21 replies to this topic

[Catamount]

Jesus DIED for me, on 08 February 2015 - 12:37 AM, said:

Yes.

You've got yourself an internet/e-mail browser.
You can probably watch movies on it all right too.

It's definetely not a gaming laptop.

Gaming laptops cost $2,000-$4,000

And before anyone say that you can get an ok gaming laptop for $1000.. the answer is "nope".

What you could do is build a PC computer from scratch for $1000 and it would qualify as a gaming computer, but not a laptop.

http://www.sagernote...p?productid=406

i7-4720HQ and 970M

Price when paired with another 8GB sodimm from Newegg: a whole $1410. That's not only not $2000, let alone $4000, but that's considerably closer to the $1000 you said was impossible than the $2000 you claimed as a minimum.

Of course, that's quite a good gaming notebook. If one just needs an okay gaming notebook that can simply play games fluently, but maybe sometimes with reduced settings, there are plenty of laptops with i7s and 860Ms for $999. Even in brutal titles like ACU that GPU manages medium settings just fine. For $1200 or so, one can step that up to a 965M which isn't far shy of the 970M.


Now, I don't recommend notebooks. No one here does. They're a niche item for people who either already have a good gaming desktop and still have money to blow or who have some specialized need for mobility. But let's not skew the numbers here. It really doesn't take much more than $1000 to get pretty good performance out of a notebook, and certainly not $2000.

Edited by Catamount, 08 February 2015 - 08:42 AM.

[MercJ]

One of Little Harmony, on 07 February 2015 - 08:29 PM, said:

Despite the apparent consensus, I highly recommend throwing out the extra money for a Haswell (or Broadwell) i3 or i5 instead of the anniversary edition Pentium processor. (You can also use the stock cooler instead of a Hyper212 if you go this way)

There is a sort of novelty about using the anniversary edition Pentium, but unless you really enjoy tweaking computer settings, just shell out for an i3 or i5. Also, if you're going to get an SSD you should go 240gb unless you really enjoy tweaking computer settings. However, this does come at a price....but unless you are in some voodoo edge case in your personal finances, it'll be worth it.

Just wanted to comment on this one real quick - first, absolutely agree - although you'd be surprised how good a (lucky) OC to 4.8 GHz on one of these Pentiums performs in MWO... Yes, for sure though, spending up on an i3 or i5 is definitely a good way to go. However, when you're in that $300-$500 budget range, $40 can make a big difference - that's why the sweet spot is more in that $700+ mark, so you don't have to make as many tradeoffs

Anyway, what I wanted to comment on - the Pentium G3258's actually come with the same stock cooler as the i5s - the "higher end" Intel stock cooler with the copper slug in the middle. It's quite a deal actually. Good for 4.2 GHz at least, as far as cooling. Just wanted to clear that up