Looking for reasonably priced laptop to run zwift

General Discussion
1

I am new to Zwift and just building a setup, I do not want to use my primary laptop for the task and was looking for a reasonably priced portable for the job. The running specifications (even the low option) all suggest a seperate GPU which sort of takes out the low option in any case, although you can get a reasonably priced Ryzen (£300-£400) however the other notes on the forum suggest it runs under OpenGL which is only really generally supported on business laptops (my old 8 yr old Dell with an appropriate GPU actually outperforms my current i7 Dell for OpenGL apps/editing tools simply because it has a suitable GPU).

Your recomendation is i5 with GPU which brings the price up to £5-600 minimum :frowning:

Is there any way a ‘Ryzen 3, 8gb Ram, 128 SSD’ would run? Or is there a tablet solution that you could recommend in a reasonable price bracket?

2

You can get an Apple TV for less than your budget. Or @Dave_ZPCMR can advise you on a cheap Zwift PC (not laptop).

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3

Thanks for the prompt reply :slightly_smiling_face:

I was hoping to use it as a laptop for my wife also for general tasks, although a setup I would also like to be able to strip it down when not in use, a tower/desktop pc is a bit of a lump to leave around, I am guessing the noted spec laptop is way out of the question then? I am a little confused as to why there is a suggestion of low/medium/high on the running spec’s, it sort seems to be medium high, medium very high, high? I appreciate to get to the stage of actually using Zwift you have to make a fair investment but id eally I would like to put that in to the training gear rather than essentially the screen :frowning:

4

Have a look at Dave’s article at Zwift on PC: The Ultimate Guide to Running Zwift at Its Very Best | Zwift Insider

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5

Notwithstanding graphics card supply shortages at present, it’s easy to build a dedicated PC to max out Zwift in 4K and Ultra detail for under £300. 60fps in solo rides, 30fps+ in group events (where the frame rate tanks for everyone without a very fast/expensive CPU).

Don’t buy a laptop for Zwift. It’s dead money.

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Is there even a performance checker for the product, if I download it, can I see if it works?

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For Zwift? It’s free to download and install, yeah. You need an account to log in, which is free for a short time as a trial.

8

So I downloaded it, started the 7 day trial, I have nothing connected, is that why it appears to work fine, as I am only watching other cyclists?

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I saved a load of cash, my old laptop took ages to load up and a new one was over £600… I looked on Amazon and hey ho… They sell a refurbished desktop pc for £150. Its got a i5 quad core with 256GB SSD n 1TB hard drive. And it’s got a 12 month replacement free of charge. Bargain. :grin::grin:. Oh, it starts up n loads zwift in under 45 seconds. :+1::+1::+1:

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If all you wanted was for it to load faster, a £20 SSD for your laptop would have done the same job. But even if you really wanted a dedicated PC for Zwift, I’m afraid you still paid about twice as much as you needed to.

11

Hello Dave, I want to run Zwift, but I only have laptop from work that I can’t use. What should I buy to get best quality // lowest cost. Where to start? Can you give example of cpu I can buy?

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Search Facebook for ZPCMR and look in the files section for the Frankenstein guide. :+1:

If you’re not on there, PM me and I’ll email you a copy.

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