26 replies to this topic

[Summon3r]

hey guys my knowledge of laptops is very limited. can anyone point me in the direction of where to look for a gaming laptop that could run MWO around medium settings (nothing less)? only real other use will be for streaming to TV.

is it possible to do this in the 1200-1500$ range?

unfortunately pcpartpicker doesnt help much in this department

[xWiredx]

Looking at the Lenovo Y50 would be a good place to start. It should net a pretty good MWO experience.

[RangerMNDN]

You could also look at Alienware, as they have gaming laptops as well. Only problem or good thing, depending on your point of view, is that they are a subsidiary of Dell.

[Egomane]

Sager

[Summon3r]

RangerMNDN, on 19 September 2014 - 07:16 AM, said:

You could also look at Alienware, as they have gaming laptops as well. Only problem or good thing, depending on your point of view, is that they are a subsidiary of Dell.

thanks, but anything Dell is out. learnt my lesson there.

[ultraFloon]

bonjour

Je joue un ordinateur portable MSI sur 2 ans et je l'aime. MSI GT60-2PC 460XFR Dominator est vraiment bon pour votre budget, le bouton du ventilateur bon. pour bon processeur cold .

http://www.ldlc.com/...PB00164108.html

Edited by ultraFloon, 19 September 2014 - 08:33 AM.

[Lord Letto]

checked Newegg Canada (Cause you're from BC According to your Location), came across 2 Gigabytes in your $1200-1500 Price Range:
http://www.newegg.ca...N82E16834233038
Gigabyte P15FV2-CF2 for $1270
Windows 8.1 64 bit
I7-4810MQ (2.8GHz Quad Core)
8GB DDR3 RAM (1x8GB), 1TB HDD (7200RPM)
GTX 850M 2GB GDDR3 (Dedicated)
15.6" 1080P

http://www.newegg.ca...N82E16834233049
Gigabyte P27Gv2-CF1 for $1500
Windows 8.1
I7-4810MQ (2.8GHz Quad Core)
8GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB HDD (7200RPM)
GTX 860M 2GB GDDR5 (Dedicated)
17.3" 1080P

[ultraFloon]

http: //www.tomshardw...aptop,3829.html

((((((Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M, 3 Go GDDR5-5000))))))

très bon

Edited by ultraFloon, 19 September 2014 - 08:53 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

the Asus RoG series are good.

For example this one http://www.newegg.co...1-631-_-Product

Out of your budget by a small amount, but maybe you can find it cheaper elsewhere.
I have one of these and it plays it at a mix of medium and high settings.

[Oni74]

I play MWO on my Dell Inspiron 15 7537. Stylish laptop, good for both work and play, with IPS display and touchscreen. Since Dell isn't an option for you, perhaps you should consider Lenovo Y series. I would not touch gaming laptops from MSI/Asus. Their stuff all suffer from heat issues from all the high-end spec components they stuffed into small chasis.

[MadTulip]

"Gaming-Laptop" is like "Knife-Spoon". It is per se a very bad idea and one of the electronics industries new marketing stupidity like "healthy cigaretts". Laptops are far more expansive then desktops with compareable performance. You might pay half or less for a desktop with the same performance. Laptops main advantage is mobility and size. They achieve that by reduced performance. Even if its about size i would rather buy a small form factor desktop instead unless you want to play MWO at the airport, in train or on plane which is probably not the case.

DO NOT GET A LAPTOP FOR GAMING EVER!

is my recommentation as an electronics and informatics engineer.

Here is a performance comparison for CPU,GPU and such.:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
It also includes a performance per price list where you can see which product offers the most boom for the bucks.

- If you want fast loading/boot times get fast HDDs like SSDs.
- If you want to load only once (while switching between levels or tasks on the desktop) get more RAM
- If you want games to execute fluently and fast invest in the grafics card.
- If you want fast none grafical computations like video/music compression or plain math number crunching get a fast CPU unless some very rare cases in which this can be done by GPUs which most likely dont apply to you.

RAM is in tendency cheap for its effect so i would not get to few there.
RAM on the GPU should also not be to few.

In general i would buy all things in 2nd generation/last seaon version. As the current version usualy is like 10% faster for 100% more bucks.

Edited by MadTulip, 19 September 2014 - 09:45 AM.

[Kurkotain]

Sadly, if you want to play mwo in something resembling medium settings while having decent framerate and tolerable slowdowns during heavy combat, the gpu is going to be the limiting factor.

To have a decent gpu in a laptop with the ability to do that, you have to go above 1400, to the ones that go for 1800, and even then you approach the point of diminishing returns.

Experience: I play mwo in an Asus G750jw, and while it is a beast of a machine, for mwo it is gpu limited (even if it is a Nvidia Geforce GTX 765M 2 GB - mwo is very demanding game, graphics wise)

About 1250 when i bought it on amazon plus 180 for samsung SSD.

