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Gamer-approved laptop recommendation thread
- Thread starter dLMN8R
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Drinky Crow
Banned
win8 is the same as win7 for gaming, benchmark-wise. the hysteria over win8 from game developers is regarding the windows app store.
Unknown Soldier
Member
I'm planning on exercising my $15 upgrade to Win8 which I got for buying this Sony earlier this year. I'm not going to install it anytime soon though.
shindoku21
Member
Hey guys, my brother is looking to buy an ultrabook. He's wants to buy one to replace his Acer netbook. He uses it when traveling, primarily for web browsing and uploading his photos from a DSLR. Gaming is not his main concern but he would like it if it could play LoL. Price, preferably less than $1k. Just from personal previous research, I know that the Zenbook and MBA are popular options for ultrabooks. I don't think he's interested in a Mac even though the Air is really nice.
Any suggestions GAF? I might be using it when he doesn't travel, for school, hence why I'm helping. =D
Any suggestions GAF? I might be using it when he doesn't travel, for school, hence why I'm helping. =D
There is nothing quite bad about W8 for gaming. But at the same time, there isn't any reason to upgrade to W8.
It's an incremental upgrade over W7 and is mostly there to push the Metro interface. So no, don't upgrade to W8.
Why don't I want ATI graphics? My Acer Aspire 8942G with a Radeon HD 5850M has served me faithfully for playing games despite the fact I bought it nearly 3 years ago now.
I'm sure unknown will respond with a perfectly good unbiased answer and in no way will he resemble a fanboy who makes unsupported remarks about something of which he clearly has no idea.
In all seriousness both companies are good, in fact the 7970m with the new drivers is outperforming the Nvidia 680m despite being significantly cheaper.
Are you looking for the 7970M? PCSpecialist is a reputable UK shop which carries all of the Clevo models. Their Vortex III has GTX 680M and 7970M options.
Looking for a sub-$500 notebook for general use, not really worried about gaming on it.
I'd prefer something smaller than the 15.6 it's replacing, for better portability, but I'm open to anything.
This is what I'm currently looking at $450 14" dell. Any suggestions?
I'd prefer something smaller than the 15.6 it's replacing, for better portability, but I'm open to anything.
This is what I'm currently looking at $450 14" dell. Any suggestions?
Thing is, how come I can't get any of the HP Envy or Dell Inspiron models which NotebookCheck claims have ATI graphics, in the UK? They just don't seem to be available here.
Unknown Soldier
Member
If they happen to be US-only models, then you won't be able to get them. Again, I need to ask you: Why are you so dead-set on ATI graphics?
HP's UK website is shit, but they do have the new Envy 17 and 15 available, if you call. As far as Dell, I can see that the Inspiron 15R LE with the 7730M is on the Dell UK site.
Are you looking for something else in particular?
TouchMyBox
Member
General use.
Then I have no specific recommendation, other than that you should stick to ASUS, because even their low-end models come with a year of accidental damage warranty, on top of the year of general coverage. Last week I bought my mom an ASUS A54 for like ~$370 USD, and so far I think it's a machine of good quality.
It's been a while since I looked around, but is there a suitable replacement for the M11x on the horizon (UK)?
It does not have to be 11" but I would prefer no larger than 13", SSD and no optical preferred. Essentially I am after a dedicated GPU, Windows 8 and pref not over £1000.
All the ultrabooks seem to have HD4000 only, which although not bad, it's not great either and Nvidia would be preferred.
It does not have to be 11" but I would prefer no larger than 13", SSD and no optical preferred. Essentially I am after a dedicated GPU, Windows 8 and pref not over £1000.
All the ultrabooks seem to have HD4000 only, which although not bad, it's not great either and Nvidia would be preferred.
Clevo has taken the 11.6" performance crown, and Alienware waved the white flag.
As you can see from the low starting price, you can go pretty crazy with the upgrades before you hit £1000. I gave it the i7-3632QM (lower wattage quad is good for the small chassis), 8GB RAM, a 240GB Intel 520 SSD, and Windows 8 Pro, and it came up to £862.00 inc VAT.
