19 replies to this topic

[TheSupergeek]

I'm looking to get a new laptop that I can use at my tread-desk (I have extra monitors, keyboards, and mice to attach to it) and while traveling. HDMI out and 1080p H.264 video playback on an external device is also important.

I don't need anything big; in fact, the smaller the better since I want it for occasional travel. Native screen size should be 14" to 15.6". Lighter is better.

Is there anything relatively inexpensive that fits these criteria that will play MWO on the lowest settings? Under $600? Cheaper is better.

Edited by TheSupergeek, 04 January 2013 - 08:14 AM.

[Youngblood]

Standard answer, TheSupergeek--what resolution and how many frames per second are you comfortable with?

[TheSupergeek]

Youngblood, on 04 January 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:

Standard answer, TheSupergeek--what resolution and how many frames per second are you comfortable with?

30 fps is probably acceptable.

I imagine anything higher than 1366x768 resolution would come at a premium, so that.

Well, if I'm running it off an external monitor, that monitor would probably be 1920x1080. So I guess a recommendation for both resolutions would be useful.

Edited by TheSupergeek, 04 January 2013 - 12:08 PM.

[Gremlich Johns]

Go with a Sager

[Oderint dum Metuant]

TheSupergeek, on 04 January 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

Is there anything relatively inexpensive that fits these criteria that will play MWO on the lowest settings? Under $600? Cheaper is better.

Gremlich Johns, on 05 January 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:

Go with a Sager

!!!!

Edited by DV McKenna, 05 January 2013 - 08:23 AM.

[Gremlich Johns]

DV McKenna, on 05 January 2013 - 08:22 AM, said:

!!!!

I do not advocate cheapest or inexpensive, spend the money on the best buy for your funds or not at all. You'll end up buying more that your limit anyway when the first laptop is fail.

Try this one, it's a little bit over, but will do the job at under $900.

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 05 January 2013 - 09:37 AM.

[DocBach]

I use an i7 6110 as my laptop. Its made me think that anything over 11.6" is too big. It will play any game I throw at it on high settings because the 650M can handle it well at the low resolutions it can display. I also have a 9170, but the thing was way too big to carry around and I got a desktop so I don't need a desktop replacement - its pretty much gathering dust.

http://www.lpc-digit...0-features.html

LPC is a Sager reseller that sells it for way less, its on sale right now starting at $775

Another great Sager computer is the 6165, pretty much the 6110 in a standard 15.6" package. The thing about Sager is comparable builds by any other brand is hundreds of dollars more. I love them, they've been my go-to laptop since 2008.

[TheSupergeek]

Thanks for your input, guys. I knew that playing MWO on a cheap laptop was kind of pushing it, but I was hoping there was some magic laptop out there that would fit the bill.

[ODonovan]

If you can find this one, get it! I got one of these beasts to replace my wife's old laptop which died. This is a serious wolf in sheep's clothing!

LINK

It has a quad 3.0 GHz processor that operates at 2.1 GHz when not under load, to save battery life. Note that the Walmart specs are incorrect on processor speed. Here is the LINK to the correct specs on hp.com. It has a one gig graphics card in unbalanced Crossfire config with three more gigs of shared system RAM. It also comes with eight gigs of RAM, which we immediately upgraded to 16 gigs. That way, when the graphics card uses RAM and the game uses RAM and the OS uses RAM...there's plenty to go around.

Under $500 for the computer and about $100 for the memory. VOILA!




-Irish

Edited by ODonovan, 06 January 2013 - 01:25 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

We could go round all day

Newegg has this one up with a $50 saving.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834131393

Unlike the HP machine above, is has a better AMD processor with better intergrated GPU, and then has a discrete GPU as well with the Radeon 7670M.
It's not the best mobile GPU on the planet, but this laptop is stronger than what has been mentioned with the exception of the SAGER laptop....but that is way more expensive.

http://www.notebookc...ks.65497.0.html

you can find the mobile GPU at 139 in the list, with some playable framerates in crysis 2 at both low and medium.

