Looking for a gaming laptop

[YaShA_MY]

Hi, I'm a college student and I've been looking around for a laptop that I can use for gaming and multimedia designing. I heard that the Nvidia GTX 800 series was coming out for laptops so I was really excited to get one. I came across this and it looks really decent for its price.

http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y50/

There's quite a lot of models to choose from and I'm not sure which would be the best for me. I want it to play a lot of high-end games, but I also want to save money if possible. Please help me decide which model would be the most ideal.

If there are other suggestions or advice, I'd like to hear them too. I'd really appreciate your help. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: If anyone has bought the Lenovo Y50, please let me know how is it performing and was it worth the money. Thanks.
EDIT: I've been hearing a lot of suggestions that I should take a look at the Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p also. What are your thoughts on it compared to the Lenovo Y50?

http/www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-15-6-Inch-Laptop-59406636/dp/B00HIY8VLQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

 

[ingtar33]

ok... I'm just gonna say this before we go further... understand gpus on laptops are NOT even close to equal to the power of their similarly named desktop version. A GTX 880m is about as strong as a r9-270/GTX660 on the desktop. NOT a GTX 780. A GTX 860m is about as strong as a desktop r7-260x/GTX 650ti

so if you want to see how it will play next gen, top of the line games in 1080p look at the benches for a r7-260x.



Now i'm not saying you can't find a good gaming laptop. That Lenovo is pretty good overall if you don't mind playing on high or medium settings. Just don't expect it to max anything out like a similar priced desktop with a GTX 760 and a i7 under the hood.

 

[Dblkk]

I have the asus g750 js model, and so far havent played a game that isnt on ultra settings. Including titanfall, cod ghosts, skyrim, and bf4. My laptop has the 870m, i had the jm model with 860m and got high/ultra on all games as well.

 

[dasulman]

ok... I'm just gonna say this before we go further... understand gpus on laptops are NOT even close to equal to the power of their similarly named desktop version. A GTX 880m is about as strong as a r9-270/GTX660 on the desktop. NOT a GTX 780. A GTX 860m is about as strong as a desktop r7-260x/GTX 650ti

so if you want to see how it will play next gen, top of the line games in 1080p look at the benches for a r7-260x.



Now i'm not saying you can't find a good gaming laptop. That Lenovo is pretty good overall if you don't mind playing on high or medium settings. Just don't expect it to max anything out like a similar priced desktop with a GTX 760 and a i7 under the hood.

you're slightly out - the gtx 860M is basically the 750 Ti
the gtx 880M is equivalent to a very good 760

back to OP's question - honestly that laptop is as good as it gets for this budget and build quality - honestly the only difference between the lot is touch screen and storage.
if you want to go full budget just get the very first option that costs $1149 - it will do everything you want
the gtx 860M will manage to play even the highest end games at 1080p medium-high, you could potentially hit ultra if you turned off AA - since that's generally where most of the meat is.

 

[YaShA_MY]

ok... I'm just gonna say this before we go further... understand gpus on laptops are NOT even close to equal to the power of their similarly named desktop version. A GTX 880m is about as strong as a r9-270/GTX660 on the desktop. NOT a GTX 780. A GTX 860m is about as strong as a desktop r7-260x/GTX 650ti

so if you want to see how it will play next gen, top of the line games in 1080p look at the benches for a r7-260x.



Now i'm not saying you can't find a good gaming laptop. That Lenovo is pretty good overall if you don't mind playing on high or medium settings. Just don't expect it to max anything out like a similar priced desktop with a GTX 760 and a i7 under the hood.

Gaming desktop isn't an option for me now as I'm still a college student and will be on the move most of the time. I am aware that I won't be able to play most high-end games in maxed settings but a medium-high setting is good enough for me.

Thanks for you reply.

 

[YaShA_MY]

ok... I'm just gonna say this before we go further... understand gpus on laptops are NOT even close to equal to the power of their similarly named desktop version. A GTX 880m is about as strong as a r9-270/GTX660 on the desktop. NOT a GTX 780. A GTX 860m is about as strong as a desktop r7-260x/GTX 650ti

so if you want to see how it will play next gen, top of the line games in 1080p look at the benches for a r7-260x.



Now i'm not saying you can't find a good gaming laptop. That Lenovo is pretty good overall if you don't mind playing on high or medium settings. Just don't expect it to max anything out like a similar priced desktop with a GTX 760 and a i7 under the hood.

you're slightly out - the gtx 860M is basically the 750 Ti
the gtx 880M is equivalent to a very good 760

back to OP's question - honestly that laptop is as good as it gets for this budget and build quality - honestly the only difference between the lot is touch screen and storage.
if you want to go full budget just get the very first option that costs $1149 - it will do everything you want
the gtx 860M will manage to play even the highest end games at 1080p medium-high, you could potentially hit ultra if you turned off AA - since that's generally where most of the meat is.

