19 replies to this topic

[DireWolf747]

I am currently in the market for a new gaming computer but don't have a ton of time to do the research that I should. I was hoping to get some suggestions. I know some people are going to reply and so you need to get a desktop but with my busy life Laptops are the best I have been a laptop gamer for 10 years and have always been happy with them.

I am looking for a good laptop for gaming priced between $1,000 and $1,500. Also i did notice that their are 3rd gen i5 and i7 processors coming out and the new NVidia G600 series any idea on weather I should wait for these or go with the 2nd gen and Nvidia G500 series.

thank you ahead of time for your help.

[The Maestro]

http://www.newegg.co...rder=BESTMATCH#

I'm a fan of Asus, their build quality is top-notch and their prices are pretty reasonable. All of those should run CryEngine 3, with varying levels of quality.

[Vulpesveritas]

You may want to wait on the laptop a bit. The current Nvidia high end mobile 6xx offerings are all rebranded 5xx series GPUs, whereas AMD is coming out with GCN 28nm based 78xxm and 79xxm GPUs. Just a thought.
But yeah I would say Asus or Puget Systems.

[Gremlich Johns]

Sager notebooks/laptops

[Catamount]

Sager is a pretty good brand, so is Asus, so is MSI (everyone I know has had good luck with them and they're confident enough to give stellar warranties). Anything made by Clevo is also good.

[eNeRgY 2k]

I have a maxxed out Alienware m14x that I paid about 2,100$ US dollars for. I can run BF3 on medium settings at around 40-50 FPS.

It has the GT555m 3GB and i7 2820 and 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM, but it's only a 14" laptop (actually in real life, because of it's components, it's equal to a 15" laptop)

Anyway, you pay a big price premium for the "alienware" name and lights; and the build quality.

You could get something more powerful (in terms of graphics power) like from ASuS the G53, or G74 and save 1k dollars.

I ended up building a i7 + GTX570 SLi rig desktop though because I just ended up missing the 23" monitors and such.

[Hayashi]

The one I'm using is a Lenovo Y470. Has i.7-2630QM, 2GB Nvidia GT 550M, 8GB RAM.

When you're dealing with laptops for the purpose of gaming the most important thing is to look at the graphics card. Check out the comparison sites like notebookreview. On almost every gaming laptop system I know of, the limiting factor is the graphics card, not any other factor.

The most powerful gaming laptop of the 14 inch class is the Alienware m14x that the poster above me possesses, but it's freaking heavy and it is double the price of the Y470. If you're looking for higher performance than that, you'll probably have to go for a 17".

On weight vs performance considerations (that is, if you're looking to use it for applications other than gaming), the best two that come to my mind, prebuilt, are the Y470 ($1000 ish) and the Razer Blade ($2400 ish). But for pure performance, there are quite a lot of other options in the 17" class that are superior to both of these - and for a cheaper price tag than the Blade.

I'd recommend you first look for what is the minimum graphics performance you desire, and the maximum weight/dimensions you can tolerate for a laptop... once you have both these down, the amount of laptops out there will be filtered down to single digit. Of the mix, buy the one that has the best build quality to price ratio.

Toshiba, for one, has horrible build quality. And while my best computer experience has been with Fujitsus, they're hideously overpriced for their performance class.

[ChalybsUmbra]

I have an ASUS G73sw, which is very good for the price. Republic of Gamers is very trustworthy, and their G series has probably the best air ventilation system for laptops on the market. Although you should wait until the new 28nm mobile GPUs come out, besides the 660m. The eventual 680m should be 28nm, and the king of mobile GPUs for a while, probably alongside with ATI's mobile counterpart as well.

[SideSt3p]

I'm also in the market for a new gaming laptop. I'm going to be traveling a lot over the next 6 months and I had originally planned to build a new desktop but yea. I've been looking at these two myself:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834230141

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834230132

Might go with the cheaper option just so I can spend money on that beefy gaming rig

[Catamount]

The problem is that there are huge tradeoffs, not just inherent to notebooks, but to each company's notebook.

Asus laptops only use higher TDP Nvidia GPUs right now. TDP is a modest concern in desktops (to a point), but critical in laptops. Higher TDP means less battery life and a beefier cooling system that, in turn, means a heavier laptop, a bulkier laptop, and less battery still. To compound this problem, to my knowledge Asus doesn't generally offer the kind of switchable graphics that give many machines these days 7-10 hours of battery life, instead of just 1 or 2.


HP has laptops with good GPUs (like the Radeon HD 6770M), and great battery life. They're also almost completely unusable for gaming, because HP does not cool their laptops adequately.

Macbook pros have the same GPU(s) and battery life as HP notebooks, but suffer the same problem (adequate cooling for everday tasks, but not real hardware stress), and have the added issue of massively increased hardware price.



