Gaming Laptop Hierarchy Chart?

[bestmak]

Hey Tom's Hardware,

Is there a gaming laptop hierarchy chart somewhere out there for laptop: price, gaming performance, bang for buck e.t.c...? Please leave a link/picture of one for laptops in 2014 as a lot of new laptops/features have been released. Any other laptop related feature hierarchy chart or what is good/not would be awesome!

 

[bestmak]

Not that I know of. There are so many dimensions of laptops that matter, that it would be impossible to slap them onto one neat form and claim that it meant anything.

What you can do, however, is look at graphics cards and their benchmarks, and that will give you a better idea of what laptops you should sort through and balance their individual pros and cons after that to deem which one would be the best for you.

You can find that list Here. You can click each individual card to get a full benchmark on a multitude of games to see how it performs under different circumstances.

Thanks mate, really helpful chart. Do you know of another chart for "bang for your buck" gaming laptops? Example: A) $1800 laptop with 60fps avg in BF4 @Ultra B) $1700 laptop with 45fps avg in BF4 @ Ultra. Though A is more expensive, it is worth the extra $100 making it a great "bang for your buck" laptop.

 

[bestmak]

Not that I know of. There are so many dimensions of laptops that matter, that it would be impossible to slap them onto one neat form and claim that it meant anything.

What you can do, however, is look at graphics cards and their benchmarks, and that will give you a better idea of what laptops you should sort through and balance their individual pros and cons after that to deem which one would be the best for you.

You can find that list Here. You can click each individual card to get a full benchmark on a multitude of games to see how it performs under different circumstances.

Thanks mate, really helpful chart. Do you know of another chart for "bang for your buck" gaming laptops? Example: A) $1800 laptop with 60fps avg in BF4 @Ultra B) $1700 laptop with 45fps avg in BF4 @ Ultra. Though A is more expensive, it is worth the extra $100 making it a great "bang for your buck" laptop.

Not that I know of... my brain is that chart, lol.

If you want to run BF4 in Ultra around the $1800 mark, I'd suggest the MSI GT70 Dominator Pro-890.

It's less than $1850 and has a GTX 880M (the fastest card on the market) and an i7-4800MQ. It'll play BF4 with max settings at roughly 48FPS.

Haha, you probably have an i7 chip in your brain for it to do that. XD
I have some questions about the bang for the buck and stuff...please answer with links to price (if you can).
- Cheapest laptop with 880M SLI
- Cheapest laptop with 880M
- Cheapest laptop with M290X Crossfire
- Cheapest laptop with R9 M290X
- Is SLI in laptops good? What about crossfire? Are they worth it?
- Though the Y510p/Y50 have worse GPUs, are they great for the price?
- Some games work better on 780M and some better on 880M, what's the deal with that?

PLEASE answer these questions, I am very confused and suck at researching things like these. I would greatly appreciate it if you helped me.

 

[bestmak]

I would avoid SLI if you can get away with it. It's a lot of heat and power consumption for something in such a small package.

Cheapest laptop with 880M SLI is the Sager NP9377 for $2400.

Cheapest with an 880M is the Sager NP8258 for around $1650. It doesn't carry the same build quality or features as the GT70, though.

Cheapest laptop with an M290X is the MSI GX60 Destroyer for $1200. Not advisable either. The CPU is so slow that you'll never use the full capacity of the graphics.

As for the M290X crossfire... nothing comes to mind. Most likely because it's not desirable. There's always a better Nvidia solution in this market.

This Lenovo Y510p is fantastic for the price. The dual GT 755M's on SLI is slightly more powerful than the GTX 860M.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y50 is a good choice to get a GTX 860M. It's slightly more expensive than some Sager options, but it's much lighter, gets solid battery life, and has higher build quality.

As for some games running better on the 780M vs the 880M, you can blame drivers for that. The 880M just came out and has had plenty of time for driver optimizations. The 880M has not.

Hmm, thanks for the info and laptop models.
- I would say that the y510p is the best laptop for under $1000 including build quality, performance, and other features. Do you agree? If not, what other laptop under/very close to $1000 is better?
- Best (overall features) gaming laptop for $1000 - $1200?
- Best (overall features) gaming laptop for $1200 - $1400?
- Best (overall features) gaming laptop for under $1800?

 

[bestmak]

I would avoid SLI if you can get away with it. It's a lot of heat and power consumption for something in such a small package.

Cheapest laptop with 880M SLI is the Sager NP9377 for $2400.

Cheapest with an 880M is the Sager NP8258 for around $1650. It doesn't carry the same build quality or features as the GT70, though.

Cheapest laptop with an M290X is the MSI GX60 Destroyer for $1200. Not advisable either. The CPU is so slow that you'll never use the full capacity of the graphics.

As for the M290X crossfire... nothing comes to mind. Most likely because it's not desirable. There's always a better Nvidia solution in this market.