Could you explain how significant is the difference between 16GB RAM vs 8GB RAM and 2GB graphics card vs 4GB graphics card. Thanks.

 

[Dblkk]

For Video gaming, not going to notice a difference. Except the 2gb vs 4gb, if theyre both ddr5 (some have ddr3), then other than the fact one is a 765m/860m and the other is a 780m or 880m. The ram itself no difference. 3d animation and rendering memory plays huge difference.

 

[Dblkk]

If you gave a budget it would really help out

 

[dasulman]

16GB RAM will enable you to do more at once - it's only really useful for things like video editing and rendering or CAD. Since games, an internet browser, an OS and other applications don't take up more than 6GB of RAM, getting any more is pretty useless. 8GB is known as the gaming sweet spot amount of RAM
GPU memory (GDDR5 as we know it) can be simplified as "the amount able to be sent out at once" - it doesn't affect how well graphics are processed (atleast noticeably, sometimes there's like a 5% difference that I personally don't think justifies the bigger prices)
but it affects how much graphics data can be sent out to the screens.
eg. a 1GB GDDR5 graphics card would bottleneck a 1920x1200 screen output regardless of how well it could process the graphics - since 1920x1200 is a lot of pixels that basically need to be filled and changed etc. but a 2GB card would eliminate that bottleneck.

you'll see this same confusion with the gtx 770 desktop card - people ask - do I get the 2GB version, or spend $75 more and get the 4GB version.
If you want to say...output to 3 1080p screens then you get the 4GB card - since it can fill those screens up, but if you're on a single monitor then a 2GB card is more than sufficient.

in this situation the 2GB card is the best choice.

 

[ingtar33]

you're slightly out - the gtx 860M is basically the 750 Ti
the gtx 880M is equivalent to a very good 760

There isn't a benchmark around that shows a 880m matching or even close to the performance of a 760, it lands almost exactly between a gtx660 and a r9-270x... we're sorta talking around each other on the 860m... the 750ti and r7-260x are pretty darn close in performance. I'm pretty sure the benches prove it out that the 860m lands much closer to the r7-260x then the 750ti... but in the end it doesn't really matter that much.

That said you're right on the rest. it will game in 1080p at high, no problem.

 

[YaShA_MY]

If you gave a budget it would really help out

My budget is around $1,000, not more than $1,500.

 

[YaShA_MY]

16GB RAM will enable you to do more at once - it's only really useful for things like video editing and rendering or CAD. Since games, an internet browser, an OS and other applications don't take up more than 6GB of RAM, getting any more is pretty useless. 8GB is known as the gaming sweet spot amount of RAM
GPU memory (GDDR5 as we know it) can be simplified as "the amount able to be sent out at once" - it doesn't affect how well graphics are processed (atleast noticeably, sometimes there's like a 5% difference that I personally don't think justifies the bigger prices)
but it affects how much graphics data can be sent out to the screens.
eg. a 1GB GDDR5 graphics card would bottleneck a 1920x1200 screen output regardless of how well it could process the graphics - since 1920x1200 is a lot of pixels that basically need to be filled and changed etc. but a 2GB card would eliminate that bottleneck.

you'll see this same confusion with the gtx 770 desktop card - people ask - do I get the 2GB version, or spend $75 more and get the 4GB version.
If you want to say...output to 3 1080p screens then you get the 4GB card - since it can fill those screens up, but if you're on a single monitor then a 2GB card is more than sufficient.

in this situation the 2GB card is the best choice.

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation, I think I'll follow your advice and get the cheapest model. Thanks again for your help.

 

[Dblkk]

If you gave a budget it would really help out

My budget is around $1,000, not more than $1,500.

I'd suggest asus g750 jm. Gives 6 hour non gaming battery, full maxwell gpu, great solid laptop, and the 860m can play any new game on high and some on ultra.

As for the 880m, it is comparable to the gtx 770. Theres a few benchmarks, forums, and one guy actually build a 4770k, gtx 770 build, pc build was $2400, laptop was $2200. PC won by 30 seconds in music encoding (4 min vs 4 min 30 sec), and 5fps higher on ultra settings on both crysis and bf4. But both were easily playable. The 770 has faster memory, but the 880m has more, gpu cores should be about the same as well as the rest of the artitecture. If you overclock the 880m in sure you could bring that 5fps difference even closer.

But none of that matters either on this thread as $1500 cant buy a 880m, hes not looking for a desktop, and 880m/770/760 can all play games on high/ultra just fine so isnt that enough?

Yes a comparable pc is better than a laptop, but to the point past 60fps which screens are limited to anyway. As for rendering editing, you buy a workstation with workstation graphics for that and if your using a gaming build just be happy you can use gtx gpu's for acceleration at all.

 

[YaShA_MY]

Thank you everyone for contributing your suggestions and advice. I've decided to order the cheapest model of Lenovo Y50 with 2GB of graphics memory and 8GB ram.