Hi! I’ve recently been looking for a non-gaming laptop that is suitable for the sims 4, with mods, cc and the game packs.
Is having a non-gaming laptop the best? Or is it best to have a gaming laptop? As I would like to have a non-gaming one for school work as well.
Thank you!
NiNi_Awesome08 In terms of raw performance, gaming hardware will always beat non-gaming hardware, whether that hardware is in what is technically a gaming laptop or not. But if you don't need the absolute best performance in Sims 4—if high graphics settings are fine, or having the occasional extra lag (beyond what this game will do on any system) isn't a concern—then a standard laptop with a fast integrated graphics chip would be a reasonable choice.
What's your budget here? The newest iGPUs from Intel and AMD are almost fast enough to run Sims 4 on ultra settings, even with all packs installed and with the goal of relatively smooth graphics, and the laptops that have them are not necessarily all that expensive. If you have the budget for a gaming laptop, I could probably find something with one of the fast iGPUs for the same price, in a system that would be more lightweight and portable, not to mention looking much more subtle. At a lower price tier, there are still plenty of laptops that can run the game on medium-high to high settings, so you have options here.
If you let me know your budget and country, I can make some suggestions. With just the budget, I could tell you what to look for. If you do want recommendations, please list any other considerations, for example screen size, that matter to you.
Hello, thank you for your reply!
sorry this may seem silly but I’m not the best when it comes to laptops. If I was to get a normal laptop, what would I not have on the normal one that I would on the gaming one? Because obviously I would like to have mods and stuff too and I’m unsure on if a non-gaming laptop could have that.
My budget would be £800, in the uk. In terms of a gaming laptop, I don’t mind having one as long as they are also suitable enough for school work too, possibly with a good battery life, and the ability to be silent, and as you stated, subtle and lightweight. But please recommend gaming and non-gaming laptops.
NiNi_Awesome08 Gaming laptops have gaming-tier hardware, although some high-end non-gaming laptops do as well. (Not in the £800 range though.) That means better performance, and also usually a bulkier chassis to accommodate the more robust cooling that the hardware needs. That hardware will also use more power, often even on idle, so you probably wouldn't get great battery life. And those fans are going to be somewhat loud, at least in this price range.
The right non-gaming laptop could still allow you to use all official Sims 4 content and plenty of mods though. It's just a matter of picking the right configuration. Plus, the processors are generally built to perform regular tasks at a very low power profile, meaning better battery life and quiet to silent fans when you're not running a game.
For gaming laptops that aren't too flashy, what do you think of these?
https://ao.com/product/c17wheaabubun-hp-victus-15fa2300na-laptop-black-109078-251.aspx
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7806908?clickPR=plp:15:43
The second one is £820, but I'm not seeing a lot of options with an RTX 4050 or (the slightly faster) 5050 that are reasonably subtle. You could drop down to an RTX 3050, but that wouldn't save you much money, maybe none depending on the model, and they're going to look like these. Plus, a 3050 is significantly slower, still more than capable of running Sims 4 on ultra settings but not with the same kind of margin you'd get with the other models.
If you do want a gaming laptop but don't like these two, let me know why and I'll list other options. I do think these fit your preferences the best, at least among those I can see, but you're the one who has to use it.
You have a lot more good options in the non-gaming laptop category, for example these:
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-vivobook-s14-m3407ha-14-laptop-amd-ryzen-7-1-tb-ssd-silver-10286936.html
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/msi-prestige-14-ai-evo-14-laptop-intel-core-ultra-5-512-gb-ssd-grey-10280523.html
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/acer-aspire-14-ai-oled-14-laptop-copilot-pc-intel-core-ultra-5-512-gb-ssd-silver-10284846.html
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/hp-omnibook-7-aero-13.3-laptop-amd-ryzen-ai-7-1-tb-ssd-silver-10281524.html
These are all in the same performance category (can run Sims 4 on high-ultra settings, maybe ultra, without factoring in custom content), although the third is a little faster than the others.
If you want a pretty screen, the third has that too, as does this one that's a bit more expensive and has the same internal hardware:
The fourth of the group above is listed at less than 1 kg, with the third being the next-lightest, but all are 1.7 kg at most, which is reasonable for carrying around.
