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Snakebabies

Snakebabies

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Hey gents, I'm in the market for a tough and durable laptop for a couple key reasons. I'd like some pros/cons of shit out there now. My budget is roughly (+/-)15oo USD.



Looking for something I can use for 3 things.


School work(video comms so I can talk to the fam and you guys while im in laughganistan), my music, and solid gaming performance.

If we could get some brainstorming done, I'd greatly appreciate the push in the right direction. I've never owned a laptop so.......I'm all ears! thanks
 
By solid gaming performance if you mean BF3? Can be done easily but its a matter of money. Talking 1,000 minimum 1500 ideal. Been awhile since I shopped so lemme look I used to be a laptop gamer :p

CPU wise things to look for. Laptop i5's are Dual Core but unlike desktops they usually have HyperThreading. There are some low end i7's that are dual core but the rest are quads. They are all very compatible to their desktop counter parts except the laptop variants are much lower in clock speed.

Last time I checked a 460M was MINIMUM for BF3 and integrated graphics like the Nvidia 540M were just not going to cut it. I will have to get myself breifed here for you on whats up these days.

Usually looking for ASUS or MSI offerings. Sager is a great choice too if bought from a reseller but it doesnt come with an OS. Most of these other off brand companies are like Sager, they buy a Clevo or other chassis and just slap a brand name on it. I would stay away from Toshiba and Alienware except when an awesome deal comes up.

660M here for 920 but its only an i5 (Sager) - http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6350-clevo-w350etq-p-4897.html

660M with i7 Quad build on an MSI Barebones chassis for $950 - http://www.xoticpc.com/force-16ga009-msi-16ga-msi-ge60-barebones-p-5035.html

670M, i7 Quad, Once again MSI Chassis 960 - http://www.xoticpc.com/forcemsi-16f3-22001-670m-msi-gt60-barebones-p-4346.html

Anyways Xotic is one of the first places I price from and a great Sager reseller - http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-gaming-laptops-ct-118_96_98.html I used to rep GenTechPC out in Cali its another place to look I know one of the builders/techs there. Plenty of places to buy from prices are looking good so far from Xotic. Might find a similar mass market offering built for newegg, best buy thats stripped in some area that brings the price way down.
 
nice nice...hard drive reccomendation?

and wifi hardware?
 
The 660M is a Kepler chip, the 670M is actually Fermi, but the 670M is still better in general. The 650M is probably dirt. The 660M can pretty much run 1080P Ultra in BF3, like my 570 it helps to turn something down, either HBAO to SSAO or down the MSAA.

Snakebabies said:
nice nice...hard drive reccomendation?
Click to expand...

I would go with whatever they come with. The prebuilt ASUS, MSI, whatever offerings those companies pretty much charge full price for an upgrade. With some of the Sager and Barebones based offerings this might not be the case as they are already charging you for a drive to begin with and an upgrade is a slight offset. You will have to double check make sure no one rips you off in that department.

Many of these Chassis have dual bays, my old 15 inch ASUS does. Which means down the road you can go SSD boot if you want. 7200 RPM drives are awesome, but if the 5400 rpm drive your getting is say twice the capacity of the 7200 your looking at the performance wont be far off as density = more data per cycle covered.

Snakebabies said:
and wifi hardware?
Click to expand...

2 Antenna Wireless N is pretty standard as of 3 years ago. Depending on the card this will allow for up to 2x2 MIMO for 300 Mbps with a compatible router. In a chassis that offers 3 antenna's an upgrade to a 3x3 MIMO support card would allow 450 Mbps with a compatible router. I would not worry about it your probably not going to need an upgrade.
 
ahh sweet...so I can get a solid state upgrade in the future if need be...wow. Had no idea laptops could be so versatile. THanks rain...Definatly a good start in the right direction.....

Another question, O.S.....is it gunna be worth running 8? or should i wait a while to switch so they get the bugs worked out?
 
Well with money you can get whatever the hell you want lol. 3 grand was usually the magic number for a super laptop. You can get a laptop with dual 680M's and an unlocked i7 Quad and just rape BF3 but a desktop to do the same is half that cost. Laptop hard drives use the same connector and your standard SSD is 2.5" uses 5v only maybe 3.3v as well will drop into a laptop. The 15 inch class in gaming laptops is somewhat common for having 2 drives. But 17 inch laptops while costing more often have better cooling and are even more common with dual drive bays.

