Recommendations for gaming laptop?
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So this past winter, you fine CPians recommended some components for a gaming PC. It worked out brilliantly, and I've been so happy with my current rig, zero problems, great performance...thanks CP! Now, our 2 laptops, both about 7 years old, are dead. And my son's school is starting to require some of his papers typed out in print. We're looking to get a laptop. We'd like to use the laptop for gaming, too. So, dear CPians, got recommendations for a laptop with enough juice to do 3d gaming for under $1000? NVidia's Ion graphics[^] thing looks cool...maybe that's the road to take? But I can't find any laptops with this in it...
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
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Wow...a gaming PC and a cheap laptop is cheaper than buying a high end gaming laptop. Hmmm. I don't think the wife will go for that.
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
I'm currently playing Dead Space
Wife loves that game.
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
I've seen basic quad core systems on sale for $400, the GTX260 (or ati equivalent) turn up on sale for $200 every once in a while. $400 will get a bare bones 15" laptop. You might need to add $75ish for a better PSU in the desktop to power the GPU. To get a gaming laptop close to (but still less than) that spec would cost several grand. IIRC the only mobile quad costs ~$1000 from intel, and you'd need 2 SLIed 9800M cards (which you won't see until you get into the $2k+ range).
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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So this past winter, you fine CPians recommended some components for a gaming PC. It worked out brilliantly, and I've been so happy with my current rig, zero problems, great performance...thanks CP! Now, our 2 laptops, both about 7 years old, are dead. And my son's school is starting to require some of his papers typed out in print. We're looking to get a laptop. We'd like to use the laptop for gaming, too. So, dear CPians, got recommendations for a laptop with enough juice to do 3d gaming for under $1000? NVidia's Ion graphics[^] thing looks cool...maybe that's the road to take? But I can't find any laptops with this in it...
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
Something else to consider. For a gaming laptop you want a low resolution screen to keep the load down on the GPU (native 1280x800 looks better than 1920x1200/1680x1050 scaled to 1280x800), and $1000ish laptop won't be able to game at higher resolutions. If your son needs a higher res display for other uses get him an external monitor.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Judah Himango wrote:
Ok. The video on the ION graphics page listed above, where you see them playing Call of Duty : World At War...smoke and mirrors?
I haven't watched the video because I'm at work. IIRC COD:WAW isn't an exceptionally GPU heavy game; I also suspect it's being done at low resolution and quality settings at low values. Looking at the summary table in WP, I wouldn't recommend anything less than the one of the 9800's (or an 8800 in a older model). The lowest end one roughly corresponds to a desktop 9600 which straddles the line between upscale OEM and entry level enthusiast. (The gpu's in the GF275/280/285/295 desktop cards all have 240 cores.) If you can't afford at least that much performance I'd lean strongly toward seperate laptop and gaming systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_Series#Technical_summary_2[^] I'm not familiar enough with ATI's parts to make a similar off the cuff assessment, but look at the 4xxx series card they have at the $75-90ish price range online and then use WP's comparison tables to ID the mobile part with the same number of stream processors. For ATI to nVidia comparisons, 1 NV core ~= 4 ATI cores. I think I've bookmarked a more detailed comp guide at home, if so I'll post back with it in a few hours.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
dan neely wrote:
I've bookmarked a more detailed comp guide at home, if so I'll post back with it in a few hours.
As promised. One caveat, since this site only compares factory specs if two cards are within ~20% of each other you need to find gaming benchmarks to determine the faster. http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php[^]
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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So this past winter, you fine CPians recommended some components for a gaming PC. It worked out brilliantly, and I've been so happy with my current rig, zero problems, great performance...thanks CP! Now, our 2 laptops, both about 7 years old, are dead. And my son's school is starting to require some of his papers typed out in print. We're looking to get a laptop. We'd like to use the laptop for gaming, too. So, dear CPians, got recommendations for a laptop with enough juice to do 3d gaming for under $1000? NVidia's Ion graphics[^] thing looks cool...maybe that's the road to take? But I can't find any laptops with this in it...
