I am currently running Zwift on a fairly old HP laptop and looking to upgrade to a newer laptop more geared towards this level of graphics. I am considering two options:
ASUS ROG GL551 JW w/GEFORCE GTX960M Graphics card 15.3" display
or
Similar ASUS with GTX860M Graphics card with 17.3" display. The laptop with the 17.3 is about $50 more, but has the lesser graphics card. Am I better off with the larger display and the slower card or the faster card with the smaller display?
Also any “cheaper” suggestions (<$1000) would be welcome.
While the 960M is a helluva graphics card, the 860M is no slouch either and should run Zwift at high quality with excellent frame-rates.
These are gaming-specific laptops so they’ll be bulky, garish, and possibly more power than you need (unless you plan on also picking up some other computer games).
It’s $800, has a very nice set of specs, and while it doesn’t have as large a screen, an HDMI cable to a TV can solve that.
I wouldn’t consider this an official endorsement, but if you find something with similar specs then it should work very well with Zwift (especially if it’s even cheaper).
I upgraded to a new Windows 8 ‘gaming’ laptop with an i7 processor and a much better graphics card - it fixed my issue of not seeing the other riders or AI Bots I had with a basic HP Laptop w/ an i5 and generic imbedded graphics. I have the full Zwift experience now - awesome!
The laptop I purchased (link below) was based on the recommendation (but not an endorsement) above, but went up a level.