Which Asus Rog?

Buying any PC seems difficult to choose between models

I went on several Gaming Desktop PC sites and customized my PC, and it was very technical and hard to choose customization's, as one does not know what exactly all these techy customized parts actually do, and you could end up overspending with a $3000 desktop with 4 HD bays, and SLI, and 3 video cards, and 4.2 GHz CPU ... when you really only need a $ 1700 water cooled model, with a 980 video card, or lesser video card, to run T:ANE

I would like to know what lower end ASUS ROG laptop will run T:ANE ... of course the higher end $ 2000 - $ 3000 ones will ... but are you overspending ?

My belief is that a customized Gaming Desktop should run T:ANE for @ $1200 or less, and a Gaming Laptop for @ $ 1700 or less
 
Last edited:
My main concern is the GTX980M versus the GTX970M and the i7-6820HK versus the i7-6700HQ.
Will there really be that much difference between them?
Or am I spending £700:00 I don't need to.

Peter
 
My belief is that an I7 is far superior to I5, I3 ... and that a 980 video card is better than a 960 ... and the higher the CPU GHz speed the better (and most PC specs lie when they give the GHz speed, as that numeral is only achieved when turboboost kicks in for shorts bursts of speed for general computing, and "always on" turboboost while gaming, stress's a PC).
 
Buying a custom made PC, or any PC is an expense and just like anything else a little due diligence on your part can go a long way. You can go to a number of sites and learn about the pros and cons of various components, what uses they are best for, etc. You can check on reviews of a builder's work, hear other people's experiences with them etc.

As far as the processors go, if TANE, and games in general are your main use, then an i5 is sufficient. The i7 is for people who may do heavy multi tasking, video and 3D rendering. I haven't seen any reputable sellers "lie" about cpu clock speeds, most seem to give the base clock speed along with the turbo boost sped. Once again, a little research will help you with this.

The good custom builders will advise you throughout the ordering process, going over your configurations and helping you to tweak it based upon your needs and budget. I was fortunate that I chose a builder not far from where I live, part of why I chose them, and I was able to visit the factory and talk with the actual person who built my machine. He also sent me updates once the build started on the progress.
 
You might find this interesting:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Notebookcheck-s-Top-10-Gaming-Notebooks.98628.0.html

And in particular here:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-GX700-Notebook-Review.156842.0.html

And this one here - note it's the GTX970 which is the next model up from the 960 which is older.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970M.126694.0.html


I would still go with an i7 over an i5. The i7 has a bigger cache and more internal threads than an i5, which is all better for T:ANE and other 64-bit applications.

Keep in mind that with 64-bit applications, you should put as much memory into your machine you can afford since 64-bit applications, unlike 32-bit applications, will use the complete memory space leftover after the OS takes it's chunk. A 32-bit application is restricted to the 4GB memory space regardless of how much RAM you have in the machine. Don't cut yourself short if you're going to spend this kind of money on a machine. :)
 
So how high does one need to go just to run T:ANE ... Myself would never venture into any other video game ... Just to drive a twain' ... if it takes $ 3000 ... Bag this simulator into the cylindrical twash' can !
 
cascaderailroad said:
So how high does one need to go just to run T:ANE ... Myself would never venture into any other video game ... Just to drive a twain' ... if it takes $ 3000 ... Bag this simulator into the cylindrical twash' can !
Click to expand...

Whatever you can afford to put in a machine. This doesn't just have to be used by a computer game. If you do photo editing, audio editing, 3d models and so on, all these programs will benefit by the extra RAM. If you have TransDEM, it will be able to open up those outrageously huge 1-arcsecond slices that the USGS now gives us and allow us to parse and cut without crashing. Yes, this was an issue with the older versions on a 32-bit OS because of the 4GB memory limit.

RAM too is cheap today compared to what it used to be. I was able to put 64GB high-quality RAM into my PC for $350, which is the same as I spent for 16GB on another PC 4 years ago.

But... Spending $3,000 for a laptop is too much no matter how great the machine is supposed to be. Even my older Alienware didn't cost that much and that was a top-end machine in its day. The problem with laptops is their proprietary nature. You spend $3,000 and you're stuck with a brick after a few years because there is no upgrade path. At least with a desktop, you can still keep the good parts and upgrade others like I did back in September after I had motherboard issues. With this upgrade/replacement, I kept the case, power supply, hard drives, and video card. All I needed to replace was the motherboard, RAM, and processor which had to be done anyway. I would have kept my perfectly working memory if the pinouts weren't different, but now RAM is DDR4 while the older stuff is DDR3, which means different pinouts, power, and so on.

