gaming laptops

[HeallunRumblebelly]

So I'm looking for places to compare gaming laptops and places to find particularly good deals. Ram is ram and ssd is ssd. Processors and cards however I have no idea except checking benchmarks. Anyone know of good places / deals / equipment at good price points? Hoping to not go over 1200.

[Littlegyno 10.0]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mhcm27eF548/SNGd5S6U0pI/AAAAAAAAQMw/yVzhaRDmdbI/s400/powerglove.jpg

[Big_Japan]

u gotta stop the bleeding man, investing in a LeapFrog LeapPad 2 or 15lb airplane noise generator is not the way forward

[SamwiseRed]

gaming laptops are terrible.

[amanduhh]

idk newegg has some nice acer and lenovo for around $600 that play pretty much anything ive tried just fine.

not someone to waste money, im sure if you where a big fan of maxing graphics and playing all the newest etc u might wanna buy the ones a little higher even. im sure this one im on for $600 and drop in an even better grahpics card, some high end $300 nvidia, and there wouldnt be a game you couldnt max and get retarded fps.

[Troubled]

http://www.xoticpc.com/ and http://gentechpc.com/

I think you'll find everything you need between those two.

[georgie]

newegg.com

[HeallunRumblebelly]

http://www.xoticpc.com/ and http://gentechpc.com/

I think you'll find everything you need between those two.

These are good, appreciate it. And Samwise, sometimes we don't have as many options as we'd like for a desktop :3

[Doors]

Been using a gaming laptop for over 2 years shits great.

Used digital storm to build it, have never had a problem with it. I recommend them.

[Hailto]

Been using a gaming laptop for over 2 years shits great.

Used digital storm to build it, have never had a problem with it. I recommend them.

Need that gaming laptop when you're stealing other people's things.

[Clark]

http://www.xoticpc.com/ and http://gentechpc.com/

I think you'll find everything you need between those two.

Just used xoticpc to buy a laptop few days ago was a good experience. People that worked there were really nice and helpful as well. Dropped little over two grand. Can't wait for new laptop to arrive oh me oh my! :)

[Halius]

I would look here.
http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/laptops/#/?page-index=1

I have been searching for a relatively good and and inexpensive gaming laptop as well and if you go to the page above and search for the Y series, they typically have some type of Y40 or 510p or even the Y50s as long as you don't mind refurbished (sometimes they even sell new ones for discounts). They go fast though and they update it literally like every hour with new laptops so check it out often. I found one Y50 on there but was too slow to purchase and it was gone!

You can check out the specs for each but the Y40 is pretty cheap and has an R9 275 which runs games pretty decently. The 510p has dual 755M in SLI which is a little better than the r9 275 but from what I hear runs a bit hotter. And then the Y50 has the nice 860M which can runs game pretty damn well for a laptop card. Just make sure you read the specs before you buy because some on the site have i5 processors and some have i7.

[lawll]

You never said what games or apps your attempting to run on this new machine. It's really hard to suggest hardware to someone who doesn't even say what they are attempt to run on it in the first place. But I would look for a i5 since 99% of games don't support hyper threading and overclocking on a laptop that will already run super hot under load is a bad idea. 8gb of ram is the most that 99% of game will utilize, anything more is for 4k video editing or VMs. Put your money into the GPU and a solid SSD.

[loramin]

Just used xoticpc to buy a laptop few days ago was a good experience. People that worked there were really nice and helpful as well. Dropped little over two grand. Can't wait for new laptop to arrive oh me oh my! :)

It seems like Xotic makes decent PCs, but just hope you don't have to return or exchange it. I bought a Sager laptop from them a month or so ago and the idiots at Sager put the thumb-scanner in between the two mouse buttons, making it awkward to do a "middle-click" (ie. press both buttons simultaneously).

I tried to exchange it for another brand and found out that if I went with any brand other than Sager I only got a 15-day (from the day it ships, not arrives) return window. It's pretty much impossible to figure out if an issue like that is just an annoyance that I'll adjust to or a real significant problem in (less than) 15 days, so I decided to return the laptop instead.

Xotic wound up charging me not just for shipping, but also $100-something for minuscule little scratches that you get on any laptop the moment you remove it from the packaging. After that I swore never to get another computer for them.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

You never said what games or apps your attempting to run on this new machine. It's really hard to suggest hardware to someone who doesn't even say what they are attempt to run on it in the first place. But I would look for a i5 since 99% of games don't support hyper threading and overclocking on a laptop that will already run super hot under load is a bad idea. 8gb of ram is the most that 99% of game will utilize, anything more is for 4k video editing or VMs. Put your money into the GPU and a solid SSD.

