Gigabyte AORUS vs. ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 vs. Alienware m17

General Questions

1) What is your budget?
£3200

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
Desktop Replacement; 17"+ screen
3) Which country will you buying this notebook?
UK

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like: Asus, Alienware, Gigabyte
b. Dislike: Apple, Acer
5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed?
No

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
Heavy gaming

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?
This will be for home use only (portability is not an issue)

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? (If so, please state which games or types of games?)
Yes. I want to play all the latest high-end games on max setting

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?
Not a concern, as it will be plugged in while gaming.

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?
Buying online only (thanks to COVID-19)

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Chrome OS, etc.
Windows only

Screen Specifics

12) What screen resolution(s) would you prefer? (See further below for explanations.)
High Resolution: 1080p (1920x1080)

13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen? (See further below for explanations.)
Doesn't matter

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
Yes, but not over its performance & durability

Notebook Components

15) How much hard drive space do you need?
1TB NVMe PCI-E SSD (or more)

Timing, Warranty and Longevity

16) When are you buying this laptop?
Within a week

17) How long do you expect to use this laptop?
5 years minimum

18) How long could you afford to do without your laptop if it were to fail?
A week

19) Would you be willing to pay significantly extra for on-site warranty, or would it be acceptable to you to have to ship the laptop to the vendor for repair with perhaps a week or more outage?
Not willing to pay extra


Which laptop among these 3 would be the superior one, with regards to getting max performance out of games?

Gigabyte AORUS 17X-YB-8UK2450MH

ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701LXS-HG032T

Alienware m17 (New) n00awm17r308

All 3 of them have these common specs:
CPU: i7-10750H
GPU: 2080 Super
RAM: 32GB DDR4
Display: 1080p FHD

Gigabyte Aorus has a 240Hz display, 1 TB NVMe, an additional SSD/HDD slot, mechanical keyboard & uses 2 330W adapters

Asus ROG costs £100 more & has 300 Hz display, G-Sync, only 1 M.2 slot which is occupied, keyboard on the front instead of the back part of the laptop & uses a 330W adapter

Alienware m17 costs £ 200 more & has 144Hz 9ms 300-nits 72% NTSC color gamut display with G-Sync, 2TB PCIe M.2 SSD (I added these to the config) & uses a 330W adapter

As all 3 are nearly the same price, I really can't decide. I have narrowed my options to these 3 after months of researching, so could you please help me choose among them? Is the Aorus more powerful just because it has 2x 330W powerbricks? Because only the most beefy desktop replacement laptops need 2 of these (Alienware Area 51 & MSI Titan). I don't really care about the compactness of the laptop. I need it as a desktop replacement anyway, so size is not an issue (I know that the Aorus is bulkier & the other 2 are sleek)

 

If you're not going anywhere, why not buy or build a desktop? You'll get way more for your money, even factoring in the price of a monitor and keyboard.

 

I will be traveling abroad 1-2 times a year. I cannot carry the desktop around. It's not allowed in flight unfortunately

 

ive seen 2080 max q laptops hit 25000 in firestrike why not get a gs75 or gs66 with 2080 max q

 

The GS75 and GS66 will not hit 25k even with an overclock. The highest you'll get is 22-23k firestrike graphics.

My case is an exception as i have shunt modded my GS75 so the 2080 Max-q runs slightly faster than a 2080 max-p

A single 330w power brick is enough to run a 6 core i7 and 200w 2080. The ones with two bricks are catering for the higher specced 8 core i7/i9 versions.

I'd cross out the Zephyrus S17 and replace it with the MSI GE75 which can be flashed with a 200w vbios for higher performance. Btw the Zephyrus S17 comes with a 230w adapter, not 330w and has a 2080 Max-q so it'll be a good bit slower than the rest. The keyboard is atrocious as well.

 

Traveling only 1-2 times a year is still not enough to justify the expense of a high-end laptop. For your budget, you could build a solid desktop with enough leftover for a mid-range notebook that will still be more than capable of gaming and be much easier to travel with. A 17-inch laptop, especially one with powerful hardware, is a nightmare to move around.

