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Low Budget Gaming Laptop - Any Suggestions?
Due to circumstance changes my desktop pc is no longer practical and therefore I am in the market for a low budget laptop that will be able to cope with recent and future MMOs such as STO and SWTOR (with moderate frame rate and graphic settings).
I did have my eye on the Acer Aspire 8930g LX.AT10U.002. I like the aesthetic look of the machine plus the 18" fullHD screen, blueray player and OK cpu/gpu. However the cheapest I can find this machine online is £763.74. My budget will be no more than £600 so it looks like I will have to rule this machine out. They do lower spec versions of this machine but I do not know how easy it is to upgrade the internal components in the future to maintain its capability for playing the latest MMO titles.
If I compromise on screen size/resolution I have a couple of alternative machines in my price range;
OcUK Advent Gamer 8555GX (£599.99)
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 2.0GHz Quad Core Processor (1066FSB, 6MB Cache)
- 4GB DDR2 Memory
- 500GB HDD
- ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4670 1024MB GDDR3 Graphics Card
- 17" HD LCD 1440x900 Screen
or
HP Pavilion DV6-2113SA (£519.79)
AMD Turion™ II Ultra Dual-Core Processor M620 2.5 GHz
4 GB DDR2
500GB SATA 7200 rpm
ATI Radeon™ HD 4530 Graphics,
Up to 2302 MB total available graphics memory with 512 MB dedicated DDR3
15.6” Diagonal High-Definition LED HP BrightView
Resolution: 1366 x 768
Please could someone advise which would be the best option? - Or suggest an alternative (bearing in mind my budget constraints)?
Thanks in advance for your advice!
Comments
(edit)
Bleh go with number 1
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
Good for checking your GPU.
The 4670 seems to be the far better GPU
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
Good for checking cpu
Bleh sorry. The m620. (i an dyslexic) the q9000 is the better one.
I would go with the First one if were you.
If portability is also a big issue. The Alienware M11x is really decent. And it is good bang for the buck if you get the I5 version.
Other ones to check out also are Asus gaming laptops. They are really good bang for the buck also.
As for upgrading laptops there is not much you normally can do.
CPU normally can be upgraded easily. But your options will be very limited. And laptop CPUs are insanely expensive.
Upgrading the GPU is a total crapshoot and not worth the effort. Most of the time it will be a hack job. On top of that you probably won't be able to move your laptop anywhere because you need a cooling pad just to make sure you do not fry it (with the upgraded GPU).
Laptops are fine for gaming but you have to be very specific about what you want, what you expect and what you can afford. It would appear you have conflicting desires in what you want and what you can afford.
Because most of what goes into a laptop is custom built to meet the space, power and portability requirements there is very little in the way of being able to upgrade your system other than by adding a bit more ram or an larger disk drive so getting it right the first time is very important.
For a laptop to do well at gaming you need to focus on the GPU and if you are on a tight budget then you just may not be able to play some games at an acceptable frame rate.
There is one basic rule for laptops that I've come to live by over the years and that is don't under spec and under buy as it can't be fixed later. You need to buy as close to what you want as you want or you will just be unhappy and sorry. For gaming this generally is going to mean lots of memory, a big screen and a high end GPU design and this isn't going to be cheap.
I assume that budget includes VAT, which means you really have something like 500 to spend before VAT, and there's not much you can get in that price range. That first machine there will do at least alright, though don't expect mind-blowing performance, and given the setup, expect to have just about zero battery life. Having played Star Trek online a fair bit after launch, I'd say a 4670 will probably net mediumish settings at that resolution with maybe 30fps, and that's going very easy on the anti-aliasing (if having it on at all). TOR we have no benchmarks on, to my knowledge, so who can say what that game will require (though I wouldn't expect it to be any less intensive than STO, and wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhat more intensive).
The second machine with the 4530 shouldn't even be considered. That may be a dedicated GPU, but just barely, and it is not designed for gaming.
