13 replies to this topic

[Stallker Eyes]

Ok, here's the deal. Ever since the inception of this game I have always wanted to play it, yet due to stingy parents and obsolete technology I sadly cannot play this game. Now that I had a summer job I have earned some cash and have been keeping an eye out for laptops that are powerful, versatile, and at a reasonable price. I have narrowed it down to three models and would like some feedback if they are capable of handling this game at a low/decent graphics setting.

The first is an Acer Aspire V3-771G-9809 17.3-Inch Laptop. ($884.99)

http://www.amazon.co...rds=acer+aspire


The specs are:

• 17.3" HD+ Widescreen CineCrystal™ LED-backlit Display (1600 x 900) resolution; 16:9 aspect ratio
  
• 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3632QM Processor 2.2GHzwith Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.2GHz
  
• Windows 8
  
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650Mwith 2GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM
  
• 8GB DDR3 Memory
  
• 1TB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drivewith Dual Hard Drive Support
  
• 8X DVD-Super Multi Double-Layer Drive
  
• Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
  
• 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™
  
• 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
  
• Bluetooth® 4.0+HS
  
• 1.3MP HD Webcam(1280 x 1024)
  
• Optimized Dolby® Home Theater® v4 audio enhancement
  
• Two Built-in stereo speakers
  
• 2- USB 2.0 Ports
  
• 2- USB 3.0 Port
  
• 1- HDMI™ Portwith HDCP Support
  
• 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (4400mAh)
  
• Up to 4-hours battery life
  
• 7.05 lbs. | 3.2kg <strong>system unit only

The second one is an Acer Aspire V3-771G-6814 17.3-Inch Laptop. ($725.93)

(similar model as the first, but with different CPU and GPU)
http://www.amazon.co...rds=acer+aspire


Specs:

• 17.3" HD+ Widescreen CineCrystal™ LED-backlit Display (1600 x 900) resolution; 16:9 aspect ratio
  
• 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3230M Processor 2.6GHzwith Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.2GHz
  
• Windows 8
  
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 730Mwith 4GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM
  
• 8GB DDR3 Memory
  
• 750GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drivewith Dual Hard Drive Support
  
• 8X DVD-Super Multi Double-Layer Drive
  
• Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
  
• 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™
  
• 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
  
• Bluetooth® 4.0+HS
  
• 1.3MP HD Webcam
  
• Optimized Dolby® Home Theater® v4 audio enhancement
  
• Two Built-in stereo speakers
  
• 2- USB 2.0 Ports
  
• 2- USB 3.0 Port
  
• 1- HDMI™ Portwith HDCP Support
  
• 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (4400mAh)
  
• Up to 4-hours battery life
  
• 7.05 lbs. | 3.2kg <strong>system unit only

The third one so far (and big surprise) it's an Acer Aspire V5-573G-9491 15.6-inch Laptop ($781.08)


http://www.amazon.co...rds=acer+aspire

Specs:

• 15.6" HD Widescreen CineCrystal™ LED-backlit Display: (1366 x 768) resolution; 16:9 aspect ratio
  
• 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4500U Processor 1.8GHzwith Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.0GHz
  
• Windows 8
  
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 720M with 2GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM
  
• 6GB DDR3 Dual-Channel Memory
  
• 500GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
  
• Digital Media Card Reader - Secure Digital™ (SD) Card
  
• 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™
  
• Bluetooth® 4.0+HS
  
• HD Webcam(1280 x 720)
  
• Optimized Dolby® Home Theater® v4 audio enhancement
  
• Four integrated stereo speakers and integrated microphone
  
• 2- USB 2.0 Ports
  
• 1- USB 3.0 Port with power-off charging
  
• 1- HDMI™ Portwith HDCP Support
  
• 4-cell li-polymer battery (3560 mAh)
  
• Up to 6.5-hours battery life
  
• 4.41lbs. | 2.0kg system unit only

These three are the best of what I could find for under $900. Of each three, they have plenty of RAM, but I am unsure about the Graphic Cards. Is a 650m 2gb better than a 730m 4gb?

Does and i7 perform better than an i5 with x video card? Are these good CPU's?

I plan on using a laptop for moderate gaming, video editing, music creation/djing, school work, coding, and web browsing. Any feed back is appreciated, thanks!

[Sharp Spikes]

I'd say you need quad core cpu, and that leaves us with i7-QM (mobile i5s and i7-Us are dual cores).

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Yes to the first, no to the other two.

Although if you're willing to up your budget a bit I'd suggest a Sager NP7330 for $1070.

[Gremlich Johns]

for that money, just build a desktop and leave the laptop for school.

[Dragoon20005]

with the recent patch for 12 vs 12 games

you better depend on a Geforce GT650M AT LEAST!!!

but seriously Acer have sunk 6 feet under in terms of price vs performance, my 2 Acer Laptops barely survive 2 years of my usage thanks to their poor design and overheating issues.

have you look at Asus?

