Can anyone recommend a laptop that doesn’t overheat?

Can anyone recommend a laptop that doesn’t overheat running 4-6 accounts?

that is a bit much for any laptop. it will get warm to say the least and simple things can cause overheating. Not because of EQ being extremely taxing on modern hardware but, because laptops are always a balance of compact, and performance. you did not note what laptop ur using now, or what ur display settings are. turning off particles, flora etc will reduce how much the GPU has to work to display. you could also use a laptop cooling pad (I do, a coolermaster ) and if you are looking for a laptop, what price point? you can spend thousands if you want to but, it is not strickly req to play EQ. a friend who plays recently picked up an Omen by HP and its nice, around $1k @ walmart with a headset. I play on my very old Dell M6600 which i have used for years. I run 2 clients and can easily run 4-6 but i do not enjoy that, also using a laptop cooler, never had a single heat relayed issue. I guess it comes down to , there are many issues that can cause overheat. keeping fans, heatsinks clean, having a surface that does not block or impede air flow, and the trade off between size, weight and cost...

I had some OH issues with laptops in the past but since setting them up on stands rather than them being flat on the desk helped a lot.

I'd say stick to 2 boxing at most on a laptop myself, unless you spend a silly amount of money on a monster gaming specced one - and if considering that you should really think about a desktop imho as a gaming laptop is a lot more expensive than a similarly capable desktop pc.

I returned an Alienware laptop that that throttled after 2 hours of gameplay with low settings at 1080p (one account on a raid).
It was absolute garbage. I am looking spend at most $1200.00. I play on my desktop atm.

Sure thing!

Get a desktop.

A desktop isn’t a laptop.

1) Don't cheap out. Get a pro grade machine. Spend $3-5k. A $1200 machine is not going to allow you to run 4-6 sessions continuously.
2) Get a cooler to stick under it. Aluminum with lots of fans to move tons of air. If you can't afford the fancy machine than at least get a top notch cooler to put under whatever you get.

I have a cooler that I made, nothing commercial is going to out perform it.

I am still using this $900 laptop from 7 years ago but have only ever run 3 characters at once. I would imagine a newer version is amazing.
https://www.newegg.com/dusk-black-l...inment/p/N82E16834312438?item=N82E16834312438
2 video cards was pretty weird at the time. Who needs a disc drive!

"Gaming" and "laptop" have always been a mutually exclusive thing but that is just my opinion. Unless your job has you living out of hotel rooms, or you have desktop space at a premium, a lap top is not going to cut it 6 boxing long term. Its not just the demand on the machine. There are some ergonomics as well. FPS can suffer as well. YMMV of course.

I like having a nice big monitor (or two), full sized keyboard, mouse etc. Laptops are for work, not play *shrug*. Most every time I was stuck with a laptop as my only option for games, the internet sucked. Hotel wifi, phone tether or whatever. Garbage. Desktop all the way.

Sorry this really doesn't answer your query very well, Tappin. For $1200 really anything at that price point will do. Its like picking between a Ford 4 door sedan or Chevy 4 door sedan. It might just be personal preference as they all are about the same.

Maybe take a look here for some ideas:
https://www.tomshardware.com/topics/laptops/best-picks

I00% agree with what you say. Sometimes a job can really dictate your gaming rig. I am that person that spends many nights gaming out of hotel rooms but when I get home my setup is like yours. Plug the gaming laptop into a 40" and also run a wireless mouse/keyboard. Two complete setups. It works well to run 1 character but 4-6 maybe not ideal due to stress on machine.

Just to add a bit here about the Tom's Hardware link, the comments posted by readers are as helpful, if not more than the actual reviews. ALSO, the more you spend on a machine, the greater your chances of getting good service if something goes wrong. If your $1200 unit gives up the magic smoke while you are on the road for work, you are probably SOL. Good luck!

There isn’t a correlation between cost and better cooling solution. In fact, the opposite is true. The more money you spend, the higher end CPU and GPU you get and those are typically harder to cool in SFF.

Very True. Heat lets out the magic smoke on a high end machine just as easily as on a cheapo. Well, man. Spend the money and see what happens. If you are forced to get this laptop due to a work situation than pick a machine that has good customer service backing it up. Maybe get the extended warranty/replacement plan. That should be a big factor on your choice. Usually the more you spend, the better they take care of you!