One could get something like this: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834131260

But again, does it suffer the same problems? That chassis doesn't look like it could dissipate a lot of heat either. It's probably like the HP/Apple notebooks.


So basically, the choice remains between real gaming performance, or decent battery life, because even though it's not hard to put both into a machine, thus far no one has.


My advice? If you want a real laptop, and at least halfway decent gaming performance. WAIT. AMD Trinity is coming out. Trinity is already shipping to ODMs I hear, so laptops should be released soon (summer, right?). Trinity will have integrated graphics, which will give it great battery life, but the integrated graphics will also be pretty good for gaming. Laptops also should ship with hybrid crossfire quite cheaply.

So if all one cares about is gaming performance, just get something beefy like Sidest3p's above GTX560M machine. It won't be much of a laptop, but it'll play games.

SideSt3p, on 26 April 2012 - 05:56 AM, said:

Might go with the cheaper option just so I can spend money on that beefy gaming rig

If that's your plan, then forget that machine. Trinity will be shipping better-performing machines soon for the same price, that will give you better battery life.

Here's a performance preview:

http://www.tomshardw...mark,15442.html

Trinity ALONE, without the 7670 added on, should outperform the GT 540M, based on its comparison to the GT 635M on that chart. The GT 635M is between 50% and 60% faster than the GT 540M, but only about 30% faster than Trinity.

If Trinity releases as the same price-point as Llano did, you should also be able to get a laptop with a 7670 in hybrid crossfire for around the same price as that GT 540M laptop, which would still give you the great battery life, but completely blow away a GT 540M in gaming (it should basically compete with the GTX 560M machine you're looking at for performance, but cost less, give a lighter machine, and give you much better battery life).

[Motionless]

You could always get a desktop and a netbook too So you could get some great gaming on your desktop and excellent mobility on your netbook.

But my vote is for Sager as well, pretty decent setups there.

[SGT Unther]

I would also consider AVA Direct http://www.avadirect.com/

But you also have to ask yourself "Do I really need a Laptop?"

Don't get me wrong, I love my laptop but I also have a desktop. For the same amount of money you are going to put out for a laptop you can get a vastly superior gaming desktop which will offer better a upgrade path and last you longer than a gaming laptop.

Edited by SGT Unther, 27 April 2012 - 04:14 AM.

[Thornix]

Alienware laptops are (one of) the best for gaming.

[Vulpesveritas]

Thornix, on 27 April 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

Alienware laptops are (one of) the best for gaming.

*cough*you're kidding, right? Eurocomp, sager, Puget Systems, cyberpower, Razer, and quite a few other companies make much better gaming PC's.

[Catamount]

Vulpesveritas, on 27 April 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

*cough*you're kidding, right? Eurocomp, sager, Puget Systems, cyberpower, Razer, and quite a few other companies make much better gaming PC's.

Or at the very least, equally good gaming machines for about half the price

[SGT Unther]

Alienware was good, before Dell bought them

[Vulpesveritas]

Catamount, on 27 April 2012 - 06:14 PM, said:

Or at the very least, equally good gaming machines for about half the price

perhaps equally good performance, but not equally good durability, heat dissipation, customer service, or quality.
That said, Asus has some nice laptops around the same price as said alienware that is higher quality in general.

Sadly, it's dell we're talking about anymore.

[HeartoftheJaguar]

I was looking into getting one of these;

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834214490

They're $1028 off Amazon. Good price, though it's rather enormous with that 17.3 inch screen. This thread has opened me up to new options I wasn't aware of though.

[LordDeathStrike]

eNeRgY 2k, on 21 April 2012 - 11:02 AM, said:

I have a maxxed out Alienware m14x that I paid about 2,100$ US dollars for. I can run BF3 on medium settings at around 40-50 FPS.

It has the GT555m 3GB and i7 2820 and 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM, but it's only a 14" laptop (actually in real life, because of it's components, it's equal to a 15" laptop)

Anyway, you pay a big price premium for the "alienware" name and lights; and the build quality.

You could get something more powerful (in terms of graphics power) like from ASuS the G53, or G74 and save 1k dollars.

I ended up building a i7 + GTX570 SLi rig desktop though because I just ended up missing the 23" monitors and such.

alienware is just rebranded low end dell rubbish, they just slap on some stickers and up the price. if you are going to spend 2k+ get a clevo based sager, you get better hardware for your money because its not rebranded dell scraps.

alienware USED to use good hardware at overpriced levels, then dell bought them, they kept the prices high, and started useing ****** parts.

[Gremlich Johns]

SGT Unther, on 27 April 2012 - 06:17 PM, said:

Alienware was good, before Dell bought them

My son thought so, until he started writing video games, then found the Sager to be better product. (This was before Dell acquired them)