Hi I'm looking for a laptop that will be able to run sims 4 smoothly along with being able to do ordinary things like searching the web/watching netflix. I am from the UK and have a budget of around £600. If anyone has any good options could they please let me know. Thanks 🙂
@emilygrce This laptop is the best one I've seen recently for £600, and I've looked several times this week:
https://www.box.co.uk/FX505DD-BQ121T-ASUS-FX505DD-BQ121T_2902781.html
Its processor is great for Sims 4, and it has plenty of storage, plus you could upgrade the memory later if you wanted to. That's not strictly necessary for Sims 4, but it does make multitasking easier. The laptop has an Nvidia 1050, a graphics card that can run all Sims 4 packs together on ultra settings, although only barely. Still, laptops with the next better card (an Nvidia 1650) tend to cost at least £100 more. For example:
https://www.box.co.uk/7VU82EAABU-HP-Pavilion-Gaming-15-ec0002na_2788807.html
https://www.box.co.uk/81LK010TUK-Lenovo-IdeaPad-Gaming-L340-15_2834990.html
An alternative to the Asus above would be this Lenovo, if you were willing to wait a month to get it. Its base price is £610 for similar hardware. But you could upgrade to 16 GB RAM for free, and swap out the slow 1 TB mechanical hard drive for a much faster, albeit smaller, 256 GB solid state drive, for no net cost. (You could have both drives if you wanted, of course.) Upgrading to an Nvidia 1650 would cost £50, making this the overall best deal if you wanted the faster card.
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/ideapad/l-series/IdeaPad-L340-15IRH-Gaming/p/81LKCTO1WWENGB0
I took a quick look around and didn't see any better options for £600, or close to it, than the Asus. That's partly because the Nvidia 1050 and 1050 ti are older cards, not quite phased out but also not as easy to find; and partly because everyone's been buying laptops to work from home. So the normal selection just isn't out there. But if you see something else you like, you're welcome to link it to ask for a second opinion. And if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.
Hi I've been looking and I want a smaller sized laptop (13" or 14"). Would these work?
Thanks for the help 🙂
@emilygrce Among those three, I'd cross off the first: its graphics chip is slower than the ones in the other two, and you could do a lot better for the price. The only real advantage of the third one over the second is its larger hard drive, atlhough again, you could do better for £600.
These laptops are all in a lower class than the ones I listed in terms of performance, capable of running Sims 4 on medium graphics settings, or maybe medium-high if you only have a few expansion packs. (Game and stuff packs don't have nearly as much of an effect.) Gaming-level graphics cards don't come in 14" laptops, at least not until you get into a higher price range.
If you want other options, I found a few. This Dell has the same larger hard drive as the third laptop you found, and otherwise the same specs as the second one, and is £550:
You'd want to upgrade at least the processor in this HP, putting the cost at £500, but you'd also have more flexibility in the other specs.
https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-laptop-14t-7ax33av-1
The same goes for this Lenovo: you'd want to upgrade at least the processor, but you'd have flexibility in choosing more upgrades if you wanted.
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/ideapad/s-series/IdeaPad-3-14%2C-Intel/p/81WDCTO1WWENGB0
If you're willing to spend just over £600, you could put a real graphics card in this Lenovo, aside from the other upgrades. The available cards, an MX330 or MX350, are not on the same level as the gaming graphics cards I mentioned earlier, but they're both much faster than the integrated cards in the other options. That's the difference between medium and high graphics settings. Plus, the dedicated card would use its own memory rather than borrowing from main memory (RAM) while you're playing, meaning the rest of the system would have full use of its installed RAM.
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/ideapad/s-series/IdeaPad-5-14IIL05/p/81YHCTO1WWENGB1
There are a number of options for customization, depending on which model you look at, and I can describe the benefits of each one if you want. But the first question is how much you want to spend, and the second is whether you like the look of any of these laptops enough to consider them as options. Let me know either way.
So if I got this one and added the MX350 graphics card would I be able to run sims 4 in high. Also would I need the i5 processor or the i7?
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/ideapad/s-series/IdeaPad-5-14IIL05/p/81YHCTO1WWENGB1
@emilygrce You don't need the i7 processor. It's stronger, but not by that much if you look at gaming benchmarks, and difference in performance in non-gaming tasks (e.g. video or heavy photo editing) is how quickly something gets done, not whether it can be done at all. I don't think the upgrade is worth anywhere near the price.
The MX350 should handle high settings without any trouble. It's too new for us to have seen what it can specifically do in Sims 4, but we can make an educated guess. An Nvidia 1050 (mobile version) is about 40% faster, and that card can currently handle ultra graphics settings, albeit barely. The MX350 is close to 200% faster than a couple of cards that run Sims 4 on medium settings. So yes, high settings should be fine.
It's not necessary for Sims 4, but if you're willing to spend the extra £25, getting 16 GB RAM may be worthwhile. The extra memory would help with multitasking, especially if you like to have browsers or other apps open while you play, or maybe edit your in-game screenshots. But if you'd rather not spend the money, the laptop will still be fine, and you can add extra RAM later if you change your mind.