[ODonovan]

DV McKenna, on 06 January 2013 - 02:17 AM, said:

Unlike the HP machine above, is has a better AMD processor with better intergrated GPU, and then has a discrete GPU as well with the Radeon 7670M.

I would like to see a benchmark test of the two. I do believe you're quite wrong. You might not get 70 fps with the HP, but the framerate won't go nearly as low either, which is where it's important in gaming. I'd rather play all day at 30 fps than have 70 when no one was around then watch it drop to 10-15 when other 'mechs were nearby.

Processor Speed: HP 3.0 to Samsung 2.3 - Even with better architecture, this is a stretch for the Samsung. Remember, the processor is usually the item of LEAST importance as far as maintaining game performance, after graphics processing power (not necessarily speed) and RAM.

Max Graphics Memory: HP 4 to Samsung 1 - Again...when it counts, the HP will have more reserves to draw on. You may not get 70 fps with the HP, but you won't go down to 10-15, either. Think of it as a garden hose with a fast stream of water (Samsung) versus a large water pipe with a slower stream (HP), both delivering the same amount of water. Which is easier to hinder the flow of? You can block the hose with a golf ball but it would take a softball to block the pipe. That's what a graphics load would be like on the two. General playability would be much better overall on the HP.

RAM: HP 8 (max 16) to Samsung 6 (max 8) - Again, Samsung wins, easily this time.

Price: HP under $500 (under $600 with maxed RAM) to Samsung $700 (plus more to increase the RAM, if wanted).

Frankly, I don't see one thing about the Samsung that makes it better for MWO than the HP.


EDIT: (BTW, my stats on the Samsung come from their website.) LINK




-Irish

Edited by ODonovan, 08 January 2013 - 01:50 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

ODonovan, on 08 January 2013 - 01:48 AM, said:

Processor Speed: HP 3.0 to Samsung 2.3 - Even with better architecture, this is a stretch for the Samsung. Remember, the processor is usually the item of LEAST importance as far as maintaining game performance, after graphics processing power (not necessarily speed) and RAM.

Max Graphics Memory: HP 4 to Samsung 1 - Again...when it counts, the HP will have more reserves to draw on. You may not get 70 fps with the HP, but you won't go down to 10-15, either. Think of it as a garden hose with a fast stream of water (Samsung) versus a large water pipe with a slower stream (HP), both delivering the same amount of water. Which is easier to hinder the flow of? You can block the hose with a golf ball but it would take a softball to block the pipe. That's what a graphics load would be like on the two. General playability would be much better overall on the HP.

RAM: HP 8 (max 16) to Samsung 6 (max 8) - Again, Samsung wins, easily this time.

Price: HP under $500 (under $600 with maxed RAM) to Samsung $700 (plus more to increase the RAM, if wanted).

Frankly, I don't see one thing about the Samsung that makes it better for MWO than the HP.

Point 1 CPU: Incorrect currently in MWO the CPU is of prime importance, it is the CPU that effects the stability of FPS in MWO currently.
I have no idea why HP lists it as a 3.0 boost/2.1GHz normal chipset, AMD clearly state its a 1.9ghz chip an each and every review site that looks at the chip list it as 1.9ghz
http://shop.amd.com/...thradeonhd7640g

Heres a second one for you
http://www.notebookc...PU.74852.0.html

The A10 vs the A8 should provide a better gaming platform.

GPU: Again afaik here your mistaken, the GPU in the HP is the APU which is capable at low settings.
Comparing them just on the APU side, the A8 comes with the 7640G and the A10 the 7660G GPU, every benchmark out there i can find, has the A10's 7660G as the better GPU.
Not the caveat here is that the APU's performance is directly tied to the speed of the RAM because it has to behave like VRAM more so than the amount (4gb for an APU is insanely too much btw)

Take the closing paragraph of the following review, and this is just for the A10's APU not the discrete card in the samsung laptop

