Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey guys! So after returning my Asus Zenbook UX430UN due to heating issues and throttling, I'm in the market for a new laptop! I have a few that I'm keeping an eye on and wanted to get your opinion on them since Dolphin is really the only gaming-related thing I'm worried about at this juncture.

Budget is $1000-$1800, I'm also a designer/video producer on the go so I'm looking for something with a good amount of battery than can handle media production, has 90-100% RGB range, and that doesn't have heating issues and problems with a lot of throttling. Let me know if I can answer any more questions.

1. ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 UX550GE
Pros: Expensive. The build quality and speakers I loved from my UX430UN, possibly better heat management now thanks to a dual fan setup and 3 heat pipes, i7-8750HK + GTX 1050 Ti offer plenty of power.
Cons: Doesn't release until August 18th, so I can't find any impressions or reviews, past models had heat and throttling issues, unnecessary 4K touchscreen brings the price up, micro SD card slot (why?), i7-8750HK + GTX 1050 Ti offer plenty of heat.

2. MSI Laptop PS42 8RB
Pros: LOVE that small, silver build, amazing heat management for such a small package, MX150 is the 25w version, PERFECT price point, 10 hour battery, excellent ports, great color range, seemingly the full package?
Cons: That damn Spider Man 2 ass font on the keyboard! WHY!? I wish it didn't bug me as much as it does, but I really hate it. The touchpad is also small and apparently the click is very loud? Speakers are also apparently not great, MX150 seems like a great GPU, but obviously not the most powerful thing out there.

3. MSI GS65 Stealth 
Pros: Excellent build quality, pretty professional appearance, incredible specs, good display and battery for a gaming laptop
Cons: Expensive. Definitely the highest I'm willing to pay and honestly more than I'd LIKE to pay. This Spider Man 2 font is going to be the death of me, honestly more power than I probably need, has more of that "GAMER" look than I would prefer, 256GB SSD :/

4. DELL Laptop XPS 15
Pros: Pretty much everything I need and seems to kind of be the industry standard? This certain model on Newegg has the same specs as the new Zenbook Pro 15.
Cons: Sold out on Newegg :/ A little out of my price range at other retailers. I hear that the XPS 15 may also have heating/throttling issues?

5. HP ENVY x360 13 (AMD Ryzen™ 5 2500U + Radeon™ Vega 8 Graphics)
Pros: Suspiciously low price? Absolutely gorgeous build. Apparently great performance with no heat issues from what I've seen and read?
Cons: I don't know anything about AMD lol. Only 8GB RAM :/

Anyway, what do you guys think? I'm leaning towards the MSI PS42 at the moment, but feel free to give your thoughts on something listed above or suggest something else!

[color=#000080]I just got a quick look on it, so my judgement will not be thorough...

Asus Zenbook : Seems a very good laptop, but a little bit too expensive as you said, especially just for a 4K touchscreen that you won't use. Also, a laptop without being reviewed is not recommended indeed... So I'll wait for some reviews first (is there already from PC websites or not?)...

The two MSI : As a MSI laptop owner (MSI GE72 2QF Apache Pro), I confirm you that the Dynaudio sound system on MSI laptops are not that great. Therefore I'm only using headphones (but mine is a little different, as it's in front of the laptop). The touchpad isn't great too, small and the click is indeed very loud. However, the touchpad is very customizable: mouse drifting, middle and left click on some parts of the touchpad... So after a few minutes configuring it, it's still comfortable to use and I don't use that loud click anymore. I hope it's the same thing on the two there.
Also, the MX150 GPU, that seems really not the best thing out there, I would search more about it first personally. For the GS65, it's indeed a little much overpriced for me, and it has neither 4K nor touchscreen to justify that price. I understand you want to avoid this one for now...

Dell : Dell laptops have great performance and they are usually very durable, that's a very good point to notice as well... But it comes with an higher price that the Zenbook... Worth it? I'm not that sure...

HP Envy : I personally got usually bad feedbacks on HP laptops. It's the ones that break first, the finishing touch is not that great. Often, friends with an HP laptop complain only 2 years after of chassis breaks or even hardware connector issues... I'm avoiding this brand personally...


One last thing, there would be something missing for me in all those laptops: a built-in HDD in addition of the SSD, for heavier files (and as you'll do video editing, I imagine you'll have some). Unless you already plan for a external drive... But I'm not a huge fan of those...



So, if the MX150 is enough power for you, the MSI PS42 seems to be the right choice indeed, but I would at least see on reviews from different laptops if it's a powerful enough GPU. If not, I'll see for the Dell or the Asus ones...[/color]

Thanks for the response!

On the MSI machines, I don't actually NEED a 4K display if the 1080p display simply has at least 99% sRGB (72% NTSC) color gamut. Obviously I'd love a 4K display, but it's hard to find at this price point in a form factor that doesn't throttle like hell.

On the MSI GS65, I'm hearing from one user that it gets really hot, but I haven't really read that in any review I've looked at? Part of me wonders if he's gaming on his lap lol. Also, I don't need a large HDD included, because I try to keep my laptops very clean. I constantly back things up on externals for safety and I swap out a discrete 256GB thumb drive for commonly accessed files between computers.

