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Best laptop for SWTOR?
Budget: $3000 - $4000 or more if i need to.
I am looking for all and any insight you fine folks would have to be the best brand and spec for a laptop to play SWTOR on max settings. I want the best quality machine as far as laptops go, being as how swtor will have low system requirements i dont think i need anything completely blown out that will just overheat and die in a month.
my main priority is SWTOR, it doesnt need to be equipped to play other games.
also, being as how the game isnt released yet, if you have any thoughts of newer technologies coming out before it does get released would help. i will wait if i need to, but i will need to have a new laptop in my hands before launch.
I live in Canada, so looking for something with convenient support. call me paranoid but i dont want to have to ship a machine out and be without it for a month.
thank you very much for the replies in advance, i will read all of them and digest them.
Comments
No one has any idea what it will take to run SWTOR on max settings, because it hasn't been released yet. Sure you can look at beta required specs, and released recommended specs, and past games that run on the same engine, but that isn't going to say what it takes to turn on every single detail - just give you an educated guess.
And there is a very good possibility that when it does release - no laptop will be able to do that.
msi make thwe best! just chose the best for the priod of year you are in!(yes they upgrade often!)
I'm sure with a 3-4k budget you wont go wrong in what you pick. For running SWToR atleast. Whether it is a good deal is something different.
You can get a laptop at www.ibuypower.com for 2k that will max swtor imo. I have not bought there as I built my last rig, but I am thinking of buying there this black friday as I have a friend that bought a laptop from there and I kinda want a laptop myself.
If you're genuinely willing to spend that much, then the best gaming performance you can get is from an Alienware M18x.
http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=nam18x_f_2e&c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&model_id=alienware-m18x
Configure it with a Core i7-2760QM processor, two Radeon HD 6990Ms in CrossFireX, and a 256 GB SSD for $3250 Canadian. If you're going to use a wireless network, then add a Killer Wireless-N 1103 for another $54.20. There are some further processor and memory upgrades that are really expensive and don't matter.
If you're inclined to actually buy that, then call Dell and ask what SSD that is. It's probably a Samsung 470, in which case, it's fine. Not ideal, but good enough. (I'd regard a Crucial M4 as the best SSD that Dell might plausibly use, partially because I regard the Intel SSD 510 as implausible) If it's something else, then come back here and say what it is, so I can tell you if it's something good. There are some junk SSDs out there that you want to avoid.
No other laptop vendor offers CrossFire or SLI together with a Sandy Bridge processor, so if you don't want Alienware, you have to either accept vastly more heat to go with a Bloomfield or Gulftown processor, or else give up one of the video cards. Sandy Bridge chipsets don't natively support multiple video cards, so Dell had to do something custom to make the M18x work.
You might not actually want to spend that much on a laptop, though. In that case, you could get a single video card system in an Alienware M17x or a Eurocom Racer:
http://www.dell.com/ca/p/alienware-m17x-r3/pd?oc=nam17x_f_1e&model_id=alienware-m17x-r3#RatingsAndReviews
http://web.eurocom.com/EC/ec_model_config1(1,219,0)
There are a lot of other sites that sell things that are roughly equivalent to those, but not necessarily in Canada. Those two certainly do, and Eurocom is actually a Canadian company. For the Alienware M17x, the same configuration options as the M18x but with only one video card is $800 cheaper than the M18x.
The Eurocom Racer is cheaper than the Alienware M17x. It's also smaller, with a 15" form factor, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your preferences. It doesn't offer the refreshed Sandy Bridge lineup, so you'd get a Core i7-2720QM rather than 2760QM, which costs you 200 MHz for an otherwise identical processor. Eurocom does let you get both an SSD and a hard drive, rather than just one or the other, but if you get two drives, then you can't get an optical drive. It also gives you several SSD and hard drive options.
If you get the Eurocom Racer, then you should definitely get the Radeon HD 6990M with it, as it's faster than the various Nvidia options (though nearly tied with a GeForce GTX 580M), and much cheaper and uses much less power than the higher end Nvidia cards, too.
