Re: Best laptop
@puzzlezaddict Do you have any other recommendations on gaming laptops that have specifications like this? I have been playing on a HP that barely meets requirements and I have almost all expansions. I never thought to look at requirements before because it played it fine. I had to do a full restore and reinstall of the game when it finally crashed out and finally it couldn’t handle it again & absolutely will not even download now.
I really did not plan on making this purchase right now but neither of the regular laptops I have will allow me to play the game so if I could find something that will last within budget I may consider. I really don’t want to spend over 1200 if possible (preferably around $850).
I don’t want to fork out close to 1k and have a laggy game and still be waiting 10 minutes for a game to load. I wanna be able to click and go without freezing. I have never played in anything other than laptop mode in low settings therefore I’m not stressed about these ultra high settings unless it can handle it, otherwise medium is fine. I do like CC (I honestly have no idea how this laptop even had what it had on it and ran ) 😂
I don’t know what brands are best, I’ve only ever had Hp, and Dell. And so far my experience with hp hasn’t been great although I’ve never had a gaming PC. So far I have only looked a little on Walmart.com
I live in the US. ( I don’t need this for anything but The Sims 4 )
Thank you!
@JShope1109 I don't think it's worth the much higher price tag to get a 1 TB SSD. The first Asus has an empty drive bay that would fit almost any 2.5" drive, whether a mechanical hard drive (HDD) or a SATA SSD. The last time I checked, there wasn't a single game out there that ran faster on an NVMe SSD rather than a SATA, and certainly Sims 4 doesn't. So if you ever did decide you needed more storage, you could get the drive of your choice and add it separately. Here's what the Asus looks like inside:
https://laptopmedia.com/highlights/inside-asus-tuf-a15-fa506-disassembly-and-upgrade-options/
You could get a 500 GB SATA SSD for about $50, or a 1 TB SSD for under $100. For example:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DNKKGP8
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TBQ637W
The refresh rate on the screen of the first Asus isn't a problem at all. It just means the screen won't display more than 60 frames per second, no matter how many your graphics card is producing. This has nothing to do with the capabilities of the other components, it just limits how quickly the image on the screen refreshes.
When you have a powerful graphics card, it's actually a somewhat good idea to limit fps for long gaming sessions: it means the GPU doesn't have to work as hard, and it won't heat up as much. This shouldn't be an issue with a well-built gaming laptop like the Asus, but with a powerful card, I'd want to limit fps anyway because there's no point in making hardware work harder than it needs to. (Limiting fps usually only takes a couple clicks with built-in software, but no point in going over it until you actually have the laptop and are looking at the software.) An Nvidia 2060 can probably run Sims 4 at over 144 fps under ideal in-game conditions, but there's not really a benefit to such high framerates.
Some people can't tell the difference between 60 fps and higher, although some can a little bit. If not for the current situation, I'd suggest you go to a Best Buy and look at different screens to see whether you can spot the difference, but I don't know how feasible that is. Still, for the very high-end games that you may or may not play at a later date, you'd probably want to play on ultra settings and take the fps hit rather than lower settings and higher framerates. What fps you'd get depends entirely on the game, but in the most demanding ones, the 2060 would be running close to 60 fps even maxed out.
As for the protection plan, I tend to think those are far too expensive for their supposed benefits. If the laptop itself has an issue, it's covered under warranty. So unless you think you might drop it or sit on it or something, the extra $200 would likely go to waste.
By the way, not to complicate things even more, but if you're fine with the 1660 ti, it looks like Asus may have the first overpowered laptop we talked about before back in stock, for the same $1,000 price tag:
It's upgradable, but if you'd rather not, the version with a 1 TB SSD and a 17" screen is $1,100:
I don't know why Asus has the laptop and the other stores don't—maybe the laptop sold so well that Asus decided it would rather keep the profits—but it's the same model, just with different photos.