The MX150 would PROBABLY be enough for me? I don't do much PC gaming outside of emulation and Dolphin specifically. Obviously I'd take more if the machine could manage the heat though.

My personal view is that i7 is a bit too much in laptop, i opt always for i5 models. Less overheating, and less cores @ higher frequencies means you can better utilize those chips. Also going down to i5 you save money for eg. other parts.

if you have no high demand for color accurate panel, choose one from them https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...0600004945 
The search engine shows MSI GL63 and Dell Inspiron 7000 Series.
Quick look on notebookcheck reviews shows 4k panels are supposed to have better color accuracy as in Dell xps, but funny enough XPS 15 9560 with i5 overheats much.

(08-14-2018, 02:21 AM)sirdaniel Wrote: [ -> ]My personal view is that i7 is a bit too much in laptop, i opt always for i5 models. Less overheating, and less cores @ higher frequencies means you can better utilize those chips. Also going down to i5 you save money for eg. other parts.

if you have no high demand for color accurate panel, choose one from them https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...0600004945 
The search engine shows MSI GL63 and Dell Inspiron 7000 Series.
Quick look on notebookcheck reviews shows 4k panels are supposed to have better color accuracy as in Dell xps, but funny enough XPS 15 9560 with i5 overheats much.

Unfortunately I'm a professional graphic designer and video producer so color accuracy is really important to me  

After more research I've decided that no matter what I'm probably going with an MX150 GPU. Right now I'm leaning towards either the MSI PS42 I've listed above or this Lenovo ThinkPad I've customized. 

Levono Thinkpad T480

- 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8650U Processor with vPro (1.90GHz, up to 4.20GHz with Turbo Boost, 8MB Cache)
- Windows 10 Home
- 14.0" WQHD (2560 x 1440) IPS anti-glare (Heard their FHD screens have awful color gamut)
- 16 GB (8 + 8) DDR4 2400MHz
- NVIDIA GeForce MX150
- 720p webcam and fingerprint reader
- 512 GB Solid State Drive
- 6 cell Li-Ion 72Wh Cylindrical rear battery in addition to 3 cell Li-Ion 24Wh front battery

Price: $1,653.56 (with discount)

Still disappointed by ThinkPad's screens though :/ Really no great option there.

Don´t. You´ll regret it if you buy that ThinkPad.

get a dell XPS 15 if you want that thinkpad.

Better power, better build quality, similar price.

Or get the x360 for 1/3 the price (any more than $600 is a ripoff) and spend the rest on booze.

But if price is no object, I'm impressed with the XPS15 build quality generally. But it is quite a bit larger, if portability is a requirement - but due to that will inevitably fit in more powerful components and have a larger battery.

I think the Asus RoG Series laptops are great and even come in your budget. Personally, I am also using Asus ROG Strix GL702 laptop for playing games, editing videos and photos and other office work. So for me, it is one of the best gaming laptops from Asus I have used so far.

1. ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 UX550GE

In my honest opinion, I've had a ASUS ROG laptop in 2011 that had nearly the same issues that you are currently dealing with your laptop. ASUS Laptops are powerful, but because quite simply a lot of laptops cannot handle the amount of power that a desktop can champion. That being said, this is probably the best laptop, though expensive, that should be able to handle your needs.

If you can, try to get it non-touchscreen, because the last thing you want on your 4k screen is someone putting their hands on it.

2. MSI Laptop PS42 8RB

I'm looking at the reviews for the graphics card, and honestly, I'd be concern that I could only play newer games on the lowest setting, meaning that it could possibly translate to intensive media shuddering (my perspective comes from making music), and so I would really look at this especially from a design standpoint to ensure that you're not making anything too intensive with this computer.

From a pricing standpoint, it seems a little expensive for that takeaway.


3. MSI GS65 Stealth

Beautiful. Eye turner. If I did need a laptop, would buy immediately.

It looks sexy, and has the stats that could hold up under a lot of stress. However, seeing that other people review that the laptops have certain issues (such as the external audio, however, as a music designer, I can confirm that no external audio will sound good when trying to produce music, which is why it's recommended to buy a bluetooth speaker that can produce a good level of bass while maintaining appropriate consistency).

The price seems appropriate for this laptop.


4. DELL Laptop XPS 15

I would avoid like the plague. Maybe dell has changed over the years, but back in 2005+, every laptop we've had suffered some type of issues that destroyed all seven of the computers hard drive, with a copy of my book on my old computer that I will never forgive them for >.>...

Maybe other people can look past that... but I will not.


5. HP ENVY x360 13 (AMD Ryzen™ 5 2500U + Radeon™ Vega 8 Graphics)

I couldn't give you a good answer on this one since the Ryzen series is relatively new to the computer/laptop scene, but people have really been impressed by the quality of the cpu. For the price, I think it would be worth giving it a run to see if it meets your needs, but as far the graphics card, I think the gtx series are far superior.

Once again, I simply don't know enough to warrant a good answer on the laptop.

Cheers to picking a good laptop!