Any $1200 machine should be able to 6 box but what the experience will be on the long haul...heh who knows. The fps might be obnoxiously low. Having an aircraft wind tunnel fan under your machine to keep it from melting might get old. Having the choice between laptop or not playing at all due to a job situation is sort of the context assumed here.

I spent 3 grand on that Alienware laptop and guess how good their customer service was? I just returned the thing.

Something important about EQ. It is a CPU, not a GPU, dependent game. I can run multiple instances of EQ on my Macbook Pro 2015 utilizing bootcamp (don't VM due to the EULA). It gets hot using a cooling mat, but it runs fine. I was checking out the stealth at best buy but the thing was hot at idle just sitting on the display shelf. Laptops are bad at just about everything except being portable. Laptops are great in concept but since you can't really play on them without a dedicated power supply so they are just an over priced and poor experience for portability. My MacBook is my last laptop. From now on it's SFX builds and a tablet for me. (Unless I go the eGPU route, see next paragraph)

You can also look into thunderbolt 3 laptops that support eGPU. My macbook (on macOS) put out 8FPS on WoW at high settings and ran very hot, but with a DevilBox eGPU with a Radeon Saphire 480 it locked out at the monitor capped 60 FPS (30 on the internal monitor) on 1080p, maxed out graphics, much less heat on the (thunderbolt 2, required a work around). I had to max out the AA and such to get it to drop below 60. The issue with eGPU is compatibility issues but they are the future of gaming laptops. Desipte being able to get my eGPU to work with OSx, I couldn;t get it to work with windows on the same device.



For SFX, Check out the Fractal Design Node202. It is a little bigger than a Xbox One original. Guy I work with has a Battle Box which is a rugged case with a handle.

EQ does not need a dedicated graphics card so there are also smaller options.

Personally, I 3D printed a case for my Xbox using a 24" monitor and a clam shell design that I bring everywhere. I love it and so does everyone who has ever seen it.

There are plenty of briefcase builds out there to look up online with monitors around 17-20 inches which are fairly well done as well.

Tappin, the answer to you original post is both "any" and "none" because they all suck. For your budget, you are not going to get a viable long term solution. There are no recommendations for new equipment that I personally would put my name on. If given a choice between laptop or not playing....well not playing wins if this were me facing this buying decision. I would not be out the money nor have to experience the aggravation/ergonomic nightmare of the half baked laptop gaming experience. If you put a gun to my head and said "choose", I would recommend a used Mac Book Pro. Or any fairly recent used enterprise tier machine from the past 5 years. You might be able to score one for your budget.

A friend of mine splurged 5 grand on a MacBook Pro a number of years ago. It is still a beast (for a laptop) and since its Apple their CX service is exemplary. Anything that is considered a "workstation" tier laptop will probably fit the bill but they start at around 3 grand new and go up from there. That is the definition of a "pro" model laptop. It a machine that is an enterprise piece of equipment and has the customer service to boot. People are making a living off this stuff in other words and they want that god tier of support. Anything less than that, and are you are on your own.

Alienware has always had a bad rep for service as well too. They usually assume the end user is abusing their equipment and don't want to back up what they sell.

I can get 3 accounts working on surface pro at 1080p with 8gb of ram. It runs around 70c and the limiting factor seems to be the ram. So it seems the problem with overheating seems be GPU related. But, I’m going to do more than just play EQ, so a dedicated GPU is a requirement.

Meh Bamboompow, you're wrong. I've been 6 boxing on my laptop for years. No issues whatsoever.

As for you Tappin, 8GB ram is borderline for 6 EQ clients as long as you're only running EQ (ISB, GamParse, Gina is fine too if you use them). If you have other applications running in the background like a web browser, mail client etc you're going to start having some issues. 16GB would definitely be better.

it seems you have already made up your mind as to the majority of factors and not much remains but a purchase. quality of build and CS are entirely discretionary as is brand preference. I like using older mobile workstations, as portability and weight are not issues for me. Personally, I also dislike the "transformer" look of "Gaming" Laptops. lights and sculpted chassis are simply gaudy and not something I care for. So, your best choice is to research models in your price range, and attempt to validate their worth towards your intended use. there will will only be a modest consensus among folks here and, what you are trying to ascertain is highly subjective. no one size fits all, and as with any laptop, trade off vs what u need. the history of portable PC's.