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Looking for a gaming Laptop - mid to high end graphics - please help
Hey all.
My brother does most of his gaming on the road because he is a pilot so he is looking to get a new laptop on black friday, one that will run final fantasy 14 on mid-high settings. his budget is in the 1000-1200 range.
can any make some good suggestions on a great gaming laptop in that price range?
thx
Comments
Heya, even though I might be pushing your price range by a little. It'll play FF like it's nothing, and it won't even overheat thanks to the double rear fans nor will it make any noise.
ASUS G750JW-DB7
It's $1,275 atm on Amazon.
Negative side note though: it's a 17,3 inch laptop... making it pretty "big" and it has quite some weight(10.6 pounds).
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-G750JW-DB71-17-3-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B00COQIKB4
Try the Dell Outlet when they are running a 20-40% discount special. They have some solid stuff, to include some Alienware laptops. Yes I understand not the cream of the crop in terms of brand but getting a refurbished laptop can yield some serious upgrades, to include an SSD.
Try look at the some of the 17R and 15R special editions.
I have a Lenovo y500 which is able to play ff14 on high settings. It cost me about $900 and that was about 5 months ago for a mothers day sale. They now have a y510p which is basically the same as the y500 except has the new haswell i7 processor. I would definitely recommend this laptop. Plus the laptop has an ultrabay which gives you the option to add another 750m so with the extra money he will be saving he could buy that.
Here's the link if you are interested:
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y510p/?tt=d
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y510p/
one of those is my recommendation, great value for the performance, theres also a 14" version the Y410P with a max resolution of 900p though
I'd like to start by commending the original poster for stating in the initial post why it needs to be a gaming laptop as opposed to a desktop. Most people who ask for a laptop don't do that--and many of them shouldn't get a gaming laptop. But if you want to take it with you when you travel and play games away from home (as a pilot who is a gamer presumably would), a gaming laptop makes sense.
As I see it, there are two sensible directions that you could go. You can get a high end processor or a high end video card, but not both. So you pick which one will be high end and which one will be upper mid-range.
It's really a question of how averse you are to turning down graphical settings. If you really want everything to run smoothly and don't mind medium settings if that's what it takes, then get the high end processor and save some on the video card. If you're a max settings kind of guy and want to run everything at the highest playable settings even if not completely smooth, and want those settings to be as high as possible, then get the high end video card and save some money on the processor.
If you want to go the high end processor route, then you want a Core i7-4700MQ processor and a GeForce GTX 765M video card. There are a number of laptops that offer this. A GeForce GTX 760M is somewhat slower, but you don't want to go below that. In particular, a GeForce GT 750M or GeForce GTX 660M is much slower and not what you want on that budget.
If you want to go with the high end video card, then the MSI GX60 or GX70 (the difference basically amounts to choosing between a 15.6" or 17.3" monitor) is basically it. In that case, here you go:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152496
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152407
Unlike most prebuilt laptops, they're actually configured sensibly. Adding an SSD would push it out of your price range, anyway.
The choice between the high end processor or a high end video card is a philosophical difference. I'd personally go for the high end processor, but it's up to you. Do ask your brother which he prefers, though.
Now that I look more carefully, no one has offered a sensible high end processor, upper mid-range video card option, so I'll link one for you:
http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_customed&model_name=NP7355
Upgrade the CPU to a Core i7-4700QM, but default everything else is fine. There would be room in the budget to swap out the hard drive for a 128 GB Crucial M5 if that's enough space.
Dell is always offering "specials" of some sort. Their basic business model is to take something that you could buy for $1000 elsewhere, claim it's nominally worth $1500, but they'll sell it to you at a special discount of $1200. Don't get suckered into that.
I was flirting with the idea of a gaming laptop for about a year and about a month and a half ago when I realized I was going to be working out of hotels an average of 12 days a month for the foreseeable future I got one.
Coincidentally (or not - I've been leaning towards an AMD system for a while thanks to Quiz's recommendations from a year ago) I ended up getting the same one Quiz linked above (the 2nd one) - the MSI GX70... I couldn't be happier. There's nothing that touches the performance of this laptop at that price range. For equivalent performance from an Intel/nVidia laptop, add ~ $500 or more.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152407&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=6146960&SID=hdjqhryzz5s9
It runs my two current MMOs, GW2 and Rift on max settings with no problems whatsoever as well as the two Action RPGs games I play. Diablo 3 and Path of Exile.
It came with WIN-8 and I upgraded it to 8.1 with no problems at all. I thought it would be hard to live without an SSD and thought I would immediately upgrade it myself (it can be done easily) but I didn't have much time and just wanted to use it. And I have to say that I may not even bother now: the combination of the WIN8 features in the BIOS and hibernation make the initial start-up very fast and the load times in games, although slower than what I'm used to on my desktop, are not that bad.
The only cons I can think of--all of which are pretty standard for any gaming laptop--are:
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
You could try a Lenovo G505s which comes with a AMD A8 4500M the APU should be able to handle some games at
medium/low settings.
The MSI laptops that Quiz linked would be a good purchase.
As someone who is also on the road and in hotels many days a month I personally would suggest going the 15" route over the 17". Especially if he is a pilot and space is an issue. Much easier to find a bag and transport the 15" models. Plus if he is staying in hotels bring an hdmi cord and if he wants can hook it up to the hotels TV.
I do this often when I play SP games, bring an HDMI cord and a xbox controller and your in business. MMOs not so much.
I have the model under this one, and I can confirm that this is your BEST buy for a laptop. I play FF14 on it as well on medium graphics without a single stutter or hitch at all, this one will be perfect for your brother to play on for a few years to come. My only personal preference would be to 'upgrade' the machine to a stripped down windows 7 for more performance. But I'm just anal that way.