I believe your max budget is 1k?

[Catamount]

Gremlich Johns, on 12 August 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

for that money, just build a desktop and leave the laptop for school.

Exactly this. Unless there's a reason why you specifically need performance on the go, OP, just build a desktop, that way you have a machine that can play it decently, instead of one that's struggling to play it at all.

[Lord Letto]

Dragoon20005, on 12 August 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

with the recent patch for 12 vs 12 games

you better depend on a Geforce GT650M AT LEAST!!!

but seriously Acer have sunk 6 feet under in terms of price vs performance, my 2 Acer Laptops barely survive 2 years of my usage thanks to their poor design and overheating issues.

have you look at Asus?

I believe your max budget is 1k?

he said those 3 are the best he could find for under $900 so i'm guessing $900 is is Max Budget.

there are 4 Sager Laptops in that price range:
NP2240 Starting at $639.23: http://www.powernote...p-sys-4688.html
NP2252 Starting at $648.93: http://www.powernote...p-sys-4683.html
NP2650 Starting at $765.33: http://www.powernote...s-sys-5586.html
NP4650 Starting at $881.73: http://www.powernote...s-sys-5592.html
For a bit more over the $900 budget there's the NP6652 Starting at $920.53: http://www.powernote...s-sys-5583.html

Also look into the Lenovo Y500

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Also, you should consider looking on ebay to see what you can find. An m17x r3 or something would do the trick nicely if you can find one at a decent price and the CPU/GPU can both be upgraded later on.

[Catamount]

Letto, some of those are nice machines (the ones that don't use an Intel IGP) but keep in mind there's no OS, so two of them will handily pass $900, and the others aren't worth considering. I don't think the price is a bad thing though; I think you're just given the OP the reality for playing games.

OP, $900 is not a good pricepoint. If you want a laptop, you're going to have to be open to increasing your budget to $1000 to play decently, and accept that it's going to be back-breaking and have short battery life.


The Y500 is also the only option that will even come close to approaching even middling desktop performance (and still will be about half as fast as a ~$900 desktop)

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834312438

It also won't play MWO well until SLI support is added to the game, but no other laptop will at this pricepoint either, so that's not a knock against the machine. If I were on the market, that's what I'd go for. It'll simply be the highest-performaning machine you're likely to get.


Another option would be something like this

http://www.xoticpc.c...?wconfigure=yes

A GTX670 will be about 50% faster than a GT650, so it'll be faster than the Y500 in MWO, for now, but still slower overall and probably slower in MWO in the longterm. You'll have to add an OS and increase the CPU to the lowest level i7 (a mobile i3 won't cut it in MWO), so it still comes in at ~$1060 with cash discount.

Edited by Catamount, 13 August 2013 - 07:34 AM.

[Stallker Eyes]

Catamount, on 13 August 2013 - 07:34 AM, said:

The Y500 is also the only option that will even come close to approaching even middling desktop performance (and still will be about half as fast as a ~$900 desktop)

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834312438

It also won't play MWO well until SLI support is added to the game, but no other laptop will at this pricepoint either, so that's not a knock against the machine. If I were on the market, that's what I'd go for. It'll simply be the highest-performaning machine you're likely to get.


Another option would be something like this

http://www.xoticpc.c...?wconfigure=yes

A GTX670 will be about 50% faster than a GT650, so it'll be faster than the Y500 in MWO, for now, but still slower overall and probably slower in MWO in the longterm. You'll have to add an OS and increase the CPU to the lowest level i7 (a mobile i3 won't cut it in MWO), so it still comes in at ~$1060 with cash discount.

Lord Letto, on 12 August 2013 - 07:34 PM, said:

he said those 3 are the best he could find for under $900 so i'm guessing $900 is is Max Budget.

Also look into the Lenovo Y500

Funny you guys would mention the Lenovo y500, because right after I posted here I went to take a look at them. I actually found the Lenovo y510 was pretty doable price wise being $820-$1200 ( http://shop.lenovo.c...y-series/y510p/ ) This model isn't sli and has a GT750 instead of a GT650. I'm still new to this whole "gaming" laptop thing so thanks for the help.

[Stallker Eyes]

Gremlich Johns, on 12 August 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

for that money, just build a desktop and leave the laptop for school.

I would, but seeing that I'm not making a lot of money and living in a house that has 3-4 obsolete yet still functioning desktop pc, another pc would just add to the mess, but it would probably run so much better.

[Catamount]

Stallker Eyes, on 13 August 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

I would, but seeing that I'm not making a lot of money and living in a house that has 3-4 obsolete yet still functioning desktop pc, another pc would just add to the mess, but it would probably run so much better.

