Laptop for Rome Total War 2.

[Glesjw]

I have done an extensive search, and have compiled a list of about 30 laptops that meet the min. requirements for RTW2. I have also checked notebookcheck.net benchmarks for the graphics tested with RTW2.

I am wondering if anyone can suggest some laptops to me that I should take a look at, to play RTW2. I think this would be much easier for me, than trying to figure out which of those 30 laptops I want to purchase.

I'm looking for something at, or under $1,000.00 USD, 15" - 17" screen, don't need a huge HD, 300 GB is all I need, (If that helps.) and I don't care about having my games set at the max. graphics, min. is fine with me, as long as the game runs smooth.


Thank you.

 

[JohnKau]

Not really sure what gaming laptops will suit your price range but here are generally some things you might want to consider.

Will you be playing RTW primarily in single-player or multi-player? If playing the campaign in single-player you definitely want a good CPU so you won't have to wait eons for one turn to pass. For the graphics a GTX 970m will give you anywhere between 30-40 fps at 1080p ultra (provided you don't get thermal throttled by some of those terrible models that I've seen Lenovo and MSI have).

If you are getting a 17" screen I definitely recommend playing at 1080p as any less will make things look grainy. If you're okay with lower graphics settings then I would go for something like the 960m for it's power efficiency when it gets released. (power efficiency = smaller power adapter required and less heat produced). As for the other graphics cards you can just go to notebookcheck and look up the recorded fps that players have been getting on RTW 2. 60 fps and above will definitely look smooth. 860M will work for that and should fit your budget. But do note that when playing epic battles you could experience some lag. It's the price to pay for epicness.

If you are only playing RTW2, you could get a 128gb SSD and install the game on it. Load times will be lightning fast. Differences in HD prices for 500GB and 1TB aren't very great so I would just get a 1TB HD. 16GB of RAM will suffice if you're not doing any video editing.

 

[Glesjw]

Not really sure what gaming laptops will suit your price range but here are generally some things you might want to consider.

Will you be playing RTW primarily in single-player or multi-player? If playing the campaign in single-player you definitely want a good CPU so you won't have to wait eons for one turn to pass. For the graphics a GTX 970m will give you anywhere between 30-40 fps at 1080p ultra (provided you don't get thermal throttled by some of those terrible models that I've seen Lenovo and MSI have).

If you are getting a 17" screen I definitely recommend playing at 1080p as any less will make things look grainy. If you're okay with lower graphics settings then I would go for something like the 960m for it's power efficiency when it gets released. (power efficiency = smaller power adapter required and less heat produced). As for the other graphics cards you can just go to notebookcheck and look up the recorded fps that players have been getting on RTW 2. 60 fps and above will definitely look smooth. 860M will work for that and should fit your budget. But do note that when playing epic battles you could experience some lag. It's the price to pay for epicness.

If you are only playing RTW2, you could get a 128gb SSD and install the game on it. Load times will be lightning fast. Differences in HD prices for 500GB and 1TB aren't very great so I would just get a 1TB HD. 16GB of RAM will suffice if you're not doing any video editing.

When I go here, http/www.notebookcheck.net/Total-War-Rome-II-Benchmarked.101446.0.html the list that I came up with was mainly based on these benchmarks. I have only chosen laptops with graphics that benchmark in the green according to that list.
Right now I'm using 275 GB out of 452 GB on my HDD. I have a lot of stuff that I don't need, and on the new laptop I am going to go in, and delete a lot of pre installed junk that I don't need. The 128 GB SDD that you suggested will not be enough down the line when I install more stuff such as the rest of the Total War series. I have noticed that there isn't much of a price difference between hard drive size.
I will only be playing in single player.
RTW2 min. is 512 GB RAM, recommended is 4 GB RAM, I plan on getting at least 8 GB.

 

[JohnKau]

For faster loading times getting a SSD will definitely help a lot. You can always replace the optical drive bay with a HDD+Caddy in the future for more space (if you have no other HDD slots). At your price range you can actually get some pretty decent gaming laptops with at least a GTX 860M graphics card. ASUS ROG GL551JM-DH71 will handle Rome 2 at 1080p with no problems.

 

[JohnKau]

For faster loading times getting a SSD will definitely help a lot. You can always replace the optical drive bay with a HDD+Caddy in the future for more space (if you have no other HDD slots). At your price range you can actually get some pretty decent gaming laptops with at least a GTX 860M graphics card. ASUS ROG GL551JM-DH71 will handle Rome 2 at 1080p with no problems.

 

[Glesjw]

What do you think of this laptop? http/www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-gp70-leopard-010-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i5-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5185148.p?id=1219113400424&skuId=5185148
Best Buy SKU: 5185148.
MSI Model: 9S7-175A12-010

It's good enough for what I want it to do, it has 8 GB DDR3L RAM, 1 TB HDD speed - 7200, 2 GB DDR3L dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GT 840M graphics, (Good benchmarks with the games I want to play.) 4th Gen i5 2.5GHz (with Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz.) and 1920x1080 resolution.