GS70 vs GE72 platform. Cooling and other.

Hi,

I checked out GS70, GT72 and GE72 with gen 4/5 CPU at local store and GT72 is definitely too thick for me. Both GS70 and GE72 are OK in terms of size and weight.
The laptop will be used mostly for engineering work, watching video and occasional (GPU demanding) gaming (1080p or lower, no high res displays).
Expected config: at least one PCI-E 4x NVMe SSD, 16Gb or more RAM, at least 970m 3Gb video, 6th gen CPU.
It looks like both laptops can do that.
GE72 supports only 1 PCI-E slot for SSD, right? Would be really nice to have more (as in GS70)!
GS70 has only 2 RAM slots and no optical drive, but that's acceptable.
Both have non-IPS displays and no G-Sync. Oh, what can you do...
I do not care much about built in sound quality.
I like the touchpad on GS70 more and overall design is more appealing.

The main question for me is thermal performance, noise and general reliability under light and heavy load.
I can tolerate high temperature and noise when gaming, but I do not want too much heat or noise when using laptop in the office.
At first I thought GS70 runs hotter and noisier since it is so thin, but I am not sure. It looks like GE72 has only 1 exhaust and possibly 1 fan ? Not sure if heatsink/radiator surface is any bigger in GE72 than in GS70 or airflow is better.
I am guessing GS70 fans are smaller, noisier, possibly rotate at higher RPM and probably more prone to failure. The air channel in GS70 is probably more narrow and might create more noise.

Any comments or suggestions?

Thanks,
Mike

 

You can go with any machine but the best machine is GT72, then GS70, and then GE72.
Regarding the heat and noise, if you are just doing office work then don't expect much heat and noise with any system. However, if you play games then every one of them will generate heat which causes fan to spin faster which generates noise. Finally, you can reduce temperature, and noise by lowering down visual settings reasonable to obtain a better outcome.

 

With V-sync/G-sync/Frame rate limiting on anyway otherwise it will just generate more FPS per second at lower details.

 

Thanks. It is good to know about usefulness of frame rate limiting.

Regarding "best machine", I don't think it applies in my case. GT72 is simply too big for me and I am not considering it.
GS70 and GE72 are almost the same to me since the have the same CPU, graphics, RAM and storage options. Other things like new USB 3.1 port are not important for me.

I will rephrase my question regarding GS70 vs GE72 platform:
Given the same (or very similar) tech specs, i.e. Intel i7-6700, 16gb, 970m 3Gb, PCI-E 4x SSD, 1080 screen, do you think GE72 will run at lower temps and/or with less fan noise than GS70 (playing games and/or working in the office) ? or should I expect the same level of heat and noise from both?

After learning that both of them have just one m2 PCI-E slot and same TN panel, I do not see any benefits of GS70 other than slim design (which is nice, but not necessary). GE72 might even be better since it has optical drive that can also be used to hold additional SATA SSD. GE72 is also $200-$300 cheaper and that price difference can pay for a bigger m2 PCI-E SSD.

Thanks,
Mike

 

They will be similar in noise and heat. The big advantage of the gs is the thinner design and higher quality chassis.

 

Thanks Meaker! Leaning towards GS70

 

I agree that the GS70 probably has the better frame, but like you said for $200-$300 more i don't always see the point in it. They are both good computers and the GE having the optical drive can be nice (of course you can always get an external drive as well). One other thing i like about the GE series is the physical click button on the touchpad. Of course that is just what i'm use to and could depend on your preference as well as how often you use an external mouse.

You also might have to wait a little longer for the GS70 006 (skylake) model to fully launch.

 

For similar performance, slightly more weight, and lower cost, if it is already sweet enough for you then you don't really need to go for GS70.

 

Thanks guys,
Optical drive and (especially) touchpad design are both important. I am just waiting for a few unboxing/usage reports and comments.

Mike

 

External optical drives aren't a huge deal. I often see them at Fry's and Micro Center for $20.

 

Ya basic CD/DVD external drives are fairly cheap, it's just the matter of toting it around if you need to use that frequently or not.

I like not having it in my personal laptop as I don't use them really ever so it saves a little weight and bulk (hence those differences on the GE to GS models).

 

My laptop bag has a couple pockets on the inside about that size. I just throw it in there and forget about it.

That said, there's definitely something said for thin and light. I find the GS60 quite tempting. It's mostly the chipset and future upgradability of the vid card. Gotta love the GT60/70 and GT72 series for that.