Solved! Laptop specs

[jfriley]

Hello,

I have $1,000 to spend on a laptop that will play modern games (mass effect, Dragon age). Whats the best system for the money please?

Thank You

 

[Maziar]

Rather than the GX640,the only notebook that i can recommend would be ASUS G60JX
http/www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+-+Blue/Black/9736955.p?id=1218164036446&skuId=9736955
It has a GT 360M,which is slower than 5850M/5870M

 

[jfriley]

Rather than the GX640,the only notebook that i can recommend would be ASUS G60JX
http/www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+-+Blue/Black/9736955.p?id=1218164036446&skuId=9736955
It has a GT 360M,which is slower than 5850M/5870M

That's the other one I was looking at. I think its between those two (the $900 Asus vs the $1200 Asus). So I guess the question becomes is going from core i5 to i7, 2 GB of RAM, and the bigger graphics card worth the extra $300? That and the fact that the 1200 Asus is supposedly very large as well. Maybe I'll just flip a coin.

One final question, I read some Bestbuy reviews where customers talked about Geek Squad trying to charge $100 to "optimize" their system? WTF is that? And I forget the term but I think there is a lot of 3rd party software preloaded on the BestBuy systems as well.

 

[jfriley]

Sorry to muddy the waters yet again but I just found this one online, it may be a today only sale:

http/www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+-+Blue/Black/9736955.p?id=1218164036446&skuId=9736955

These best buy links haven't been working so here are the specs:

Asus Model: G72GX-RBBX05
Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor P8700
6 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M graphics

$999

So I don't know how a Core 2 Duo compares to the core i5/i7 family.
It has the same 6 GB RAM as the 1200 model, and I assume the GTX 260 is in between the 360 and 5850.

All things considered this seems like a pretty good mix between the G73JH-RBBX05 ($1200) and G60JX-RBBX05 ($899)

 

[Maziar]

If you can afford G73,definitely go for it,HD 5870M performs significantly better than a GTX 260M/GT 360M,also it has a quad core CPU,so in games that benefit from milticore CPUs and also in multithreaded apps,you'll benefit from the extra cores.
I haven't heard anything about paying $100 to optimize a system,MAYBE they man that they get $100 and install the windows,drivers etc.
And as for G72,well i7 720QM performs better than a P8700 and its really not worth it to buy a laptop which isn't produced anymore(Core2CPUs are out of production),and like i said 5870M performs better than GTX 260M too.

 

[jfriley]

DOH!! I just went to order the MSI and now Amazon doesn't have it anymore (new anyway) Anyone know where else I can get one?

ohhhhhhhh I forgot what a pain this was...

I was going to go with this over the Asus G73 becasue Best Buy had to special order the asus and lots of folks said it was very large physically (like it might not fit in my bag).

I've thought about saying to hell with it and getting the 899 Asus with the nvidea 360, but I don't know how well that will work. The MSI seemed like a decent split between the two.

 

[Maziar]

http/www.xoticpc.com/msi-gx640098us-p-2766.html

 

[jfriley]

Hi all,

I went with the MSI. Thanks again for all the help. I'm very pleased with it except in one area: the onboard speakers seem to suck. They are all high end and thin sounding. Am I just missing a setting somewhere? My wife's off the shelf gateway from Bestbuy sounds better.