Apologies if this is a redundant post, but I didn't find much on laptops.
I'm pretty technologically illiterate so I was just looking for some clarification from those more knowledgeable than me on a good laptop that will allow for playing recent games (Dragon Age Inquisition, Far Cry 4 etc) at decent levels without problems with frame rate. I dont really care about a touch screen/microphone/webcam/streaming etc.
I've been perusing the internet looking for an affordable laptop (not looking to spend more than $1,500, and if possible around $1,000) and will provide some information on the computers I found below. I tried to steer clear of the gaming-specific computers as they were much more expensive.
Lastly, I've read that NVIDIA/AMD Graphics cards are superior to Intel. Is it worth dropping the extra money to get one of these brands over an Intel? If so, which is the best?
HP 15z Laptop (15.6in) - $528.99 Processor: AMD Quad-Core A8-6410 Processor Memory: 8GB DDR3L System Memory (1Dimm) Hard Drive: 750GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive Video Card:AMD Radeon(TM) R5 Graphics (No link for this one, sorry)
Do you absolutely need one right away? Nvidia is going to release their mid-range line of mobile GPUs very soon (950Ms and 960Ms) which should have improved performance and battery life than the ones in the laptops you've chosen. Intel might also release mobile Broadwell CPUs very soon as well (they've already released a few for ultrabooks but these are typically low performance chips designed to conserve battery life).
Nvidia/AMD cards are better because they are discrete GPUs whereas Intel has integrated GPUs in the CPU. The best integrated GPUs are pretty much as powerful as a low-mid range discrete GPU of the same generation. Some computers don't use discrete GPUs because they are either cheap or need to conserve power, like macbooks and ultrabooks.
If you do absolutely need one, going from your list I would go with the Lenovo Y50. Really good specs for its price. But again, if you were to wait a few more months, I'm betting the Y50 will be much better (the 9xxM series GPU is a huge jump from the 8xxM series, at least higher range wise).
If I were you, I'd probably go with something like an MSi GS60. Decent specs plus it has an SSD for faster boot times.
I've got no rush, I was just doing a bit of research on it now. Is MSi your go-to brand for Laptops? Also, you mentioned the solid-state drive has faster boot times, would you say the difference is worth the price?
Sorry if these questions are really stupid, like I said, I'm quite illiterate when it comes to technology.
On December 28 2014 13:19 Premier wrote: Thanks for the quick response.
I've got no rush, I was just doing a bit of research on it now. Is MSi your go-to brand for Laptops? Also, you mentioned the solid-state drive has faster boot times, would you say the difference is worth the price?
Sorry if these questions are really stupid, like I said, I'm quite illiterate when it comes to technology.
Thanks again.
Yeah having used SSDs for a while now, there's a noticeable difference when I go back to my old notebooks to retrieve files. The boot-time is nice. It essentially allows you to open multiple programs about 8 seconds later from pressing the ON button.
MSi is a solid brand with reasonably priced products considering their specifications. Asus ROG laptop series are pretty much equivalent. There are other brands such as Sager and Clevo that tend to be a bit cheaper but people have complained about their build quality. Alienware builds are very high quality but are much more expensive.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ is a good website to ask questions or browse comments about a specific model of laptop. They are extremely active and usually can give you a good idea of what to expect problem-wise on a particular laptop. Various notebook retailers are also on the forum and they will help you with any question very quickly.
Unfortunately playing AAA title games at 1080p on high settings using a notebook is still somewhat of a luxury. $1000-$1500 can build you an extremely powerful gaming desktop including monitors, speakers, keyboard, mouse etc. However, when it comes to laptops, you're going to be looking at around $1500+ to get a decent experience.
If you're curious, this is the laptop I use at home:
My brother has one, and cooling the i7 alone is stupidly loud. Oh my god it's loud! Then you have a discrete GPU, which needs cooling as well and for some reason they all use HDDs, which are loud and heavy as well.
So you're looking at a giant, bulky computer that costs an arm and a leg, which you can't play without headphones. Add to that a mouse, a humongous power brick (which alone weighs more than a Macbook Air) and you're looking at five + kilos, maybe an hour of battery life, an ear-tearing cooling system and sub par input devices.
All told, a gaming laptop is neither portable nor powerful enough for a modern games. Do yourself a favour and either wait half a year for Broadwell and a 960m GPU, or get a desktop and a Macbook Air.
On January 06 2015 06:28 SixStrings wrote: Don't get a gaming laptop, seriously.
My brother has one, and cooling the i7 alone is stupidly loud. Oh my god it's loud! Then you have a discrete GPU, which needs cooling as well and for some reason they all use HDDs, which are loud and heavy as well.
So you're looking at a giant, bulky computer that costs an arm and a leg, which you can't play without headphones. Add to that a mouse, a humongous power brick (which alone weighs more than a Macbook Air) and you're looking at five + kilos, maybe an hour of battery life, an ear-tearing cooling system and sub par input devices.
All told, a gaming laptop is neither portable nor powerful enough for a modern games. Do yourself a favour and either wait half a year for Broadwell and a 960m GPU, or get a desktop and a Macbook Air.