For memory, you should ask Eurocom if they use standard SODIMM slots. If they do, then you could save about $130 by getting just one 4 GB memory module from them, and then buying your own second module and adding it yourself when the laptop arrives:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231266
It's plausible that they solder the memory onto the motherboard directly, in which case, you won't be able to do that.
all depends on what you want. if you want something local the bestbuy canada has the asus g74 gaming laptop for $1400. Specs are:
17.3 screen
Intel i7-2630QM
1.5 TB Hard Drive
8GB DDR# RAM
Nvidia GTX 560M 2GB dedicated video card
It scores over a 7 on WEI.
You can also find them on ebay for more if you would like dual hard drives or 16GB RAM. Its Asus's flagship gaming laptop.
I told you about the BestBuy becuase if something goes wrong you can always go to them without shipping it out
Or you can always go to Alienware and get a MX17.
Honestly tho Arenanet is saying that even meduim built systems will run the game smoothly, I guess it all depends on how much money you want to dump into a laptop
Also, it's rumored that both AMD and Nvidia will launch a new lineup of mobile cards that is a die shrink from the current one early next year. Die shrinks are a huge, huge deal, as that's what drives Moore's Law. Rumors say that Nvidia is initially going for a die shrink of Fermi, with Kepler not coming until later.
If the reason why Nvidia isn't competitive with AMD in performance per watt is that Fermi is a bad architecture, then that won't make Nvidia competitive again unless AMD's upcoming Southern Islands is also a bad architecture. If the reason is that Nvidia couldn't figure out what to do with TSMC's 40 nm process node, then Nvidia could be competitive again--unless they also can't figure out what to do with TSMC's 28 nm process node.
Of course, the cards won't actually launch until the process nodes are ready, and we don't know if the high end cards will be the ones that come first. If you want to wait, you could plausibly be waiting well into next year before the high end cards come.
On the processor side, Ivy Bridge is a die shrink from Sandy Bridge, and rumored to launch next March. Realistically, it will launch when Intel's 22 nm process node is ready. I don't know if mobile processors will be in the initial launch, and even if they are, Intel might initially have only dual core processors, because a tiny die size is easier to do on a brand new, immature process node. So if you want to wait for new mobile processors, then you could easily end up waiting long past March.
It's plausible that Trinity could make AMD competitive in laptop gaming processors again as soon as January. But that's far from certain. And even if Trinity is competitive with Sandy Bridge, it probably won't be competitive with Ivy Bridge, as it will be a full process node behind.
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In other news, do you actually need a gaming laptop? You know that $3300 laptop configuration I talked about above? You could get a desktop that is better for about $1500. There are some people who genuinely need a gaming laptop for some purpose, but not very many of them.
Why do you want a gaming laptop in the first place? Even if you need a gaming machine and also a laptop, it's often better to get both a gaming desktop and a cheap laptop. That gets you better gaming performance in the desktop, better portability in the laptop, and a lower total price tag.
thank you very much for your reply and this has already proven quite valuable to me.
i have some further questions regarding brands.
I have read a lot of negative reviews on the brand alienware, what are your thoughts on it? do you know how their support is? and how conveniently it would be to get it fixed should i encounter problems?
is the dual graphics a really good idea to have? i was heavily looking at the asus g74sx before, what are your thoughts on that and how does it compare to what you have recomended ?
SWTOR hasn't released any specs yet, but with 3k to 4k budget you'll be just fine. Just look at the graphics, it's a cartoon for crying out loud. I'm sure I'll be able to run it on my old P4. I was planning on getting a new gaming rig, mainly because of SWTOR, but when I saw the graphics, I changed my mind.
A GeForce GTX 560M will offer a little over half of the graphical performance of a Radeon HD 6990M. That's not what you want if you're hoping for high end gaming performance. It gives performance almost identical to a (desktop) GeForce GTS 450, or comparable to a Radeon HD 6750. Those are ~$100 cards, and the higher end cards exist for a reason.
As for whether CrossFire is a good idea in a laptop, I wouldn't want it personally. But I'm not the sort of person who comes in looking to max settings in games. A single Radeon HD 6990M should let you run nearly all games at fairly high settings for the next few years.
