My Next Dev. Config. : ASUS ROG Strix Scar II G715GV-EV033T !!

Hi There ! Howdy ?!

I have a simple but interesting topic for everyone : buying a new computer to play & develop with unity3d !... So let me start nicely !

So There are many online computer shops here in France, where I live. to me, the pro of online shops is that they tend to be up to date, the products sold and their prices reflects more the actual world real trend, than physical stores where old & unsold products remain there for a long time, without prices changes over time and all... waiting for a random customer to buy them...

So, I've picked up two online stores, as they seems, to me, to be among the best ones: www.materiel.net (which means "hardware" in french) and www.ldlc.com ...
the customers can make payments by instalment (pay a fraction of the whole price during three or four months, with credit card)
the prices are interesting, & the choices and availability are quite good.

I had already bought from LDLC.com so my preference went to them...

I was looking for a gaming laptop, so I could travel to West Africa or somewhere. something between $1000 and $2000 . until yesterday I was only browsing laptops featuring GeForces GTX "10XX".
So I were dreaming of something like a GTX 1060 or 1070...
with at least 16 GB of RAM on the laptop
at least 256 GB SSD and additional Hard Disk of 1 TB...
I've noticed that the processor Intel Core i7-8750H was popular among gaming devices, and certainly the most powerful available on laptops... even though it is seem a bit limited with only 2.2 GHz of freq. instead of 3.5 to 4 GHz on high end desktop PC....

Yeah well, but that was BEFORE ! yesterday , the RTX Video Cards suddenly became available on laptops !
If I'm not wrong an RTX 2060 can compete with an GTX 1070 ! in terms of Power...

So it looked like a good choice to get an RTX 2060 ! in order to be up to date, and get a powerful device

So I finally Bought an ASUS ROG Strix ! there was only a few different products available , I think I picked Up the best for me ...
On the paper, it is powerful gaming laptop, with all the hype & latest tech :
* ASUS ROG Strix Scar II G715GV-EV033T
* 17.3" sized
* IPS Full HD 1920x1080 screen 144 Hz refresh rate
* RGB backlit keyboard but not per key, only three differencied areas for the keyboard..
* 16 GB RAM
* 512 GB SSD M.2 (PCIe ) and that's all for the storage
* NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6
* 6 - Cores (12 threads) Intel Core i7-8750H 2.2 Ghz up to 4Ghz in Boost mode
* WiFi + Bluetooth 5.0 !!
* Windows 10 64 bits...
* 2.9 Kg
photo:


I have placed order, but still awaiting for the laptop to ship to my home...
I'm excited as it is a really good laptop on the paper, and I never had such power before.
I've had many PC before, they all went down some day. like my previous one, a desktop PC...
I was until then using an ASUS laptop. low end device:
* it can't even play an HD video on Youtube without lagging !!!
* Unity3D takes ages to load in memory and start
* sometimes after a long while it becomes unstable,and I need to reBoot

this low end device prevented me from working well with unity3d, because everything is laggy and I'm losing a lot of time. each day...
I'm finally tired of it.
long live my next laptop !!

with the new ASUS ROG Strix, I will :
* KickStart my current unity3d game project, cause I will work in far better conditions.
* Make a game / demo that will take advantage of that power as much as possible, with burst compiler and jobs system & hexa-core for example...
* Play latest games
* browse the Internet
* learn...

It was expensive but I'm Glad about this purchase

And you ? feel free to post your PC config ...
* did You change your hardware recently, like me ?
* Or do You plan to do so, soon ?
* what kind of hardware do you want ?
what can you afford vs what do you dream of ?

have a great day all !
- Regards -

 

hello again ! Just to say that I just received my new Gaming Laptop featuring an RTX 2060 ! And I'm currently downloading Unity3d

 

144 hertz seems to me not the most important function, I heard that the human eye will not notice the difference.

 

Once you've tried it with a fast paced game you'll never want to go back. Whether it will run for current generation games on that hardware is another matter. A 1080p@144Hz display only requires slightly more bandwidth than 1440p@60Hz but it's still heavy for a mid-range card for current AAA unless you don't mind turning settings down a notch.

