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Gamer-approved laptop recommendation thread

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When should the new laptops and better prices start rolling in timewise? I want a new one, but not immediately unless one of my current ones give up the ghost.

Also when's the best time to look at desktops, I could get a desktop and worry about laptops when both break. I need a laptop no matter what, other computer doesn't matter.

I'm going to stick with Asus because they seem to be quiet and really good with handling heat.

Some new asus laptops are already out. The g75 and g55 (in some places).
 
How does the Intel 4000HD stack up against other integrated options?

I currently have a AMD Radeon HD3400 so I'm sure it's better, since its 600HD's more than I have now. It was good enough to play Skyrim on low, and a few older games that I'm more into.
 
I'm in the market for a new laptop. These are two models I've been looking at:

Link

Link

Based on some research, it seems the Toshiba one may be able to play games better than the HP. However, the only games I'm really interested in playing on a laptop are, for example, the first two Max Payne games, the original Halo and the older Valve titles to name a few. I'm not very interested in playing newer releases on it because I have a PS3 and most of the games I want are either multiplatform or exclusive. I definitely want the blu-ray player, though.

Anyway, I'm not very tech-savvy so I figured I'd ask those who are. I'm also open to other laptop recommendations as long as they are below $1000.
The day will come, when you want to play more, even if you don't acknowledge the possibility right now.

First off, the machine with only the HD 3000
How does battery life fair on Sager's? I'm not looking to replace my desktop or anything but to get the battery life and performance that I want its looking I will have to jump or a mobile workstation of some sort (Thinkpad W series probably).

I've seen reports of 4 hours or more, on the integrated HD 4000 and power saver modes.
What should my friend be looking at in the 700-1000 range if he was going to try to get at least an i5 and maybe a 500/600 series dedicated gpu?
Like this random one
ASUS N53SM-DS71
i7, Nv 630m, 8gb ram, 750gb hdd $920. I'm sure you could do better than that if you browse the website.

Yup. Right at the $1k mark, are the Sager NP6155 or 6175. That's an i7-3610QM and GT 650M, of which the GPU is 3x faster than the 630M. The only upgrade I made while pricing was upping the price $70, to go from the i5-2450M to the i7-3610QM. If he is fine with a dual core you can save there.

The problem right now is that the mid-range doesn't refresh until the Ivy Bridge dual cores come out, so below $900-1000 the drop off in performance is precipitous.
 
Is this decent specswise for the price? ($1360 USD)

Dell XPS 17

i7-2670QM 2.20Ghz
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 4GB)
3GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M With Optimus
1.5TB 7200RPM Hard Drive(750GB X2)
Tray load Fixed Blu-ray BD-ROM / DVD + /-RW Combo Drive

I want to use it mainly for music, videos and gaming (D3 and Mass Effect 3)
 
If you're going to spend $1360, you're better off with the $1249 Asus G75 recommended highly in this thread.

It has a newer CPU and video card (660m) among other things. The Dell certainly has a larger hard drive, however, but if you're going to play games you're better off with the core technology being upgraded and dealing with a hard drive another time.
 
Every time I see this thread back at the top it gets me thinking about the new MacBook Pros that should be revealed shortly... while we don't know for sure what the specs will be, I'm hoping we'll see a spec bump to 8gigs of ram standard as well as ivy bridge and geforce gtx 660M/670M/675M. (My dream would be for it to include the GTX 680M which releases June 2012, but yeah)

Am I too hopeful?
 
BTW, haven't come back to this thread after the purchase, but just wanted to update that I caved in and increased my budget to get the Asus G75. Actually, the G55 since I don't mind having the 15.6" screen.

Well worth the extra money spent. 1080 screen, backlit keyboard, Nvidia GTX 660m, 8 gb RAM, i7 3610. I know I could've waited and spent about $200-300 more for the AMD 7970m, but since I already had Diablo 3 in hand, I wanted a laptop immediately.
 
