OP said those are the computer specs that are listed as requirements for the course, so going lower isn't an option in this case. Presumably the course utilizes software that requires those specs.

I´d wait for Ryzen laptops.

You said school right? what classes are you taking that will need a gaming laptop?

Dell has a good laptop here I will show you. seems to be the bang for the buck amazing deal and what you get.

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/dell-dell-15-6-gaming-laptop-black-intel-core-i7-7700hq-1tb-hdd-8gb-ram-windows-10-i7567-7321blk-pca/10573801.aspx?

This laptop has the highest cpu right next the HK version aka higher clock speed. and the graphics card is a 1050ti 4gb so it wrecks the 780m they recommend by days. all you need to do is get 8 more gb of ram and you are purely set with this 1080p beast laptop that can do a lot for the money.

You will find nothing in canadian dollars that gives you all this for the price dell so far offers. I tried looking and found nothing, This seems to be the best thing we have for an option.

What the heck is that course? A course on modern AAA gaming? Or a bitcoin mining course? Especially the requirement for the minimum graphics baffles me.

As it happens, just today I picked up from the post office a 15" mid-level gaming laptop, it is going to a relative of mine (who, yes, will be using it for gaming, and he didn't want a desktop because he needs to be able to bring it to different places). I will st it up and deliver to him on weekend.

It is some Acer laptop with Nvidia GTX 950M, 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD etc. It cost around 700€ which I felt was a pretty good deal here (other stores were selling the exact same model for like 900€). So it isn't a high-level gaming laptop, but I think it can run somewhat comfortably e.g. The Witcher 3 in medium-high level graphics. The guy who wanted it will be playing mostly Geometry Dash and Minecraft on it anyway, but I guess he will also install some other (more demanding) games at some point.

Just to think that even that gaming laptop wouldn't have been enough for your course...

I wanted to recommend the same guy's reviews. Check this video for $1000 laptops.

Look for it to have USB-C connector. Also go on and their forum [url=http://forum.notebookreview.com]http://forum.notebookreview.com/ and search for the ones you're interested in.

LOL the guy in the vid agreed that the laptop I posted was the better one, WOOT WOOT, Soon I might get one for myself for when I go out on the cottage or some trips.

Back in my college days, we had to buy a specific computer, an AT&T PC 6300. Can't find a decent description right off to link to it. The screwdriver that came with it got more use as I had that thing until just recently when it finally snapped after nearly 3 decades of use. I don't know if they're going to inspect what you get but I purchased a new laptop last year with an i5. I went with it because the numbers at the time matched within 3% the equivalent i7 at the time. You may want to try to get away with it.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315304

I used to swear by Asus, but I have a G751jy and I'm upset that the battery can't be removed. This is the same with newer ones also... I had an Acer laptop years ago, the build quality was abismal, after 3 years the plastic of the screen started to crack from wear. Though I'd expect that Acer Predators are a bit better.
MSI seems nice but they are on the expensive side (nearly Alienware levels).
That leaves me looking at the new Lenovo gaming series. They seem to be quite nice.
My only real advice would be that if you don't mind the extra size and weight, get a 17" screen. You get a numeric keypad and a lot better cooling. Plus 2 HDD/SSD slots at least.
Oh and get a SSD, even if you buy it separately. And it would be good also to have a HDD for backups.

At least the 15.6" Acer (Aspire E5-575G) I picked up has a full keyboard wih a numeric keypad. If I compare the keyboard to my 17.2" old ASUS ROG laptop, the main difference in the keyboards is that:

- there is a cap between the main keyboard and the numpad on the bigger ASUS, while on the Acer there is no such cap.

- the arrow keys are located in a bit more comfortable way on the ASUS and the up/down keys are bigger.

- the cap between individual keys seems to be a bit bigger on the ASUS.

The keys themselves are the same size etc. Also, 90% of the time I personally tend to use external keyboards with laptops anyway (either a normal USB keyboard, or a smaller wireless Logitech keyboard if I am on the road). I just like that ability to not have to be hunched over the laptop, if not necessary, and of course the external keyboards are usually more comfortable (no chiclet-keyboards).

I am unsure about this Acer laptop, but I've seen some other 15.6" laptops with two HDD bays (EDIT: According to this review, it has two HDD bays). It might be related to modern laptops not having internal optical drives anymore necessary (this Acer doesn't have; but then it has an extra VGA out port, which really baffles me :D), so maybe now 15.6" laptops have enough room for two hard drives as well. And with this current SSD insanity, I guess everyone needs that bigger extra HDD anyway as those measly 256GB SSDs just don't cut it anymore. A couple of modern AAA games installed, and it is full. Thank you and goodbye. (I am thinking if I should take the SSD out of this Acer and put a 1TB or 2TB HDD inside instead, just so that it won't easily run out of hard drive space...).

To me, 15.6" laptop size seems to be optimal. It still feels small enough to want to carry in your backpack and even take out when you are on the road, but the screen is still big enough for comfortable use. My 17.2" ASUS doesn't fit into normal backpacks, and its charger is a size and weight of house brick.

