Replacing a gaming laptop (CPU vs Graphics Card question)

Off-Topic Games, Gaming and Hardware
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To anyone who could help:

I’m currently playing WoW on this potato laptop from 2019

Acer Nitro AN515-54 i5-9300H CPU @ 2.40GHz, 2400 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 | RAM 8GB

Since I’m running on low graphics (6-7) and also running out of SSD space, I want to upgrade a little bit. Saw these 2 options. The first seems the best (budget wise), but I’m curious if I should prioritize the RTX 4050 over RTX 3050, or the better processor and RAM is the advantage? I want to be able to play without issues at least on 8 graphics up to the last titan expansion

Option 1:
ASUS TUF Gaming F15, Intel Core i7-12700H, 16GB RAM 2x8GB, RTX 3050, SSD 512GB, 15.6" FHD, 144Hz, Win 11

Option 2:
Acer Nitro V Anv15-51-54dl I5 13 gen WINDOWS 11 Home 8GB 512gb SSD RTX 4050 15.6

Thanks!

2

Going to play 21 questions.

  1. Why laptop?
  2. WoW is more dependent on your cpu, but I don’t think I found the right specs for
    Option 2 you mentioned? Both laptop I found have 16gb ram. Maybe you can link both laptop.
  3. What is your budget and which market? (American/Canadian/etc…)
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upgrading the RAM (and the SSD) in a laptop are simple and actually every time I buy one for myself or family (personal/business use not gaming) those are the first things I do as I get the best CPU & screen I can with the least amount of RAM & Drive space.

I’m assuming both laptops are FHD monitors? CPU wise the 12700H and 13420H are not a major jump from one another. The 12700H has a larger cache while the 13420H supports faster ram and raptor lake did offer less stutter than Alder lake in a “recent” WOW engine review. As far as cache & faster RAM, each will impact wow but need a powerful GPU to display that. Real word scenario, not much of a difference between the two CPUs in the majority of games.

RTX 4050 offers about 25-30% more performance than the RTX 3050.
It’s a no brainer, go with with the better GPU and upgrade the RAM in the Acer yourself. CPU wise it’s not a major jump from one CPU to the other unless you plan on running a synthetic benchmark to utilize a few more cores in the 12700H.

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Awhile I doubt these will have soldiered ram, some vendors are starting to soldier ram making it harder to upgrade.

Point is, if the laptop OP is looking at indeed only has 8gb of ram, I’d probably want to make sure you can upgrade the ram too as suggested.

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You’re going to have a bad time with any Nvidia GPU ending in 50. It’ll play WoW, but don’t expect performance in other games.

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100% this.

Laptop GPUs are NOT the same as desktop. RTX laptop 4050 is more like a desktop 4030 if it existed performance wise. 4090 laptop is kind of like a desktop 4070ti or trimmed down 4080

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that always been the case with laptop GPUs and their desktop name sake along with paying out the nose for that performance compared to desktop performance. A RTX 5080 powered laptop (basically RTX 5070 performance) is what 3k today? Some people like the ability to game on the road so I get that aspect of it or simply can’t afford both a desktop and laptop.

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Laptop GPUs have been mentioned here a few times as being slower than their desktop counterparts, the same can be said for the CPU too. A top end i7 CPU on laptop is going to be about as slow as a desktop i5, or even in come cases an i3 of the same generation.

If you are worried about value at all, I would 100% go with a prebuilt desktop. You could get the exact same setup (12th Gen i7, and RTX 4060) in a desktop and it will blow the laptop out of the water in terms of performance.

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It’s a trimmed down 4080 die that’s power limited and underclocked to perform like a desktop 3080.

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Yeah was more getting at why OP should pick option 2 over Option 1. Wanted them to know what they were working with realistically and how they would compare to Desktop GPUs in case they didnt know.

So the OP would know what exactly they are buying and make a more informed decision

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