SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
If you want hardcore gaming performance, but need it in a system that's portable, if not completely lightweight, then Razer's new Blade Pro could be just the ticket. Razer is calling it the "desktop in your laptop," and they the company has a point.
On the inside, the system packs a quad core Skylake processor, an 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU, 32GB RAM, up to 2TB of NVMe SSD storage in RAID 0, Thunderbolt 3, and a 4K G-Sync capable screen. That's a machine that isn't giving much up in performance to most desktop PCs, so already justifies Razer's strapline... but it's the next thing they did that really makes this a laptop desktop.
The Blade Pro doesn't have the usual membrane keys found in laptops. It has a full mechanical keyboard, with switches—not rubber domes—beneath each key. OK, it's still a laptop, so it's a low profile mechanical keyboard with reduced key travel and chiclet style buttons. But it's a mechanical keyboard nonetheless (Razer also has a similar mechanical mechanism for its iPad Pro keyboard). And of course, being a Razer laptop, it's not just a mechanical keyboard. It's a mechanical keyboard that can be lit up with any color of the rainbow. Alongside it sits a giant touchpad.
[...] There is of course the small matter of the price; it's a little eye-watering. With 512GB of storage, it starts at $3,699/€4,199/£3,499.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Monday October 24 2016, @12:49AM
Until it heats up enough to throttle itself or generates so much fan noise your ears start to bleed.
Did not RTFA (Read the fucking advertisement)
(Score: 4, Touché) by takyon on Monday October 24 2016, @01:50AM
I'll give it this: the "4K G-Sync capable screen".
Whether the 4K resolution is necessary, that's up to you, but G-Sync/FreeSync is a good trend.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday October 24 2016, @07:05AM
I've had gaming laptops and I don't think they've ever come even close to the noise from a desktop. The PSU is entirely separate (and uncooled) which is one source of noise gone.
Heat, sure, that's unavoidable, but a laptop is a basically a giant flat heatsink and any fans on it are going to be smaller and lower-powered than anything in a desktop - and they'll be direct on the main heat-producing components rather than in a metal box that also needs to be vented. Most high-end laptops have large copper heatpipes to bring the heat to one place and vent from there. I can run the fan on mine at full speed for you if you like. You'd struggle to hear it from across the room and you can happily watch a movie while it does so (hey, I generally run Bitcoin or Steam games similar in the background while I watch movies on it - without headphones - and that tends to ramp up the CPU and nVidia GPU).
It's also running off battery some of the time, so it's unlikely that you'll be gaming mobile, that's not what a gaming laptop is about. Battery gaming sucks, and you'll be lucky to get an hour out of it.
Gaming laptops are, however, the perfect compromise. A device I can take on a plane, use at work, sit on my lap at home and watch a movie or browse or whatever, that I can also just double-click one of 1000 games and play instantly.
All on the same device, no swapping machines, no keeping things on multiple PC's, no "Oh, where did I put that work document", etc.
I've used a gaming laptop as my only machine for about 8 years now. They are quiet, fast, powerful (more than powerful enough), have a built-in UPS, can be used while travelling and it means your system setup follows you wherever you go.
Hell, I once ran a school from it. When we were initially virtualising servers a few years ago, I used my gaming laptop and a copy of VMWare to host the initial copies of physical machines while we shuffled them about and got them onto the right server. For a brief period, that laptop was doing the job of high-end servers and nobody even noticed. And it barely made a whisper while it was doing so.
If you're paying that kind of money, you're going to be putting some decent cooling on it. And I doubt, beyond the usual PC breeze from the vents, that you'll ever care about the fan noise.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday October 24 2016, @09:59AM
All great except that desktop is generally tucked behind your desk while laptop is in your lap, on your bed etc. where all the theoretical outlets are blocked and the keyboard becomes a frying pan (or brittle if it made of plastic).
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday October 24 2016, @11:20AM
You mean - the box is hidden under the desk with the vent outlets all facing the wall and your laptop is out in the open-air with vents on all sides?
Doing it on soft furnishings that block vents is indeed stupid but so would be resting your desktop on your bed.
Literally, not an issue for anyone with a brain, and again - nothing a desktop would survive either. The laptop will if you have half a brain AND can do all the other stuff that the desktop can do.
Honestly, have used a gaming laptop for the last 8 years, sitting on my lap, on my sofa, in my car, in a plane, abroad, as the primary "desktop" on a table, etc. and never had a problem. Two different models, and the first only died because the hinges went.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday October 24 2016, @02:32PM
I don't know which games have you played on your 8 year old gaming laptop but I know not a single person whose gaming laptops survived 3 years without frying their palm.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday October 24 2016, @02:55PM
One lasted five years (hinges broke because of weak construction). The other lasted three.
And on this latest one I've played through GTA V and the Batman's from beginning to end.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:01PM
Rich kids! :D
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday October 24 2016, @04:18PM
I'd argue that a bit differently.
The PC case on the floor is positioned towards the front of the desk leaving quite a bit of space between the back of the case and the wall. The bigger problem is the dust on the floor which coats heat sinks with a nice layer of thermal insulation. Floors are a terrible place for the PC. I have mine on a printer stand that came with my desk set. And you can easily fit silent or near silent heat sinks to the CPU, GPU or even go water cooling.
Laptops have this problem of getting rid of heat because your legs aren't great heat sinks and neither is a desk. So the entire bottom is partly insulated and you are dependent on small fans, vents, and convection to remove the rest of the heat. This results in hot keyboards and noisy fans.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday October 24 2016, @10:08AM
I do the same, with one of the System76 laptops. It's a very minor compromise.