Light-gaming, all-around, 1080p laptop for ~$500-700?

[sisson329]

Hey guys! I was really hoping to get some advice on this. I have a budget of about 500-700 bucks to spend on a laptop. Here's a list of things that are important to me, in no specific order:

-Needs to be able to play WoW at medium settings with good FPS
-Would like 1080p
-Needs to be able to hold a decent battery charge, preferably close to 4+ hours if possible with light use (I don't game on the go away from a wall socket, but things like word, internet browsing, etc)
-I would be lying if I didn't say it needs to have some class - I've loved macbooks in my time but can't justify the money on one with the sloppy graphics cards. I really love the solid metal feel, weight is not something I care too much about, but I like aluminum's feel.

The rest is really just basics I would expect any laptop to be able to preform.

Laptops I've been looking at currently are the Dell XPS line in 2012 (I5 3340m w/ Nvidia GT630m 1GB or I7 3540m Nvidia GT640m 2GB) but I'm willing to look outside of it if it has the same solid feel, beautiful screen, and classy look. Wondering if it's necessary to spend more in order to get what I need out of a laptop.

Thanks for taking the time to read! If you have any more information you need out of me please let me know

Mike

 

[sisson329]

Thanks for the response gayelordwing, I'll have to look into it. Not sold on the design though, I'll try to feel one in person to see if it changes my mind.

 

[Albert Szeliga]

Hey! The laptop I currently use, Toshiba Satellite S50-D, basically fits your description. I run WoW on it in high settings, it is HD, it looks like a Mac to be honest, and it holds about 4 hours on very light use. Here is the link to future shop here . Also it has dual video cards, an integrated one for battery optimization and a 1 GB dedicated AMD one when you want to game and the such. Also it costs about $599.99 regularly here in Canada. Hope this helps!

 

[jaguarskx]

I would go with the Dell laptop that has the I7-3540m CPU & the nVidia GT 640m.
The Core i7 is more powerful than the A10-5757M APU (Acer Aspire V5-552P-X617 )by far from a processor point of view. The nVidia GT 640m is much more powerful than the A10-5757m's integrated Radeon HD 8650g graphics core as well. The AMD iGPU is closer to the performance of the GT 630m.

The Toshiba Satellite S50-D has a weaker A10 APU and the dedicated Radeon HD 8570M is less powerful than the GT 630m. Combined with the integrated Radeon HD 8610g (called Dual Graphics Mode), the total graphics performance is still far less than the nVidia GT 640m.

Dual Graphics mode is only active if the games you play make use of DirectX 10 or DirectX 11. Games that are DirectX 9 and below can only make use of AMD's integrated graphics core. Since WoW does make use of DX11, the game can be played with Dual Graphics mode. However, Skyrim is an example of a popular game that still only uses DX9, therefore such games can only be played using the integrated graphic core in laptops using AMD's APU series.

The nVidia GT 640m is by far more powerful than what the AMD laptops have to offer. Additionally, the quad core Core i7 CPU performance far exceeds the quad core A10's CPU performance.

 

[jaguarskx]

An important caveat...

There are two versions of the nVidia GT 640m dedicated graphics chip. The fastest version will have DDR5 RAM for the GPU. The slower version will use DDR3 RAM for the GPU. The GT 640m DDR3 is still more powerful than the AMD solution in the other two laptops mentioned, but naturally the GT 640m GGR5 is more desirable.

 

[sisson329]

I would go with the Dell laptop that has the I7-3540m CPU & the nVidia GT 640m.
The Core i7 is more powerful than the A10-5757M APU (Acer Aspire V5-552P-X617 )by far from a processor point of view. The nVidia GT 640m is much more powerful than the A10-5757m's integrated Radeon HD 8650g graphics core as well. The AMD iGPU is closer to the performance of the GT 630m.

The Toshiba Satellite S50-D has a weaker A10 APU and the dedicated Radeon HD 8570M is less powerful than the GT 630m. Combined with the integrated Radeon HD 8610g (called Dual Graphics Mode), the total graphics performance is still far less than the nVidia GT 640m.

Dual Graphics mode is only active if the games you play make use of DirectX 10 or DirectX 11. Games that are DirectX 9 and below can only make use of AMD's integrated graphics core. Since WoW does make use of DX11, the game can be played with Dual Graphics mode. However, Skyrim is an example of a popular game that still only uses DX9, therefore such games can only be played using the integrated graphic core in laptops using AMD's APU series.

The nVidia GT 640m is by far more powerful than what the AMD laptops have to offer. Additionally, the quad core Core i7 CPU performance far exceeds the quad core A10's CPU performance.

Wow this information was incredibly helpful! I always hear mixed bags about WoW's performance because of something to do with it using less cores but I've never heard of the DX11 vs 9/10 before. Good to know.

I was able to find an Dell XPS 15 I7 3540m for 500 bucks and it should be here in a week. It seemed like the best for my budget without losing the solid aluminum feel/look. I'll be sure to come back and post my experience with it here for anyone that might see this thread.

Thanks again jaguarskx!