Let me know what you think of these, and if you want more options in a certain category (for example 1-1.2 kg), I can search other sites too. But there are too many options to cover without narrowing things down.
And if you have more questions, please feel free to ask.
If I increase my budget to 1k, would that give you more options, for the gaming laptops? And would it allow there to be more options for a non-gaming laptop to have game related hardware? I don’t mind it being 1-1.7kg in weight, and if it helps the gaming laptop doesn't have to be overly subtle. Thank you!
NiNi_Awesome08 What do you think of this laptop?
It has proper gaming hardware but with the profile of a standard laptop. I didn't see it before because it's not listed as a gaming laptop at all, and I didn't go up to £800 in the non-gaming category since there were already too many options to discuss. This model is almost 2 kg however.
For gaming laptops up to £1,000, you certainly have more options, including more power if you want it. But you don't need the extra power for Sims 4, as in, the game won't be able to use it. Do you specifically want a gaming laptop that's lightweight? Most in this category are in the 2-2.3 kg range, with the lighter MSI Thin series being problematic in other ways.
The older Lenovo LOQ models are listed at 1.77 kg, but the only ones available come with an RTX 3050, a significant downgrade from the other gaming laptops we've discussed (as well as the one above), or the even slower 2050, which I would avoid entirely. Here are examples with the 3050:
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7531149
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/laptops/loq-laptops/loq-15-series/lenovo-loq-essential-15arp10/83s0cto1wwgb1
The problem here is that while a decent cooling solution can be built relatively cheaply, powerful cooling that's also lightweight is significantly more expensive. So you typically see these laptops start around £1,200 or more, depending on the year and whether there's a new product line someone is pushing. It's not a problem with non-gaming hardware because of the lower power consumption.
For the first laptop, would you highly recommend it? I’m thinking of getting that one. Would the space be enough for the sims? If I was to have 1tb of space, would that increase the price?
NiNi_Awesome08 I would say it's a good laptop for what you want. I don't know if I'd go so far as to "highly" recommend it because I haven't tested it myself or heard from anyone who has one. But Asus makes machines that do what they're supposed to, it has the hardware to be exactly what you want it to be, and it's from a physical store that can provide support or an exchange on the off chance you need it.
Sims 4 itself, all packs included, takes up just under 70 GB at the moment. User files will need more space too, but saves are relatively small—your whole saves folder could be less than a gigabyte. Even a 200 GB custom content collection would still fit comfortably on a 500 GB drive, and that's a LOT of cc to manage. So unless you know you'll want double that, or you're going to store other large files on the computer, you should be fine.
If there is a 1 TB version of this laptop, I didn't see it in this price range. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but often enough, the upgraded version is significantly more expensive than the value of the upgrade. So I wouldn't be surprised if the only 1 TB model was £200 more. Or it could be £50 more on another site and I missed it, or that option is sold out or coming soon or only available on a sketchy website I didn't check.
External drives are also relatively cheap—I'm seeing even a few 4 TB options for £100. While they're not fast, they're fast enough to play back movies without delays, so that would be a good solution for bulk storage. Unless you know you need to store a lot of files internally all the time (you can't swap back and forth), this is the good budget option for backups and non-gaming-related data.
I think I will buy the asus, thank you so much for your help
Hi! Do you have any recommendations for a budget of $300-400 in the U.S.? (If it's possible) Thank you!
isadorak1 If you want to keep the price down, this one should be able to run Sims 4 on medium graphics settings. It doesn't have a lot of storage, so you wouldn't be able to amass a large (>100 GB) custom content collection or store other large files, but the game itself and a reasonable amount of user files should be fine.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1913586-REG/lenovo_82x700gsus_15_6_ideapad_slim_3i.html
This one is somewhat faster—it could probably handle medium-high graphics settings—but with the same limited storage. You'd need to "upgrade" from Windows in S mode to Home, but that's free and only takes a couple of clicks.
If you want double the storage, you'd need to go to $400, at least with the options I'm seeing. This one is the best I can find with 500 GB storage, and it's not any faster than the one immediately above:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/13566207291
I didn't find anything better than these at their respective price points. But if none are what you want, let me know and I'll do another search. There are plenty of options equivalent to the first one, just not as cheap, but if there's another feature you want, I might be able to find it.