It is probabaly true 17.2" laptops have better cooling options due to more room inside but I'd think that matters more if you are looking for the very highest end gaming laptops with the hottest-running new GPUs (like GTX 1080 or what is the highest end in mobile GPUs at the moment). It appears to me that when NVidia makes new iterations of their earlier high-end mobile GPUs, they also make them use less power/run cooler than their predecessors, so they don't necessarily need as much cooling.

I haven't run any demanding games on this Acer yet to see how cool it runs, but I intend to burn-test it a bit. I am still clean-installing Windows 10 on it to get rid of all the crapware Acer has preloaded in it.

You might want to check NoteBook FanControl, if you don't know it already, to tweak the way your laptop's fans are running. I heard that some Acers can be a bit noisy.

See if it has a config file for your model or google for it. Also is a good place to look for these config files or other useful info. Or you can make one [url=https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc/wiki]yourself.

I use it since almost 4 years now without any problems, but make sure its service is set to Automatic (Delayed Start).
Maybe it's okay now, but in earlier versions after you installed the program, this service was set to Automatic and was causing some sort of locking/slowness at the start of the system. Also the main program doesn't need to run all the time or at the start-up, the service does all the work.

So far as I know, GTX 1080 in SLI is the top of the laptop heap. Which is pretty ridiculous in a good way.

Sounds like your ASUS is similar to my Sager in some regards: too big for normal bags, and the power brick is named after its actual size and weight: very brick-like.

Yeah, ASUS ROG also has that "cooling wing" at the back of the laptop which increases its size by an inch or two. Because of that it doesn't fit into the same (laptop) bags that some other 17.2" laptops do (e.g. that cheapo eMachines laptop that my relative has). Years ago, I really had to run around hunting for a (laptop) backpack where the ASUS fits, luckily I did find one in the end, still in use.

I tested the 15.6" Acer (700€) yesterday with The Witcher 3 GOTY, and it feels considerably faster than my old ASUS ROG. Apparently Geforce GTX 950M really is much much faster than the old GTX 670M (it is a bit hard for me always compare Geforce GPUs; the first digit is the generation, and the two latter numbers are how high-end it is within that generation, or something...). I was expecting the newer Acer to be faster, but maybe not quite by this much.

With the old ASUS ROG, I feel somewhat comfortable running Witcher 3 at the 1280x720 resolution with mostly medium-high details (I rather sacrifice resolution for graphical goodies in a game like this). With this Acer, I could comfortably run it at 1920x1080 with high settings (maybe something was in medium, and maybe some useless options switched off altogether). I didn't check the fps rates, it felt like something between 30-60 fps (vsync was enabled so it probably fluctuated between those two).

The Acer is much lighter, much quieter even under load (even though the ASUS isn't that noisy either), its power brick is maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of the size and weight of that ASUS ROG power brick... Heck, I'd want to keep this and give my old ROG to that relative, but I want to keep this ROG for Windows 7...

Sure Acer was pushing lots of hot air from the side when running Witcher 3, but that only shows its cooling is working. The keyboard didn't feel hot or anything like that.

The Acer has a bit flimsy, plastic feel to it (ASUS ROG feels sturdier), but overall I feel it really gave lots for the buck, at least for performance. The only thing I still can't understand: how the heck does it have a VGA-out port? I mean, WTF? It feelts the same to me as having a floppy disk drive or a RS-232C or a Centronics port. Otherwise it feels so modern: pretty powerful, no optical drive, two hard drive bays apparently, HDMI out (or not sure if it was DisplayPort, either way...), a 256GB SSD etc.

So far it hasn't been noisy (even when running The Witcher 3 GOTY), and I prefer good cooling anyway. So if it is noisy because it wants to keep the innards cooler, fine by me. The external laptop cooling pad I have (which is supposed to be put under a laptop to cool it even more) is far noisier, giving a constant annoying whirling sound.

It did push quite a a lot of hot air from the side vent when running TW3, so at least the cooling seems to be working. I didn't check the CPU and GPU temps yet with e.g. CoreTemp.

Oh yeah, about SSD... Now that I have used the Acer with 256GB SSD, yeah it is nice how everything seems to load faster than on a HDD, but still I don't quite understand all the praise how SSD is supposed to be the most important upgrade on a PC, making "everything" feel faster.

Even after this SSD experience, I still prefer having a big fat HDD (or two) even in a laptop, just for the extra room. I can wait for The Witcher 3 or Team Fortress 2 loading the game somewhat longer, if in exchange I get 4-8 times more storage space (=ability to install much more games on the hard drive too).

To each his own I guess, but for me an "upgrade" to SSD doesn't seem that important at this point. I said "upgrade" because for the size it is a downgrade. Sure when 2-4 terabyte SSDs cost under 100€, then I will reconsider.

So did you think of a laptop yet? anything in mind that you aiming towards with some of the stuff we posted?