 

@SLASH24 I can relate to your excitement. I picked up a ROG753V a couple of years ago, and while it's not the top of the line, I've enjoyed playing DOOM and now Subnautica on it. And it's fantastic for gamedev. The keys have that solid feel when typing, and they're spaced just right for me.

I've never been into the gaming laptop thing, but I got burned really bad by getting a standard ASUS laptop (Win8 touch screen, poorly working touchpad, cheap feeling keys, and a flimsy optical drive), so I was hesitant to go back to ASUS with the ROG, but it was on a good sale at Costco, and it ended up being just $100 more than the standard laptop I had gotten a few years earlier. I like the ROG for its more low-profile form factor compared to Alienware, and the build is surprisingly sturdy for the price that I paid. I really hope the quality of future ROGs stays the same, because I'd like to stick with the brand. I'm the kind of guy that doesn't care much for specifications, because it says nothing about the build quality and whether or not the product fits in your lifestyle, but I really feel like ROG just does exactly that.

Have fun!

 

Hello guys ! I forgot to mention that I will test all features of the Laptop and get back to you all , in order to give you a good insight about Asus ROG Strix Scar (1999€)... for now I'm installing unity and browsing with it, typing this post with it, my 4G mobile connection is not fast enough and 2 hours later I'm still in the middle of the download... I'll check the drivers and all, install every work software like blender, sketchup, 7zip etc...

I will try unity3d first, and some games, check if the SSD is really fast etc...

@BilboBaggin , about 144Hz, I bet that a high refresh rate will be the future of display devices, same manner than display resolution, and precisely the two can't go easily together: 4K display and high refresh rate might be hard to get for now... but next it will definitely be the future.

it allows for steroscopic video & cinema, for example, and it might look smoother.
I will try to check how it can impact games development with unity3d..

@aer0ace , it seems like your experience with ROG products goes back far... for me it's my first time. the only gaming laptop I ever had was a big MSI GT... back in 2012.

the Power I'm with now has nothing to do with that old MSI...

I hope that my new RTX 2060 will give me access to future tech. evolutions, in long term, like for for 2-3 years ahead....

about my laptop:
the look and design are good ! it seems robust in general...
I'm very happy of it, hopefully it will give me even more motivation for finishing my current Personal Project with Unity3D
and open new horizons & possibilities in terms of CPU/graphic power !!

two bad things:
* the web camera is oddly located at the bottom-right under the screen, (though I did not tested how the camera works)
* the screen can't open wide, like 120 ° of rotation only...

see you later for updates about it !

- Regards - Adjo.

 

I can definitely tell a difference between 60Hz and 144Hz in desktop PCs. The 144Hz is much smoother.

 

This was a common conception for a long time based on flickering light tests (i.e how fast can you switch a light on and off before it just looks like continuous light). Since then, scientist have learned that humans can detect motion at a much faster rate than flickering and furthermore its even possible to "train your brain" to perceive motion better with practice.

 

But this is really expensive.

 

Yeah, it is expensive : 2000 € !!

but for that price you get an RTX 2060 that is almost as powerful as a GeForce GTX 1080 !

interesting point when everybody thinks that an RTX 2060 is meant to replace a GTX 1060 accordingly to Nvidia branding...

So now : the TEST !!

first, Video Games :
as I bought an RTX along with that Laptop, Electronic Arts & NVidia partnered to give away for free whether Battlefield V or Anthem to the buyers ! I had then the occasion to download Battlefield V (the one I choose) on my new laptop...
using the 4G connection of my mobile phone , the download took a whole night ...

the game automatically set the graphics options. and they were all almost at max. settings !!!
and the game were running smoothly, I don't have software to display frame rates, but it was really smooth,
no lag !
the game was really nice looking ! great job Dice (the developers)!

UNITY :
now unity3d starts quickly,
enters play mode fast,
runs smoothly,
processing global illumination is much faster !

zipping big files ( more than 400 MB) is really quick now !

man, I can Tell : the dream config. for a gaming laptop !
and it looks awesome with many lights, evrywhere, nice design, robust , no cheap plastic !

 

It's less the branding and more that the 1060 was basically as powerful as a 980. That said the 10 series was an abnormally fast generation thanks to a die shrink and a new architecture at the same time, but people don't tend to remember that part when they try pushing the 2060 as a replacement for the 1080.