Quote

[color=#787777]n terms of real world gaming performance, the A10 brings plenty to the table. We played[/color]Batman: Arkham City[color=#787777] at 1366x768 resolution with high detail settings in DX11 mode and our test system played the game with average frame rates around 23 frames per second (fps). If you drop the graphics into DX9 mode then the average frame rate jumps up to closer to 30fps.[/color]
[color=#787777]Keep in mind that in a perfect world you want a gaming laptop to deliver frame rates of at least 30fps to simulate fluid, lifelike motion. The fact that the AMD A10-4600M APU with Radeon HD 7660G graphics is giving us anything close to 30fps in a visually intense, modern game like [/color]Batman: Arkham City[color=#787777] on high detail settings puts it roughly on par with the performance of notebooks equipped with entry-level discrete graphics.[/color]

http://www.notebookr...newsID=6472&p=2

And yet we still have not yet got to the samsung's ace in the whole, the discreet 7670M which can be run in hybrid xfire with the APU, making the GPU aspect far stronger than the HP's single APU.

8GB would be better, but 6 is fine for a laptop, so it's maximum expandable RAM is moot, because you wont use more than 8Gb on either laptop, what we do know is the Samsung uses 1600Mhz RAM, what does the HP use?

Vulp knows more about the AMD stuff than me tho, im sure he'll find this thread at somepoint.

Edited by DV McKenna, 08 January 2013 - 03:37 AM.

[GrabbleRus]

I was playing MWO and PS2 on HP Pavilion dv6-3302er for a while. Not the best performance, but it was decent till the December.

[ODonovan]

DV McKenna, on 08 January 2013 - 03:33 AM, said:

Point 1 CPU: Incorrect currently in MWO the CPU is of prime importance, it is the CPU that effects the stability of FPS in MWO currently.

Only for some people. It seems to be based on a lot of factors. I've seen just as many people post they've upgraded their CPUs just to find very little FPS gain or even a loss of FPS in some cases, which may be a case of the new CPU drawing more power than their power supplies can handle and starving their GPU.

Quote

I have no idea why HP lists it as a 3.0 boost/2.1GHz normal chipset, AMD clearly state its a 1.9ghz chip an each and every review site that looks at the chip list it as 1.9ghz

Having a background in advertising and public relations, I can tell you why. The pre-publicity showed that chip to be slower and that's the number everyone used. When it actually came out, it was faster than originally claimed. Perhaps they were factory overclocked a bit and that wasn't taken into account. Let me state this again...WE OWN ONE. It's 2.1/3.0 in our machine.

Quote

The A10 vs the A8 should provide a better gaming platform.

That should go without saying. Remember we're talking PRICE, though. The OP did not ask for a $700+ laptop.

Quote

GPU: Again afaik here your mistaken, the GPU in the HP is the APU which is capable at low settings.

And yet we still have not yet got to the samsung's ace in the whole, the discreet 7670M which can be run in hybrid xfire with the APU, making the GPU aspect far stronger than the HP's single APU.

As I said, I'd like to see the test between the two. I think you're wrong. Yes, the Samsung would be great under a normal graphics load, giving higher fps. When the furball starts, I still think the HP would either win or come in very close, close enough not to justify the expense of the Samsung.

Quote

8GB would be better, but 6 is fine for a laptop, so it's maximum expandable RAM is moot, because you wont use more than 8Gb on either laptop, what we do know is the Samsung uses 1600Mhz RAM, what does the HP use?

The HP uses DDR3-1866, btw. Memory speed matters very little, actually. Tests comparing the slowest and fastest DDR3 showed only about a 1% difference in overall performance. Max RAM is NOT moot, btw. A modern game will run much better when it has eight gigs of RAM to draw on. Once the OS takes its share and TeamSpeak takes its share, and the ingame video recording function takes its share, you're looking at the Samsung not being able to keep up with the game's demands.




-Irish

[Oderint dum Metuant]

How do you think a single APU would outperform an APU and discrete GPU, both of which have more oomph in the graphical department.

Memory speed is critical for APU's, because it has to act as VRAM there is a reason the memory frequency of a standard GPU is clocked higher than standard RAM.
A modern game will not run better on 8 GB of RAM, because no modern game can draw that much, 8 GB is the current go too because it provides the best performance matching equal DIMMs.

