Gaming/Work Laptop < $1,800

[HeelFiend]

I am looking for a Laptop I can use for both personal/gaming and work. I want to get a high bang for buck ratio. I do not need the best thing out there, but want great performance for a few years. I will mainly play WoW, but want to be able to play the latest when I want to as well. I have been eyeing the Asus and MSI laptops mainly. I was settled on the MSI Ghost Pro 3K until I came here and everyone is recommending the Asus. I bought an Asus gaming PC for $1,000 at BB about 5 years back and have been pretty happy with it overall. There are so many models out there that I need help on determining what suits my needs. Work stuff is mainly spreadsheets, web browser, e-mail, and our in house light-weight management system (database, essentially). A lot of stuff in my field is not compatible with Windows 8 so I will likely want to set up a dual boot system. I assume if I had 8 for personal and 7 for work I wouldn't have to worry about transferring a virus if I got one on 8 to 7 or the work network/servers? I don't truly know the intricacies of how that works.

Thanks for the input!

 

[ajpaolello]

Any specific games you want to play? It'll help lower the search area.

Lenovo has some pretty good laptops for cheap. Alienware has some too, or msi.

You could get a Macbook .:lol: (They're not bad, but gaming on them can be a bit of work. Plus you, unless your company also supports Mac OSX apps, you'll probably need to dual boot Windows on there.)

 

[HeelFiend]

Mostly WoW which I know is not an incredibly taxing game, but nonetheless I want it to be silky smooth. I do want to be able to run the latest games as well though.

 

[ajpaolello]

If you want the best of the best, look for 970M or 980M. If you don't want to go quite as big, upper 700Ms work pretty good as well.

I see you didn't catch my Macbook joke.

 

[blcskate]

WoW will run just fine. My 3 year old HP Envy (i7) that I gave to my son will play WoW at native 768p, ultra settings, and 30-60fps. WoW is very heavily CPU dependent. Any good i5 or i7 will smoke that game.

 

[dasulman]

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8651-clevo-p650se-p-7690.html?wconfigure=yes
this is the best bang for buck laptop on the market from a cost to performance point:
it will max most games including WOW and play the most demanding games at 1080p at medium or higher settings at very stable framerates.
it's 1 inch thick so its quite portable, and not a bulky monster.

if you're a fan of Asus then for the same spec you might want to stretch your budget a little, as well as beef up your arms, because this thing is bloody heavy: http://www.xoticpc.com/asus-g751jtdh72-p-7607.html
better cooling and elite build quality, but will give you the same fps as the above.

 

[blcskate]

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8651-clevo-p650se-p-7690.html?wconfigure=yes
this is the best bang for buck laptop on the market from a cost to performance point:
it will max most games including WOW and play the most demanding games at 1080p at medium or higher settings at very stable framerates.
it's 1 inch thick so its quite portable, and not a bulky monster.

if you're a fan of Asus then for the same spec you might want to stretch your budget a little, as well as beef up your arms, because this thing is bloody heavy: http://www.xoticpc.com/asus-g751jtdh72-p-7607.html
better cooling and elite build quality, but will give you the same fps as the above.

Agreed the 8651 is top price performance. I am ballpark buying one myself. The only issue is the 1080p screen used on it is a low quality panel and I don't want a 4k. I wish they would offer an better display with it. I would glad pay 100/150 more for a good 1080p panel.