Whether you can max settings is unknowable at this point. Some games are just badly coded, and will never run smoothly at max settings. See, for example, EverQuest II, which is still choppy at max settings on a modern, high end gaming computer, even though it launched in 2004.
No it is not. Having 2 GFX card will lower your running time on battery and that kinda takes away some of the points of owning a laptop. Not to meantion how hot it will get, and heavy.
If you want to max out future games like TOR a desktop is more or less the only viable option unless you are really loaded.
You can easily get a desktop that can max the game out and a laptop that can run it at low settings for mobile use for half the money it will cost you to have a laptop that can max out the game. I would go that way if I were you, laptops are not really intended for gamers but for bussiness men and students.
Well so far I have the G74 with the 3G 192 bit GTX 560M and I am running Conan and Lotro on High and Ultra DX10 and 11 with no shadows and averaging 50-80 FPS. I know both of these games have their own seperate lag and graphical problems. I am gonna guess that I will not be able to crank TOR but can tweak it to a very playable state. This laptop has a great cooling setup which was really my biggest concern as I will be playing for some long periods of time and did not want to spend $2000 I just thought I would put that out there. I might add that is on a 32" 1080p tv.
I have been running Age of Conan on my 4 year old gateway on fairly high settings not topped off. 2 gigs of ram core 2 processor, and a Geforce 8800.
Newer laptops should smoke the game if I can run it as well as I do on my current rig.. I did just order a new laptop last night.
If you do decide on Alienware, get the 4 year accidental damage warranty. It might take a bit of hassle, but if you ever want to upgrade, just smash/spill something on your computer and get it completely replaced. Their policy states that they will only replace parts with parts of equal or greater value, so if they don't have any more 6990Ms 3 years down the road, they'll have to give you something of equal or greater value then (which is certainly going to be much more powerful than a 6990M).
I would say go with the Alienware m18x. It is consistantly in the top 3 of the top 10 gaming laptops. The only drawback to most ranking systems is the battery life and the weight. It is not the best for mobility but for gaming depending on your build it will beat all. And speaking from first hand XP It will be overkill for TOR's graphics but you will be able to play ANY game releasing in the next few years at max settings.
P.S. dont let TOR's graphics make you second guess the game. It is truely a EPIC game, even with its WoW like playstyle.
the BEST laptop for SWTOR is a Clevo with ivybridge and southern islands:D
if you cant afford that, then get a trinity laptop:)
Well i have had my last two PC being AlienWare and before that i have had nothing but DEll XPS gaming desktops. Dell own AlienWare and i have had no problem with dell other than getting my point across to an Indian service guy who i have to repeat what i am saying 10 times before he understands.
I have had one DeskTop replaced without any hassleand i have next day service on my system,meaning if something goes wrong i have a tec come to my house within 48 hours to fix the desk top or replace the parts.
Yeah some will say build your own blah blah but i really am not intersted in doing that.
I have a ..
AlienWare Aurora ALX
Windows 7 64bit Ultimate
Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 975 3.3GHz OC at 4.2GHz
AlienWare MicroATX LGA 1366 Intel X58
Corsair DOMINATOR 12GB DDR3 1600MHz
2x GeForce GTX 580 1536MB SLi
Liquid Cooling - 120mm Single Radiator
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM HDD RAID 0
512GB SSD DUAL HDD 2X 256GB
AlienWare 875 Watt PSU
You want http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYR_2GD9CtI
http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Jesus/Jesus.htm
I have a question about raid:
is raid necessary? is there a downside to raid? will it shorten the lifespan of the machine?
My primary use will be SWTOR, and i dont plan on downloading a bagillion things.
well you could always do this http://www.razerzone.com/blade pretty sweet. pretty mini haha :DD
There are several different kinds of RAID. RAID 5, 6, and 10 have some important enterprise uses, but require more than two drives, so you can't do them in a laptop.