Anything new that comes out y'know. I'm not a stickler for max settings, just playable, but 40+ (pref 60) FPS is just such a big improvement that I really can't hang without it. Will probably be playing WoW / P99 on it from the start, but I really don't like to limit myself. And yeah, finding a stock laptop with over 4gb ram seems like pulling teeth, 8 seems to be the ticket primarily. I don't really know which way to go with laptop GPUs, though, which is my biggest problem.

[Clark]

It seems like Xotic makes decent PCs, but just hope you don't have to return or exchange it. I bought a Sager laptop from them a month or so ago and the idiots at Sager put the thumb-scanner in between the two mouse buttons, making it awkward to do a "middle-click" (ie. press both buttons simultaneously).

I tried to exchange it for another brand and found out that if I went with any brand other than Sager I only got a 15-day (from the day it ships, not arrives) return window. It's pretty much impossible to figure out if an issue like that is just an annoyance that I'll adjust to or a real significant problem in (less than) 15 days, so I decided to return the laptop instead.

Xotic wound up charging me not just for shipping, but also $100-something for minuscule little scratches that you get on any laptop the moment you remove it from the packaging. After that I swore never to get another computer for them.

Weird I got a 3 year warranty so shouldn't be any issues. That's a shame though my experience with them has been great thus far.

[Juryiel]

It seems like Xotic makes decent PCs, but just hope you don't have to return or exchange it. I bought a Sager laptop from them a month or so ago and the idiots at Sager put the thumb-scanner in between the two mouse buttons, making it awkward to do a "middle-click" (ie. press both buttons simultaneously).

I tried to exchange it for another brand and found out that if I went with any brand other than Sager I only got a 15-day (from the day it ships, not arrives) return window. It's pretty much impossible to figure out if an issue like that is just an annoyance that I'll adjust to or a real significant problem in (less than) 15 days, so I decided to return the laptop instead.

Xotic wound up charging me not just for shipping, but also $100-something for minuscule little scratches that you get on any laptop the moment you remove it from the packaging. After that I swore never to get another computer for them.

I have interacted with both XoticPC and GentechPC and while I find XoticPC to be a better-established business, GentechPC is better for the customer. Generally prices are better, better deals, more responsive to my specific circumstances. The best thing is that their pricing is more up-front while XoticPC includes things like specialty discounts in their listed prices so when trying to place an order I was surprised by an increase in price. GentechPC does not do this and ends up being cheaper in many cases. They also have very good support and quickly replaced the secondary drive that failed without any issues.

[Anderdale]

In the market for one as well. I prefer newegg. I do use Xotic and gentec to watch pc overviews. I am really liking the look of the new acer black edition laptops.

[lawll]

Never liked the i5 is fine for gaming argument. Get an i7 if possible. If you're like me, it will help when you have like 40 youtube tabs, fraps, instant messenger and other shit running in the background of your game.

I hate Acer, but you really can't beat this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314704&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Gaming+Laptops-_-N82E16834314704&gclid=CNmun4qf0sECFSgLMgodlzIAGw


90% of the software to this day still doesn't support hyper threading. Unless you are editing 4k videos or running virtual machines it's 100% useless. Now if you are looking to overclock the CPU then the i7 is a solid CPU to start with.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

There is no need to have "support" for hyperthreading. Create a process, launch 8 threads, you now support it if its available (arguable, it's up to the OS how it wants to pool them). On the i5, at best you will now have to context switch between 4 threads (and still have the same if not more cache misses, which is the biggest criticism of hyperthreading). Im just browsing the internet, checked task manager and system wide I have 1006 threads (though most are probably sleeping).

Any type of multitasking at all on your computer will benefit from the i7.

Say I have $1500 - $2000 budget, could you link me something that you think would work well naez :3

[lawll]

There is no need to have "support" for hyperthreading. Create a process, launch 8 threads, you now support it if its available (arguable, it's up to the OS how it wants to pool them). On the i5, at best you will now have to context switch between 4 threads (and still have the same if not more cache misses, which is the biggest criticism of hyperthreading). Im just browsing the internet, checked task manager and system wide I have 1006 threads (though most are probably sleeping).

Any type of multitasking at all on your computer will benefit from the i7.

Games can barely leverage more than 2-3 threads/core for the most part. Unless video editing, 3D rendering and other tasks that tend to be more heavily threaded account for a significant chunk of your workload then no, i7 is not worth the expense.

Multi-threaded or multi-cored CPUs have been around for nearly 10 years and games have barely started leveraging that. It is likely going to take many years longer for game programmers to effectively leverage quad-core. So yes windows itself can use all the cores but whatever app you are running most likely will not use all available cores. And who the hell runs a game, web browser, itunes and a few other programs at the same time on a few monitors to even use all the cores? On a personal computer clock speed is still king since most apps will only use 2-3 cores.

