably get the MSI GT72 DOMINATOR PRO G 1423 if I was buying this. I'd rather have the RAID 0 SSD drives than SLI video cards, but I play around with video conversion at times, so the RAM and the 512 gig of SSD Raid 0 space would be good there. Just remember RAID 0 is the most unreliable way of setting up hard drives so make sure to keep backups and possibly an image of the system. If one of the two drives dies, data is lost from both.
High end laptops are a bit touchy to purchase, while fast now, they are about double the cost of a similarly fast desktop and will be obsolete just as fast if not faster due to lack of upgradable parts.

I would spend 1/2 of your budget on a decently fast but not super decked out system now, and the other 1/2 in 3 years when the warranty goes on yours and new hardware causes your system to drop down a level or two from the best.

For $1400-1500 you can get a laptop that will play any game out now and very likely any game out in the next few years. Put the other $1500 in a CD for 3 years and you'll make some $ off the thing to boot.
 

Jonnyb484

Estimable
Jul 22, 2015
2
0
4,510
Hang-the-9

Thank you for your well thought out response and youre probably correct. However I'm not worried about my laptop staying top of the line compared to future systems I would just like the best system within my budget right now. I know that any of these systems will last me a very long time... In 3 years I may be looking at a new system, its hard to say what new tech will come out and when. Based the on examples provided which system do you feel will offer the best in show? There are only a few differences between them. G-sync vs dual gtx 980's vs an I7 4980mq vs gtx 970 sli what is the best combo
 
I would stay away from SLI especially in a laptop because of driver and game issues when using SLI. While it can speed things up in many cases, in some it does not and sometimes can even lower performance. I'd probably get the MSI GT72 DOMINATOR PRO G 1423 if I was buying this. I'd rather have the RAID 0 SSD drives than SLI video cards, but I play around with video conversion at times, so the RAM and the 512 gig of SSD Raid 0 space would be good there. Just remember RAID 0 is the most unreliable way of setting up hard drives so make sure to keep backups and possibly an image of the system. If one of the two drives dies, data is lost from both.
 
Solution