What you can do in a laptop is RAID 0 or RAID 1. RAID 0 says, we'll split the data evenly between two hard drives. If you want to read in a large file, half of it will be on each hard drive, so each only has to take half as long as normal to read the drive, once the drive heads and platters move to the right position. The advantage of this is that you double sequential read and write speeds. You may also help random write speeds somewhat. But the problem is that you don't help random read speeds at all in some cases. So you make hard drives faster at the things in which they were already fast enough, but don't help in cases where they're too slow.
RAID 0 does have some serious drawbacks, however. One is the price tag to get two hard drives. Another is the power consumption and heat output of two hard drives. But the bigger problem is reliability. If one of your hard drives dies, then even if the other is fine, all of your data is gone. All of it. That means that you double your chances of losing your data. It's actually worse than that, if the RAID array breaks somehow even while both hard drives are fine. RAID 0 does have its uses, but ordinary consumer use isn't one of them.
RAID 1 is very different. RAID 1 says, we're going to take all of the incoming data, and write it simultaneously to two hard drives. To the end user, it looks exactly the same as if you only had one hard drive. You do still have to deal with the added cost, heat, and power consumption, but performance is unchanged.
The advantage of RAID 1 is that if a hard drive dies, you still have all of your data on the other one, so you don't lose any data. The system doesn't even crash, though it will notify you that a hard drive failed and you should probably replace it promptly, rather than risking the other drive also failing. The advantage or RAID 1 is reliability, not performance.
For most consumer use, RAID 1 isn't the best idea. Now, you should back up your data. But RAID 1 is overkill for that backup. Daily incremental backups together with a periodic image backup of the drive (e.g., to an external hard drive) is plenty good enough for most consumers. Indeed, that's probably better than what ~99% of home users do to back up their own data. But for a typical home user, if you lose all the data you generated that day, and have to go back to how your computer was yesterday, it's not that big of a deal. A nuisance, yes, but not catastrophic, and not something that you want to pay $100 up front to avoid having to risk.
Now, there are some enterprise uses where losing a day worth of data is a huge deal. If a web site sells stuff online and has a hard drive crash, going back to yesterday's database is no good. That means that you have no clue who bought stuff from you today, or what you shipped to people today. Or, considering the content of this site, consider an online game database. If the database crashes and you have to revert to a day-old backup, that means all of the progress that everyone in the game made today is gone. Your players are going to be furious, and you'll take a huge PR hit over it.
Now, if you really want to be aggressive about backing up your data, then RAID 1 alone isn't good enough. If your power supply goes poof and fries everything in the system, it just fried both of your hard drives. Sites that really, really need to not lose data will have something like RAID 6 in the local system, plus frequent backups to other machines, and more backups stored off site, too, so that even if the whole building burns down and takes all the hardware in their headquarters with it, they still lose at worst mere hours worth of data.
Now, ordinary consumers don't need that degree of redundancy, of course. That's the sort of thing that you'd do if losing data meant you would die. Because for some businesses, losing their data does mean that the business dies.
If you want high performance, then get an SSD, not RAID 0. A single good SSD can outperform even a large RAID array of super high end enterprise hard drives in situations where hard drives are slow.
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And no, don't get a Razer Blade. That's stupidly overpriced for the hardware that comes in it.
there is canadian company making computer in canada cant recall the name and i aint sure if they do laptop
but in term of performance they were one of the best performing!
http://www.mdg.ca/
was this but i checked ,meh ,pretty lame
if you have a futurshop around might want to check them
or tigerdirect.ca
they got the same in usa called tigerdirect.com
they got huge warehouse in usa(yes i saw them )
so this might be a good thing to check out
will you find what you need?maybe,maybe not!
I was actually just researching some of the better, and extremely high end laptops out and about these days. You can easily get a laptop today that could destroy the majority of desktops when it comes to graffics and gaming. As long as you can afford the pricetag.
The Falcon DRX can be customized very nicely for around 4k, up to 9-10k if ya want all the bells and whistles plus accessories.