You'll be lucky to see a system peak past 4GB playing one game and multi tasking on another monitor.
Both laptops are capable of going to 8GB, but they won't need more than the 6 the Samsung offers.

If you spend $600 on that HP machine your better off spending the 700 for the added GPU in the Samsung for better gaming performance.

[Vulpesveritas]

The Samsung is the superior gaming machine, period. It also will have better build quality in all likelihood.
Also, if the HP IS factory overclocked at that price, I would be scared about the cooling solution. HP may have gotten better about cooling, however I doubt it will be up to being able to be overclocked at that price, and may relate to their belief that the GPU won't be used for gaming, as such there may be a danger of that HP overheating from gaming. I would have to see the laptop to be sure though.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

I'd vote for the samsung as well even though it's too big to be carried around IMO. Alternatively you could look at used alienware m11x R2 or R3 if you want something smaller and lighter.

[ODonovan]

DV McKenna, on 09 January 2013 - 02:19 AM, said:

How do you think a single APU would outperform an APU and discrete GPU, both of which have more oomph in the graphical department.

You have a max of 1GB of graphics memory on the Samsung versus a max of 4GB on the HP. If the HP's system was only 25% as fast, the HP would still perform as well as the Samsung under maximum load, which is where it really counts. The Samsung lists a 7600M and a 7670M while the HP lists a 7640G paired with the shared 3GB of system RAM. Somehow I REALLY doubt the Samsung is FOUR TIMES as fast. As I said, I would have to see a side-by-side test. It certainly wouldn't be worth the additional price of the Samsung, which is above what the OP said he wanted to spend.

Quote

Memory speed is critical for APU's, because it has to act as VRAM there is a reason the memory frequency of a standard GPU is clocked higher than standard RAM.

You just made another point for the HP. Remember, it has the faster memory.

Quote

A modern game will not run better on 8 GB of RAM, because no modern game can draw that much, 8 GB is the current go to because it provides the best performance matching equal DIMMs.
You'll be lucky to see a system peak past 4GB playing one game and multi tasking on another monitor.
Both laptops are capable of going to 8GB, but they won't need more than the 6 the Samsung offers.

Now I know you're blowing smoke. Go to PC gaming forums and see what the specs are for their games and what the players are saying about their systems. If you can find ANY graphics intensive game which runs the game plus other operations as well on 6GB of RAM as it does on eight or more, I'll fall over in a dead faint. Remember, the OS uses RAM. Any other operations you have going use RAM (ingame video recording/TeamSpeak/et cetera). On the Battlefield 3 forums, under the thread "Battlefield 3 RAM Usage," players there overwhelmingly recommend a minimum of 8 GB to play the current generation of games.

Vulpesveritas, on 09 January 2013 - 09:18 AM, said:

Also, if the HP IS factory overclocked at that price, I would be scared about the cooling solution.

I didn't say it was overclocked. I said "perhaps." Actually, I've read some other reviews of the HP and they're consistently saying it's a 3.0GHz system...THIS ONE, for example. That makes it extremely likely the other figures were preliminary ones, given out before the chip was released.

All factors considered, the HP is still the better buy and is the only one in the OP's price range.


-Irish

[RFMarine]

my GeForce GT 540M + a core i3-2330M can barely break 20fps while at lowest settings and in a 1024x720 window. so get something with a more powerful GPU

[Oderint dum Metuant]

ODonovan, on 10 January 2013 - 01:52 AM, said:

You have a max of 1GB of graphics memory on the Samsung versus a max of 4GB on the HP. If the HP's system was only 25% as fast, the HP would still perform as well as the Samsung under maximum load, which is where it really counts. The Samsung lists a 7600M and a 7670M while the HP lists a 7640G paired with the shared 3GB of system RAM. Somehow I REALLY doubt the Samsung is FOUR TIMES as fast. As I said, I would have to see a side-by-side test. It certainly wouldn't be worth the additional price of the Samsung, which is above what the OP said he wanted to spend.

