Budget laptop for playing BF3 at high/ ultra setting

[Kpssandhu]

Hello,
I am going to buy new laptop for work and entertainment, I already have gaming pc at home on which I play BF3 and many more games.
I am looking for decent laptop which can handle games like BF3 with decent Fps at 760p.
Screen 14 in. Max
Should be light to carry.
Reasonably priced.

 

[ojas]

Um. I have the vaguest feeling that kpssandhu lives in the Indian subcontinent.

Mainly because of the "AMD cpus overheat" bit, that's pretty popular around here (and the name of course).

So is "where is that pentium V?" :lol:

Anyway, if kpssandhu could please state his budget i think that'll help everyone a lot, because the laptop that costs $1000 in the US ends up at around $1200+ here in India (i believe it would cost even more in the rest of the subcontinent).

And $900+ may not be his idea of "budget".

Also, a $1200 gaming laptop over here usually has a 660m or equivalent GPU.

Wouldn't really recommend a non-gaming laptop for BF3. You'll end up frying the CPU (i say this from experience, a friend of mine got a toshiba from the US and BF3 saw its CPU hitting 95*C+).

p.s. @PCGamer: agree with blazorthon, IGP means it's on the same die as CPU (and in earlier years integrated into the mobo, though that was a graphics controller, i believe, processing was still done by the CPU). Nvidia/AMD notebook GPUs can be removed from the mobo, and have their own memory and controller.

 

[blazorthon]

Um. I have the vaguest feeling that kpssandhu lives in the Indian subcontinent.

Mainly because of the "AMD cpus overheat" bit, that's pretty popular around here (and the name of course).

So is "where is that pentium V?" :lol:

Anyway, if kpssandhu could please state his budget i think that'll help everyone a lot, because the laptop that costs $1000 in the US ends up at around $1200+ here in India (i believe it would cost even more in the rest of the subcontinent).

And $900+ may not be his idea of "budget".

Also, a $1200 gaming laptop over here usually has a 660m or equivalent GPU.

That brings me back to the APU argument.

 

[ojas]

but blazorthon, an APU wouldn't be able to touch ultra...probably good for medium, maybe high with dual graphics.

 

[blazorthon]

True, at least for BF3, but with CF, it could get high (maybe ultra, depending on the APU and the discrete card as well as the APU's memory configuration and other in-game settings) and it would still be in an affordable budget.

 

[killerhurtalot]

Memory bandwidth is the only significant difference between the GTX 680M and the GTX 670. It obviously makes a difference because of the huge deficit in performance between them. Using good AA, the 680M crawls in comparison to 7970M.

memory bandwidth isn't the difference... it's got the same bandwidth...

the only difference is that it's got 4GB of vram instead of 2 and the core/memory clock is underclocked by a ton....

 

[blazorthon]

memory bandwidth isn't the difference... it's got the same bandwidth...

the only difference is that it's got 4GB of vram instead of 2 and the core/memory clock is underclocked by a ton....

The GTX 680M has a little more than half of the GTX 670's memory bandwidth and that is why it doesn't performa about on-par with the 670. The core clock isn't that much lower and the GK104 is so memory bandwidth bottle-necked that underclocking it doesn't make a huge difference. I cite the GTX 670 and the GTX 680 performing on-par despite the 680 having a roughly 20% faster GPU as proof of this as well as the 660 TI performing worse than the 670 even when the GPU is overclocked far above a stock 670's GPU.

 

[shiftstealth]

Please note that GTX 670m and GTX 675m are both Fermi. The GTX 680m is the only high end Kepler laptop card. So i don't know where you are going with that blazorthon.

 

[blazorthon]

Please note that GTX 670m and GTX 675m are both Fermi. The GTX 680m is the only high end Kepler laptop card. So i don't know where you are going with that blazorthon.

It was a typo. I meant to say GTX 680M and corrected it. Also, the 680M is the only high end mobile card with a Kepler GPU. The desktop variants of all of the current GTX 600 cards use Kepler GPUs and they all use the same GPU as the GTX 680M, the GK104, granted the desktop GTX 680 has one more SMX enabled than the 670, 660 Ti, and 680M.

The GTX 680M has a little more than 110GB/s of memory bandwidth and the GTX 670 has a little more than 190GB/s of memory bandwidth. If anyone thinks that this is the same, then they're very mistaken. This is also the only difference between the 680M and the 670 other than minor clock frequency reductions that don't make much difference with the GK104 GPU anyway.

 

[shiftstealth]

It was a typo. I meant to say GTX 680M and corrected it. Also, the 680M is the only high end mobile card with a Kepler GPU. The desktop variants of all of the current GTX 600 cards use Kepler GPUs and they all use the same GPU as the GTX 680M, granted the desktop GTX 680 has one more SMX enabled than the 670, 660 Ti, and 680M.

I'm sorry as i wrote that before i saw the correction. Either way thats good for the OP to know. The GTX 680 is the only 28nm Kepler core.

 

[blazorthon]

I'm sorry as i wrote that before i saw the correction. Either way thats good for the OP to know. The GTX 680 is the only 28nm Kepler core.

The GTX 680M is the only mobile graphics card with a GK104 GPU (uses Kepler). All of the desktop GTX 600 cards use Kepler GPUs and the GTX 660 TI and GTX 670 all use the same GK104 as the GTX 680M and the GTX 680 uses the GK104 too, but unlike the GTX 680M and the other two, it has an additional SMX (that like the clock frequency differences, doesn't make much difference).