Every time I see this thread back at the top it gets me thinking about the new MacBook Pros that should be revealed shortly... while we don't know for sure what the specs will be, I'm hoping we'll see a spec bump to 8gigs of ram standard as well as ivy bridge and geforce gtx 660M/670M/675M. (My dream would be for it to include the GTX 680M which releases June 2012, but yeah)

Am I too hopeful?

THIS!
I am waiting on such info myself. i'm ready to jump into the MacBook Pro pool
 
If you're going to spend $1360, you're better off with the $1249 Asus G75 recommended highly in this thread.

It has a newer CPU and video card (660m) among other things. The Dell certainly has a larger hard drive, however, but if you're going to play games you're better off with the core technology being upgraded and dealing with a hard drive another time.

I agree 100%.

Every time I see this thread back at the top it gets me thinking about the new MacBook Pros that should be revealed shortly... while we don't know for sure what the specs will be, I'm hoping we'll see a spec bump to 8gigs of ram standard as well as ivy bridge and geforce gtx 660M/670M/675M. (My dream would be for it to include the GTX 680M which releases June 2012, but yeah)

Am I too hopeful?
I can guarantee that it won't have a 670M or 675M, as those are high voltage, 40nm Fermi chips.

Expect the 17" have the GT 650M or 7770M, and the 15" to hold a 640M or 7750M.

The 17" will get a GTX 660M if you're lucky, but I don't see a 75W GPU making it into those thin/light chassis.
 
Not sure if this is the right place, but I'm starting to look around for a new laptop for my dad(father's day is in a few weeks) as the current one is just about shot(integrated graphics overheating and such). Gaming won't be a primary concern honestly. He'll be spending more time watching movies on it. The only thing I know he wants is a 17ish inch screen. He likes to lug it from home to work and watch movies in his free time. I'm not quite versed with the new ivybridge chips and am not even sure if they're out yet or coming soon, or if I should even wait. I'd like to find something that runs HD movies well enough with a large screen. Higher the resolution the better. Can anyone give me some tips/advice? Thanks.

EDIT: Is the hp here a decent deal? http://dealnews.com/features/best-laptop-deals.html
 
Thanks, that's what I figured. I'm looking at the options and am wondering if the +$50 "32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache" is worth getting or not.
 
Thanks, that's what I figured. I'm looking at the options and am wondering if the +$50 "32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache" is worth getting or not.
I don't know. This new tech is not familiar to me yet. Here's a good review I found though. Didn't get a chance to read it yet. I will say that, unless I really needed a full TB, I'd rather spend the $20 to go with the 750GB 7200RPM drive instead.

Finally, are you leaving it at 1600x900? If so, I like the buy, but if you're bumping it to 1080p, we are nearing a price tier ($1,000+) where I hesitate.
 
Compatriots! Dual core Ivy Bridge hath arrived!

Ivy_Dual.jpg

ULV_Ivy_Dual.jpg


Anandtech article. Hopefully machines begin being announced next week.
 
What do you guys think of MSI's latest batch of notebooks? They seem pretty nice and are fully decked-out and apparently have the best speakers of any laptop plus the steelseries keyboard. Only things are no displayport and it looks to be thicker than the comparable Sagers.
 
Just threw a Crucial M4 256 GB SSD into my Y470 and I have to say the OS is much faster now.

It's my first SSD and I'm never going back to the platters (except for storage).

At first I was going to get rid of it and upgrade (like I normally do every year), but the Ivy Bridge issues and there not being a compelling 14" and smaller beast has me holding off. The 11" Sager seems cool, but I'm not liking what I hear about the thermals, the screen and wish they had more processor options.
 
Does anyone know if laptop batteries are covered under warranty? I bought a new i7 laptop in Februrary, I'm now running the laptop in power-saving settings with screen on minimum brightness and sound disabled. I get 1 hour max of battery life, I'm talking about simple wordpad work or web browsing, no viewing videos or playing games. Do you think this is grounds to claim for a new battery?
 
