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Was wondering if there are any good gaming laptops out now or coming soon? I'm in the market right now for something below $1500US; it doesn't have to be a god-like machine, just good enough to play current games at good settings. I'd use it mostly to play strategy games or RPGs to give you an idea.

Balrog wrote:Was wondering if there are any good gaming laptops out now or coming soon? I'm in the market right now for something below $1500US; it doesn't have to be a god-like machine, just good enough to play current games at good settings. I'd use it mostly to play strategy games or RPGs to give you an idea.

Strategy games and RPG's are generally reasonably happy with about a 7600 Go card (if you're willing to compromise settings even a little bit). That's a VERY popular card for laptops. If you're out for something more serious, the 8 series Go cards are significantly more expensive, but you should be able to find something.

Look at something in the Dell XPS range.

As far as I know the Dell Vostro with the 8600GT for around $900 is still the best deal by far. It can run basically everything out now (including Crysis) though obviously not at the higher settings. Every other current laptop I've seen is either significantly weaker or far more expensive.

Intel Mac. No seriously. I have a friend who plays TF2, among other things on one. With the added bonus that you get Mac OSX.

Intel Mac is out. You need a Macbook Pro to get a decent graphics card. That's fairly well above his spending limit.

What size laptop are you looking for? Something fairly small, or a luggable?

For that price range, the 8600gt is the mobile GPU you're looking for. Apple sells 15.4 notebooks with them, but they are $2000+. Dell really has the best selection - take a look at the Vostro 1500, the XPS m1530 and the Inspiron 1525 (which is the same chasis as the vostro). The XPS is a smidge lighter and not as bulky as the Vostro and Inspirion, but you will pay for that. If you're going with those machines, but very careful how you configure them, as you could end up paying more for less just by customizing the wrong machine (its extremely evil - I know).

Size isn't a big factor, it's basically replacing a decrepit old desktop that I'm tired of lugging around and which can't even play CivIII half the time without dying a horrible death.

And yeah, no Macs. Not only is it far more expensive, it doesn't have nearly as many games available for it compared to PC.

InnocentBystander wrote:If you're going with those machines, but very careful how you configure them, as you could end up paying more for less just by customizing the wrong machine (its extremely evil - I know).

How so?

Balrog wrote:And yeah, no Macs. Not only is it far more expensive, it doesn't have nearly as many games available for it compared to PC.

You heard Apple switched to Intel chips, right?

None. Get a small form factor PC and a cheap laptop (preferably something small). Depending on your mobile needs, an Eee might work, though a used thinkpad is probably better. 1k on SFF PC and 500$ on laptop.

Balrog wrote:

InnocentBystander wrote:If you're going with those machines, but very careful how you configure them, as you could end up paying more for less just by customizing the wrong machine (its extremely evil - I know).

How so?

It's how the Dell shop engine works. There's different configurations of machines, each generally better than the next, and costing a bit less than just going with the bottom end machine and spec'ing it up. However, if you want some weird hybrid, the two different base configs will give different final prices. Sometimes it's the cheap machine that's better, sometimes the more expensive one.

While I'd usually recommend the Macs, they only put decent graphics cards in the MacBook Pros which are out of your pricerange.

Frankly, I don't understand why someone would buy a gaming laptop- generally, it means that the actual "portable" side of things is totally crippled (horrible battery life, bulky machine), or if not, then it uses much weaker mobile chipsets than a desktop.

Regardless, Dell makes decent gaming laptops.

Praxis wrote:Frankly, I don't understand why someone would buy a gaming laptop- generally, it means that the actual "portable" side of things is totally crippled (horrible battery life, bulky machine), or if not, then it uses much weaker mobile chipsets than a desktop.

Crippled compared to a regular laptop perhaps, but not compared to a similarly spec'd desktop setup.

InnocentBystander wrote:

Praxis wrote:Frankly, I don't understand why someone would buy a gaming laptop- generally, it means that the actual "portable" side of things is totally crippled (horrible battery life, bulky machine), or if not, then it uses much weaker mobile chipsets than a desktop.

Crippled compared to a regular laptop perhaps, but not compared to a similarly spec'd desktop setup.

Seriously, gaming laptop parts, if done right are just about on par with desktop equivalents, you simply can't get a 1:1 video card if anything, that always lags. (I mean, the nVidia 7950 desktop GPU has 2 cores, the laptop iteration though? only 1, it's just an overclocked 7900 Go) You can even find dual-card laptops though they usually lug 19" screens, weigh around or above 10lbs and cost a pretty penny.

The biggest concerns with a gaming laptop is price and then perhaps quality of components since you got so much heat in so little space. A gaming laptop though not mobile in the sense that most laptops are designed to be, is still infinitely better than anything requiring a monitor and keyboard if you plan to do something as simple as a vacation or go to a LAN party. I took my laptop on vacation and it payed off in every aspect being powerful and mobile. (I got one of these) Normally if I plan to take my computer anywhere else for a temporary amount of time, I'm looking at mailing at the very LEAST the tower, and I could probably get hand-me-down CRT monitors, sticky keyboards, but bring my own laser mouse. With a gaming laptop, I bring 2 things, the laptop and mouse and it's all and everything I need, though a bigger monitor is always nice.

Price and quality are my only concerns really but if I really did care about battery life for mobile non-gaming use, you can mess with the power settings and a lot of laptops large enough to be called "gaming laptops" can have a 2nd battery anyway. And hey, all the power savings that go into laptops as par for the course probably mean it consumes less power than some gaming desktop with a goddamned car battery in the back which can't be run at the same time as the microwave in the other room.

Actually, there was two versions of the desktop 7950: GX2 and GT. Only the GX2 had dual GPUs.

Uraniun235 wrote:

Balrog wrote:And yeah, no Macs. Not only is it far more expensive, it doesn't have nearly as many games available for it compared to PC.

You heard Apple switched to Intel chips, right?

Actually, I hadn't, though they're still too expensive for my price range.

And yes, the big reason I want a laptop is because it'll be easier to carry around and won't take up as much space as a desktop. Obviously battery life is an issue, but most of the time I'll be able to plug it into a power outlet and generally stick to non-intensive work when mobile anyways.

Uraniun235 wrote:

Balrog wrote:And yeah, no Macs. Not only is it far more expensive, it doesn't have nearly as many games available for it compared to PC.

You heard Apple switched to Intel chips, right?

It's not just the chips, it's also the APIs. To name a random example: DirectX. MacOS X doesn't support that API, so any games which use it won't run without modification. For most games, that's an extensive amount of modification.

Unless you use bootcamp to install Windows, in which case you're spending an extra $100 for windows.

Balrog wrote:

Uraniun235 wrote:

Balrog wrote:And yeah, no Macs. Not only is it far more expensive, it doesn't have nearly as many games available for it compared to PC.

You heard Apple switched to Intel chips, right?

Actually, I hadn't, though they're still too expensive for my price range.

And yes, the big reason I want a laptop is because it'll be easier to carry around and won't take up as much space as a desktop. Obviously battery life is an issue, but most of the time I'll be able to plug it into a power outlet and generally stick to non-intensive work when mobile anyways.

You do know that gaming laptops tend to max out at 2 hours of battery life, and it only goes down from there as the battery gets old. so you're really looking at 1:30.