Is Costco the quality:price ratio king?

rhino1000

Honorable
May 14, 2013
11
0
10,560
Dear people,

I am moving away to college this semester, and am in the market for a new laptop! I have a budget of $900 or less. I want to be able to play games such as League of Legends on high quality (if that even exists), and basically I want the best performance out of a laptop that I can get, without breaking the bank. I want to be able to start up any new computer game, whether that be Steam, or World of Warcraft, and be able to play that game on maximum quality, while having about 10 internet tabs open and microsoft office and excel open as well. As well as an ebook.

I would really appreciate help on this matter. Earlier this week, my mom pointed out Costco ads that were sitting around in the living room, and it looked like their laptops were pretty fairly priced (see below). What I would like you guys to do for me is:
- give me your opinion. Look at a few of those laptops that are priced at 899.99$. They have an i7 processor, and about 16 GB RAM. For example, look at:
http://www.costco.com/HP-ENVY-dv6t-Quad-Laptop%2c-Intel%c2%ae-Core%e2%84%a2-i7-3630QM-2.4GHz%2c-Blu-ray-Player.product.100044251.html

^ is there anywhere else that I could buy a similar/better quality laptop for cheaper?

I have a budget of 900$; is there anywhere that I could pick up a better laptop than that for 900 dollars or less?

http://www.costco.com/all-laptops.html
I am looking at this list of computers, as sorted by "price: high to low."

If Costco, like I suspect, has the best prices around, which of those ~ 7 laptops in the 700-900 dollar range would you recommend?

I appreciate any help, truly!

Edit:
It's all good.
 

vrumor

Distinguished
Jan 17, 2012
829
1
19,210
At that price point, you wont get a laptop thatll just play all the new games. Maybe LoL since its such a low end game graphics wise. Other than that tho, youll struggle to run anything new. Good luck tho.
 

Supermuncher85

Distinguished
Aug 18, 2010
133
0
18,660
Costco does have good prices, but best of all really is the nationwide return option. I assume you will be going to college in a different state, and if there's a problem, guess what you can return to any costco.

Though I wouldn't disregard looking at the price directly from HP and also checking what promotion your school has! At least my university had plenty of offers at discount, ask the IT department about some special deals they have.

Edit: Though it only comes with integrated graphics the HD4000. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230631 would be a better choice with the 660 GPU.
 

thesuperguy

Honorable
Apr 19, 2013
9
0
10,520
You would be better off getting one of the AMD APUs vs the more powerful intel processor if your main purpose is gaming. Intel has sorta crappy integrated graphics while the APU was made with graphics in mind.
 

rhino1000

Honorable
May 14, 2013
11
0
10,560
Dude, Caydn. I gotta tell you, I am not a spammer. That's kind of annoying that you would report me for that, though. Congratulations.

Thank you for the help Supermuncher. I would ask you if you noticed that the computer you recommended had Windows 7, versus 8, and 8 GB RAM, vs 16 GB RAM? Or would neither of these features increase performance much?

 

caydn12

Honorable
Mar 8, 2013
11
0
10,560


NO! Not you! haha, someone in the post above me (it actually got deleted already, the member got banned for spamming no joke) was saying to "Go check out his clothing and apparel website" and stuff.

I wasn't talking about you. There was a legit spammer, his post just got removed!
I didnt report you:) I reported him haha!
And it worked! He got banned, so thats good
 

Supermuncher85

Distinguished
Aug 18, 2010
133
0
18,660


For gaming very little. 8gB of ram is plenty, and w7 vs w8 well.....that depends on you. I prefer 7 but I like my start button (yeah yeah I know you can add it to 8 but really...). The GPU makes a HUGE difference. HD4000 vs 660m is no comparison
mean check this: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Intel+HD+4000
 

rhino1000

Honorable
May 14, 2013
11
0
10,560


What does the GPU do? will it make a processing speed difference? I am ignorant when it comes to which computer accessory is better etc. I appreciate the help!

Edit: Just looked it up. Graphics Processing Unit. Ok, well it makes sense that it would be somewhat important. About that site that you just sent me to compare the different GPU's (I think), can you please tell me what's going on there? I see that it has a 479 ... thing. Whatever that number means, I don't know.

You would really recommend that laptop over the options I had in mind?
 

Supermuncher85

Distinguished
Aug 18, 2010
133
0
18,660
Well CPU will be in charge of doing physics, and other calculations, where as the GPU will be doing the majority of the muscle work driving pixels to your screen.

But no it will not affect your processing speed, but it WILL improve your Frames per second! My suggestion is, if you want to game, splurge $100 and get the dedicated GPU, since that will make a huge difference when gaming!

You can get the clevo Sager NP6350 for $900 with the 660m http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6350-clevo-w350etq-p-4897.html?wconfigure=yes if the $100 is out of reach.
 

caydn12

Honorable
Mar 8, 2013
11
0
10,560

caydn12

Honorable
Mar 8, 2013
11
0
10,560


How is that spam?!? I love bitcoins <3 ;)
 

rhino1000

Honorable
May 14, 2013
11
0
10,560


Looking at that link you just sent, it looks like that doesn't include an operating system? Is it weird that I think that's important ?! haha
+ Will the i5 processor be significantly worse than an i7?
 

caydn12

Honorable
Mar 8, 2013
11
0
10,560


Yeah you freak.. Who needs operating systems these days...
 

rhino1000

Honorable
May 14, 2013
11
0
10,560


Apparently, not Supermuncher!