Those are both crap laptops. I bought a better laptop for cheaper 6months ago and if I would have gone for a 15" Screen, I could have gotten much much better.
I would suggest you some laptops, but you're cursed with living in England. :-P Just check to see if you can find some good ASUS machines somewhere.
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Those are both better then my old Asus. I can run FFXIV on med to low settings.
Also a good thing to learn when buying a gaming laptop. Learn to change out the fan. More then likely it is gonna crap out at some point. ordering a new one costs only 25 bucks, but letting someone else install it can cost an arm and a leg. And its easy as hell to install.
I have been in your shoes financially. All these rules of thumbs are nice and true, but your budget is your budget. Go with #1 if you cannot find a better asus. Your other choice is to skip gaming altogether.
Also if you are off to college. A desktop is not a bad choice. gaming laptops are a pain to drag around anyhow. If you need a laptop for class you can normally pick up some old piece of sht for 150 bucks at a second hand shop.
If you realy want a "Gaming" laptop you would need to spend over £800.
It is expensive, but you want beat the bang per buck on this
Core i5 13600KF, BeQuiet Pure Loop FX 360, 32gb DDR5-6000 XPG, WD SN850 NVMe ,PNY 3090 XLR8, Asus Prime Z790-A, Lian-Li O11 PCMR case (limited ed 1045/2000), 32" LG Ultragear 4k Monitor, Logitech G560 LightSync Sound, Razer Deathadder V2 and Razer Blackwidow V3 Keyboard
That's really all you needed to say
Of course they're both crap laptops, and for the equivalent of almost $1000 US Dollars, someone living in the states could easily get a machine equipped with a Mobility Radeon HD 5730, or maybe even a a 5850 if they really stretched things, but living in England means that old machines with juice-sucking Core 2 Quad cores and 4670s is about the best you're going to do for 600 pounds.
IIRC, that machine is essentially a rebranded MSI GX740, which is a REALLY nice machine. It's also about the lowest I would go for a primary gaming machine, so yeah, you're basically right that he's not going to do well with less than 800 or so on a laptop.
1) Budget
2) Gaming
3) Laptop
Choose any two. You cannot have all three. You can get a budget gaming desktop. You can get a budget laptop that can't handle games very well. You can get a gaming laptop that is insanely expensive (and still not that great at gaming). But there is no such thing as a budget gaming laptop.
Or at least today there isn't. Next year there will be. Wait for Llano, which AMD says will launch in the first half of 2011. Llano will offer integrated graphics that perform better than the discrete graphics in either of the laptops in the original post. It will have those graphics integrated into the same die as the CPU, so it only takes one chip rather than two. Having the memory controller on the same die as both the CPU and the GPU means that they can share memory efficiently, so you don't need a bunch of extra video memory. That means that it will fit your budget. That plus being made on Global Foundries' upcoming 32 nm HKMG SOI process node should mean it doesn't put out nearly as much heat as most gaming laptops, so you might even be able to put it on your lap without instantly scalding yourself.
the differences are so excruciatingly appalling, only an idiot would choose item II
I'm getting a hp envy 17 1010 (didn't get to pick what I wanted) Do you think it will run Guild Wars 2 or SWTOR??
Yes, it will run Guild Wars 2 just fine. ArenaNet wants to make sure that any not that great gaming system can handle their games. I wouldn't count on max settings, though. As for SWTOR, I don't know. It will probably run. If the game engine is coded by the same idiots who coded the game's web page, maybe not.
HP won't say exactly what video card it is. My guess is that it's the DDR3 version, since that will use the least power. Besides, if it were GDDR5, they'd probably point that out. That should give performance somewhere in the neighborhood of a (desktop) Radeon HD 5670. Mismatched memory channels could cause some problems, but it's probably not a fast enough processor for that to particularly matter. You should expect CPU performance to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a 3 GHz Athlon II X3. Put that together and you should get performance comparable to a gaming desktop that would cost about $600 without peripherals.