John
 
Power consumption is always the bane of laptops, battery life / getting rid of the heat. As a result you use lower performance parts than you would use in a desktop. The difference in speed on the i7 isn't worth worrying about, the 512 gig SSD versus 128 gig SSD is.

A comparison of the GTX 980 against the GTX 980m http://wccftech.com/nvidia-mobility...intains-performance-parity-fiji-hawaii-chips/ shows a slower memory bandwidth, 25% fewer CUDA cores, slower memory, etc etc. so in other words the GTX 980m is maybe roughly the equivalent of a GTX 970. The desktop GTX 980 usually comes with 8 gigs of memory, the GTX 980m 4 gigs. The mobile i7s are the same, to save power and keep them cool they typically run slower, and have less cache on them.

You should be able to get an i7 GTX 980 desktop for a roughly a thousand. So buy a cheaper lap top for lap topping, the top of the line Intel graphics will run TANE with the sliders set back and get a decent desktop for TANE. Trim back to a GTX 970 if you will. That Intel graphics works because it is very closely coupled with the CPU and doesn't have to wonder off down PCIe slots etc. But get the fastest Intel graphics chip which might not be the latest most expensive one.

Cheerio John
 
wwwweeeeelllllll....thanks guys...I was really considering getting the newest version of Trainz...but....after reading this page and checking out the system requirements...im gonna stick with my 2006 version.......im running an Acer Aspire x1430G.....1T harddrive....4 g ram.....AMD E450 APU Radeon HD.....1.65 Ghz...... dual core processor........and i have no idea what i just said.......:)........but i know it's too whimpy for the new game............and just what is content manager ??? are those things to download or do they actually come with the game ????....
 
Last edited:
Edithsteam said:
wwwweeeeelllllll....thanks guys...I was really considering getting the newest version of Trainz...but....after reading this page and checking out the system requirements...im gonna stick with my 2006 version.......im running an Acer Aspire x1430G.....1T harddrive....4 g ram.....AMD E450 APU Radeon HD.....1.65 Ghz...... dual core processor........and i have no idea what i just said.......:)........but i know it's too whimpy for the new game............and just what is content manager ??? are those things to download or do they actually come with the game ????....
Click to expand...

Content Manager is where you download stuff for your game from the Download Station and it installs the stuff for you.

This machine is at the way top of the requirements... Almost on the extremely expensive side. :)

Your machine is a bit whimpy but there are others that can be built that will run the program fine.
 
Like I stated earlier, the first one is what I would buy. The other one, should be just as good. I am more into future proofing. Besides, you get a more longer time period for usage. In this case, these two laptops are pretty close. If we want to narrow down choices, do it this way...

Intel i7 CPU
at least, 16 GB of RAM
900 Series GPU (Nvidia)
really aim for SSD, at least for the operating system (not necessity, but you will be grateful for getting it, at least for boot up, reboot, and such)
Widescreen display of at least 17"


This can then do double duty as a desktop replacement, if you want.


Here's something I suggested to the T:ANE on a laptop thread, maybe you can use this, if you wonder about how to upgrade the GPU later...
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all the interactions guys, it's been very informative. I think I will stick with my first choice due to the 512 SSD. I,ll let you know how I get on.

Thanks
Peter
 
I have the G752 with 128GB SSD, 16GB Ram and i7-6700 processor. TANE runs very well installed on the SSD. I have not seen the RAM available drop below 9GB even with large routes running.
Check to see if both laptops have the second m.2 connector (the SSD fits them) for future expansion.
Regards,
Scott
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

P
My first AMD based system - how's the R7 7800X3D with Trainz?
Replies
15
Views
2K
Paulsw2
P
A
Looking for advice to rebuild my PC.
2
Replies
20
Views
1K
johnwhelan
J
Q
Trainz 2022 Specs
Replies
18
Views
2K
paulper
P
D
New PC - i7 + 4070 laptop
Replies
5
Views
1K
JCitron
J
J
I would please like some tips on learning to optimize settings.
Replies
4
Views
603
grazlash
G
Back
Top