What should my friend be looking at in the 700-1000 range if he was going to try to get at least an i5 and maybe a 500/600 series dedicated gpu?

I really love Digital Storm's stuff

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/gaminglaptoploadxm11.asp?id=685761
http://www.digitalstormonline.com/gaminglaptoploadxm15.asp?id=567967

Customer support often assumes a somewhat knowledgeable user, the aesthetics and ergonomics range from adequate to terrible, and I have to admit that I had an HD failure on my gaming laptop- but man, they blow the doors off of any other outfit on a power to cost ratio.
 
Does anyone know if laptop batteries are covered under warranty? I bought a new i7 laptop in Februrary, I'm now running the laptop in power-saving settings with screen on minimum brightness and sound disabled. I get 1 hour max of battery life, I'm talking about simple wordpad work or web browsing, no viewing videos or playing games. Do you think this is grounds to claim for a new battery?
If you bought it in February, then I would definitely call customer support, as it seems like a bad battery. They usually get a little worse over time, but not that fast.
 
At first I thought about building a desktop PC but after a little bit of thought, I just don't have room for it atm. So I'm now thinking of buying a new, better laptop and 7970m sounds pretty sweet. It seems to run pretty much all the games well enough for me. When do you guys think those will hit the shelves in EU and how much for the cheapest builds?

Also what is the best value mobile CPU to aim for atm?
 
Hey guys I am having a problem with the left click on my laptop. Basically it has stopped working unless I click on it multiple times and even then there is no guarantee. I own a Samsung RF511 and I think it is an elan touchpad. For the moment I have switched the right and left buttons since the right one still works. What should I do? Is it a hardware problem?
 
What do you guys think of MSI's latest batch of notebooks? They seem pretty nice and are fully decked-out and apparently have the best speakers of any laptop plus the steelseries keyboard. Only things are no displayport and it looks to be thicker than the comparable Sagers.

My only problem with them, is that they are $1500+, but without the 7970M.

MSI probably plans to pick up the GTX 680M.

I really love Digital Storm's stuff

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/gaminglaptoploadxm11.asp?id=685761
http://www.digitalstormonline.com/gaminglaptoploadxm15.asp?id=567967

Customer support often assumes a somewhat knowledgeable user, the aesthetics and ergonomics range from adequate to terrible, and I have to admit that I had an HD failure on my gaming laptop- but man, they blow the doors off of any other outfit on a power to cost ratio.

Interesting. I rarely come across a Clevo reseller I've never seen before.
At first I thought about building a desktop PC but after a little bit of thought, I just don't have room for it atm. So I'm now thinking of buying a new, better laptop and 7970m sounds pretty sweet. It seems to run pretty much all the games well enough for me. When do you guys think those will hit the shelves in EU and how much for the cheapest builds?

Also what is the best value mobile CPU to aim for atm?
In what country are you, exactly. Here is a Notebook Review thread which will help find a seller close to you.

Very few of us have any reason to go higher than the i7-3610QM. The other CPUs are exorbitantly more expensive for small percentages of speed increase.
If that had an SSD I'd be all over it.
You could always put your own in, after the purchase.


Hey guys I am having a problem with the left click on my laptop. Basically it has stopped working unless I click on it multiple times and even then there is no guarantee. I own a Samsung RF511 and I think it is an elan touchpad. For the moment I have switched the right and left buttons since the right one still works. What should I do? Is it a hardware problem?
That definitely sounds, to me, like a hardware issue. You could contact Samsung to inquire about replacement.
 
Compatriots! Dual core Ivy Bridge hath arrived!

Anandtech article. Hopefully machines begin being announced next week.

So K.Jack after the announcement, how long would it be before we see laptops that utilize these chips in retail? I'm in the same boat as most of the people in this thread and am looking to upgrade soon.
 