This post is the equilvalent of someone asking for advice on Terran strategy and you telling them to stop playing video games and learn how to program instead.
On January 06 2015 06:28 SixStrings wrote: Don't get a gaming laptop, seriously.
My brother has one, and cooling the i7 alone is stupidly loud. Oh my god it's loud! Then you have a discrete GPU, which needs cooling as well and for some reason they all use HDDs, which are loud and heavy as well.
So you're looking at a giant, bulky computer that costs an arm and a leg, which you can't play without headphones. Add to that a mouse, a humongous power brick (which alone weighs more than a Macbook Air) and you're looking at five + kilos, maybe an hour of battery life, an ear-tearing cooling system and sub par input devices.
All told, a gaming laptop is neither portable nor powerful enough for a modern games. Do yourself a favour and either wait half a year for Broadwell and a 960m GPU, or get a desktop and a Macbook Air.
This post is the equilvalent of someone asking for advice on Terran strategy and you telling them to stop playing video games and learn how to program instead.
How so? Mayhap he just hasn't considered all the downsides and doesn't know yet how big of a compromise a gaming laptop actually is.
On January 06 2015 06:28 SixStrings wrote: Don't get a gaming laptop, seriously.
My brother has one, and cooling the i7 alone is stupidly loud. Oh my god it's loud! Then you have a discrete GPU, which needs cooling as well and for some reason they all use HDDs, which are loud and heavy as well.
So you're looking at a giant, bulky computer that costs an arm and a leg, which you can't play without headphones. Add to that a mouse, a humongous power brick (which alone weighs more than a Macbook Air) and you're looking at five + kilos, maybe an hour of battery life, an ear-tearing cooling system and sub par input devices.
All told, a gaming laptop is neither portable nor powerful enough for a modern games. Do yourself a favour and either wait half a year for Broadwell and a 960m GPU, or get a desktop and a Macbook Air.
This post is the equilvalent of someone asking for advice on Terran strategy and you telling them to stop playing video games and learn how to program instead.
But neither does it hurt to suggest buying a desktop instead of a laptop either. Laptops are more expensive on a price to performance ratio compared to desktops. However he's simply trying to warn him of the potential consequences of buying a gaming laptop since it's clear that the OP is not proficient in this field.
Speaking as someone who's went down the gaming laptop route for college 3 years ago, I also made a TL thread asking for a gaming laptop just like the OP. I ended up buying one for $850 but eventually regretted the decision after several issues due to the laptop 'crapping' out from gaming over just a single year. Also if you're dead-set on buying a gaming laptop, I'd avoid buying anything over 15 inches. I didn't really think of this when I bought mines and bringing it to class wasn't always fun since the desks/tables were sometimes smaller than it.
I built a desktop last summer for even less than what I spent on my laptop and I haven't regretted the decision since. Cheaper, upgradeable, and better performance. If I could go back in time I should've taken one person's advice on buying a cheap laptop and building a gaming desktop with my budget so I'd have a laptop to bring to class and a desktop for gaming at my apartment. Anyways...every individual's living situation is different so it's up to the OP to decide whether he really wants to spend more money on a decent gaming laptop or not. I just want to give my experience on the matter since I went down this route already.
Also your classmates will throw a fit if you bring your loud, 17" gaming machine to uni.
For the money you spend on a gaming laptop, you could easily get a powerful desktop and an entry level Macbook Air, which lasts all day, weighs less than a schoolbook and is completely silent while using it in class.
On January 06 2015 06:28 SixStrings wrote: Don't get a gaming laptop, seriously.
My brother has one, and cooling the i7 alone is stupidly loud. Oh my god it's loud! Then you have a discrete GPU, which needs cooling as well and for some reason they all use HDDs, which are loud and heavy as well.
So you're looking at a giant, bulky computer that costs an arm and a leg, which you can't play without headphones. Add to that a mouse, a humongous power brick (which alone weighs more than a Macbook Air) and you're looking at five + kilos, maybe an hour of battery life, an ear-tearing cooling system and sub par input devices.
All told, a gaming laptop is neither portable nor powerful enough for a modern games. Do yourself a favour and either wait half a year for Broadwell and a 960m GPU, or get a desktop and a Macbook Air.
This post is the equilvalent of someone asking for advice on Terran strategy and you telling them to stop playing video games and learn how to program instead.
How so? Mayhap he just hasn't considered all the downsides and doesn't know yet how big of a compromise a gaming laptop actually is.
Nothing wrong with suggesting a desktop over a gaming laptop just like there's nothing wrong with telling a video game obessed kid to get a job. Both are great healthy bits of advice.
Also your classmates will throw a fit if you bring your loud, 17" gaming machine to uni.
For the money you spend on a gaming laptop, you could easily get a powerful desktop and an entry level Macbook Air, which lasts all day, weighs less than a schoolbook and is completely silent while using it in class.
