Reddit reviews ASUS G550JK-DB71-CA Republic of Gamers (ROG) (15.6-inch, i7-4700HQ, 8GB-DDR3, 750GB HDD, GTX850M-2G, DVDRW, Windows 8.1, Black)
We found 3 Reddit comments about ASUS G550JK-DB71-CA Republic of Gamers (ROG) (15.6-inch, i7-4700HQ, 8GB-DDR3, 750GB HDD, GTX850M-2G, DVDRW, Windows 8.1, Black). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
The G550JK is pretty hard to get right now without Overpaying for it.
Save yourself some money and get the ASUS N550JK which is virtually identical, except for its more professional appearance.
I'd then suggest that you get this Samsung 840 Evo and hard drive caddy to replace the optical drive with. That way you get a 256GB SSD and get to keep the 1TB storage drive.
I think that would give you the best overall experience for school and gaming. The IPS display on the N550JK is highly sought after and it gets better battery life than the Y50. I also prefer ASUS whenever possible.
You could try the asus g550jk or the n550jk. They both have good cpus, quad core i7s, the new maxwell 850m with ddr3 which can run newer games on low to medium settings at 1080p and they have really solid build qualities.
The g550jk is more oriented to gaming with an overclocked gpu and a matte screen, but is slightly more expensive because of the ROG namebrand.
The n550jk is more for multimedia, comes with a good quality glossy touchscreen and it should fit right in your budget.
Here is the n550jk http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-N550JK-DS71T-15-6-Inch-Touchscreen-Laptop/dp/B00IAA5BSS/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1405834008&sr=8-5&keywords=g550
,and the g550jk http://www.amazon.com/G550JK-DB71-CA-Republic-15-6-inch-i7-4700HQ-GTX850M-2G/dp/B00KXFSZSG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405834208&sr=8-1&keywords=g550
Not sure about CIT, but I just finished the CST degree with an Asus: https://www.amazon.ca/G550JK-DB71-CA-Notebook-Screen-Nvidia-GTX850M/dp/B00KXFSZSG. This was fine, nothing I did required more computing until 3rd year. But I did need linux terminal so mac is where I looked next.
switching to a used Mac Pro 2014 in my 3rd year: (256GB SSD, 2.2GHz i7, 16GB DDR3), and its more than enough. I can do all my work at once on it. If only I could work that fast.
Edit: You def want the battery to get you at least half the day just in case, it's a lot better than looking for plugs every class. The mac will get you that, others will too, but I know that Asus wont...