I've been thinking about the Clevo W110ER too. I like the idea of a physically small machine so I can use it in bed and take it anywhere without much problem. The one thing I'm worried about is that the keyboard will be too small and cramped for gaming. There are no stores here that stock it so I can't have a look. Can anyone relate their experiences with gaming on 11" notebooks generally?
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
Okay, the temp hit like 100 degrees with the latest beta drivers now- this is far worse than it was before; something else the matter or did I really do a bad paste job?
I've been looking at the Dell xps 14, I've found one for £710 (The cheapest I can find here in the UK)... how would it hold up against 3D rendering software such as 3Ds Max, the Unreal Development kit, Photoshop etc?
My main concern is how that 630m will handle 3Ds max, it doesn't have to blitz it, just hold it's own for the next maybe 2 years.
Thanks a lot for your help.
My main concern is how that 630m will handle 3Ds max, it doesn't have to blitz it, just hold it's own for the next maybe 2 years.
Thanks a lot for your help.
shindoku21
Member
After more research, here are the ultrabooks I'm looking at right now:
$1000+
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A
Macbook Air
<$1000
Toshiba Portege Z935-P300
Sony VAIO T13
Are there any other ultrabooks I should be looking at?
It's the same chip as a desktop GT 430, so maybe you could find some benchmarks for that card.
Woulda swore I replied to your first post...
For any gaming at all, you'll need the Zenbook UX32VD.
shindoku21
Member
Well it's light gaming. LoL on low-mid settings would work on any of these ultrabooks, right? Or will it lead into heat issues?
My W110ER from PC Specialist arrived this morning, only really got the chance to give it a quick once over and try out the keyboard before I had to head off to work! Although the keys are noticeably smaller, I can't see them really being a problem - but then I don't have massive hands.
The spec I went for was i7-3632QM, 8GB RAM, i installed my own SSD (Samsung 830 256GB), will be installing Windows 8 on it tonight and hopefully playing a few games on it over the weekend. I'll be able to report back then!
Yes, the HD 4000 can run LoL easily, no problems with heat.
Thanks, I'll be interested to know what you think. I'm tossing up between the W110ER and waiting for the ASUS G46VW. I'd rather the smaller one if I can handle it. Part of me thinks I should bite the bullet on the W110ER and just sell it straight away if I don't like it.
There's a free (minus shipping) return window through pretty much every seller I come across in my searching.
I'm in Australia. I don't think the main Clevo sellers have that option. http://www.affordablelaptops.com.au/ and http://www.logicalblueone.com.au
I know it's not really for a gaming laptop but I figured I'd post here. I'm wondering if anything stands out in the:
15" screen
$800-$1000 range Canadian
Ivy bridge i5/HD4000 (Don't need discrete)
IPS Matte display 1600x900 or greater
mSATA slot
Thanks for any suggestions. Nothing really stand out to me so far.
15" screen
$800-$1000 range Canadian
Ivy bridge i5/HD4000 (Don't need discrete)
IPS Matte display 1600x900 or greater
mSATA slot
Thanks for any suggestions. Nothing really stand out to me so far.
terrisus
Member
Just wanted to pop back in with a follow-up, and then a quick question. Follow-up would be, the friend who had been looking at the laptop I had mentioned earlier got it a couple of days ago, and is very happy with it. Gets some decent marks on the Windows Experience Index too: 7.0, 7.9, 6.7, 6.7, 5.9. Which, for something at $665, and for what she's using it for, seems pretty good. So, just wanted to say thanks again for all the help with narrowing things down and figuring things out for that.
Quick question for me would be, in my laptop which I had also mentioned up-thread, as I mentioned it's about 3 years old, and while eventually I'll probably end up getting a new one, in the meantime I'm looking to at least get the most out of it that I can. And, one thing I would like at the moment is more space. Granted, I have a bunch of external hard drives around, but I just like having stuff on my laptop. As I had mentioned, I have an Intel 520-series 120GB SSD in as the boot drive, and then the 500GB 7200RPM drive that it came with in as the secondary drive. At the moment though, I have about 40GB free between them, with plenty of other things not installed that I would like to have on it.