Wait what? the Samsung for a start has a 7620G and 7670M, the APU in the samsung is better than the APU in the HP, that is the natural progression of the A8-A10. The samsung also offers dual graphics ie Hyrbid Xfire, weather you understand what this is i don't know. Im not sure why you insist the Samsung would have to be 4x as fast at all, if your linking the available shared RAM to its speed im not sure why im wasting my time. What i can tell you is the 7670M on it's own without Hybrid Xfire can pull 39 FPS on Crysis 2 at medium settings As above that you ignored, number 142 in the list found here. http://www.notebookc...ks.65497.0.html Can you tell me what the 7640G can obtain?

Quote

You just made another point for the HP. Remember, it has the faster memory.

That is correct if it has faster memory, i can't see it listed in HP's tech specs, weather that means it outperforms the A 10's APU is another question.
Something to remember here, the A10 has 384 Cores on it's APU, the A8 has 256 cores.

Quote

Now I know you're blowing smoke. Go to PC gaming forums and see what the specs are for their games and what the players are saying about their systems. If you can find ANY graphics intensive game which runs the game plus other operations as well on 6GB of RAM as it does on eight or more, I'll fall over in a dead faint. Remember, the OS uses RAM. Any other operations you have going use RAM (ingame video recording/TeamSpeak/et cetera). On the Battlefield 3 forums, under the thread "Battlefield 3 RAM Usage," players there overwhelmingly recommend a minimum of 8 GB to play the current generation of games.

Blowing smoke? Im going to guess you have very little knowledge of computers, do you know why 8GB is the current recommended amount?

A) Paired DIMMS, there is this little thing called dual channel RAM on desktops, You want to have the Paired DIMM slots in use,Triple channel boards will see greater results from 3 DIMM slots occupied most commonly 3GB, 6Gb and 12GB variations

If BF3 used 2.5GB of RAM and the rest of the system used 2GB of RAM that's 4.5GB in use, the other 3.5GB means nothing it's unused, it contributes nothing to how BF plays.

Now 2 Screenshots of my system, it's tri monitor so i have left as much up for you to see as i can ( i did forget MWO still gives a black screen on screenshots tho)






Now here i have Civ 5 running on Monitor one, CryEngine SDK running the forest level in the background on Monitor 2, and Football Manager 2013 running on Monitor 3, Over the top of the SDK i run a match on MWO.
That's 3 RAM hungry games and the SDK played at 1920*1080 resolution, plus a number of background programs and OS requirements.
As you can see RAM usage peaks at 5.79GB call it 6GB for quits.
So the other 2GB of my RAM is sat there doing nothing, but it's there because it pairs the DIMM's and gives me room for the future.

Your never going to run even half that amount of applications on a laptop.

TLDR: 6Gb/8GB it matters not.

The other thing to note there, my total GPU RAM used was 2.9GB

Playing the game on it's own in it's current un-optimized state, on a mixture of medium and high settings @ 1920*1080P peaks at 1059MB ( i remembered to Window MWO this time)



Given that on a laptop you will be playing on Low/Medium and at a lower resolution the 1GB of the 7670M before taking Hybrid Xfire into account will be plenty.
the 7670M is more powerful than the HP's APU regardless of how much shared ram the HP machine can use, the samsung again will break out even further when using dual graphics.

Quote

I didn't say it was overclocked. I said "perhaps." Actually, I've read some other reviews of the HP and they're consistently saying it's a 3.0GHz system...THIS ONE, for example. That makes it extremely likely the other figures were preliminary ones, given out before the chip was released.

Wrong, the other figures are not preliminary the HP is without doubt overclocked, AMD themselves as linked earlier say the chip is a 1.9GHZ/ 2.8 with boost.
http://www.amd.com/u...instream.aspx#7

Pretty sure AMD know there own products, as vulp pointed out it'd be interesting to see the cooling setup on that HP machine and its CPU temps after 1hr of Prime 95.

Quote

All factors considered, the HP is still the better buy and is the only one in the OP's price range.

Half true, the Samsung is the superior gaming laptop, and better long term purchase but is $100 over the original budget, the HP machine is worse for gaming but within budget.

Edited by DV McKenna, 10 January 2013 - 09:27 AM.