Well Computex 2012 is going on in Taiwan right now, from the 4th to the 9th, and there's also E3 happening, so hopefully we'll see new stuff over the course of this week and the next.

BTW, the GTX 680M has been revealed there:

GTX680M-675M-660M.jpg


It's a downclocked desktop GTX 670. Unfortunately it costs a ton, $295 more than the 7970M in Clevo/Sager configurations.
 
Hey GAF!

I have been thinking of upgrading my old HP notebook with a gaming notebook. Tera runs really sluggish on this laptop. So far, I have decided upon 3 choices below:


ASUS-G75VW-AS71

MSI-GT70-0NC-008US

alienware-m17x-r4

But Im not sure what I should be paying attention to interms of cpu and gpu. My budgtet is 1500+, however i need recommendations. I hear the radeon 7970m is good to get, better than the 660m? or the 670m? 675m?

Or maybe theres better deals out there? it would be nice to limit it on amazon since no tax, but I can buy anywhere, as long as its a trusted site that people buy from~

I plan to run TERA, maybe Diablo and starcraft 2. I also do AutoCAD applications. Will these laptops be efficient?
 
Hey GAF!

I have been thinking of upgrading my old HP notebook with a gaming notebook. Tera runs really sluggish on this laptop. So far, I have decided upon 3 choices below:


ASUS-G75VW-AS71

MSI-GT70-0NC-008US

alienware-m17x-r4

But Im not sure what I should be paying attention to interms of cpu and gpu. My budgtet is 1500+, however i need recommendations. I hear the radeon 7970m is good to get, better than the 660m? or the 670m? 675m?

Or maybe theres better deals out there? it would be nice to limit it on amazon since no tax, but I can buy anywhere, as long as its a trusted site that people buy from~

I plan to run TERA, maybe Diablo and starcraft 2. I also do AutoCAD applications. Will these laptops be efficient?

7970m is approx 60% faster than those Fermi cards. The GTX 680m has just been announced and will either perform on par with the 7970m or outperform by a slim margin. The problem is that it will be expensive, whereas the AMD cards will only drop in price. For example, Alienware have slashed £90 off the 7970m upgrade option now that the 680m is available to order.

If you're spending that much money you may as well go for the best hardware it'll buy. The 7970m is a beast, but it's new and has driver issues at the moment.

Look at Clevo resellers. They don't look fancy, but the price/performance balance is nice. Personally I recently bought an Alienware R4 with the 7970m. Tad disappointed I didn't hold out for the 680 as 3DS Max performs much more stably with NVIDIA cards for some reason, but I'm not sure there will be much in it as far as real world framerates are concerned.
 
Well Computex 2012 is going on in Taiwan right now, from the 4th to the 9th, and there's also E3 happening, so hopefully we'll see new stuff over the course of this week and the next.

BTW, the GTX 680M has been revealed there:

It's a downclocked desktop GTX 670. Unfortunately it costs a ton, $295 more than the 7970M in Clevo/Sager configurations.
Maybe 15% faster than 7970M?

Also, the new Envy17 with 7850M is up for order... if it performs similarly to the 6970M I'll be all over that thing.
 
The delays with the ATI 7970M and E3 vids are making me consider waiting until next year to buy a gaming laptop... We'll see.

...however, I need a new laptop for work that I'll also be able to take home with me. Any suggestions at the $600 - $800 Canadian range for a gaming/work laptop? I'd be more likely to play older games and indie games on a monitor or HDTV. Won't be playing anything like Max Payne 3 or The Witcher 2 on it.
 
I'm tempted to get a new Macbook Pro. Do the Macbooks typically get hotter than comparable PC laptops? I do want to be able to do some gaming (pcsx2 emulation, regular pc games).