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
Ditto the most recent post. Stick with a 15.4 inch screen on the gaming laptop. Trying to push 3D games to a 17-inch screen just means you have to turn down more settings. I'm currently typing on a Dell Inspiron 1705 that I bought from the Dell Refurb site with a Core 2 Duo and an nVidia 7900GS video chip. It plays pretty much anything well enough but I wish I had the lower resolution to speed it up just a hair more. On this machine I've gone through Quake 4, Clive Barker's Jericho, and Two Worlds, but ran them at low settings. I'm also playing in the Battlefield Heroes beta and it runs just fine (it's a lower-requirement game though). My suggestions: make sure to get a Core 2 Duo, not a "Pentium dual core" or an AMD CPU. And of course make sure it has dedicated graphics. If you go to Newegg.com and look at Laptops/Notebooks you can use the filters in the left sidebar to show you all of the laptops that have a Core 2 Duo and a Dedicated graphics card. The whole first page of results fit your budget and there are several models with nice 2.40 Ghz Core 2 Duos with several video options. I'm not familiar with how well the new ATI 4xxx series laptop graphics are holding up against the nVidia 9xxx series.
... Hudey123 ...
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So this past winter, you fine CPians recommended some components for a gaming PC. It worked out brilliantly, and I've been so happy with my current rig, zero problems, great performance...thanks CP! Now, our 2 laptops, both about 7 years old, are dead. And my son's school is starting to require some of his papers typed out in print. We're looking to get a laptop. We'd like to use the laptop for gaming, too. So, dear CPians, got recommendations for a laptop with enough juice to do 3d gaming for under $1000? NVidia's Ion graphics[^] thing looks cool...maybe that's the road to take? But I can't find any laptops with this in it...
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
We travel a lot for work, but our whole company plays 3d games in our off time. We have just bought an HP 3500eu laptop.(probably HP3500US for the states). It has a built in GeForce 9300 512MB dedicated graphics card. The system runs left 4 dead at full screen resolution at 30 frames per second with vsync turned on! NICE!!!! COD4 and COD5 Also run very well. The system also has a built in fingerprint reader to help with security. The system was £500.00, to that should be less than $1000 in the US.
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So this past winter, you fine CPians recommended some components for a gaming PC. It worked out brilliantly, and I've been so happy with my current rig, zero problems, great performance...thanks CP! Now, our 2 laptops, both about 7 years old, are dead. And my son's school is starting to require some of his papers typed out in print. We're looking to get a laptop. We'd like to use the laptop for gaming, too. So, dear CPians, got recommendations for a laptop with enough juice to do 3d gaming for under $1000? NVidia's Ion graphics[^] thing looks cool...maybe that's the road to take? But I can't find any laptops with this in it...
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
Dell XPS M1730, definitely. Not cheap, expecially if you go for the full-featured model, but it's a great gaming machine!
2+2=5 for very large amounts of 2 (always loved that one hehe!)
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Or if you are a cheapskate like me, simply use the nice big cardboard box the laptop came in as a laptop desk. Triple saving : Save the environment by recycling the box for another purpose. Save your laptop by removing the main source of dust in the fans, your clothes. Save your bloodline by not sterilising yourself with the insane heat from the base of the machine :) [^]
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Ok. The video on the ION graphics page listed above, where you see them playing Call of Duty : World At War...smoke and mirrors?
dan neely wrote:
Mobile GPUs are often significantly less capable than their equivalently named desktop models (Fewer cores, slower clocks) so make sure you know what you're actually getting to do comparisons.
Exactly why I'm asking here. I have no idea what I'm doing. Out of touch with the hardware scene for years now.
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
Judah Himango wrote:
Ok. The video on the ION graphics page listed above, where you see them playing Call of Duty : World At War...smoke and mirrors?
I watched the video. The GPU's a 9400, modest resolution and settings at fairly low levels.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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I've seen basic quad core systems on sale for $400, the GTX260 (or ati equivalent) turn up on sale for $200 every once in a while. $400 will get a bare bones 15" laptop. You might need to add $75ish for a better PSU in the desktop to power the GPU. To get a gaming laptop close to (but still less than) that spec would cost several grand. IIRC the only mobile quad costs ~$1000 from intel, and you'd need 2 SLIed 9800M cards (which you won't see until you get into the $2k+ range).
