Gaming Laptop Decision Time: $1,200 - $1,500

[jantonio16]

1. What is your budget? $1,200 - $1,500

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 17.3

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1920x1080

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Desktop Replacement

5. How much battery life do you need? 1-3 hours

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)? Guild Wars 2, Borderlands 2, Diablo 3. Shooters and MMO's for the most part and would like to reach high/ultra settings.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) Gaming.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 500gb+

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Amazon, Newegg, Xoticpc, etc.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 2-4 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Don't care.

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.
Asus, Sager, Alienware...but I'm open for suggestions

13. What country do you live in? US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

Hello guys, as you can see I am looking for a gaming laptop for a price between $1,200-$1,500. This laptop will be used mostly for gaming. I would buy a PC but because I will be moving a lot, a laptop would fit me best. I have done some research, looking at the forum, videos, reviews, etc. And I have come up with a top 5 Gaming Laptops, here they are (they are in no specific order):

Toshiba Qosmio X775
http/www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Qosmio-X775-Q7384-17-3-Inch-Gaming/dp/B005KP0JNI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343104811&sr=8-1&keywords=toshiba+qosmio+7272

ASUS-G75VW-AS71
http/www.amazon.com/ASUS-G75VW-AS71-17-3-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B007MW73C2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343104873&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+g75vw-as71

ASUS-G75VW-BBK5
http/www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+17.3%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+8GB+Memory+-+1TB+Hard+Drive/5176239.p;jsessionid=D8A32A113691DF372F0982327FA8B48D.bbolsp-app01-68?id=1218621250769&skuId=5176239&st=asus%20g75vw-bbk&cp=1&lp=1

SAGER-NP9170
http/www.xoticpc.com/sager-np9170-clevo-p170em-p-4342.html

ALIENWARE-M17X
http/www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-M17x-r4/pd.aspx

So, which laptop do you think is the best out of this list? If you guys have any other suggestions, I am open to hear them!

Thank you in advance!

 

[rubbateckie]

Sager, from my reading, appears to be the best built and the best value for money.

 

[Komomu]

out of those, the sager is best because the graphics card is the best, you'll be able to run bf3 on high smoothly or ultra with aa turned off.



PS-I'm getting me a sager from xoticpc in a bit too

 

[jantonio16]

Will you be buying it with the GTX 670m? If so, how does it compare against a GTX 660m or a Radeon 7970m?

 

[Maxx_Power]

Sager or ASUS. But these aren't exactly "LAPTOPs". They are more desktop replacements. I suspect you are not going to lug it around or play it on your laps very often.

 

[jantonio16]

Yes, a desktop replacement is what I am looking for

 

[jantonio16]

I am leaning towards the Sager as well. My question is: the stock Graphics Card is the nVIDIA GTX 670m, but it can be upgraded to the GTX 675m or the Radeon HD 7970m (i know there are more but those are out of my budget). Can anyone tell me if the 675m or the 7970m are worth upgrading to?

The 675m is $100 extra and the 7970m is $200 extra.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Maxx_Power]

I am leaning towards the Sager as well. My question is: the stock Graphics Card is the nVIDIA GTX 670m, but it can be upgraded to the GTX 675m or the Radeon HD 7970m (i know there are more but those are out of my budget). Can anyone tell me if the 675m or the 7970m are worth upgrading to?

The 675m is $100 extra and the 7970m is $200 extra.

Thanks in advance!

Both the 670M and 675M are actually not Kepler based, they are Fermi based. The former has 336 cores, and latter at 384. Clock speeds are similar. They score around 3300 points in 3dMark11 in GPU mode at 720p.

The 7970M is another animal, based on the new Pitcairn chip from this current generation, and features 1280 cores clocked a lot higher than the 670M and 675M. It usually scores around 5500+ points in 3dMark11 in GPU mode at 720p.

Seems to me that if some money isn't that much of a deal to you, then for the same TDP (these are the same TDP), go for the 7970M. Best performance by far.

 

[jantonio16]

Thanks for the response Maxx. But will the 670m be enough to run bf3, guild wars 2, and other upcoming MMO's/Shooters in high/ultra settings?

 

[Maxx_Power]

Thanks for the response Maxx. But will the 670m be enough to run bf3, guild wars 2, and other upcoming MMO's/Shooters in high/ultra settings?

I'm not certain for your other games, but for BF3, the 670M and 675M are about 25-33% slower than the 560 and 560Ti on the desktop (they have similar shader counts, memory widths). So a look at Tom's charts at:

http/www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/13-Battlefield-3-DirectX-11-B-Performance,2968.html

For 1080p, both are around 46-48 FPS. Take off about 1/4th of that to get the numbers for 670M and 675M, we get about an average of 36 FPS at 1080p. I would think that this is a little too low, because there are lots of scenes in the game or places with a lot of action that the actual FPS dips well below the average FPS, and you will stutter and lag.

The 7970M at the same 1080P settings should get you another 15-20 FPS so a total max average of about 56 FPS by looking at the same chart and scaling down a comparable 7870 Pitcairn.

 

[jantonio16]

Thank you very much for your insights Maxx. One last thing, how about the Sager as a final choice overall. From my other candidates, or any other laptops you have in mind, are they better choices than the SAGER?

 

[Maxx_Power]

Thank you very much for your insights Maxx. One last thing, how about the Sager as a final choice overall. From my other candidates, or any other laptops you have in mind, are they better choices than the SAGER?

In terms of the ones you listed, the only one that is as fast as the Sager if you upgrade the Sager, is the Alienware. The good thing about the Sager is that they use a lot of interchangable parts for a laptop. If that isn't an issue for you (easy repairs, upgrades), then the Sager offers nothing on top of the Alienware.

If I had 2000 dollars to spend on a gaming laptop, I personally would go for an Alienware (but not any other Dell). The Sager is cheaper when I was pricing a comparable Alienware and Sager.

 

[jantonio16]

When you say "if you upgrade the Sager", what kind of upgrades do you have in mind? So far I am keeping it stock, but I might add the 7970m since it would end up costing like the Alienware M17x stock (with a 660m).

 

[Maxx_Power]

When you say "if you upgrade the Sager", what kind of upgrades do you have in mind? So far I am keeping it stock, but I might add the 7970m since it would end up costing like the Alienware M17x stock (with a 660m).

The upgrade on the Sager I'd get is the 7970m. The Alienware M17X you linked comes with 2 hard drives in RAID, the Sager doesn't. That is the biggest difference I found between the two configurations.

 

[jantonio16]

Yeah, I think my decision is final on the Sager with the 7970m. The alienware ends up being around $1,764.43 with the 7970m, and the Sager $1,473.43. I think I'll save up those 300 bucks for future upgrades since the Sager does hold that advantage of being upgradable like you mentioned. Thank you very much Maxx

 

[jantonio16]

Best answer selected by jantonio16.

 

[Maxx_Power]

Yeah, I think my decision is final on the Sager with the 7970m. The alienware ends up being around $1,764.43 with the 7970m, and the Sager $1,473.43. I think I'll save up those 300 bucks for future upgrades since the Sager does hold that advantage of being upgradable like you mentioned. Thank you very much Maxx

No problem. Happy Gaming!!