I have to play with a custom setting where everything is on minimum, DX9, and only object detail and texturing are on high and medium respectively, and with that i get about 80 fps with minimum action, 50 - 60 fps while under medium combat. Feels comfortable for most situations.
Only heat vision and frozen city butchers the framerate to the low 20 - 30 while under combat.

Recommendations:

http://www.amazon.co...words=asus+g750

That is the next generation of my personal laptop, long story short, the only difference is the newer generation gpu.

http://www.notebookc...M.107794.0.html

The GTX 860m is a strange beast in the way that, even though it is smaller than the 765m, its slightly to significantly faster compared to the 765m since its based on the newer generation (maxwell) arquitecture.
I guess with a slight overclock it could give the 870m a run for its money, since the G750 series laptops are absolutely overbuilt when it comes to cooling.
Beware thought, all that cooling infrastructure does make the computer big and bulky. I'm used to big 17" laptops so its no problem for me, and i take it everywhere with me (classes, lan parties, recording rooms, it goes with me everywhere) and it's surprisingly thin for something packing this much power AND cooling.

You might get something significantly thinner, svelte, and sexier in the Razer blade Pro, but by that point, you are buying a 17" macbook pro that runs windows and packs more gpu, and though a friends has one, and swears by it, i just can't see the blade pro having the same cooling power as the G750 series.

A step up the ladder is this model:

http://www.amazon.co...words=asus+g750

Same as above, only difference is that it packs the Nvidia GTX 870m, AND a 256 GB SSD, so looking at it from the value perspective, you are only paying about 1570, if you count the price of the SSD since it is a pretty necesary upgrade on the first model.

The thing is, the 870m is based on the previous arquitecture (Kepler) which means that it achieves its high performance through having more resources (shaders) higher clocks and a bigger memory interface.

http://www.notebookc...M.107792.0.html

That in itself isn't a bad thing if you are looking for pure performance, but i am intrigued about what maxwell with an overclock could do, since the depending on the workload, the 860 competes and trumps the 770m from the previous generation.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Kurkotain, on 19 September 2014 - 09:32 AM, said:

Sadly, if you want to play mwo in something resembling medium settings while having decent framerate and tolerable slowdowns during heavy combat, the gpu is going to be the limiting factor.

To have a decent gpu in a laptop with the ability to do that, you have to go above 1400, to the ones that go for 1800, and even then you approach the point of diminishing returns.

Experience: I play mwo in an Asus G750jw, and while it is a beast of a machine, for mwo it is gpu limited (even if it is a Nvidia Geforce GTX 765M 2 GB - mwo is very demanding game, graphics wise)

About 1250 when i bought it on amazon plus 180 for samsung SSD.

I have to play with a custom setting where everything is on minimum, DX9, and only object detail and texturing are on high and medium respectively, and with that i get about 80 fps with minimum action, 50 - 60 fps while under medium combat. Feels comfortable for most situations.
Only heat vision and frozen city butchers the framerate to the low 20 - 30 while under combat.

Recommendations:

http://www.amazon.co...words=asus+g750

That is the next generation of my personal laptop, long story short, the only difference is the newer generation gpu.

http://www.notebookc...M.107794.0.html

The GTX 860m is a strange beast in the way that, even though it is smaller than the 765m, its slightly to significantly faster compared to the 765m since its based on the newer generation (maxwell) arquitecture.
I guess with a slight overclock it could give the 870m a run for its money, since the G750 series laptops are absolutely overbuilt when it comes to cooling.
Beware thought, all that cooling infrastructure does make the computer big and bulky. I'm used to big 17" laptops so its no problem for me, and i take it everywhere with me (classes, lan parties, recording rooms, it goes with me everywhere) and it's surprisingly thin for something packing this much power AND cooling.

You might get something significantly thinner, svelte, and sexier in the Razer blade Pro, but by that point, you are buying a 17" macbook pro that runs windows and packs more gpu, and though a friends has one, and swears by it, i just can't see the blade pro having the same cooling power as the G750 series.

A step up the ladder is this model:

http://www.amazon.co...words=asus+g750

Same as above, only difference is that it packs the Nvidia GTX 870m, AND a 256 GB SSD, so looking at it from the value perspective, you are only paying about 1570, if you count the price of the SSD since it is a pretty necesary upgrade on the first model.

The thing is, the 870m is based on the previous arquitecture (Kepler) which means that it achieves its high performance through having more resources (shaders) higher clocks and a bigger memory interface.

http://www.notebookc...M.107792.0.html

That in itself isn't a bad thing if you are looking for pure performance, but i am intrigued about what maxwell with an overclock could do, since the depending on the workload, the 860 competes and trumps the 770m from the previous generation.

I don't know how many times it has to be said, MWO is CPU bound not GPU bound, that said yes the 770M isn't perfect.

[Tremendous Upside]

DV McKenna, on 19 September 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:

the Asus RoG series are good.