L2 compute

[Halius]

Dang with that budget I would personally go with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152590

$1,599
Ghost series so it's in the thin and light category. Plus it has the 870M gpu:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-870M.107792.0.html

Scroll to the bottom, shows frame rates of 35 on ultra for Metro: Last Night, which is pretty good for a laptop card.

Or I would go, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152686

Which is $1,899 but has 16 GB RAM, instead of 12, but as others have said unless you are doing a lot of multi-tasking isn't a huge deal. Also has the 970M. It is also the ghost series (I am particular to the thin and light designs). The 970M runs Metro: Last Night at 53 FPS on ultra, which is damn nice for a laptop card.

Didn't know you had such a decent budget or I wouldn't have even thrown out my lenovo suggestions lol.

[lawll]

Which is $1,899 but has 16 GB RAM, instead of 12, but as others have said unless you are doing a lot of multi-tasking isn't a huge deal.

The top of the line games via graphic engines as in BF4 and crysis only utilize 8GB of ram and about 2-3 cores. Get the best GPU that you can find in a laptop and everything else is subpar in the performance list.

[Juryiel]

I like the Gigabyte P25Wv2 , 870m, i74810 or something like that, etc, pretty good price. Would upgrade the default ram from 8G but otherwise it's pretty much good to go.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834233045

[loramin]

Dang with that budget I would personally go with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152590

$1,599
Ghost series so it's in the thin and light category. Plus it has the 870M gpu:

I'd be very nervous about any "thin and light" MSI latops. I don't know about that particular model, but many of MSI's other lightweight gaming computers have SERIOUS heating issues. In many of them there's only a single fan shared between the CPU and GPU so:


that fan gets super loud when you play a graphics-heavy game
the laptop gets very hot, physically; the models I read about got so hot after only 1/2 hour of gaming that people couldn't even keep them on their laps
when the one fan couldn't cool the computer fast enough (which happened often) it had to throttle the CPU/GPU .. which means you pay for 100% of the CPU/GPU, but only get some percentage of its power


I couldn't find any reviews that mentioned the heating issue for this particular model, so it might be just fine. But if I were buying one, I'd be sure to test it for at least an hour with the newest game I own as soon as possible to see if it gets hot/slow ... before the 30-day return window expires.

[Juryiel]

that fan gets super loud when you play a graphics-heavy game
the laptop gets very hot, physically; the models I read about got so hot after only 1/2 hour of gaming that people couldn't even keep them on their laps
when the one fan couldn't cool the computer fast enough (which happened often) it had to throttle the CPU/GPU .. which means you pay for 100% of the CPU/GPU, but only get some percentage of its power




The fan noise can be a general issue with thin/lightweight gaming laptops, though I haven't had any issues with the Gigabyte I've had for a few months other than it being noisy when hardcore gaming. The fan noise is a worthwhile tradeoff for actually having the laptop be a laptop. I had one of the larger SLI laptops before and i basically treated it like a desktop because it was annoyingly bulky, and that was much more annoying than some fan noise.

[loramin]

If you don't mind the lack of a warranty this is a great value:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231633R

Also if you want a whole bunch of computers to consider, here's the URL list from a spreadsheet I made recently while shopping for a similar laptop:

http://pro-star.com/index.php?r=product/configure&model=W670SJQ
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-GE70-Apache-Pro-012-17-3-Inch/dp/B00IMTQ5I2/ref=psdc1_t2_B00IKF2H12_B00IMTQ5I2
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-aspire-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-120gb-solid-state-drive-sophisticated-black/6573242.p?id=1219225066247&skuId=6573242&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=6573242&extensionType=pla:g&s_kwcid=PTC!pla!!!37678873159!g!!49989913399&kpid=6573242&k_clickid=06188139-3c29-5d69-23f7-000059fc2cb0
http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6678-clevo-w670sjq-p-6993.html?wconfigure=yes
http://www.pro-star.com/index.php?r=product/configure&model=P170SM-A
https://www.powernotebooks.com/configure.php?special=1584
http://www.amazon.com/CyberpowerPC-FANGBOOK-HFX7-1000-17-3-Inch-Laptop/dp/B00JAEXLUS
http://www.xoticpc.com/force-1763-22069-870m-msi-gt70-dominator-barebones-p-7176.html?wconfigure=yes
https://www.digitalstormonline.com/configurator.asp?id=873193
http://www.gentechpc.com/config.asp?config_id=Asus-G750JS-RS71
http://www.amazon.com/G750JS-DS71-17-3-inch-Gaming-GeForce-Graphics/dp/B00IEV85OU/ref=pd_cp_pc_0
http://www.amazon.com/G750JS-i7-4700HQ-nVIDIA-Windows-Gaming/dp/B00G5IKWFO/ref=sr_1_12
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8996256&SRCCODE=WEBGOOPA

[loramin]

The fan noise can be a general issue with thin/lightweight gaming laptops, though I haven't had any issues with the Gigabyte I've had for a few months other than it being noisy when hardcore gaming. The fan noise is a worthwhile tradeoff for actually having the laptop be a laptop. I had one of the larger SLI laptops before and i basically treated it like a desktop because it was annoyingly bulky, and that was much more annoying than some fan noise.

