Hey guys,
I'm going to be a freshman this next semester at a state school, so I am in the business of shopping for a laptop. I know I can get a great college laptop for a very low and reasonable price, but unfortunately, like many teenagers, I can't give up my video gaming pastime.
I thought for a while I would build my own desktop for gaming, and just use an old laptop for school, and I even built one through IBuyPower.om, but I realized how impractical a hefty desktop is for college life.
In fact,even now I realize how impractical it is for a college student to carry around a beast of a machine like most gaming laptops are.
Which is why I set off to find the perfect balance between weight and power.
I want to be able to play Guild Wars 2 on Ultra settings when it comes out. It is not a terribly demanding game, so this should be feasible. Other potential plays are games like Skyrim, Civilization V, Mass Effect 3... etc. It would also be nice if the machine could handle some early 2013 games and perhaps late 2013 games.
Also, i am a college student, so the machine has to be relatively livable. Battery life is pretty important, so the machine can't die on me after a mere hour of casual use. I WILL be buying a spare battery with my laptop, so I was thinking I could make do with 3-4 hours of casual battery life, maybe a tad less.
Build quality needs to be... decent at worst, as it will have to be quite mobile, however this is the area I'm most willing to sacrifice if needs be.
And I need to tote the thing around, so my soft weight limit on a laptop for college is 6 lbs. I might tolerate 7, but i would much rather only lug 5 lbs around.
I want to keep the price range around in the area of $1500.
After researching video cards, I would like something about the quality of Nvidia's GTX 660m. I know the GT 650m is also very common, and I believe it to be comprable (please inform me if this is no the case.
After much browsing of the internet, I have found 2 laptops I like pretty well, but I am torn between the two. These are: MSI's GE60 0ND-042US, and ASUS's N56VZ-DS71.
Both base models list prce at around $1200, however I am planning to use Xoticpc.com to do some upgrading to whichever I choose.
They are both 15.6" machines, which is about the size I am looking for (considering weight). I don't want to go much smaller.
specs on the machines after my upgrades are as follows:
MSI
---------
CPU- 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP
GPU- nVidia GeForce GTX 660M 2,048MB
RAM- 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2x4GB SODIMMS)
mSATA-120GB Mushkin Enhanced Atlas Series mSATA III (Primary Drive w/ O.S. Installed) *I truly love this machine for its mSATA port, as the ASUS lacks one and I would need to sacrifice either the HDD or the CDD for a SSD*
HDD- 750GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Buffer (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s) *this would just be a storage drive, of couse. the SSD would take the OS*
Optical Drive- 6X Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive * I really do want to keep this optical drive, as carrying around an external would frankly suck imo*
---------
ASUS
---------
CPU- 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP
GPU- nVidia GeForce GT 650m 2,048MB
RAM- 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2x4GB SODIMMS
mSATA- None ( as far as I know, there is no mSATA drive on the N56VZ-DS71, which is my only issue with it, but a big one at that, because there is also no second hard drive bay, meaning I would have to go with only 1 massive SSD *cough cough* expensive! *cough cough* or kill the optical drive...)
HDD- Like I just said, this is where I'm stuck with this machine. I can't afford a $1000 500GB SSD, but it seems very necessary to me.
Optical Drive- 6X Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
--------
So there are my two machines as of now.
My dilemma- I love the MSI, it has everything I want ( minus a backlight keyboard... DANGIT ALL! XD), but I havent heard too many great things about the manufacturer. Also I've seen in reviews that the 100% plastic frame leaves a tad to be desired in sturdiness. My question to you experts out there is "are these issues too big? Will this MSI die on my in 9 months?" besides my hesitations with the company, I do like the specs.
The Asus is the other side of the coin to me. I don't love the specs as much, but I DO love the company. ASUS makes a lean-mean-machine. My biggest issue with it is the lack of a mSATA drive or a second hard drive bay. So my question to you would be " how bad do I really need a SSD? can I get buy without it? or will I bottleneck the CPU and GPU?
Speaking of the GPU, I also would like to ask if the GT 650m found in the ASUS really IS comprable to the GTX 660m found in the MSI.
And lastly, I understand that you guys probably know infinitely more about this than I do. If I have missed a great alternative laptop or have overlooked an easy solution to my problem, please don't be afraid to shoot your ideas.