Well here's a possible compromise. You want a mobile computer, and a powerful computer, right? Could you do both separately? If you had the right budget, you could easily build, say, a $700 or $800 desktop (that would still lay waste to laptops anywhere shy of the $1500), and then spend maybe $300 on a laptop that would still be able to handle any of your tasks, except gaming, on the go.

You already have desktops around, yes, but can't you just set one of those in a closet or something and move the new one in in its place? Then, when you move out, stick the old one back in and spend the whopping 80 or 90 bucks to buy yourself a monitor.


Advantages:

-Get a real gaming machine that plays current and future games well, instead of kinda sorta doing the former and maybe not doing the latter at all

-Get a laptop that actually feels like a laptop, with passably mobile weight, dimensions and battery life, instead of a back-breaking 9 pound monstrosity that dies in 2 hours with the screen on minimum brightness and the wifi turned off

-uhhh... have two computers?

Disadvantages:

-you'll have to probably shell out $1000-$1200 (but $1000 would have to be within your budget for a decent laptop anyways)

-no serious gaming on the go (but you can typically still stay occupied)



There's also an option 3:

Gaming desktop plus tablet

$300-$400 will get you a pretty nice tablet, something you could do some gaming on, on the go, and it would possibly be a better device to use at school than a laptop. I just replaced my laptop with a Nexus 10 for school use, and it's pure bliss being able to take around maybe a pound worth of device with 8 hours of battery life that still works very competently as a note-taking device (Kings Office and a $20 BT keyboard), instead of hauling around 6 or 7 pounds and always being "that guy" who has to constantly look for and sit next to an outlet. If you're in high school instead of college, or attending a lame college where they're still actually making use of school books in the majority of your classes, during class, it's that much nicer to not have a giant 15" laptop in the workflow.

In fact, at App State I'm seeing a lot fewer laptops as of the last year or so, replaced by a wave of tablet users.

Advantages:

-CAN game on the go, whether android of ios, but you still get the desktop

-much better mobile device for school


Disadvantages:

-limited to mobile software; serious work must be done at home

-still out a little more money than the cost of a laptop alone



Trust me, I've done all of this, and I mean I've tried every mobile setup you can imagine. That included being restricted to a "gaming laptop" as my primary computer (Desktop Pentium 4 Northwood and a Mobility Radeon 9000 awwwwwwwwwww yeah),as well as a gaming laptop as a for-travel auxiliary machine while owning a desktop (Asus N61JQ, getting long in the tooth now, but still plays most games 3 and 1/2 year later; kicked *** when I bought it), and now I mostly do desktop + tablet, and I have to say, desktop + tablet has been the nicest setup I've had to date.


Don't underestimate just how burdensome even a mobile laptop is in a school setting, and most defintiely do not underestimate how burdensome a gaming laptop with poor battery life is. I've played that game, constantly having to walk ackwardly with all the weight on my shoulder, bumping and ramming my expensive machine on this stair or that corner, usually by someone else's fault, having to constantly look for power outlets and knowing that when I can't find one that's not taken or sit next to it that I have to just not use the laptop like I was planning to, trying to constantly deal with power cables and an unrealistic amount of desktop or table space for the machine (and living in constant fear or someone catching the power cable with a shoe and yanking it off, which HAS happened to me)...

Trust me, the whole "gaming laptop" thing does NOT afford the mobility you're imagining. I know; I've been doing it for nearly 10 years, and there is a cavernous divide between expectations and reality

Edited by Catamount, 13 August 2013 - 06:56 PM.

[Euphor Kell]

have you thought about the nvidia S.H.I.E.L.D / kepler combo? if you wanted to go the desktop route?

grab a kepler-based nvidia card in your PC, get a nvidia shield tablet, then you have the on the go gaming with the shield, the power of a desktop pc, and (when its out of beta) the ability to play MWO on a tablet around the house. not to mention the shield is reasonably priced at around $300 (for a tablet)

that leaves 600ish to get a decent computer, its tight, but doable... especially if you have others laying around you're willing to cannabilise, even if they're not gaming grade, you can (probably) salvage the hard drive (provided its not completely ancient still using IDE), power supply, monitor, mouse, keyboard possibly the ram (if its new enough) and the chassis/case.
that leaves, motherboard, CPU, Video Card and probably ram.


however, if you want to go the laptop route, i have an ASUS N53jn, it has a 2.4GHz dual core CPU (with HT which helps massively) and a 1GB 335m Video card.
it plays MWO on minimum settings, with 12 v 12, but barely, drops to about 20fps in melee/brawling, so those laptops should do okay.

[Dragoon20005]

As of now, I am compiling a guide on the desktop and laptops that can play MWO with current beta state of game

be sure to look out for it in the next few days