Here is a link to their site. http://www.falcon-nw.com/
THank you Quizzical, i will stick to the single ssd
i priced out some laptops, wondering if i can get some thoughts on the specs and the brand?
priced this out on sager's website:
Display 17.3" Full HD LED-Backlit Display with Super Glossy Surface (1920 x 1080)
Zero Dead Pixel Insurance Guaranteed no dead or partially-lit pixels for first 30 days of purchasing [$75.00]
Video & Graphics Card Dual AMD Radeon HD 6990M GPU with 2GB GDDR5 Video Memory + Additional AC Adapter & Power Converter Box [$575.00]
CPU Processor Intel® Core™ i7-990X Processor Extreme Edition ( 12MB L3 Cache, 3.46GHz, 6.4GT/sec QPI, 6 Cores ) [$790.00]
Thermal Compound Stock Standard Thermal Compound
Operating System Genuine MS Windows® 7 Home Premium 32/64-Bit Edition ( 64-Bit Preloaded )
Memory 12GB Triple Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 3 X 4GB [$75.00]
RAID Storage Options Info Non-RAID Storage
Primary Hard Disk Drive 120GB Intel 510 Series SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive [$260.00]
Optical Drive Bay — Optical Drive or Hard Disk Drive in Optical Drive Bay with Caddy case 6X Blu-ray Reader/8X DVD±R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software [$80.00]
Wireless Network Card Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module [$25.00]
Bluetooth Internal Bluetooth V2.1 Module
Primary Battery Smart Li-ION Battery Pack
Integrated Security Device Fingerprint Reader
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office Starter 2010 - Included in Price
Warranty Sager 3 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty [$249.00]
Canada Two Way Ground Shipping Coverage Add-on ( For Canada Customer Only!) Canada two way ground shipping service coverage add-on for Sager 3 Year Limited Parts & Labor Warranty [$70.00]
Carrying Bag Standard Carrying Bag
total price: $4600 with shipping
i priced out this alienware for $5300:
the one option i am in question about is the memory, they offer 32gb dual channel DDR3 @1333mhz for $1000 more. is that necessary? i dont plan on multi tasking my computer that much, just SWTOR and maybe itunes and a web browser
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i7 2960XM 2.7GHz (3.7GHz with Turbo Boost, 8MB Cache) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit edit
MEMORY 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (4DIMMS) edit
VIDEO CARD Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6990M AMD CrossFireX edit
HARD DRIVE 256GB Solid State Drive SATA 3Gb/s edit
LCD PANEL 18.4-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 WLED edit
WIRELESS CARDS Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO for Gaming & Video and Bluetooth 3.0 edit
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW) edit
SOUND OPTIONS Internal High-Definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio edit
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee SecurityCenter, 30-Days Trial edit
WIRELESSHD Internal WirelessHD Technology - FullHD Video Transmitter edit
Options
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 4 Year Basic Service Plan edit
INTERNET ACCESS 3 Months Shaw High Speed Internet Service (must include a Network Card) edit
ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE SERVICE 4 Year Accidental Damage Service edit
SYSTEM COLOR Space Black Anodized Aluminum edit
ALIENFX COLOR Quasar Blue edit
Essentials
PRINTERS Dell P713w Wireless All In One Printer edit
DELL P713W Dell P713w Wireless All In One Printer - Canada edit
WARRANTY 1 Year Limited Warranty and 1 Year Advanced Exchange Service edit
GAMING ACCESSORIES Logitech G700 Wireless Gaming Mouse edit
GAMING STORE HD3 Gaming Chill Mat for up to 18 Inch Laptops - Black edit
GAMING STORE Alienware Orion Messenger Bag – Fits Laptops with Screen Sizes Up to 18" edit
ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
A/C Adapter Alienware M18x 330W A/C Adapter
Adobe Reader Acrobat SW Adobe Acrobat X Reader
Standard Nameplate Trigger Standard Nameplate
No one buys a gaming laptop for battery life. They are meant to remain plugged in and are expected to double as a space heater for whatever room you are playing in. The OP spoke of a 3-4K budget so yes, I'd say he's loaded. Laptops are most certainly intended for gamers. In addition to my fast custom desktop rig, I own a $1000 G53 that I can use to play any game in existence on high settings @ 1920 x 1080. If OP wants to get a killer gaming laptop, it will be easy to do for 3-4K.