Thanks so much,
Jake7
I'm going to be a freshman this next semester at a state school, so I am in the business of shopping for a laptop. I know I can get a great college laptop for a very low and reasonable price, but unfortunately, like many teenagers, I can't give up my video gaming pastime.
I thought for a while I would build my own desktop for gaming, and just use an old laptop for school, and I even built one through IBuyPower.om, but I realized how impractical a hefty desktop is for college life.
In fact,even now I realize how impractical it is for a college student to carry around a beast of a machine like most gaming laptops are.
Which is why I set off to find the perfect balance between weight and power.
I want to be able to play Guild Wars 2 on Ultra settings when it comes out. It is not a terribly demanding game, so this should be feasible. Other potential plays are games like Skyrim, Civilization V, Mass Effect 3... etc. It would also be nice if the machine could handle some early 2013 games and perhaps late 2013 games.
Also, i am a college student, so the machine has to be relatively livable. Battery life is pretty important, so the machine can't die on me after a mere hour of casual use. I WILL be buying a spare battery with my laptop, so I was thinking I could make do with 3-4 hours of casual battery life, maybe a tad less.
Build quality needs to be... decent at worst, as it will have to be quite mobile, however this is the area I'm most willing to sacrifice if needs be.
And I need to tote the thing around, so my soft weight limit on a laptop for college is 6 lbs. I might tolerate 7, but i would much rather only lug 5 lbs around.
I want to keep the price range around in the area of $1500.
After researching video cards, I would like something about the quality of Nvidia's GTX 660m. I know the GT 650m is also very common, and I believe it to be comprable (please inform me if this is no the case.
After much browsing of the internet, I have found 2 laptops I like pretty well, but I am torn between the two. These are: MSI's GE60 0ND-042US, and ASUS's N56VZ-DS71.
Both base models list prce at around $1200, however I am planning to use Xoticpc.com to do some upgrading to whichever I choose.
They are both 15.6" machines, which is about the size I am looking for (considering weight). I don't want to go much smaller.
specs on the machines after my upgrades are as follows:
MSI
---------
CPU- 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP
GPU- nVidia GeForce GTX 660M 2,048MB
RAM- 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2x4GB SODIMMS)
mSATA-120GB Mushkin Enhanced Atlas Series mSATA III (Primary Drive w/ O.S. Installed) *I truly love this machine for its mSATA port, as the ASUS lacks one and I would need to sacrifice either the HDD or the CDD for a SSD*
HDD- 750GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Buffer (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s) *this would just be a storage drive, of couse. the SSD would take the OS*
Optical Drive- 6X Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive * I really do want to keep this optical drive, as carrying around an external would frankly suck imo*
---------
ASUS
---------
CPU- 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP
GPU- nVidia GeForce GT 650m 2,048MB
RAM- 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2x4GB SODIMMS
mSATA- None ( as far as I know, there is no mSATA drive on the N56VZ-DS71, which is my only issue with it, but a big one at that, because there is also no second hard drive bay, meaning I would have to go with only 1 massive SSD *cough cough* expensive! *cough cough* or kill the optical drive...)
HDD- Like I just said, this is where I'm stuck with this machine. I can't afford a $1000 500GB SSD, but it seems very necessary to me.
Optical Drive- 6X Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
--------
So there are my two machines as of now.
My dilemma- I love the MSI, it has everything I want ( minus a backlight keyboard... DANGIT ALL! XD), but I havent heard too many great things about the manufacturer. Also I've seen in reviews that the 100% plastic frame leaves a tad to be desired in sturdiness. My question to you experts out there is "are these issues too big? Will this MSI die on my in 9 months?" besides my hesitations with the company, I do like the specs.
The Asus is the other side of the coin to me. I don't love the specs as much, but I DO love the company. ASUS makes a lean-mean-machine. My biggest issue with it is the lack of a mSATA drive or a second hard drive bay. So my question to you would be " how bad do I really need a SSD? can I get buy without it? or will I bottleneck the CPU and GPU?
Speaking of the GPU, I also would like to ask if the GT 650m found in the ASUS really IS comprable to the GTX 660m found in the MSI.
And lastly, I understand that you guys probably know infinitely more about this than I do. If I have missed a great alternative laptop or have overlooked an easy solution to my problem, please don't be afraid to shoot your ideas.
Thanks so much,
Jake7
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