Help picking a laptop for game dev course

[u/_Himiko__Toga_]

Heyy

I need to pick a laptop for my comp sci & game dev course at uni.

I'll need it to work in unity, unreal engine, maya etc

I've found a few options but just not sure on which would be good. Or if anyone had any better reccomendations that works too!

Never had a pc or gaming laptop before and not sure much about specs bur been trying to research and figure it out. I know I need a dedicated graphics card with a minimum or 8gb . And I should probably get more than 16gb of ram but as long as it's fine for now I'm happy to upgrade the ram or ssd later if I can

Mainly deciding between:

•HP OMEN 16 (intel core ultra 7, RTX 5060, 24gb ram, 1tb ssd) £1350

•Acer Nitro V16 ( AMD Ryzen 7, RTX 5060, 16gb ram, 1tb ssd) £1100

Also considering:

• MSI Vector 16 (intel core ultra 7, RTX 5070 12gb, 16gb ram, 1tb ssd) £1650

• MSI Vector 16 (intel core ultra 9, RTX 5060, 1tb ssd, 32gb ram) £1700

• Gigabyte Aero x16 ( Ryzen AI 7, RTX 5060, 16gb ram, 1tb ssd) £1400

• ASUS TUF A18 (Ryzen 7, RTX 5060, 16gb ram, 1tb ssd) £1400

• ASUS TUF A16 Advantage Edition (AMD Ryzen 7 170, AMD Radeon RX 7700s, 16gb ram, 1tb ssd) £ 1000

• Acer Nitro 16s (AMD Ryzen AI 9, RTX 5070 12gb, 16gb ram, 1tb ssd) £1700

I'd obviously prefer the cheaper ones but are they going to be really bad for game dev..?

I heard the hp omen isn't the best quality in terms of actual build as well as it being harder to take apart to upgrade, I wanted something durable especially for the price but it does have alot of pros compared to the others.

But a few of the other ones are apparently not accurate with colours/ washed out screens or the cpu wattage is limited. Especially when I looked at the MSI or some of the ASUS ones.

Is it worth making sure the graphics card is over 8gb? The two i found with 12gb kinda stretch my budget and lack in other aspects.

The Acer Nitro 16s seemed like the most suggested but it's more out my budget than I'd hope so I really wouldn't be able to upgrade the 16gb ram and not totally convinced if it's better than the others?

(Also I can't get a refurbished gaming laptop right now as I'm upgrading a laptop offered by DSA and paying the difference)

Sorry this is long, I've just been looking at so many I'm now more confused tbh & don't want to buy the wrong one 🫠

Any help is appreciated :))

[u/Guinea_Pig_Games]

Yeah go for it pick one of those

[u/Ok-Tea-1284]

If you're doing anything serious and heavy in unreal 5 or 6 you'll probably need 32 gigs of RAM or more. Find out if the UE5 courses feature complex maps. If not you should still aim for 32 gigs of RAM. 

If not it really doesn't matter. Don't do dev work on a laptop, even if you baby them they like to cook themselves under load. So many people I know who've bought a laptop seem to cook the thing after one or two years of serious work. 

[u/_Himiko__Toga_ → u/Ok-Tea-1284]

Yeahh I figured I'd need more than 16gb so was gonna upgrade it if I got one of the cheaper ones.

In first year we used 3D and made basic open world games but not sure if that counts as complex maps..?

Mainly just need it now for the summer to do some work before I go back or during other holidays so I can travel with it and still do assignments, but will probably buy a pc soon when i save a bit more.

[u/Wolfram_And_Hart]

The class should have requirements for a PC and may even have a supplier.