When I was in university, I actually made a Starcraft BW/SC2 team to compete in the CSL back when it was extremely popular. We would reserve a classroom with a projector and watch professionals play and analyze tactics to use in our matches. Unfortunately we couldn't get much practice done because back then nobody had high performance laptops. At the most we would have a few Alienware laptops that could run SC2 smoothly past a 20 minute macro game. Everyone had desktop computers at home of course and that's where we did most of our practices and scrims but it would've been a lot nicer to have been able to play more games like 3v3 or 4v4 had we had gaming laptops at the time. Talking and eating pizza together in a room with a group of extremely friendly people while playing SC2 is a lot better than talking with a few friends on skype and playing 1v1 games at home.
Nobody is going to deny that desktops are more powerful than their laptop counterparts. All that extra money goes into the convenience of having a high performance machine, a FHD monitor, and a keyboard inside your backpack. As for noise, you can always tune the fans down on a notebook if you find the default settings too loud. Nvidia's Optimus automatically switches to the integrated graphics card when you're not gaming so in my GS60, the GPU fan doesn't even turn on. Battery life is something that can't be avoided though. A charger is a must if you attend more than one class. Of course, at the time I was in University with a macbook pro, I had to carry a charger around with me all the time anyways as did my friends.
On January 06 2015 06:28 SixStrings wrote: Don't get a gaming laptop, seriously.
My brother has one, and cooling the i7 alone is stupidly loud. Oh my god it's loud! Then you have a discrete GPU, which needs cooling as well and for some reason they all use HDDs, which are loud and heavy as well.
So you're looking at a giant, bulky computer that costs an arm and a leg, which you can't play without headphones. Add to that a mouse, a humongous power brick (which alone weighs more than a Macbook Air) and you're looking at five + kilos, maybe an hour of battery life, an ear-tearing cooling system and sub par input devices.
All told, a gaming laptop is neither portable nor powerful enough for a modern games. Do yourself a favour and either wait half a year for Broadwell and a 960m GPU, or get a desktop and a Macbook Air.
I'm guessing your brother has a really old gaming laptop as almost all of them have M.2 SSDs these days. My MSi GS60 has a GTX 870M (in the latest model it has been updated to a 970M) which plays almost everything at a decent frame-rate on the 60Hz built-in screen.
I do use noise-cancelling headphones though because my pair of bose headphones sound better than the default speakers on the notebook.
The fan noise isn't loud but definitely noticeable in a whisper quiet library. I never play games in the library anyways but at least I have the option to. Not sure why anyone would want to play games there.
If you go to LAN tournaments a lot or would like to participate in a gaming club on campus, I think a gaming laptop would be less likely to destroy your back than to haul a desktop PC, a monitor, and a keyboard plus all the cables there and back...on the bus. My GS60 + charger weighs less than 6lbs. Not sure if you would consider that a giant bulky unportable computer or not.
The ONLY thing I dislike about my laptop is the stupid geeky looking MSi Gaming G series logo with a dragon on it. Doesn't bother me too much since I was no longer in class when I bought it and nobody at LANs bothered me about it but it is something to consider if you ever plan on losing your virginity at college.
Do you really need a big bulky computer to be a gaming laptop? Because I have this little 13' notebook and it is still powerful enough to play pretty much whatever.
Though I'd agree with the rest of the thread, and wait for a suitable laptop with a 900M series GPU.
Because I have this little 13' notebook and it is still powerful enough to play pretty much whatever.
Sure, but that's still pretty much a gtx750-750ti which you could use in a ~$300-450 PC. If you're happy with that level of performance you can play anything
Personally I wouldn't throw more than probably 650$ at a laptop. You can't justify price/performance past that point.
Bought an Acer about a year and a half back I saw being offered on Tiger Direct and Newegg. Ended up paying near a little over 400 after rebates. Wanted something to run sc2 and other games if I wanted.
On the lower end - Lenovo Y40 - probably the best perf you're going to get for 700 bucks On the higher end - GS60 - the only 15.6 gaming laptop that you can actually move around or Gigabyte P34GV2 - A gaming laptop that doesn't look like a gaming laptop
But ideally you'd wait a couple of months to either get the last versions for quite a bit cheaper or wait for the Broadwell + 960/965 iterations of those form factors
I love how every time someone considers a gaming laptop some other people are completely sure they understand the other's life situation so well that a desktop is clearly better. Some people have friends. Some people travel. Some people just have big houses.
Personally I wouldn't throw more than probably 650$ at a laptop. You can't justify price/performance past that point.
Well no matter if you take your 400 after rebate system or some 1k or 1.6k system, they'll be of vastly different capabilities and yet still similarly outclassed by desktops of their price point
On January 14 2015 00:45 Agh wrote: Personally I wouldn't throw more than probably 650$ at a laptop. You can't justify price/performance past that point.
Laptops are not price/performance machines, laptops take mobility into the equation which desktops conveniently don't. Personally I find you can get the best laptops fit for ''gaming'' around the ~800-900 mark, because its allows you to not skimp on the CPU. That's what I looked at in the near past anyway
I'm in the market for a good gaming/development laptop soon, but other than that I can't imagine spending money that big on a laptop myself. I don't like laptop gaming and I'd rather not, maybe rather get an NVIDIA shield or something like it. But that's very personal. A lot of people swear by laptops. Hell, you can soon get one with Cherry MX switches.
EPT
