Looking for a laptop

Astronauto

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Aug 19, 2012
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10,580
I'm currently looking for a gaming laptop, there are so many options and I have no idea what to get.


1. What is your budget?
$500 max

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15.6" +

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1366 x 768 +

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable gaming

5. How much battery life do you need?
3 hours+

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Currently would want to be able to play:
ArmA 2, Guild Wars 2, Skyrim, and League of Legends

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Would only need photoshop/dreamweaver capability

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
250 GB +

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2 years +

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD ROM/Writer

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Doesn't really matter to me. Asus, Acer, MSi, etc.

13. What country do you live in?
United States
 

Astronauto

Honorable
Aug 19, 2012
28
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10,580

False. I have looked around and there are laptops for 500-550 that can play Skyrim on high.

Looking for more insight here.
 

Astronauto

Honorable
Aug 19, 2012
28
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10,580
here is a long answers for what you can get with different systems:
http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/gaming-laptop-game/gaming-laptop-skyrim/

1. wrote a few times already:
The fastest gaming laptop under 500$ is the Acer 5560G with Radeon 7670M, 4GB DDR3 and A6-3420M cpu:
http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/acer-aspire-5560g-6650m-7670m

you won't get better performance/price ratio and the 7670M will run many games on medium to high settings.
The 5560G has a good build quality and very good thermals/noise levels.

About Skyrim - friend tells me that his 6750M can run Skyrim on high settings quite smoothly and the 7670M is very close.

2. For 550$ you have the HP dv6z-7000:
http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/hp-pavilion-dv6z-7000-15-6-gaming-laptop-radeon-hd-7730m-2gb-ddr3-6gb-ddr3-1600mhz-memory-750gb-hdd-amd-quad-a6-4400m-cpu-550-700-fullhd-screen-upgrade/

with radeon 7730M, 6GB DDR3 and A6/A8 (quad A8 prefered) you'll get a very good performance

I also was looking at the G72GX laptop. The gtx 260m seems to perform on Skyrim really well, and it's around the 450-500 price range.

Any insight on the g72gx?
 

Astronauto

Honorable
Aug 19, 2012
28
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where can you find it? new? for how much?

insights:
1. G72GX with gtx 260m - good gaming performance as far as DX10 goes. No DX 10.1 or DX 11. Something around the high midrange GPUs like GT 555 / GT 640M averagely *at most*.

2. According to the G72GX review:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Asus-G72GX-Gaming-Notebook.22297.0.html
not a very appealing laptop. Low battery runtimes, very noisy, display quality is just bad, even compared to mainstream laptops, high weight.

3. Would probably run Skyrim very well, as Skyrim is a DX9 game (right?)

=======

If you're looking for gaming performance only - it seems to be a good one. But I can't see where can you find. We are talking second hand?

I think that with the dv6z-7000 you'll get averagely the same performance + far better battery + better screen.

thoughts?

I'm not really worried about running DX11.

The only thing I would be using the laptop for, is browsing the web (youtube, etc.), using Adobe Photoshop/DreamWeaver, and gaming (Skyrim, ArmA 2, League of Legends, etc.)
 

killerhurtalot

Distinguished
Aug 16, 2012
28
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18,580


You should still go with the newer hardware because of how much heat it's putting out...

and I recommend EVERYONE with a "gaming" laptop to get a cheap laptop cooler. otherwise it might melt your laptop lol. (especially since people don't clean out their laptop exhaust fans frequently..)