I had a 2009 Macbook (non pro) and the fan would kick out and the laptop would get hot by browsing the high-res pc screenshot thread. Similarly, a friend's 2011 Macbook Air got REALLY hot in the back when browsing the same thread. Another friend's 2011 17 inch Macbook Pro started to get really hot from playing a crappy flight simulator.

My 5 year old lenovo handles that very thread with no problem. Can't hear the fan kick up and the laptop certainly doesn't get hot.

Obviously there are rumors that the macbook pro is getting redesigned next week. Though that can either make it worse or better...
 
Maybe 15% faster than 7970M?

Also, the new Envy17 with 7850M is up for order... if it performs similarly to the 6970M I'll be all over that thing.

The 680m sounds beastly, downclocked desktop 670.. But is 15% gain (by Nvidia numbers) worth the extra $286+ most resellers are asking?

My 7970M unit better get here soon. If doesn't ship by June 11th/12th. I may jump ship.
 
A couple weeks ago I posted in this thread asking for advice about SSDs, and the one I was recommended (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W2JKZI/?tag=neogaf0e-20) finally arrived in the mail! However, before I even open it I felt it best to post on here and ask for any advice about setting it up because I've heard that there are certain measures that should be taken to ensure that the SSD functions to its fullest potential. Thanks in advance for any guides or advice, all of you are so very helpful!
 
A couple weeks ago I posted in this thread asking for advice about SSDs, and the one I was recommended (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W2JKZI/?tag=neogaf0e-20) finally arrived in the mail! However, before I even open it I felt it best to post on here and ask for any advice about setting it up because I've heard that there are certain measures that should be taken to ensure that the SSD functions to its fullest potential. Thanks in advance for any guides or advice, all of you are so very helpful!

some useful links:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911.html
 
What kind of performance should once expected from a 680 nvidia notebook card with the most graphics intensive games? 1080p 30 mimium?
 
What do you guys think of MSI's latest batch of notebooks? They seem pretty nice and are fully decked-out and apparently have the best speakers of any laptop plus the steelseries keyboard. Only things are no displayport and it looks to be thicker than the comparable Sagers.

I'm considering the GE70, it's the lightest 17"er i've seen
 
http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_info&model_name=NP6165

Is this a good series of Sager notebooks? Thinking of getting an i5 model for just under $1000, I don't care too much about power, I just want to run Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. And yes, I care about numpad presence. Are there better investments?

As of today, those are the best machines in the $800-$1k range, by far.

Maybe 15% faster than 7970M?

Also, the new Envy17 with 7850M is up for order... if it performs similarly to the 6970M I'll be all over that thing.

Yeah it's the 580M vs 6990M scenario, repeated exactly. I'll say that it will average out to 5-10% in the end.

I'm tempted to get a new Macbook Pro. Do the Macbooks typically get hotter than comparable PC laptops? I do want to be able to do some gaming (pcsx2 emulation, regular pc games).

I had a 2009 Macbook (non pro) and the fan would kick out and the laptop would get hot by browsing the high-res pc screenshot thread. Similarly, a friend's 2011 Macbook Air got REALLY hot in the back when browsing the same thread. Another friend's 2011 17 inch Macbook Pro started to get really hot from playing a crappy flight simulator.

My 5 year old lenovo handles that very thread with no problem. Can't hear the fan kick up and the laptop certainly doesn't get hot.

Obviously there are rumors that the macbook pro is getting redesigned next week. Though that can either make it worse or better...

Well, you kinda answered your own question there. The better query is "How hot will they get?"

What kind of performance should once expected from a 680 nvidia notebook card with the most graphics intensive games? 1080p 30 mimium?
Well, it's a downclocked GTX 670, so look at that cards benchmark, then take off 20% or so.

But, yes, 1080p/30fps will be stupid easy for the GTX 680M, for the next few years.
 
As a Sager NP6165 owner, they are great for its price.

If you don't like heat however, don't buy this laptop or find someway to manage its heat; it gets really hot in gaming. You will notice the heat while typing on the laptop.
 