For example this one http://www.newegg.co...1-631-_-Product

Out of your budget by a small amount, but maybe you can find it cheaper elsewhere.
I have one of these and it plays it at a mix of medium and high settings.

RoG laptops are solid. I've been running this game on my G73SW "Best Buy" edition from day 1. I got it refurbished from Best Buy for $600 3 years ago... and the Best Buy versions of the RoG laptops are kind of bare bones (typically less VRAM and lower res screens). Still handles MWO with ease on a mix of medium and high settings though. I very very rarely get framerate hiccups even on an archaic GTX460m.

[Kurkotain]

Yes, when you have one big gpu (880GTX, 295) MWO is cpu bound.

But in the case of a mid-high range mobile gpu (756m - 860m), coupled to a fast quad core i7 (4700 HQ) what do you think is gonna be the bottleneck?

[FriscoeHotsauce]

Okay okay, i'll try and be quick. MWO is indeed a GPU intensive game. That being said, you absolutely want a quad core processor when looking for your laptop.

Personally, I played MWO on an ASUS G74s (A few years old at this point) until I bought a laptop. My recommendation is, build a desktop. It will look significantly better on a desktop. BUT, if that's not an option, I would send ASUS along highly recommended. I had mine for years, and it worked great. However, don't delusion yourself that you'll be playing games on max specs or anything, it is still a laptop.

My warnings are, avoid Alienware like the plague. When I bought my laptop, i paid $1300 for it, and a comparable alienware was $2200. Granted the case was prettier, but not $900 prettier. Also, find the best mobile graphics card you can for the money, do your research, better clock rate is more important than DDR5 ram.

[WarHippy]

I would go with the laptop I linked below, and it is just inside your price range. I have an older model(about 3-4 years older) and it can still run MWO fairly well. The Asus RoG series laptops are very solid.
http://www.newegg.co...=9SIA1CZ1R67173

Edited by WarHippy, 19 September 2014 - 11:32 AM.

[Lord Letto]

the 2 Gigabyte ones I posted above is faster then the other ones you guys are posting (2.8GHz vs 2.4GHz), 16 GB isn't really needed right now so 8GB Should be fine, I'm not sure how good the GTX 850M or 860M Would be on the GPU End (and Toms don't have them listed in their hierarchy chart) but I would Guess the 860M would be good and the lappy with it is right at the top of his budget.

4700HD vs 4810MQ:
http://www.cpu-world..._i7-4810MQ.html
http://cpuboss.com/c...-Core-i7-4700HQ

I used GPUBoss.Com to compare the 860M to the 680M (Same level as the desktop GTX 295, 480, 570 and 660) and 580M/675M (Same Level as GTX 560, 650Ti and 750) and it was somewhere in between (Possibly somewhere in the realm of GTX 560TI, 560TI 448 Core, 650TI Boost, 750 TI)

Edited by Lord Letto, 19 September 2014 - 12:44 PM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Lord Letto, on 19 September 2014 - 12:33 PM, said:

the 2 Gigabyte ones I posted above is faster then the other ones you guys are posting (2.8GHz vs 2.4GHz), 16 GB isn't really needed right now so 8GB Should be fine, I'm not sure how good the GTX 850M or 860M Would be on the GPU End (and Toms don't have them listed in their hierarchy chart) but I would Guess the 860M would be good and the lappy with it is right at the top of his budget.

4700HD vs 4810MQ:
http://www.cpu-world..._i7-4810MQ.html
http://cpuboss.com/c...-Core-i7-4700HQ

I used GPUBoss.Com to compare the 860M to the 680M (Same level as the desktop GTX 295, 480, 570 and 660) and 580M/675M (Same Level as GTX 560, 650Ti and 750) and it was somewhere in between (Possibly somewhere in the realm of GTX 560TI, 560TI 448 Core, 650TI Boost, 750 TI)

For the extra $200 of the Asus one, he's getting an 870M with 3Gb of Vram better than the 850 and 860M 2GB, the 870M delivers 40% better FPS in crysis 3 at very high than the 860M.
http://gpuboss.com/g...eForce-GTX-860M

In addition he's also getting 8gb extra DDR3 albeit as we all know that's not relevant for gaming right now, but who knows with Star Citizen type games.

And he's also getting a 256GB SSD in with it.

And ofc owning the G750JS RoG i can testify to the fact it plays this game on a mix of medium high settings at late 30's/40's FPS range.
I've also used the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to turn up the multipliers on the active cores to their maximum values, whilst being able to turn the voltage down on the CPU.

Either one will play the game, but the Asus one will play other games better with the better GPU.

Edited by DV McKenna, 19 September 2014 - 02:22 PM.

[Gremlich Johns]

Egomane, on 19 September 2014 - 07:24 AM, said:

Sager

What this guy says.....

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 20 September 2014 - 12:00 PM.