Fanless Laptop 15.6'' / Most Silent Gaming 15.6'' Laptop

[irawayne]

Hello, I have searched the internet on these matters for quite a long time to no avail. Firstly I am looking for a fanless, non-convertible, 15.6'' fanless laptop with performance capable of running Counter Strike at 60 FPS without overheating. Secondly if all fanless laptops are running W8.1 RT or if they are not capable of running CS at such framerate I would like to trade the least noise possible for a laptop capable of running modern games at high (ultra?) details. I would like a recommendation on the most silent (10-20 dB I imagine) laptop with GPU(s) being more performant than a single GTX760M possible. I was also advised and saw it on on YT MSI laptops are very noisy. Thank you in advance.

[CA_Steve]

Welcome to SPCR.

Fanless laptop with a discrete gaming card is unlikely to happen. Especially if >GTX760M. Too much heat to get rid of.

Most of the fanless laptops are Baytrail CPUs with integrated graphics good enough for media, but not good enough for games. In the December/Jan timeframe, there will the next-gen Broadwell mobile CPUs. Intel is upping the integrated gfx performance, and there might be a variant that'll do playable CS:Go in an under 10W TDP that's suitable for a fanless design.

CS:Go is benchmarked at Notebookcheck. While the review is 2 years old, they've updated the bottom chart with current laptop specs. This site has a nice utility that will let you search for a laptop based on different factors (like gfx card > xx, noise performance, etc).

There's a fanless laptop thread here.

[xan_user]

gaming+laptop+silence=unicorns.

you can easily do any 2 of those, just not all 3.

[Abula]

I have owned multiple gaming laptops,

Asus GX51VX
Asus GX71RX
Asus G73JW
MSI GT70One

Also have tested some that i bought for friends,
MSI GT683
Sager 8150 / Clevo 150

The most quiet was the G73, on day to day basis i never heard the fans, on gaming you do, but its not that bad, the fan ports are to the back of the laptop so they are not in direct line of you. MSI is noticible even in idle, but the laptop is miles away in performance to the asus that i had, and to me is acceptable, i always play with headphones when im on the road.

Now MSI was noisy.... im guessing because they opted for a single fan with dual holes exhaust to cool the gpu and cpu, while asus had their twin fan design to the back. But now MSI has changed some their design, so newer models might be more quiet than what i have tested. MSI also has their new ghost line that its suppose to be quiet and slim.... hard to believe but who knows, they have improve a lot in the past years into what they are putting on laptops. Sager was also very aggresive on the fans profiles, they were pretty good on cooling but at the expense of noise. Personally i would check on Asus before the others, they seem to have done a better job in terms of fan profiles, but i would also suggest you dont go with high tdp gpus and cpus, so the fans dont go aggresive so easy.

MSI seems to be dropping Optimus, not sure why, mine works perfect, but they seem to adopting a switch style button, where you completely turn off the gpu for usual task and use intel igpu, then you turn it on for gaming.

Even though they will not persue quiet computing as we do, i would try to to check with owners, and the biggest community for laptops, is notebookreview forums, fill up a thread with the following questions, ### What Should I Buy FORM (Must Read Before Posting!) ###, go also to the dedicated brand forums, and check with owners see if you get some feedback in terms of noise.

I would probably search for laptops with a dual core and GTX850M, given that they wont be the best, they should be good enough to run Counter Strike fine.

[Irrelevant]

gaming+laptop+silence=unicorns.

Exactly, and not just because passive cooling requires more surface area. It also requires wider fin-spacings and (worst of all,) vertical airflow. Increased area and spacing just means added weight and bulk, but the only ways to get vertical airflow are to exhaust from the keyboard/touchpad area or place all the hot components/heatsinks behind the display.

So while Alienware has proved that back-breaking, bag-busting monsters are commercially viable, I doubt anyone would put up with a laptop that bathed their hands in 80C air or fell over the moment their hands came off the keyboard.