Totally; and even if it does reduce the GPU power by a bit, a small hit might be a worthwhile trade-off for the portability. For me personally though noise is important (I often use the laptop while my wife is watching TV), so that turned me off of MSI.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

100% falsifiable statement

http://i.imgur.com/4EFaRq8.png

It's clear he wants a high end gaming laptop so it's hard to understand why you keep bringing the budget build recommendations that were dated 5 years ago into the conversation.

Also more than 8gb of RAM is perfectly acceptable. He can RAMDisk a lot of games with 16gb. My desktop has 32gb just for this purpose.

I've got a setup to run p99 on ramdisk at home. When seconds of loading count, you kind of have to :3 And thanks for the recommendations everyone. Going to take a few weeks to get the money together -- would rather not buy a toy on payments you know?

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Totally; and even if it does reduce the GPU power by a bit, a small hit might be a worthwhile trade-off for the portability. For me personally though noise is important (I often use the laptop while my wife is watching TV), so that turned me off of MSI.

Portability don't mean shit to me -- long as it doesn't need to be constantly plugged in that sonofabitch could weigh 90 pounds. Sound isn't an issue either, fuck everyone else, i wear headphones. let it sound like a harrier :3 need good air flow.

[lawll]

100% falsifiable statement

http://i.imgur.com/4EFaRq8.png

It's clear he wants a high end gaming laptop so it's hard to understand why you keep bringing the budget build recommendations that were dated 5 years ago into the conversation.

Also more than 8gb of RAM is perfectly acceptable. He can RAMDisk a lot of games with 16gb. My desktop has 32gb just for this purpose.

Dated 5 years ago? Start throwing out same names of games that can use more then 4 cores because not many can. Shit most software in general doesn't use more then 4 unless you are 3D rendering. And WOW a ramdisk LOL talk about 7-8 years ago, with how fast SSDs are nowa days there is zero point in running a ramdisk lol. Seems like marketing sucked you in big time in the computer world.

[Juryiel]

Portability don't mean shit to me -- long as it doesn't need to be constantly plugged in that sonofabitch could weigh 90 pounds. Sound isn't an issue either, fuck everyone else, i wear headphones. let it sound like a harrier :3 need good air flow.

Wait, why don't you want to get a desktop if portability is not an issue? You can get a lot more bang for your buck.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Wait, why don't you want to get a desktop if portability is not an issue? You can get a lot more bang for your buck.

I need a laptop to move around with me, I'm just saying that it can be a behemoth of a laptop. Monitors won't work, nor will unattached keyboards.

[loramin]

I just bought this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152551

It's got ...


the 870m (pretty nice graphics for a laptop, and going higher to the 880m barely improves things so it's not really worth it)
an SSD for the OS, and a 750GB with 7200rpm (ie. fastest for non-SSD) drive for media
processor is the i7 4800MQ, which is pretty good for the money (a lot of other laptops at the same price point only have the 4400)
24GB of RAM (most similar laptops only have 16GB)
a Blue-Ray writer (most have just a DVD writer or a DVD writer/Blue-Ray reader)


... all for only $1,699.99 (- $100 rebate, but I'm usually too lazy to send those in so I don't count it).

[HeallunRumblebelly]

I just bought this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152551

It's got ...


the 870m (pretty nice graphics for a laptop, and going higher to the 880m barely improves things so it's not really worth it)
an SSD for the OS, and a 750GB with 7200rpm (ie. fastest for non-SSD) drive for media
processor is the i7 4800MQ, which is pretty good for the money (a lot of other laptops at the same price point only have the 4400)
24GB of RAM (most similar laptops only have 16GB)
a Blue-Ray writer (most have just a DVD writer or a DVD writer/Blue-Ray reader)


... all for only $1,699.99 (- $100 rebate, but I'm usually too lazy to send those in so I don't count it).

Very nice. I'm going to get one some day =D

[alaiwy0503]

gaming laptops are terrible.

You just have to get the right ones. And unfortunately $1200 doesn't usually get you the right ones. I have been using a Sager 9170 for a couple years and absolutely love it. I had to spend closer to $2000 for it but it is one of my favorite machines I've ever had, including my own custom built desktops in the past.

The problem is that most companies make "gaming laptops". Those aren't usually worth it imo. But if you get a custom built sager/clevo and spend a bit more they can be very good.