So, with 1TB hard drives recently being available for laptops now, I've been eyeing those for a bit. Those, though, are 5400RPM drives (unless I missed an option out there, which isn't an oversized drive which wouldn't actually fit inside a laptop or something, something that would actually fit). For me, that just kind of nags at me, since I always hate dropping down in something, but I would really like some extra space. Considering the SSD is my boot drive though, and has space for other stuff as well, how much would I really notice the 5400RPM in a 1TB secondary drive? There would be games and such installed on it (although I don't really do anything too intensive), but it's not like the OS is going to be running off it or something. Am I worrying myself over nothing with the speed difference, or is it actually something I might notice?
Quick question for me would be, in my laptop which I had also mentioned up-thread, as I mentioned it's about 3 years old, and while eventually I'll probably end up getting a new one, in the meantime I'm looking to at least get the most out of it that I can. And, one thing I would like at the moment is more space. Granted, I have a bunch of external hard drives around, but I just like having stuff on my laptop. As I had mentioned, I have an Intel 520-series 120GB SSD in as the boot drive, and then the 500GB 7200RPM drive that it came with in as the secondary drive. At the moment though, I have about 40GB free between them, with plenty of other things not installed that I would like to have on it.
So, with 1TB hard drives recently being available for laptops now, I've been eyeing those for a bit. Those, though, are 5400RPM drives (unless I missed an option out there, which isn't an oversized drive which wouldn't actually fit inside a laptop or something, something that would actually fit). For me, that just kind of nags at me, since I always hate dropping down in something, but I would really like some extra space. Considering the SSD is my boot drive though, and has space for other stuff as well, how much would I really notice the 5400RPM in a 1TB secondary drive? There would be games and such installed on it (although I don't really do anything too intensive), but it's not like the OS is going to be running off it or something. Am I worrying myself over nothing with the speed difference, or is it actually something I might notice?
Any Acer Aspire S3 or ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A owners in here? Would you recommend those laptops?
The Acer Aspire S3 is much cheaper but uses a HDD+SSD hybrid instead of full SSD and has a worse screen.
How do Acer and ASUS compare for reliability and customer service?
Would you recommend buying an extended warranty from Best Buy?
The Acer Aspire S3 is much cheaper but uses a HDD+SSD hybrid instead of full SSD and has a worse screen.
How do Acer and ASUS compare for reliability and customer service?
Would you recommend buying an extended warranty from Best Buy?
AFAIK, no one here owns those. You may need to check Notebookreview.
Acer custo service > ASUS, easily.
How much is a second year from Best Buy, versus the price of the laptop?
The 5400RPMs is fine for large, bulk storage drives. They actually aren't that slow. There is one 7200RPM drive on the market. It's kinda expensive though.
Acer custo service > ASUS, easily.
How much is a second year from Best Buy, versus the price of the laptop?
There's only two options if you want an IPS: HP's Envy 15 and the Sony VAIO S 15.
The 5400RPMs is fine for large, bulk storage drives. They actually aren't that slow. There is one 7200RPM drive on the market. It's kinda expensive though.
terrisus
Member
Will that actually fit inside of/work with a laptop though? I had searched around before, and all of the Enterprise drives I had seen, while they are in a 2.5" form factor, were too thick to fit inside of most laptops (that one lists a 15mm height, whereas most of the other laptop hard drives are 9-10mm), and were intended for server environments or such like that. Suppose I could always give it a try to see if it fit and pay the restocking fee if I had to return it.
Either way though, I think I'm probably just working myself up over the speed difference, and, as you said, if I'm mainly just using it for storage, and yeah I'll be playing some games off of it, but not like I'm going to notice a huge difference or something.
