[Coda]

A 980 IS above midrange. A 1050 won't give you the staying power. My wife has a 960 in her desktop, it's a year and a half old, and it's not showing signs of slowing down at all yet -- she runs Overwatch at high/ultra settings at full framerate. A 980 is better than that. A 1080 isn't "a little above mid-range", it's "top of the line." Meanwhile a 1050 is right in the middle of midrange.

The thing about tech these days is that we've hit the point where even the cheap stuff is so good that it's no longer necessary to upgrade every two years if you want to play games.

If you buy last year's high-end laptop, it'll give you 2-3 years no problem.

As for bloatware: Yeah, it is. It's the kind of stuff you're certain to almost never use but you can't get rid of.