I'd like to build a Gaming PC for next gen, advice?

[samsonlonghair]

Kind of a related question, that I don't think needs it's own thread- I got a gaming laptop for Christmas with a GTX 1050. How long can I expect that to last? I only want to reach 1080/30, so I'm not shooting super high.

GTX 1050 is a desktop grade graphics card circa 2016~ish. I was not aware NVidia ever made a laptop version of this card. NVidia.com indicates that the GTX 1050 comes with 3GB of video RAM. That seems like plenty to me.

I don’t know what the other specs are for your laptop. For instance, how much RAM do you have in terms of system memory? 8GB? 16GB? More? What processor does your laptop come with? What sort of cooling system does your laptop utilize?

Fun fact: many modern mobile processors are potentially lightning fast, but they automatically power down when they get warm (greater than 100 Centigrade) to prevent overheating. A fast processor with poor cooling is a slow processor in practice.

The GTX 1050 seems more than sufficient to me. Assuming that your other components are up to spec, I would expect your new laptop to last you four or five years. Maybe longer if you keep your expectations realistic.

[Forlorn Drifter]

I'd have to check to be fully sure, but I think it's an i7 with 12 gigs of RAM. No idea on cooling, how would I check that?

EDIT: Full check-
Intel i7-7700HQ @2.80 GHz
12 Gigs of RAM
GTX 1050- under Nvidia control panel system information, it says "4096 Mb GDDR5 Dedicated video memory". That's VRAM/GPU memory, right?

[samsonlonghair]

I'd have to check to be fully sure, but I think it's an i7 with 12 gigs of RAM. No idea on cooling, how would I check that?

EDIT: Full check-
Intel i7-7700HQ @2.80 GHz
12 Gigs of RAM
GTX 1050- under Nvidia control panel system information, it says "4096 Mb GDDR5 Dedicated video memory". That's VRAM/GPU memory, right?

If you have access to one of those nifty laser thermometers, that’s the best way to check your temperatures at various parts of your laptop. There’s probably also software that can check your temperature, but any software can only report values that are detected by the built-in thermal sensors. If your system doesn’t have many thermal sensors, or if the sensors don’t work properly, there’s nothing that software can do to change that. If you don’t have access to either a laser thermometer or software to read the thermal sensors, then use your best judgement. Does your laptop have a good fan? Multiple fans? Does your laptop get hot after prolonged use or does it remain cool? If you don’t trust your own judgement, then look up reviews on your laptop. Any professional reviewer worth his salt should be able to say something helpful about the cooling system - especially if they have a tear down.

Your specs look good to me. Corei7 indicates a high quality processor with multiple cores and hyperthreading. Remember that 2.8GHz is how fast your processor can run when it’s cool. If your processor gets hot, then it will slow down to prevent overheating. This is true of nearly all modern processors. That’s the reason why cooling is so important.

Yes, 4096 MB of dedicated video Memory is 4GB of vRAM. That’s exactly correct. I guess the 2018 version of the GTX 1050 must have gotten a spec bump from the 2016 version. In any case, that’s a very respectable amount of vRAM. I have nothing bad to say about your video card.

12 Gigs of system memory is enough for today. I think the minimum requirement for many games today is 8GB of RAM. Find out if your RAM is user upgradeable. You would benefit from bumping that up in the future. 16 GB of RAM would give you more breathing room for the next four or five years. 32 GB of RAM would be a lot of RAM. 64 GB of RAM would be overkill.

[Forlorn Drifter]

Yeah, figured that on the RAM. Pretty sure I can change it out, but I won't check for the time being. I only have one game to test out, and it didn't run particularly hot as far as I can tell. Comparing it to my previous, there was a light warmth rather than so-hot-I-have-to-get-it-off-my-lap hot. I'm having trouble finding review for this laptop with this specific spec set up, but the ones I've found all show it maxing out at ~95 F, which seems good? Those all had lower GPUs, however.


All in all? If this can last me through at least 3/4s of next gen, I'll be happy. I didn't expect to get a gaming PC, so this might allow me to go just Nintendo-PC from now on, which was something I always considered, but I didn't want to shell out for a gaming PC. Most of the big exclusives I cared about on PlayStation end up on PC anyways, so what does it matter?