Re: Laptop suggestion for sims 4 university and various packs?
@acaldwell320 Sorry for the delay; I didn't have time to do a proper search until this evening.
In your price range, there are a couple decisions for you to make. The first is the graphics card. Right now, an Nvidia 1650 will run Sims 4, all packs included, on ultra graphics settings, with some room to spare. It's not totally clear whether it will run all future packs on ultra settings too, since we don't know what those packs will look like. A 1660 ti is the next card up and is overkill for Sims 4, not that that's a bad thing. (It's even more overkill for Civilization VI, although if a new version comes out in a couple years, you might like having the extra power.)
For video streaming, hardware doesn't matter all that much, at least not in this category of laptop. However, if you want to do video editing, or heavy Photoshop work, a stronger processor would be helpful. It's not that a weaker processor wouldn't do the job, it would just take longer. But if you want, you can afford to pay for the convenience of a better CPU.
Also helpful will be more memory. While 8 GB is plenty for Windows and Sims 4, if you're streaming, you'll get improved performance from having 16 GB installed, and it's even more important if you're going to do video editing. On the other hand, RAM is the easiest component to upgrade, and laptop RAM is quite cheap, and easy to install. With the lower-end gaming laptops, most come with 8 GB memory, and you might rather spend $40 and add more yourself (or spend a bit more to have a store do it for you) than to spend the extra $150 to get a more powerful computer than you need just for the RAM upgrade.
For the tasks you've listed, you'd probably be fine with 512 GB storage, plus maybe an external hard drive for spillover data that you don't really need to store internally. It's also relatively simple to add a second hard drive to most gaming laptops if necessary. But if you really want more storage than that, I only saw one option that wasn't significantly more expensive.
Anyway, I checked a bunch of websites for good prices, and here are the best ones I found for each category.
The lowest I'd go is this MSI, which is $800 but also currently offers a code for $100 off. Its processor is good enough but not overpowered, it has an Nvidia 1650, plus 8 GB RAM and a 512 GB solid state drive.
This Asus is $800 and is the same as the MSI except for a much more powerful processor. It's also definitely possible, and pretty simple, to add a second hard drive (any 2.5" drive you want) to this model.
This Acer ($830) is the only not too overpriced laptop I saw with more built-in storage than 500 GB. It has a combinatino 128 GB SSD/1 TB HDD and otherwise the same hardware as the MSI.
This Acer has the same specs as the Asus: 1650, more powerful processor, 512 GB SSD, plus 16 GB RAM. It's $880, but apparently you don't have to pay tax if you get a store credit card. (I wouldn't normally do that, but depending on which state you live in, it might be a significant difference.) Since it's also a Nitro, it should also have an empty 2.5" drive bay.
At the high end, there are plenty of laptops with an Nvidia 1660 ti. But among the ones with at least 500 GB storage, I didn't see any under about $950, and those all had 8 GB RAM. So if you want a 1660 ti, you might as well pay $1,000 and get 16 GB memory, plus an even more powerful processor than the others. This Asus is being released next week and is priced at $1,000 from Newegg, from a third-party seller on Amazon, and probably other sites too. (If Best Buy gets the same model in, it will probably match Newegg's price if asked.)
https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-IPS-Type-GeForce-Gigabit-TUF506IU-ES74/dp/B0865RZR9S/
The reviews aren't in yet, but Asus does have a good reputation for its gaming laptops. To be clear, the hardware is totally overpowered for Sims 4, and not even strictly necessary for video editing, let alone streaming. But if overpowered is what you want, this looks like a better bet than anything else currently available in the same price range.
If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.
