[HELP] Gaming Laptops That Costs Around 500-550$

ElaJohn

Estimable
Oct 9, 2014
3
0
4,510
Hello everyone,

Im a completely noob for these kinds of things (Sorry if my budget is ridiculous to have a decent gaming laptop) but I just started to make money by myself. So...

Im looking for a gaming laptop that can handle games like Skyrim, CoD: Ghosts, Aliens: Isolation,
Styx, Shadow of Mordor.

I don't mind the settings whether it's set to lowest. But med settings would be great!

Any suggestions would help me alot! God speed everyone! :)
 
$500 - $550 for a laptop gets you nothing more than integrated graphics in a laptop so I would not really call 'em "gaming laptops".

For $500 + tax you can buy the following 17.3" HP Pavilion from Bestbuy with an AMD Quad-Core A10-5745M and the integrated Radeon HD 8610m graphics core.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-pavilion-17-3-laptop-amd-a10-series-6gb-memory-750gb-hard-drive-natural-silver-ash-silver/7895036.p?id=1219300344794&skuId=7895036&st=categoryid$pcmcat247400050000&cp=1&lp=1


If you don't mind "manufacturer refurbished" then you can buy the 15.6" Lenovo G505s which has the slightly more power A10-5750m APU with the slightly more powerful Radeon HD 8650m graphics core.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-G505s-15-6-Gaming-Laptop-A10-5750M-3-50-GHz-6-GB-1-TB-Win8-8650G-Graphx-/131311293215?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item1e92c3531f


Other than actual physical size and new vs. refurbished, the HP laptop has a 1600x900 resolution screen vs. the 1366x768 resolution screen on the Lenovo.
 
Actually, the following refurbished 15.6" Dell Latitude 3540 for $550 from ebay is the best you can get. I have this laptop which I bought refurbished from ebay earlier this year. I have only played Mass Effect 3 and Star Trek Online with the laptop. But the dedicated Radeon HD 8850m graphics chip is a very significant performance increase from an integrated graphics core... like the difference between day and night.

It has a 1080p screen, but it should handle most games at 1600x900 resolution if playing at full resolution does not offer enough performance.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitude-3540-i5-4200U-500b-HDD-4GB-RAM-Radeon-8850-2gb-GDDR5-1080P-screen-/131298836942?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item1e920541ce

 

ElaJohn

Estimable
Oct 9, 2014
3
0
4,510
Hello, Thank you for your fast and well said answer. I get your point and I checked it out right away compared and speculated. Seems good to me

But if I'll add more few bucks like 50$ is it worth the penny?

Apologies for my noobi'sh presence. :3
 
Bumping up your budget to $600 doesn't really change much.

For a new laptop you are still looking at integrated graphics.

For a refurbished laptop you can possibly find a better deal than the Dell Latitude 3540 I recommended, but you will likely need to do a decent amount of time searching for a better laptop.

The Radeon HD 8850m is basically equal to the nVidia GT 845m so if you want to search for a better refurbished laptop, then you need to look for a laptop with at least the same CPU (i5-4200u / i5-4210u) as the Dell and comes with a Radeon graphics chip with a higher model number or at least the nVidia GT 850m graphics chip.
 
I would go with the lenovo that jaguarskx suggested. In my opinion, I would wait until you have more money that can play these games at 1080p at low to med settings. This way you are getting a laptop that is designed for gaming rather than a cheap laptop that is likely to break. I have had no experience with lenovo laptops so they may last you a while but I would still wait as hardware performance increases rapidly over the years.
 

ElaJohn

Estimable
Oct 9, 2014
3
0
4,510
Hi! Thank for the replies. Im grateful. :)

I have recommendation that an Acer Aspire V3 or V5 can fill up my needs. Is it good enough for gaming? I've looked into the specs of both and it looks great. Well not sure if im right. Is it good enough?
 
You won't be able to play the latest games as the gpu is not very strong. You may be able to push it with low settings but it is not designed for high end gaming. Skyrim should be no problem. Styx I have never heard of so I don't know.
 
I suppose it depends on which Acer Aspire V3 you are talking about. Depending on the model number prices can range from the $370 for the 11.6" Acer Aspire V3-111P with a dual core Pentium N3530 CPU to the 17.3" $950 Acer Aspire V3-772G-9829 with a quad core i7-4702MQ and a dedicated nVidia GT 750GT.

The same can be said of the Acer Aspire V5 with the 11.6" Acer Aspire V5-122P-0857 selling for as low as $330 which has an AMD A-Series Quad-Core A6-1450 running at 1.0GHz to the 15.6" Acer Aspire V5-552P-X440 with the quad core AMD A10-5757M running at 2.5GHz/3.5GHz for around $775. There are also Intel versions of the Acer Aspire V5 series.