Been playing a few games (F1 2012 / Guild Wars 2) on it tonight and it's certainly quick! Apart from the shift keys being on the small side I've gotten used to the keyboard pretty easily. Only slight irritation for me so far is that the left side of the laptop can get quite warm when under high load as the heat is being pumped through the vent on the left hand side. Probably not an issue for right handed people, but it can be a little annoying for lefties like me!
I still can't get over how quick it is, for something that looks like it could be a netbook.
Yeah I must apologize as I missed the height difference. You'd actually need to measure your bay to see its maximum space. But I wouldn't pay $230 for an HDD either way, as the point of the secondary bay is cheap storage.
terrisus
Member
Oh, no problem. But, yeah, I think I'll just end up going with one of the 1TB 5400RPM drives, just wanted to see if there were any options out there I might have been missing, or if I would really notice a huge difference from a 5400RPM drive when it's not my boot drive.
I think I'm having the same problem. My X230 arrived today. The first thing I tried to do was replace the HDD with a Corsair SSD. It looks like the same size, but the SSD absolutely would not fit in the slot.
Are there different sizes of 2.5" SSDs that you have to watch out for? How do you know if a drive is compatible?
Are there different sizes of 2.5" SSDs that you have to watch out for? How do you know if a drive is compatible?
The X230 uses low profile drives, which are 7mm vs the standard 9.5mm the one you probably bought is. There are 7mm SSDs.
Unknown Soldier
Member
I haven't used them regularily but the UX31A is a friggen gorgeous machine. I only wish it came in a larger form factor. Don't buy an extended warranty, they are a scam. Especially from Best Buy/Futureshop.
Thanks for the info!
Edit: Looks like the HP Envy 15 no longer exists :S
Knux-Future
Banned
Hey..it's me again..the guy who asked for laptops reccomendations and then didn't have the money to buy it....lol.
I'm have the money(I swear I'm good for it man..) this time (sort of) and I am still in the market for a good upgrade.
Budget is still around 800-1200 range. I'd like to do some PC gaming, nothing too taxing but capable in most cases but the real thing i just the ability to not freeze up on youtube anymore lol.
I actually did some base research this time and picked out one (okay I lurked this thread for it but still)..
a few weeks back people was talking about the y580 and I was surprised it was in my price range AND had one of my perks in the bluray drive (it's not needed but it definitely is appreciated).
I probably won't pull the trigger until I get paid this week so there is still time for other reccomendations.
Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834310661 (But I found it in other stores too..same price tho).
also: If there an easy way to transfer files from one laptop to another? Mainly my Itunes (mainly the stuff I didn't buy from there so it's not in the cloud).
I'm have the money(I swear I'm good for it man..) this time (sort of) and I am still in the market for a good upgrade.
Budget is still around 800-1200 range. I'd like to do some PC gaming, nothing too taxing but capable in most cases but the real thing i just the ability to not freeze up on youtube anymore lol.
I actually did some base research this time and picked out one (okay I lurked this thread for it but still)..
a few weeks back people was talking about the y580 and I was surprised it was in my price range AND had one of my perks in the bluray drive (it's not needed but it definitely is appreciated).
I probably won't pull the trigger until I get paid this week so there is still time for other reccomendations.
Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834310661 (But I found it in other stores too..same price tho).
also: If there an easy way to transfer files from one laptop to another? Mainly my Itunes (mainly the stuff I didn't buy from there so it's not in the cloud).
Any tips for using trackpads in games? A lot of times the virtual scroll wheel (usually the right edge of the track pad) isn't recognized by most games, making some of them unplayable. Was just trying to play Wargame: European Escalation, an RTS from earlier this year, and I can't zoom at all with the pad, rendering the game pretty much impossible to play.
is there any way to deactivate the initel hd 4000 if u have another graphics card inside? even though i changed the settings (every game should use the gt 650m) some just dont get it. for example gta4 still uses the integrated. intel optimus technology is the worst crap ever. no shit. lately i think i should have gone for the x51.
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