That's why the Radeon 7970M is better. It's a Radeon 7870 with an underclocked GPU and that's way better than a GTX 670 with its memory bandwidth almost halved. The GTX 680M versus the GTX 670 is like comparing a Llano APU with 800MHz memory to the same APU with 1600MHz memory. The one with the faster memory is far superior just by alleviating the memory bandwidth bottle-neck.

Point is that the GTX 680M isn't really the best option because it would not handle AA very well at all and no AA on a laptop that can't get a high resolution to make up for no AA is not good. The 680M also would have very bad minimum frame rates. It might get a higher average than the 7970M when AA isn't used, but even then, its minimums would be 20-40% lower. That's pretty bad because it could mean that an average of 60FPS could have minimums that drop under 30FPS in many games. Average FPS would be similarly bad with high AA whereas the 7970M would be fine with it.

The 680M might be good if you overclock the memory on it substantially, but that's not something that I'd recommend doing in a laptop. The memory probably has no cooling at all.

 

[Kpssandhu]

The GTX 660M is not integrated into the CPU. The Intel HD 4000 graphics is, but the 660M is not.

I agree with you blazorthon

 

[Kpssandhu]

Um. I have the vaguest feeling that kpssandhu lives in the Indian subcontinent.

Mainly because of the "AMD cpus overheat" bit, that's pretty popular around here (and the name of course).

So is "where is that pentium V?" :lol:

Anyway, if kpssandhu could please state his budget i think that'll help everyone a lot, because the laptop that costs $1000 in the US ends up at around $1200+ here in India (i believe it would cost even more in the rest of the subcontinent).

And $900+ may not be his idea of "budget".

Also, a $1200 gaming laptop over here usually has a 660m or equivalent GPU.

Wouldn't really recommend a non-gaming laptop for BF3. You'll end up frying the CPU (i say this from experience, a friend of mine got a toshiba from the US and BF3 saw its CPU hitting 95*C+).

p.s. @PCGamer: agree with blazorthon, IGP means it's on the same die as CPU (and in earlier years integrated into the mobo, though that was a graphics controller, i believe, processing was still done by the CPU). Nvidia/AMD notebook GPUs can be removed from the mobo, and have their own memory and controller.

Hello I am in SE Asia Thailand. My budget is US $1000, Actually can be +-20% depending on product.

I want to enjoy some gaming when I am traveling working, I am looking for laptop around 14in screen size.

 

[Kpssandhu]

Um. I have the vaguest feeling that kpssandhu lives in the Indian subcontinent.

Mainly because of the "AMD cpus overheat" bit, that's pretty popular around here (and the name of course).

So is "where is that pentium V?" :lol:

Anyway, if kpssandhu could please state his budget i think that'll help everyone a lot, because the laptop that costs $1000 in the US ends up at around $1200+ here in India (i believe it would cost even more in the rest of the subcontinent).

And $900+ may not be his idea of "budget".

Also, a $1200 gaming laptop over here usually has a 660m or equivalent GPU.

Wouldn't really recommend a non-gaming laptop for BF3. You'll end up frying the CPU (i say this from experience, a friend of mine got a toshiba from the US and BF3 saw its CPU hitting 95*C+).

p.s. @PCGamer: agree with blazorthon, IGP means it's on the same die as CPU (and in earlier years integrated into the mobo, though that was a graphics controller, i believe, processing was still done by the CPU). Nvidia/AMD notebook GPUs can be removed from the mobo, and have their own memory and controller.

Hello I am in SE Asia Thailand. My budget is US $1000, Actually can be +-20% depending on product.

I want to enjoy some gaming when I am traveling working, I am looking for laptop around 14in screen size.

 

[blazorthon]

Hello I am in SE Asia Thailand. My budget is US $1000, Actually can be +-20% depending on product.

I want to enjoy some gaming when I am traveling working, I am looking for laptop around 14in screen size.

In that case, you can do better than an APU system. Something with a high-end mobile Radeon 6000/7000 or GTX 500/600 card (excluding the 680M, that thing is an expensive Frankenstein card) is probably more up your alley.

 

[Kpssandhu]

Thanks all for providing me valuable feed back +1 respect for you all.
I will see if there is any core i7 + gtx 660 m laptop in market.. Currently I like MacBook pro its configuration retina display weight and build quality is awesome but only down side is I cannot play bf3 on it 🙂 will see other brands with same configurations may be cheaper than Mac

 

[blazorthon]

Ugh, servicing Macs is horrible. The current Macbooks are all glued and/or soldered together in a single piece. I wouldn't buy that unless it was dirt cheap and since it's the opposite, I would never buy them. If a single little hardware issues occurs (which isn't rare with Macs), then the buyers is effectively screwed if Apple manages to cut the warranty (which is something that they do often).

 

[Kpssandhu]

Ugh, servicing Macs is horrible. The current Macbooks are all glued and/or soldered together in a single piece. I wouldn't buy that unless it was dirt cheap and since it's the opposite, I would never buy them. If a single little hardware issues occurs (which isn't rare with Macs), then the buyers is effectively screwed if Apple manages to cut the warranty (which is something that they do often).

I agree with you buddy. But I have been using Hp, compaq, Dell, Acer, Toshiba notebooks , currently I got 13 in MacBook air free (office) it's very fast compared with windows notebooks.

Anyhow I don't want to be off topic
Mac cannot play games they will melt
Looking for some other brand than Lenovo.

 

[Kpssandhu]

Best answer selected by kpssandhu.