 

That's why I suggested a GE75. It's far lighter than those desktop replacement types yet it packs full performance hardware.

I understand @Lolaholic 's situation here as I had this exact predicament last year. I travel 5-10 times a year (stay for months at a time) and i just need the transportability of a laptop. As in the ability to just take all your stuff with you and not have some parts in the desktop and some parts in the laptop.

And so I selected the GS75 as it provided me performance I was happy with (not for long tho lmao), Large storage potential (3x m.2 slots), and long battery life in case I need to get some work done on the go.

As for why I'm not recommending the GS75 over the GE75. @Lolaholic doesn't need the long battery life nor are they concerned about looks or storage.

I would get the GE75 if I were in @Lolaholic's position (and get a laptop skin to make it look less gamery)

 

Word of warning, now is a pretty bad time to buy a laptop if you want it to be "future proof"

AMD RDNA2 and Nvidia Ampere are coming to desktop in September and to laptops March 2021 and the next generation of games will need significantly stronger ray tracing hardware than what is currently packed into 20 series gpus.

So unless you don't mind turning Ray tracing off (which may not be an option due to all cards supporting RT), performance will be severely hampered by the lackluster RT found on 20 series gpus.

It's hard to wait I know. But if you can sell the 20 series laptop and get a 30 series laptop next year then that'll be the best option.

 

I can get what you're saying & that's what I intended actually too. But I have a desktop at my home abroad with a 1080Ti (which still performs marvellously). But I had to leave it behind when I moved to the UK. I will still be travelling a few times a year, & also I tend to play games on the bed after a tiring day at work & so on. Plus I need a laptop to replace my dying 7 year old Samsung NP550P5C (with a GT650M card lol). All these things considered, I want to go for a notebook.

And honestly I started with a budget of £1500 so that I could get a nice ASUS ROG Strix G17 G712LV-H7007T. (link)

But then I saw the ASUS ROG Strix G17 G712LWS-EV003T (link) & bumped my budget to £2000. But that was out of stock for a long time & I started searching for good laptops & then saw a series of better ones which were only slightly more expensive & so I changed my options over a series of them (each better than the previous one) & so after going through a lot of Asus, Medion Erazer, MSI models, I narrowed down my options to the above 3 notebooks (and bumped the budget all the way to £3000, much to the displeasure of my wife lol).

So as it stands, I have these 3 to choose from. I am leaning towards the Gigabyte Aorus, but that has been out of stock for quite a while, & thus I was considering the Alienware & Asus Zephyrus.

How can a MaxQ outperform a super (Max-P) card? Isn't the hardware itself limited in the MaxQ cards?

Yes, the Aorus I have shortlisted has an 8 core CPU, though I am unsure about the GPU, whether it is the 150W ot 200W version. I remember reading that it is not possible to know the TDP of the GPU before we buy any laptops, & that most likely the GPU will be at 150W.

I don't know how to change the BIOS power setting, & am frankly scared to meddle with that lest I damage the laptop or void the warranty.

That's a long wait, with no guarantee that I can buy laptops immediately after March. Plus they might introduce another newer feature which may be better than the Ampere the following year. So I think I should buy a notebook now because I desperately need one to replace my ailing laptop. How bad do you reckon it will be against the newer Nvidia cards? I bought my desktop 1080Ti when 2080 was just around the corner & I am very happy with it even now. Plus I game on 1080p, so hopefully I should still get 60+ FPS with future games too (I hope!)

 

I am not very keen on MSI laptops (the GE75 Raider was one of the options I had considered during my gradual movement from budget of £1500 to a budget double that). I read a lot of reviews & input from owners & realised that the build is not great & many had the lid breaking off especially at the hinge, & the lid had a bad case of wobbles. It also comes with a 512 GB SSD ( I want 1TB as a minimum) along with a 1 TB HDD (which I will never use, as I will immediately replace that with a SATA SSD, so that's a waste.) The 512 GB M.2 SSD will be a waste too, as I will replace that with 1TB M.2 SSD anyway.