Laptop Buy Unsure

cats_Paw

Distinguished
Oct 19, 2007
425
0
18,940
Hello everyone,

Im trying to get the best option for my money since in a few Days im probably going to buy a laptop.
Now, i know you might want to get to the point, but first there is something imporatnt that i need to tell you.

My laptop got stolen, and it was a MSI GX623 (P7350+ati 4670+4gb ddr2).
This laptop costed me 790 Euro, over a year ago.
Im looking now, and seems that a nvidia 540 is almost as powefull as my old 4670 (most of my data comes from notebookcheck.org).
The problem is: I need to spend 1k E now to get pretty much the same performance in most games (meaning i will be able to play high quality same way, but not very high).
Sure, ill get a flashy i5-2410, but its still gpu limited.

I was looking at some places for a strong version of a gpu (like a 6970M), but only place they dont want a crazy ammount of money for a laptop with that is deviltech.de.

I checked their forums, they get about 8 technical problems on their forum with laptops each month, and since those are not "mainstream" laptops, im assuming thats a good portion of their sales.

Also i noted the battery lifetime is just ridiculusly low on laptops with higher end gpus, and most wont even work if you dont plug to a wall socket anyway.

Becouse of this i was basicly deciding to go with a mid range gpu 540/550/555.

My problem is: Do you guys think there is any worth in waiting for the ultrabooks to kick in to get lower prices and perhaps better hardware?
Or you think that there just is no way they can make a good laptop with good battery in the next 10 years becouse a good GPU needs power, and a laptop dosent have it anyway?

 

Pyree

Distinguished
Moderator
Wow, you paid 790 euro for a C2D DDR2 4650 a year ago?! You were ripped off big time. Also the GT540m is not on par with the 4650m, it is much faster.

I don't think ultrabook will lower the price of the top end gaming laptop. They are competing with the tablet and netbook market. Better hardware in the future, sure, hardware alway gets better and you are right, a fast gpu will always be power hungry so if a gaming laptop with good graphics will always have shorter battery than a slower laptop. Unless the start replacing the gaming laptop battery with fuel cell.

The Fire DTX is probably the best in terms of battery and performance balance but I guess it will only have around 2hrs in power saving mode. I cannot read and nevigate to the specification page.

You may also be interested in these few models:
http://www.asus.de/Notebooks/Multimedia_Entertainment/N53SN/#specifications
http://www.asus.de/Notebooks/Multimedia_Entertainment/N53SV/#specifications
http://www.asus.de/Notebooks/Multimedia_Entertainment/N43SL/#specifications
http://www.asus.de/Notebooks/Versatile_Performance/K53SV/#specifications

Although I am not sure how much they are in Germany.
 

cats_Paw

Distinguished
Oct 19, 2007
425
0
18,940
I got a 4670, in a 2.7 kg laptop with a aluminium body. Was the best option i had.
Was either that or a 1.5k+ price tag laptop.

The main problem is availability.

I dont know how much better then 540 is than the 4670, but both seem to be able to run the same games at the same details and the same fps.

I mean that you cant run crysis over "high" quality in any of those gpus for example.

Unfortunatelly it seems the asus mid-range of asus (540 versions) have very poor screen contrast ratio.
I guess ill be going with the MSI 780r after all....
 

Pyree

Distinguished
Moderator
MSI GT780R:

Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM
16GB DDR3/1333MHz (4x 4GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M 192bit with 1.5GB GDDR5
17.3" 16:9 Full HD (1920x1080) MATTE LED backlit LCD

Looks good!

If it isn't too much to ask, can you tell me where you get it from and at what price. Just want to build up the knowledge so that if someone else is in a similar situation, I can recommend this laptop.