This Lenovo Y510p is fantastic for the price. The dual GT 755M's on SLI is slightly more powerful than the GTX 860M.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y50 is a good choice to get a GTX 860M. It's slightly more expensive than some Sager options, but it's much lighter, gets solid battery life, and has higher build quality.

As for some games running better on the 780M vs the 880M, you can blame drivers for that. The 880M just came out and has had plenty of time for driver optimizations. The 880M has not.

Hmm, thanks for the info and laptop models.
- I would say that the y510p is the best laptop for under $1000 including build quality, performance, and other features. Do you agree? If not, what other laptop under/very close to $1000 is better?
- Best (overall features) gaming laptop for $1000 - $1200?
- Best (overall features) gaming laptop for $1200 - $1400?
- Best (overall features) gaming laptop for under $1800?

Yeah the Y510p I linked would be the best sub-$1000 gaming option.

Best overall gaming laptop for $1100 is the ASUS N550JK. Solid build quality, super high quality IPS touch display, decent battery life. Just has a GTX 850M, but the other merits make it worth it.

Best for $1150-$1200 is the Lenovo IdeaPad Y50. Relatively lightweight, decent battery life, GTX 860M.

Best from $1200-$1400 is the MSI GT60 Dominator-424. It has a GTX 870M, and is the cheapest one available with it. It also has a nice custom backlit keyboard by Steelseries, premium sound, and good build quality.

Best under $1800 is the ASUS G750JS. Highest quality gaming laptop build available, runs cool no matter what, high quality display, best keyboard, 256GB SSD and a GTX 870M.

This will prooooooobably be my last question, but i might think of one in the future haha
Y510p VS ASUS G750JS, yes, obviously the ASUS is the better one here, BUT for a price difference of $780...like....$780 after saving on both laptops from amazon, and a pretty small fps difference @ Ultra in most games, is worth it?
755 SLI in Y510p
870M

Once again, thank you so so much for all your help and replying fast. It helped me clear up all these laptops and $$$.

 

[bestmak]

Here are someore questions haha.
- Cheapest laptop with 780M
- Cheapest laptop with GPU similar to 780M (cheaper than the one you will list above)
- What fps do you get on what games with your and your father's laptop?
- Did you or your father over clock the laptops?
- Battery life in both without gaming and while gaming?
- Difference in both?
-Anything else about these laptops, and the first and second ones you will list above would be nice.

 

[bestmak]

- Like if you listed cheapest laptop with 780M and Cheapest with GPU close to 780M those were the two I was talking about.
- If there is no point getting 780M since they are just as expensive as 880M why did you buy your laptop with the 780M?
- Can you please give some framrates you get in some games? Or are they very very close to the ones on the notebookcheck website?
- Isn't it bad to leave battery plugged in? I heard they become hotter than if they were not plugged in which reduces its lifetime.

 

[bestmak]

Gotta keep in mind when I bought my laptop =P

The Nvidia 800 series only came out a couple months ago. I bought my laptop last year. The framerates I get are pretty much identical to the ones on the notebookcheck site. It depends on application, though. I really only play WoW, Tropico 4-5, UT2k4, Plague Inc., and some other random things at the moment. Haven't had much time to game hard.

Batteries die, yes. I could give two shits about my battery, though =P. These are desktop replacements. It's only purpose is to be easy to move from place to place so I can plug in and game. I have mine because I get sent out of town and stay in hotels. I have to be able to raid on WoW when I'm on the move, so I got a solid gaming laptop.

Hmmm. Do you agree with this list?
- Best AND Cheapest laptop under $1000 with its kind of performance is the Lenovo Y510p
- Good quality AND Cheapest laptop under $1400 with 870M is the MSI GT60
- Best laptop under $1800 is the ASUS G750JS with the 870M
- Best quality AND Cheapest laptop under $1850 with the 880M (fastest single laptop GPU) is the MSI GT70
Good quality AND Cheapest laptop under $2400 with 880M SLI (fastest laptop GPU setup) is the Sager NP9377


Also, why the hell is "The New Razer Blade Pro" with a single 860M starting at $2580? Is it because of the touch pad, or does it give you free candy or some shit haha.

 

[bestmak]

Yeah I would say the list is pretty accurate.

The Razer blade pro is just stupid overpriced.

I was just looking around and found cheaper laptops with 880M and so many variations.
- 5400 vs 7200 RPM HDD?
- How many GB SSD is needed for Windows/ how many just so computer is fast?
- 870M vs 780M vs 880M RAW performance, 870M vs 780M vs 880M which on is best bang for your buck?
- How heavy is too heavy in laptop?
- How cool is your and your father's laptop?

 

[bestmak]

For the GT60 Dominator-424, it has 2GB DDR3L SDRAM. First of all, what kind of RAM is that? How is it different than computer RAM? Also, isn't 2GB very little for gaming and just heavy use? I heard 8GB is the sweet spot.