Solved! Gaming Laptop ~$1200. Asus?

[kacz]

1. What is your budget?
$1000 - $1200. Not a hard budget. A few more dollars for a substantial gain would be ok.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
As high as possible

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Both? I recently moved to Manhattan and have no room for my desktop. Need to get rid of it. With that said I also spend an hour each way on the train and would really like to be able to use this laptop. I can deal with the weight.

5. How much battery life do you need?
Atleast 1.5 hours. 2.5 would be amazing.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Yes. Currently play Eve Online, and am eagerly anticipating BF3. Would like to play both of these games on high. Would settle for only eve at high

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
3d Modeling in Catia would be the biggest other strain besides games. Other then that, surfing, programming, wathcing movies etc...

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500 gb's? Media will be stored on an external at home.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Amazon, newegg, open to any site really.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
3 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Nothing special.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Don't like dell. Have had two fail on me before their time and dell refuse to fix them under warranty. Had an HP a long time ago that didn't work well, but that was in college and probably my own fault.

13. What country do you live in?
US of A


14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Have really been looking at Asus's Republic of Gamers line for a while now. What's their reputation like?

 

[WR2]

Hello kacz;

At the top end of your budget you can get a notebook that has a great chance to do BF3 on high graphics settings. And maybe even sample ultra settings.
From the custom notebooks @ XoticPC.com Sager NP8130 $1172
Core i7 2630QM Sandy Bridge CPU, 15.6" 1920x1080 LCD w/ GTX 460M graphics card. 8GB RAM, 500GB 7200rpm HDD.
Keep in mind that price does not yet include Windows 7.

Another good option for Eve on high and BF3 on medium graphics settings:
ASUS N53SV-A1 $1028 (including Win7 here)
Core i7-2630QM Sandy Bridge CPU, 15.6" 1366x768 LCD w/ GT 540M graphics card. 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD.

 

[WR2]

For comparison you can look at: Acer Aspire AS5750G-9639 $900 or SAMSUNG RF511-S02 $950

And ASUS G Series G53JW-XN1 $1170

Asus G53JW review - not an identical model.
Review Asus N53SV Notebook

 

[kacz]

That Sager you posted looks great.

I was thinking about it 1920x1080 is pretty much a neccessity since Eve online would be impossible to play at anything else.

How is their reputation / build quality? Any reviews on that particular model you can dig up?

I appreciate your help. Thank you.

 

[WR2]

Ok - you can play Eve Online on something less than a 1920x1080 screen. But it IS that much better with the high resolution screen you might feel that way - a necessity- coming from a hi-res screen to a standard laptop 1366x768.

Here is a video review of the Sager NP8130 from XoticPC

Reputation / build quality / support is top notch. No better source than actual owners. Not a lot of activity in the Sager NP8130 Owner's Lounge yet since it's a new model. But you can check out how it's been going with other models.

 

[cbrunnem]

Hello kacz;

At the top end of your budget you can get a notebook that has a great chance to do BF3 on high graphics settings. And maybe even sample ultra settings.
From the custom notebooks @ XoticPC.com Sager NP8130 $1172
Core i7 2630QM Sandy Bridge CPU, 15.6" 1920x1080 LCD w/ GTX 460M graphics card. 8GB RAM, 500GB 7200rpm HDD.
Keep in mind that price does not yet include Windows 7.

Another good option for Eve on high and BF3 on medium graphics settings:
ASUS N53SV-A1 $1028 (including Win7 here)
Core i7-2630QM Sandy Bridge CPU, 15.6" 1366x768 LCD w/ GT 540M graphics card. 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD.

that asus should play battlefield 3 on medium i would think. i have the same cpu and gpu in my laptop and it will play cryis 2 at 30 fps and overclocked at about 36-38 fps on advance settings which i believe is the equivalent to medium. it will play on high at about 22-25 but it sometimes will get low frame rates in certain time.

oh did i mention that the 540m overclockes very well. mine will go from 672mhz to 850mhz and the mem will go from 900 to about 975 and you can set different overclock profiles to run when the gpu gets to hot. so if the gpu gets to hot you have have nvidia control panel load a low overclock profile to cool it back down then have it swith back up.