Hi, I've been searching for a few months now, and I know it might not be possible, but I'm looking for a fairly new convertible or tablet with an i5 or i7 chip (yeah, I know a skylake is out of the question) with a minimium of 8gb ram and a dedicated GPU…. Preferably under $1K <insert laugh here>.
Why a tablet? - I sketch and draw and I also want to circle documents in walking meetings for work.
Why <15" - I don't like large notebooks/laptops as I'm used to working in cafes when I was working for myself, and would like to do that again, but have the option to plug into a larger monitor at home.
Why a dGPU? - I bloody bought Xcom 2 on Steam and then realised that my neither my old imac or macbook can run it (and I'm thinking of migrating back to PC)
Why <$1K? - why not? I'm saving money for a wedding and I can justify spending $1K but not really anymore, else the guilt would kill me (as would my fiancee) :P
Anyway, thought I would try the ozbargain brains trust….
Thanks in advance! :D
You're going to have a hard time finding:
- dGPU with convertible hinge/dock
- 11-13" with a dGPU
- dGPU and <$1,000
You will have to choose one of the options above, and sacrifice two.
Or do what most people do… have a separate work PC to gaming PC.
Obviously the best recommendation is the MS Surface Book.
But that comes in at a ~$3,000 price tag.
I just did a quick search off eBay, hoping I could find something for you with the 15% discount.
Honestly, couldn't find anything 13" or below.
The best I could find with the GTX 950M is this:
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=95…
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Asus-ROG-GL552JX-DM033H-Laptop-i7…
…You should be able to do 1080p60 @ Low Settings.
Bumping up to a GTX 960M would allow you to go 1080p30 @ Medium Settings.
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_odkw=950m&_sop=16&_osacat…
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Asus-ROG-GL552VW-DM210T-Laptop-i7…
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Alienware-13-R2-i7-6500U-3-5GHz-4…
Keep an eye on this auction:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dell-Alienware-13-Gaming-Laptop-8…
Bumping up to a GTX 970M should allow you to go 1080p60 High Settings
…but you won't find anything under $2,000
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_odkw=960m&_sop=16&_osacat…
Bumping further to GTX 980M should allow you to go 1080p60 Ultra
…but that starts at $2,500
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_odkw=970m&_sop=16&_osacat…
There's little choice in the ways of Pascal (nvidia still has supply shortages).
And the best choice would be to go with the GTX 1060 (no "M" its the full-desktop gpu inside the laptop).
That should also allow you to do 1080p60 Ultra Settings.
As you know, you could be cpu/memory bottlenecked.
And these new laptops aren't cheap, also starting in around the $2,500 mark.
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_odkw=980m&_sop=16&_osacat…
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Gigabyte-P55W-1060-602S-15-6-Core…
There is of course the Razer Blade (2016/2017).
However, they're situated in USA so you will have to grey-import it.
You can try Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3…
I found this one with i7, 512GB SSD, GTX 970 for $1600 (US ?) but its used:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BSDFK0?m=A25DS4D3GZG8WT&ref_=v…
Best of luck!