New gaming laptop

[Mister Kyle]

Alright so my current laptop sucks really bad as far as gaming goes. SO. I have a few questions.

• What are good websites to purchase laptops from?
• Should I look into custom built machines, or is that just too expensive?
• Are Ebay/Craigslist good ideas to look into?
• To save money, are refurbished laptops a bad idea?

So yeah. I want to try to stay under a $1k laptop. So I don't really have a problem with refurbished stuff.

[tangytotoro]

I'd also like to know info on good gaming laptops, as well as what laptop brands are best

[JC]

Hey Kyle,

For laptops in the US I normally look at Newegg.com (mainly because it's well known and fairly trustworthy), I'm sure there's others out there that might be better though.

Onto your 4 points:

• See above, also try buying directly off the manufacturer.  Brands I would look at in that price brand are Lenovo (IBM) & Asus, major brands that I would avoid are Sony, HP (their business laptops are great, but consumer ones suck) and Acer.
• I doubt you could find custom built in your price bracket (assuming you mean Clevo or similar), pre-configured laptops are generally cheaper
• I wouldn't buy second hand with that budget, you can get decent brand new laptops at that price
• Refurbished isn't always bad, depends on the brand really.  I'd also expect a decent warranty to take the risk with refurbished

Something like this would be pretty decent: Lenovo Ideapad

Main reasons I like it:

- It's an up to date model (the CPU & GPU are current gen)
- Decent GPU
- Decent CPU
- It has an SSD & HDD combo..... You definitely want an SSD 
- It's Lenovo, which is generally considered a reliable brand

If you wanted to save a bit of money, there is a Non-SSD option, but I think it's worth the slight difference in price to go for the SSD equipped one.

[Mister Kyle]

Yeah I was considering buying something off of Newegg. Looks like a great website.

And doesn't the SSD like, make startup times almost instant?

[JC]

Yeah I was considering buying something off of Newegg. Looks like a great website.

And doesn't the SSD like, make startup times almost instant?

Pretty much, with a clean install of Windows my PC starts up (Cold boot) in approx ~20 seconds on a SSD, it was taking a minute+ on a mechanical drive before that.

For me though, the main difference was that previously I would be late into games on BF3 as it took me longer than most to load levels, now I'm one of the first

[IlIScottIlI]

Get a desktop

[Pacman Syu]

Yeah I was considering buying something off of Newegg. Looks like a great website.

And doesn't the SSD like, make startup times almost instant?

SSD's are known to half boot-up times.

Look in the Sunday newspapers for the specials on laptops, this will be cheaper than what you can get online. PERSONALLY I'd get a medium-tier laptop and go for a desktop. And...don't get Alienware.

[Mister Kyle]

Actually, buddy of mine convinced me to get a desktop, since I'm at a permanent duty station.

CASE:Thermaltake Commander Mid-Tower Gaming Case [-12] (Black Color)
CD:24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)
COOLANT:Standard Coolant
CPU:Intel® Core™ i5-3570 3.40 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1155 [-24]
CS_FAN:Maximum 120MM Case Cooling Fans for your selected case [+9]
ENGRAVING:Custom Message - Max 35 characters (including spaces) [+0] (Times New Roman Italic [+0])
ENGRAVING_MSG:Si vis pacem, para iustitiam.
FAN:Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA) (Single Standard 120MM Fan)
FLASHMEDIA:INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer (BLACK COLOR)
HDD:2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+0] (Single Drive)
IUSB:Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
KEYBOARD:(Keyboard & Mouse Combo) Razer Cyclosa Gaming Keyboard & Abyssus Gaming Mouse [+0]
MEMORY:8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory ([Free Double Memory to 16GB (4GBx4) from Major Brand] Corsair Vengeance)
MOTHERBOARD:* [CrossFireX] GIGABYTE GA-Z77-D3H Intel Z77 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ IRST, Lucid Virtu MVP, Ultra Durable4 Classic, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, 2x Gen3 PCIe x16, 3x PCIe x1 & 2 PCI (Extreme OC Certified)
NETWORK:Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
POWERSUPPLY:700 Watts - Standard Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready [+8]
SERVICE:STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
SOUND:HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
VIDEO:NVIDIA GeForce GT 610 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

All that for $700.

[JC]

Actually, buddy of mine convinced me to get a desktop, since I'm at a permanent duty station.

VIDEO:NVIDIA GeForce GT 610 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

All that for $700.

Lolz at the GPU.... The rest is fine, but that Graphics Card is so useless it's not even funny.

[Mister Kyle]

Yeah lol, changed it. Turns out after tax and shipping, it's $860..

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 2GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card [+15] (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

[JC]

That graphics Card still isn't great really, if it struggles with MW2 which is pretty much 3 years old now (and never had a reputation for 'cutting edge' graphics). 

The problem I see with that setup is that it's really unbalanced, you've got a pretty shit-hot CPU, heaps of RAM and a pretty chunky PSU tied to a Video Card that really is more suited to being on an occasional/basic gaming PC.  I also don't see the point of the liquid cooling on a non-overclockable CPU, and those are all areas where money could be saved to upgrade the video card to a higher spec (and stay within the $1k budget).

