Best Laptop for the money. Suggestions?

[Handwerk_Arts]

Okay, if you had no more than 2 grand to spend (maybe 2500) and you were in need of a new laptop, what would you pick? 
Now, to make it a bit more interesting, imagine you don't just work in Chief. I do design in Chief and HDP. Also Video editing on Adobe, other design work on Adobe products and branching out into other software.
I really need 4K UHD for video editing. And I really need a 17" screen, as my eyes are not as young as they once were.  Keep in mind, I will have no more desktop use, as I will be traveling. And with that in mind, maybe should go with a 15" and more powerful reading glasses. It will be difficult to get used to though, as I am used to 27" dual screens.  Not too concerned about rendering as I rarely do that.
I have noticed there are pros and cons between mobile workstations and gaming laptops. Anyway, after weeks of reading reviews, articles, and videos, I need to take a breath of air.  So far I am leaning toward an 8th gen i7.
But the question is, if YOU were to buy one today (and needed to do what i do) what would it be?

 

I appreciate your suggestions.
 

[DavidJPotter]

My current laptop is pretty but compared to my desktop which is years older it is slow, if reliable. The key difference between my laptop and desktop is that the desktop has as its main HD, an SSD which makes a HUGE difference in performance (My laptop has a better video card, the same if slightly more modern RAM). I am sure you will get lots of responses, this type of post usually does. Everyone will have an opinion for you to consider. Just do not act on any one of them but do your own research and make your own decisions is my advice.

 

DJP

 

PS: my laptop is an ASUS ROG laptop it has 8 Gb of RAM, an analog one Tb Hd, a Geforce 980 NVIDIA video card, the CPU is a quad-core Intel chip

[MarkMc]

I like Clevo laptops-great ports, good cooling, highly configurable, replaceable everything, zero bloatware. I'm on my second Sager/Clevo-at 2-1/2 yrs old it keeps pace with most desktops (I've only used laptops for over a decade). My next one will come from HIDevolution instead (one was from Sager, the other from Xoticpc). The one downside to Clevos is a lack of BIOS updates but HID works with Prima Bios who makes Bios for them and that is about the only way to get his bios.

If I had to buy a machine now it would be a P870TM   which starts at about $3k and I'd likely get it to $4k before ordering. If budget did not allow I'd get a P775TM1 which starts at $2k-it's the current equivalent of what I have now and would configure to about $3k when I was done. The biggest difference is in the chassis with the first one providing better cooling.

If I could I'd wait until the first quarter of 2019 when the nVidia RTX cards will hit the market on hi-end laptops. (I'm hoping to get a new one toward the end of 2019 since nothing out there now gives me a sufficient performance boost). FWIW  I check desktops every now and then and without fail the price for what I want is withing a couple hundred of the laptop I want. I configured a desktop yesterday with one-just the box and hit $4K thinking that my current laptop will be suitable as a secondary for several more years and hoping that this time the desktop price would be a good bit less-alas no.

 

If it is a secondary machine and you don't need all the muscle then go for something with an HQ processor but I prefer to have a desktop processor.

[Kbird1]

With Mark's help (above) I just got an MSI Laptop , with an 8 gen. 6 core processor ( 8750H)  which has good cooling and 16GB Ram . My Budget was far lower than yours , so you could go for a better MSI GE or GT Series laptop (mine is GP) with a 1070 etc. MSI also is one of the few manufacturers that allow you to access the Advanced Bios which is helpful , for eg set the ram to 2666 and changing some of the power options  to help keep it cooler under load , undervolting also helps with this , I am finding.

[Kbird1]

1 hour ago, MarkMc said:

I configured a desktop yesterday with one-just the box and hit $4K thinking that my current laptop will be suitable as a secondary for several more years and hoping that this time the desktop price would be a good bit less-alas no.

 

Ouch , that must have been some machine   but been a long time since I built one from the ground up.....been upgrading for years on the DT so it doesn't hurt quite so much...

 

[MarkMc]

1 minute ago, Kbird1 said:

Ouch , that must have been some machine

Easy when not really spending anything

Looked above and below- 2.7k to barely improve from the Sager (5%maybe), 3K + to get a little better (10%) - the difference to this is a long term machine (25? +%) and the cost difference would be eaten with an upgrade or two later. I have a while yet, so will be checking both since I could keep using the Sager for a while and I like to try to plan these things so I know how much I need to target and figure out where in heck it's coming from....have to see what kind of boat I'm buying my dentist this time first.

[Kbird1]

12 minutes ago, MarkMc said:

have to see what kind of boat I'm buying my dentist this time first.

 

Funny you should say that , Implants ain't cheap   hence the budget for my Laptop

[JDWEBB77]

On 9/3/2018 at 12:37 PM, MarkMc said:

I like Clevo laptops-great ports, good cooling, highly configurable, replaceable everything, zero bloatware. I'm on my second Sager/Clevo-at 2-1/2 yrs old it keeps pace with most desktops (I've only used laptops for over a decade). My next one will come from HIDevolution instead (one was from Sager, the other from Xoticpc). The one downside to Clevos is a lack of BIOS updates but HID works with Prima Bios who makes Bios for them and that is about the only way to get his bios.

If I had to buy a machine now it would be a P870TM   which starts at about $3k and I'd likely get it to $4k before ordering. If budget did not allow I'd get a P775TM1 which starts at $2k-it's the current equivalent of what I have now and would configure to about $3k when I was done. The biggest difference is in the chassis with the first one providing better cooling.

If I could I'd wait until the first quarter of 2019 when the nVidia RTX cards will hit the market on hi-end laptops. (I'm hoping to get a new one toward the end of 2019 since nothing out there now gives me a sufficient performance boost). FWIW  I check desktops every now and then and without fail the price for what I want is withing a couple hundred of the laptop I want. I configured a desktop yesterday with one-just the box and hit $4K thinking that my current laptop will be suitable as a secondary for several more years and hoping that this time the desktop price would be a good bit less-alas no.

 

If it is a secondary machine and you don't need all the muscle then go for something with an HQ processor but I prefer to have a desktop processor.

I currently use a Clevo P870TM-1 with Prema's bios and a Silicone Lottery 8700K processor rated at 5.3ghz. I know Prema personally so he  graciously adjusted the bios settings for me. You're making a smart choice going through HID Evolution. Donald,  Ted and the whole gang at HID are great. The 870TMx is an absolute beast of a machine and takes anything you can throw at it. It's also set up for the new 8 core

i9 9900Ks that'll be out soon. 

[JDWEBB77]

Not sure if marketing a laptop is allowed on the forums, however, I have a laptop that might suit your needs. It's a Clevo P870DMx with the Prema bios. It's a 17in machine that currently has an i7 7700K desktop processor from Silicone Lottery rated to 5.2 ghz, a single GTX 1070 GPU with the vapor chamber heat-sink, 32 GB Kingston HyperX 2400 mhz ram, 500GB 850 EVO 2.5 in OS drive, 1 TB spinning disk storage drive, Retail version of Windows 10 Pro. It's a Z170 mother board but once the i9 9900Ks are released I plan to install my 6 core i7 8700K in this laptop. The Prema bios and a different heat-sink allows it to work and run cool. Only issue is the P870DMx weighs approx 12 lbs. Probably not something you'd want to carry around for too long.