I am personally against running Windows 8 except as needed. With a laptop an OS is a little bit bigger of a deal. All of these are going to run 7 great and if you get a Sager a 99 dollar oem system builder license is probably where you want to be. You can run a retail disc for 120 day trial while you figure it out. But the driver support for 8 is probably pretty spotty at the moment.

3 years from now these 1000 dollar and under units aren't going to be playing shit. Most of these have a shelf life at best of 2 years for playing new games. 660M is going to get your barely by in BF3 it will probably be HIGH settings in BF4. Depending on your budget and what you expect out of this you might have to shop and your always going to be compromising.

Just forget GPU upgrades. With the Sager's and some of the barebones it becomes an option but often the heatsinks change, getting them is difficult and the prices on the cards are often as much as a laptop.
 
look at MSI and ASUS, whichever has the bigger numbers, take em, others are garbage.
 
Here's a quick search of what I have found, haven't done much research past that, but Rain seems to know a thing or two. Here's what I've found:

$700-$1200- Midrange
Lenovo Y580
Clevo W150ER/W170ER
HP DV6/DV7
Dell XPS 15
Sager NP3265
Asus N53/N56
Dell XPS 17/MSI 16F2

$1200+ - Gaming/Desktop Replacement
Asus G55/G75
Clevo P150EM/P151EM/P170EM
Alienware M17x R3
Alienware M18x/Clevo P270 (np9270)

All you pretty much have to do is google the name and the spec's and review's should pop up somewhere.
 
Griff heres the problem with some of those models.

ASUS N series is pretty much a thin and lite series. N56 comes with the GT 630M, at best you will be playing counter strike, maybe Bad Company 2 on medium. 96 to 144 shaders depending either way its a renamed Fermi core. That at best is equivalent to the 555M found in Razer's original Blade laptop which at 2500 dollars promised to be the worlds (first true) FAKEST* gaming laptop and let you play BF3 on low. The N53's 550M isn't going to impress either way your playing counter strike.

HP, out of the box just like the last 5 years they will NOT sell you any good graphics chips at any price and they already expect you to pay way more for lower end hardware than ANY other manufacturer. ZDV7 starts out GT 630M +125 to get the 650M putting us at 1,l24...eww. DV6 is the same deal.

Dell XPS 15, before even hitting the configurator, from dell's site this is going to be a BAAAAD deal. Have to hope to find a mass market version in a store somewhere at 1300 dollars for a i5 and GT 630M, dell continues to be a rip off. They literally always start off with low to mid range hardware and then double the price of what others are charging, its insane.

Lets skip on down to the Alienware M17x/M18x. The M17x R3 is a discontinued model, so your talking in store and used. But new the R4 At $1600 dollars you can get DUAL 670M's in SLi so at this price range I am scratching my head at these single GPU laptops. The 17 inch unlike what a glance at the main page might suggest starts out with the 7970M not the 680M which is 350 more already putting you 500 bucks ahead of any other 680M laptop I would be shopping. But lets look at the Radeon, appears to perform between the 675M and 680M as they are saying so no reason to change that out unless you REALLY hate AMD.

There is no way in hell the M18x (r1 or r2) is a Clevo P270. The Clevo P270 is a desktop cpu using behemoth. Unless you were putting it in the same category. But its a 15 pounds, dont use it on battery every way too big laptop.

Clevo W170ER is a mid ranger, 650M not upgradable. Sager NP3265 635M not upgradable which is a real nightmare for gaming. However say the Clevo P170EM would be something to desire.
 
diggin the ASUS G75 series..just wish i could customize what i want in it...



Think i've narrowed it down to ASUS G75VW and FORCE/MSI 1762 (52-025) 675M....
 
Yeah ASUS pretty much deals in a handful of models built on a base unit. Typically they will only offer one gpu maybe 2 and a few cpu's. The G74's were incredibly well cooled and good on noise level and I would expect that to carry on with the G75.

Careful as your searching around as there is many G75VW's for example the 1400 dollar G75VW-TH72 for xotic carries a 670M while the 1280 dollar G75VW-AS71 on Amazon has a 660M. Back to exotic they have several 660M and several 670M G75VW's available. Just don't want you to get lost in the pile.
 
ahh..copy, so there is a modifier then...prolly the reason cant customize..thanks for the heads up.
 
I went with a 17" Asus G74 a year ago; not a bad laptop, good middle range. I would recommend G75 or MSI; both pretty much the same hardware. I wouldn't recommend a 17" if you travel my SOB is heavy to drag through airport. With a 15" I would use a monitor.
 
thanks BALLS....17"..IM toting in an airport twice...two afghanistan, and from.
 
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