14 replies to this topic

[naterist]

i want to splurge on a good laptop to play this on. I have 1500$ but no tech knowledge. I also want to have lol and maplestory downloaded on the same laptop. Any suggestions? Im looking for something that will do the job. I dont need super awesome, though that alienware 13 at 999$ looked good to me.

[levitas]

I know it's not what you want to hear, but any laptop is going to be VERY inferior to a built desktop for playing this game.

I got an Alienware M17X a few years back (~2,000), and honestly, I would avoid the brand unless you're okay with upgrading every couple years as a mandatory measure. The good is that their warranty covers your hardware very well for a year. If something is wrong, you will have a new part on your doorstep almost immediately from what I hear. The bad: at least with mine, I never received even one update for graphics drivers. It was a "hybrid chip array" between an integrated graphics card and a NVIDIA 270m(?- it's been a while), and they never bothered to update the driver. NVIDIA would release a driver, games would update to take advantage of the update, and suddenly graphical glitches would appear everywhere for me. Skyrim became unplayable after I played it for two weeks because of this issue.

Now, on the other hand, you can get a very nice built desktop for ~$1100. I finally built one in december with this budget, and you can get an intel i5 4690K, MSI radeon R9 270X, 16GB RAM, good motherboard, good power supply, cheap SSD, 1TB Hard drive, case, optical drive, AND a 1080p monitor for this price. If you drop the monitor and SSD, this becomes $900. If you're a university student, you can often get a deal on an OS (or even one for free for most engineering schools).

On top of that, you can get fairly cheap (but reasonable) laptop for the remainder. If you go $900 for the desktop, you get a pretty nice one. If you don't already have the monitor (like I didn't), you'll end up with a respectable laptop.

I'm incredibly happy with this PC btw. It plays on ultra settings at 60FPS after I turn off depth of field and cockpit glass (above 40FPS otherwise, though I really prefer these options off personally).


TL;DR: Alienware products go obsolete quick due to lack of support. Most bang for buck option assuming you need a laptop is to build a desktop (which can run MWO beautifully), and get a laptop with the remainder of your budget. I wish I'd gone this way last time I was looking at computers.

[xWiredx]

MWO loves CPU, so an i7 4710M should be considered your minimum CPU. I would go for a 4810M if you can. GTX 860M or better as far as mobile GPU goes.

Check machines out on the xoticpc website. Alienware is horribly overpriced.

[levitas]

xWiredx, on 10 January 2015 - 07:37 PM, said:

MWO loves CPU, so an i7 4710M should be considered your minimum CPU. I would go for a 4810M if you can. GTX 860M or better as far as mobile GPU goes.

Check machines out on the xoticpc website. Alienware is horribly overpriced.

xWiredx, on 28 October 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

I guess I'll be "that guy".

As it pertains to MWO, there is a lot of discussion including hyperthreading already:
http://mwomercs.com/...=hyperthreading

Hyperthreading as a general concept:
http://en.wikipedia....Hyper-threading

The wiki article describes how it works, the performance increase claims, drawbacks, etc.

My personal experience: Hyperthreading on my i7 2600K helped out maybe by a few percent, nothing spectacular. 1-3FPS difference, which is technically within margin of error (although it did seem to be a consistent difference when testing with FRAPS). With my i7 5820K, there is zero difference either way so I just leave it on.

Your own post indicates that the chief advantage of the i7 of hyperthreading doesn't help much if at all. Am I missing something, or is the i5 a valid choice here?

[naterist]

Im fresh out of bootcamp so i cant build my own unfortunatly because in stuch on base. I need to have it ordered online

[levitas]

In that case, definitely take a look at xoticpc as xWiredx suggested. They have some good prebuilt stuff for a decent price. Definitely aim for an i5 or higher though.

[xWiredx]

solar levitas, on 10 January 2015 - 07:41 PM, said:

Your own post indicates that the chief advantage of the i7 of hyperthreading doesn't help much if at all. Am I missing something, or is the i5 a valid choice here?

When it comes to mobile chips, which the OP is asking about laptops so that is the arena I am addressing, i5 CPUs are dual-cores with hyperthreading on (essentially like a desktop i3) while the i7 CPUs are quad-cores with hyperthreading (basically like a lower-clocked version of the desktop equivalent). There are a few exceptions, but they won't be pertinent here (like the ultra low power i7s that are dual-cores with hyperthreading). So any notebook with an i7 4710M or better, and a GTX 860M or better, is what the OP should go for.

[MLM13]

Best laptop for the buck. Im using asus x555L during the holidays to play and everything is actually good. Use the remaining $$$ to buy MCs!!!!

Edited by MLM13, 10 January 2015 - 11:42 PM.

[Philldoe]

This is what you want. http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834232202

[Sarlic]

xWiredx, on 10 January 2015 - 09:12 PM, said:

When it comes to mobile chips, which the OP is asking about laptops so that is the arena I am addressing, i5 CPUs are dual-cores with hyperthreading on (essentially like a desktop i3) while the i7 CPUs are quad-cores with hyperthreading (basically like a lower-clocked version of the desktop equivalent). There are a few exceptions, but they won't be pertinent here (like the ultra low power i7s that are dual-cores with hyperthreading). So any notebook with an i7 4710M or better, and a GTX 860M or better, is what the OP should go for.

Good advice.

There is one more advice i would like to give:

Make sure to make the decision if you want to go for a full glare / glossy screen or a full matte screen.
I can imagine the frusation with a full glare screen, that works like a mirror and it's not fun when you can see everything in that 'mirror' screen.

1. Here is a example what i mean: Notice the gloss?


2. Notice the lights in the left screen of that laptop?


3. This could be highly annoying when you are on a base for example:


4. Also a keyboard with backlight would come in handy. You know if your sitting in a tent or a in dark room.



5. My last advice: If you can, go for stereo sound. Not mono sound. Stereo sound is better.


Hope this helps!

Edited by Sarlic, 11 January 2015 - 01:28 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

solar levitas, on 10 January 2015 - 07:41 PM, said:

Your own post indicates that the chief advantage of the i7 of hyperthreading doesn't help much if at all. Am I missing something, or is the i5 a valid choice here?

I've got an i5 2500K in my pc that does the job just fine, but I'm not sure if an i5 laptop CPU would be good enough, they tend to be considerably slower. MWO is optimized for quadcore CPUs, so you probably won't get a noticeable performance boost from hyperthreading, but you will still need a reasonably fast CPU either way.

Here are the official system requirements for reference.
http://mwomercs.com/...m-requirements/

[Sarlic]

Did these tips work out?

[MavRCK]

best performance - value out there y50 i7 860m

http://shop.lenovo.c...o/y-series/y50/

direct from lenovo seem to be the best prices too


use throttlestop7 to keep the cpu running fast ie 3.3 without overheating
use nvidia inspector to overclock the 860m 115-300mhz

enjoy 60fps 1080p mwo

Edited by MavRCK, 14 January 2015 - 08:54 AM.

[MavRCK]

http://gizmodo.com/4...-mor-1679474321

[Killed by Death]

Im looking to buy a Lenovo Y50 in the next few days. MWO runs perfectly fine on my ASUS G73SW 460M , roughly 28-40 FPS. You dont need a crazy powerful Card to enjoy this game. I originally played it on a panasonic Toughbook but i would ot recomend that.
If you have $1500 check amazon. New ASUS G751 with a 965M is on standby.