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
hmmm you're not far off on most of the numbers you quote ...EXCEPT w.r.t. mobile quad for about $350 you can get an intel q9000 mobile quad core cpu it has less lvl 2 cache (2 megs less i think?) and runs slightly slower (think the 9000 runs at about 2 gigahertz and the 9100 2.53 ghz supposedly) but it makes for a really really fast laptop Also the nvidia GTS 120/150/160 mobile gpus give fairly good mileage. Probably won't see quantities of laptops with one of these nvidia gpus & the intel q9000 until mid summer though for $1500 which works out to about 2x the expense of a similarly equipped desktop. C++ya, xkey
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hmmm you're not far off on most of the numbers you quote ...EXCEPT w.r.t. mobile quad for about $350 you can get an intel q9000 mobile quad core cpu it has less lvl 2 cache (2 megs less i think?) and runs slightly slower (think the 9000 runs at about 2 gigahertz and the 9100 2.53 ghz supposedly) but it makes for a really really fast laptop Also the nvidia GTS 120/150/160 mobile gpus give fairly good mileage. Probably won't see quantities of laptops with one of these nvidia gpus & the intel q9000 until mid summer though for $1500 which works out to about 2x the expense of a similarly equipped desktop. C++ya, xkey
I didn't realize they'd finally put out a reasonablish priced mobile quad. The Q9100 does 2.26 and is almost as expensive as the 2.53ghz QX9300. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors#Quad-Core_Notebook_processors[^]
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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hmmm you're not far off on most of the numbers you quote ...EXCEPT w.r.t. mobile quad for about $350 you can get an intel q9000 mobile quad core cpu it has less lvl 2 cache (2 megs less i think?) and runs slightly slower (think the 9000 runs at about 2 gigahertz and the 9100 2.53 ghz supposedly) but it makes for a really really fast laptop Also the nvidia GTS 120/150/160 mobile gpus give fairly good mileage. Probably won't see quantities of laptops with one of these nvidia gpus & the intel q9000 until mid summer though for $1500 which works out to about 2x the expense of a similarly equipped desktop. C++ya, xkey
xkey wrote:
Also the nvidia GTS 120/150/160 mobile gpus give fairly good mileage.
The 1xx series cards are just the latest rebadging of the 9xxx/8xxx architecture, and as such correspond to the $120 or less segment of the desktop market.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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So this past winter, you fine CPians recommended some components for a gaming PC. It worked out brilliantly, and I've been so happy with my current rig, zero problems, great performance...thanks CP! Now, our 2 laptops, both about 7 years old, are dead. And my son's school is starting to require some of his papers typed out in print. We're looking to get a laptop. We'd like to use the laptop for gaming, too. So, dear CPians, got recommendations for a laptop with enough juice to do 3d gaming for under $1000? NVidia's Ion graphics[^] thing looks cool...maybe that's the road to take? But I can't find any laptops with this in it...
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
My wife and I do alot of World of Warcraft and over the past several years have bought a number of laptops that we could play on while we languish in the living room and play wireless. I got her an Asus A8JS (can't remember the exact model) and while it was fast, the hinges on the lid broke after 6 months. This was my first foray away from Dell and my last. My two Dells, a 1520 and an XPS 1530, were specified with 4MB ram, 80MB HD, the fastest cpu and the best Nvidia gpu that was offered. And they rail. I had the 1520 about two days and it died and to Dell's credit they had someone out the next day to replace the motherboard. The XPS came in around $1500 so it is a little beyond your price target but worth it. The 15" screen is plenty big and we get 60fps almost all the time. Since laptops are almost impossible to upgrade the graphics, make sure you don't skip there. You must get a dedicated GPU to get any performance. Next, go for an XGA display, and then the best Intel cpu you can afford. You can upgrade most everything else later. These are just my opinions after 20 years of building, fixing, and programming pc's, ymmv. DR ooo, almost forgot, an excellent source for laptops is http://www.notebookreview.com
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Is Acer good or bad? I'm clueless on the hardware scene.
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
Brand loyalty with respect to laptops, like any other product, is all a matter of opinion. Personally, I refuse to buy Dell. I think their quality is crap. I prefer Toshiba. I have a friend with the inverse opinion. It's all personal experience - I've never had a problem with Toshiba products, but I've seen and dealt with so many Dell failures it's amazing they're still in business. Again, my friend has had the inverse experience. Regarding Acer, well... there's a reason you probably haven't heard of them. They're a little more generic. They're big enough to be found everywhere, but you probably haven't noticed. I'd put them in line next to HP's Compaq line of consumer merchandise (oh how the mighty have fallen...). But, y'know, that's just my opinion. In all likelihood, an Acer or other off-brand laptop will *probably* work just fine for you. Brand hype is just that - hype. If it breaks, that's what warranties are for. A $900 Acer may perform just as well (or better) than a $1300 brand-name. In that regard, take a look at Apple hardware - for the most part, you're paying a premium price for the name. If you were to find equivalent hardware in another brand (replacing OSX inclusion, obviously), you'd *probably* come out ahead. But I digress. Acer = HP = Dell = Asus = Toshiba = Alienware = Gateway = IBM = Sony = Apple = YMMV.