As a Sager NP6165 owner, they are great for its price.

If you don't like heat however, don't buy this laptop or find someway to manage its heat; it gets really hot in gaming. You will notice the heat while typing on the laptop.

Your report is a bit concerning.

What kind idle and load temps are you getting?
 
http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/6/2848518/gigabyte-u2442v-u2442n-ultrabook-photos-video-hands-on

thats the video preview.

http://www.netbooknews.com/46110/gi...campaign=Feed:+netbooknews/nbn+(Netbook+News)

If the 640M can push that, then i'll give up the extras from Asus for the Gigabyte. Hopefully these ivy bridges arent that far away


An updated version of the Gigabyte U2442N was shown off at computex sporting not a 640m, but a 650m!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5936/computex-2012-show-floor-ultrabooks-with-discrete-gpus

A 650m in an ultrabook chassis. Nuts.

The screen is still 1600x900, but I hope they've fixed the flex problem the earlier demo models had.
 
Will definitely keep an eye out for that. I'm wagering that this is the DDR3 650M, in that small case. If it can keep the card cool under load, it'll definitely go into my buyer's guide.

I just need some shit to start releasing and being reviewed/tested. Intel is trolling the industry with this dual core roll out.
 
I'm tempted to get a new Macbook Pro. Do the Macbooks typically get hotter than comparable PC laptops? I do want to be able to do some gaming (pcsx2 emulation, regular pc games).

I had a 2009 Macbook (non pro) and the fan would kick out and the laptop would get hot by browsing the high-res pc screenshot thread. Similarly, a friend's 2011 Macbook Air got REALLY hot in the back when browsing the same thread. Another friend's 2011 17 inch Macbook Pro started to get really hot from playing a crappy flight simulator.

My 5 year old lenovo handles that very thread with no problem. Can't hear the fan kick up and the laptop certainly doesn't get hot.

Obviously there are rumors that the macbook pro is getting redesigned next week. Though that can either make it worse or better...

Apple doesn't seem to be too concerned about heat for some reason. My 2011 MBP runs insanely hot (I don't use it for anything more than music and internet). Flash makes it damn near melt and the fans get annoyingly loud. Unless they change the fan exhaust porting, this isn't going to change anytime soon. Unrelated, but even the iPad 3's are known for running quite warm.

Honestly, if you plan on gaming a lot, avoid MBP / MBA.
 
Apple doesn't seem to be too concerned about heat for some reason. My 2011 MBP runs insanely hot (I don't use it for anything more than music and internet). Flash makes it damn near melt and the fans get annoyingly loud. Unless they change the fan exhaust porting, this isn't going to change anytime soon. Unrelated, but even the iPad 3's are known for running quite warm.

Honestly, if you plan on gaming a lot, avoid MBP / MBA.

Damn it. That's unfortunate if the heat continues in the rumored redesign. The rumored specs would have been a nice sweet spot for gaming. I was really convinced I'd get an MBP if the initial rumors were true. But if using the full power of the system (probably not even possible due to throttling) will set my balls on fire, then I really can't see myself getting near one of these things.

With this redesign, it sounds like they're trying to get even thinner too... so that doesn't bode well for the heat.
 
So, is it worth the extra $200 for the GeForce 680, or will the Radeon 7970 be sufficent? Running Battlefield 3 at a high framerate is my deciding factor.
 
The 680m is looking like 5% faster than the 7970M. Is that's worth $295? Do Nvidia's driver features (TXAA, Adaptive V-sync) add enough value to justify the cost?

That's for each of us to weigh for ourselves. I REALLY want that Nvidia card, but the price difference is just too much for me. Damn you Nvidia, you greedy freaking bastards. Do they not realize that they'd crush AMD if they priced more fairly?

At this point, I'm probably just going to sit on my 6970M and will see what the next two high-end mobile cards Nvidia and AMD put out before the end of the year are.
 
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