Budget: €2,500–€3,500

Country: Italy

Use Case: Gaming, general use, occasional heavy workloads

Preferred Specs: RTX 5070 Ti or better, Core Ultra 9 275HX or equivalent, 32GB RAM, 1TB+ SSD, preferably 18" 2560×1600

Notes: Reliability and cooling are extremely important. I prefer a laptop with few serious reported issues over a laptop with slightly better performance.

I need your help 😅

I've spent the last few weeks researching gaming laptops and I thought I had found the one I wanted:

ASUS ROG Strix G18 — Core Ultra 9 275HX + RTX 5070 Ti + 32GB + 1TB + 18" 1600p

The more I researched it, the more I liked it. Good cooling, great performance, 18" screen, solid build, and very good reviews from both reviewers and owners.

The problem: I can't find this exact configuration anymore in Italy. It seems to be sold out/discontinued.

I considered the RTX 5080 version, but I'm hesitant because I've found multiple owner reports about black screens, freezes and GPU/display-related issues. I'm spending €3,000+ and really don't want to buy something that could become a reliability headache.

So I'm looking for the best alternative to the G18 5070 Ti.

I'm considering Lenovo Legion, Acer Predator, MSI, Alienware, etc. It doesn't have to be ASUS.

What would YOU buy?

My priorities are:

🥇 Reliability / few serious issues
🥈 Cooling and sustained performance
🥉 Build quality
🎮 RTX 5070 Ti or better
🖥️ Preferably 18", 1600p, 16:10
💾 32GB RAM / 1TB+

If you actually own one, I'd really appreciate your experience:

• How long have you owned it?
• Any freezes or black screens?
• Any overheating/throttling?
• How is the cooling during long gaming sessions?
• Any motherboard/GPU problems?
• Would you buy it again?

If you had €2,500–€3,500 to spend in Italy today, what gaming laptop would you personally buy?

I'm trying to avoid making an expensive mistake, so real owner experiences are much more useful to me than just benchmark numbers. 🙏