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[Thief^]

intel graphics is well known for being pants, sorry.

[Flying Dice]

Yep, the intel chipsets are pretty shit. If you really need a laptop and still want to game semi-modernly on it, gotta go for the dedicated video card.

[heydude6]

Anyway, I've been thinking about upgrading the wifi network in my home by buying a wifi extender. Problem is, I'm looking at a couple online and for some reason they have different prices despite being made by the same company and doing the same thing.

Can someone look at these two links and tell me what's the difference between these two?

[wierd]

Quick look:

The first one does something like link aggregation on both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands at the same time.  To work properly, the extender and the router would meet to support that method of link aggregation.

The jackass in me says the better solution is to run a Gbit wire between areas served, and use something like ddwrt or openwrt to make them play nice together, that way they aren't capitalizing on the spectrum just to stay connected to each other.

See, when you bridge directly over the wireless signal, the device talking to the repeater has to wait more for the channel to become clear, because its message is then broadcast again to the main router.

When the extender and the router are joined by a Gbit link, the message from the extender to the router goes over that wire instead, so the network is more responsive.

As for why one would cost more than the other?  The one doing aggregation does .ac while the other does not. The link aggregation is a software thing, and should not really cost more IMO, but that's life.

Personally, I would get another router that has ddwrt or openwrt support and put a single Gbit Ethernet patch between them, and set the new device as an access point.

the  only time i would consider it necessary to bridge over wifi like that is if you are trying to extend somewhere a cable cannot be routed.  say the guesthouse in the back yard, or in my case, extending my wifi to my elderly neighbor's house. (she cant really afford internet, so i help her leech mine.)

[Thief^]

And most cases if you can't run a network cable you could use power line networking adapters. Costs a little more but wireless repeaters are garbage.

[redwallzyl]

i need a replacement laptop and i have found two that are really good. i need it for school and gaming for stuff like EU4. what do you guys think?

https://www.amazon.com/K501UW-AB78-15-6-inch-Full-HD-Gaming-Glacier/dp/B01DT49XN8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J0RJPCC/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=&th=1

i like the first ones construction. its lighter and metal with a better hinge which is why my current one is broken and I'm paranoid about it breaking. but of course the second one is strictly better hardware wise. I'm not sure i will even need that though for what i do.

[BigD145]

ASUS don't get much support 6 months after release and getting repairs done means more breakage. Dell is garbage. Look up the y700 with a 960M.

[redwallzyl]

ASUS don't get much support 6 months after release and getting repairs done means more breakage. Dell is garbage. Look up the y700 with a 960M.

looks nice but what makes it so much better exactly? no ssd and its a lot heavier then the first one i linked. people in the revews seem to think the others are really good as well. what makes this one better?

[Aklyon]

An SSD only matters if you must have more speed. If you need space, an SSD will cost more.

[feelotraveller]

Out of those two I would definitely pick the ASUS.

I have an old ASUS with same case (much older hardware...) that I have given hell, including lots of overland travel, and the only problems ever were with overheating, and that was pretty much to be expected with what I was throwing at it.  On the down side driver support ended almost immediately but windoze probably handles that automagically... great if the spell does not go wrong. 

In wider terms I'd be more inclined to get some faster RAM with an i5 than an i7, and the SSD is definitely a luxury, although weight reduction and (much) quicker boot times are great and lower power load/heat production are fantastic for a laptop.  YMMV.

[Lord Shonus]

An SSD only matters if you must have more speed. If you need space, an SSD will cost more.

SSDs are also harmed much less if the computer is moved or dropped, particularly if this happens while it is running. This is a fairly minor concern with desktops, but a laptop that's actually being used as a portable workstation (particularly for someone that has already broken a laptop) is another story. However, both of those linked computers use an i7, which is a waste of money in 99.99% of situations. Unless you are doing extensive photoshop, video editing, or CAD/CAM work an i7 is no better than an i5 but comes at a much higher price.

[redwallzyl]

An SSD only matters if you must have more speed. If you need space, an SSD will cost more.

SSDs are also harmed much less if the computer is moved or dropped, particularly if this happens while it is running. This is a fairly minor concern with desktops, but a laptop that's actually being used as a portable workstation (particularly for someone that has already broken a laptop) is another story. However, both of those linked computers use an i7, which is a waste of money in 99.99% of situations. Unless you are doing extensive photoshop, video editing, or CAD/CAM work an i7 is no better than an i5 but comes at a much higher price.

its a structural failing on the hinge. expensive to fix but i can still use it. its shit in the first place so I'm not going to spend tons to fix it. the i7 is becasue i play processing heavy games not graphics heavy ones. also i will probably be using arcGIS on it or at least some form of GIS.

[Lord Shonus]

the i7 is becasue i play processing heavy games not graphics heavy ones. also i will probably be using arcGIS on it or at least some form of GIS.

The only benefit of an i7 over an i5 is that the i7s have marginally higher clock speeds (which might give a very slight (as in all but unnoticeable) performance in the most CPU-demanding games) and the addition of 4 virtual cores via hyperthreading (which is only useful for a fairly narrow range of tasks, none of them related to playing games). While arcGIS might benefit some (I doubt it - the hardware requirements are rather low, and merely state that multi-core processor or is recommended - as all but the earliest i5s are quad-core you probably won't see any difference) from the i7, none of your games will. You will be paying a huge amount of money for no purpose.

This will probably give you all-but identical performance but cut the price almost in half.

[Thief^]

There was a test done recently, and at least two hardware threads are needed for some games, but rarely do games benefit from more than 4. A hyper threaded dual-core managed to max the performance of a lot of games even. The i7 is absolutely a waste of money for gaming.

[wierd]

I have an i7 for doing engineering on. My CAD suite can make use of it when computing very complex NURBS manifold solids. Aside from that, I have no need for an i7.

I have a nice little i5 I use for PC gaming. Works fine.