Could you link me to the site you're looking at so I can see if there's a bit better way to set it up?

[Mister Kyle]

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

Had Matt (Multikill) working with me on Facebook, he said all that looked alright. You're probably a better person to go to for this kind of thing. See if there's some way to optimize it and stay in that price range.

[JC]

Hmmm, they really are quite a rip off for Graphics Cards and some of the config options mean I can't get exactly what I'd want....

A couple of options

Less CPU, better graphics

Key Specs of that one are:

CPU: AMD FX-6100 3.30 GHz Six-Core AM3+ CPU
HDD: 120 GB Intel 330 Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s - 500 MB/s Read & 450 MB/s Write
MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Vengeance)
MOTHERBOARD: ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD 970
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB

So it's got a weaker CPU than the one suggested above, but a much stronger graphics card (Compared to the GT 640, it almost triples those 'benchmarks' provided).  I've also opted for an SSD rather than a hard drive as they have a good deal on at the moment, but you may need a second internal or similar (depends on how much porn you need to store really).

Price is $983 before Tax & Shipping.

More CPU, weaker graphics

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-3470 3.20 GHz
HDD: 120 GB Intel 330 Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s - 500 MB/s Read & 450 MB/s Write
HDD2: 1TB 7200RPM HARD DRIVE
MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Corsair Vengeance)
MOTHERBOARD: GIGABYTE GA-Z77-D3H
VIDEO: AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GB

The graphics in this one are a fair bit weaker than the one above (probably about 50-75% of the power of a GTX 560Ti, depending on the game.  Reference: Anandtech).  On the flip side the CPU is more powerful and I could also fit a second Hard Drive in, so it could be as cheap as $825 if you opted to remove it.

Price is $924 before tax & Shipping, or $825 without the second Hard Drive.

Whichever option you choose really depends on what resolution you want to play games at and what games you want to play.  If you're after BF3 at high res, then I'd go for the 560Ti whereas if you're looking for less graphically intense games the 7770 might be good enough...

On a general note, I wouldn't go for a Thermaltake case.  I found my Element S had endless issues due to poor build quality, it looked and felt like it was cheap and shitty when it definitely wan't cheap. 

[Mister Kyle]

Shipping/handling/taxes increase the price of anything by like, $200 on there though. Sucks ass.


Also I may have been a little misleading as far as what I want to get. I don't want to be able to run BF3 on super ultra hardcore megagamer mode at a steady 35-40 FPS. I just want to make it so I don't have to deal with RS, D3, WoW, at 15-20 FPS.

SO I found this bundle.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1050001

Problem is the 128GB SSD. 128GB isn't much room to play with.

Oh, and shitty mobo. Can easily switch out though.

So, I finally decided to order piece by piece.

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/1483/120901203135.png

Cost me $750 total, after taxes/S&H.

[Nick]

It might be worth it to go ahead and get an i5 processor while you are building. You'd hate to want to upgrade later on.

[PineappleTom]

Apple?

[Colinwarrior]

Apple?

0/10

[Mojo]

Apple?

0/10

-1/10

Also, moved this to tech support, a more appropriate forum.

[Pacman Syu]

Shipping/handling/taxes increase the price of anything by like, $200 on there though. Sucks ass.


Also I may have been a little misleading as far as what I want to get. I don't want to be able to run BF3 on super ultra hardcore megagamer mode at a steady 35-40 FPS. I just want to make it so I don't have to deal with RS, D3, WoW, at 15-20 FPS.

SO I found this bundle.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1050001

Problem is the 128GB SSD. 128GB isn't much room to play with.

Oh, and shitty mobo. Can easily switch out though.

So, I finally decided to order piece by piece.

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/1483/120901203135.png

Cost me $750 total, after taxes/S&H.

http://www.wildernessguardians.com/smf/index.php?topic=4080.msg44332#msg44332

That keyboard KICKS. BUTT. If you get it, tell me how the blue switches are. Regardless, you can always buy a secondary HD for that computer for random data that wouldn't fit in the 128GB space.

[Mister Kyle]

Already paid and shipped. If I have any problems with it, I can simply buy a new one. Joys of a desktop. And I don't want any sort of gaming keyboard; I'm not going to be playing BF3 multiplayer or some shit for MLG, lol.

[Cannon1993]

Here's my recommendation

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4840047


It has the amd a10-4600m which is an apu (cpu and gpu on the same die) with the 7660g gpu, 6gb 1600mhz ddr3 and a 750gb hdd.

the gpu is between a gt 630m and a 640m. Plenty for runescape, and it uses much less power then those 2 gpu's.


Edit: saw you already bought, well if you decide to get a laptop for whatever, this is here

[btraill]

Buy this or anything ABOVE this model. There are 2 or 3 higher models/other Asus laptops that out-power this one. Those being their actual gaming laptops, however; they are quite expensive.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs/laptops-and-netbooks/asus-n56v-1081440/review

I dropped about ~1,200 CAD on that. It performs pretty well with any new game.

A decent dedicated graphics card, core i7, and 6 gigs of RAM.

[Mojo]

no point in bumping this tbh, he has already got his new setup now.

use the "unread posts" button if you are looking for new posts.