Solved! Looking for budget college/gaming laptop

[joewitafro]

This forum helped me a lot when building my gaming PC (which turned out EXCELLENT!) So i figured there is no better place to help me find a notebook aswell.

1_What is your budget? under 700.
2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? I'd like 15.6" - 17"
3_What screen resolution do you want? not sure? I have 1920x1080 on my PC, and i like that.. but isnt deciding factor.
4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Portable for college and hanging with friends.
5_How much battery life do you need? 3 hours would be cool, Most places I will be will have power outlets.
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)? Yes! I dont expect to play any games with ultra high or high settings, i have my PC for that.. But i would like to play games over at my buddies house from time to time.. World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, Modern warfare 2, bad company 2, left 4 dead 2, counterstrike:source. As long as i can play them in medium settings without lag i'd be happy.. hell, even if it ran smooth in low settings...
7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.) Watching movies would be nice, and i also have an HD video camera that I wouldn't mind being able to watch videos from and perhaps upload them to the net... Other than that.. email, web, word processing, and other microsoft office products.
8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? 250-320gb is plenty.
9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. I like newegg.. Frys is local..
10_How long do you want to keep your laptop? I'll probably upgrade in 3-4 years.
11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? something that reads dvd roms would be cool, i dont need to burn anything.
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. Ive had to repair an HP DV6000 four times for a friend, but other than that I have no clue..
13_What country do you live in? USA
14_Please tell us any additional information if needed. I'm a college student.. So i get a discount from that

 

[Maziar]

Well that's a little low budget for a gaming laptop,the best i could find was this ASUS
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220735
Which has a GT 320M and can handle those games fine on med-low settings.
However,i don't think its battery would last for 3hrs

 

[joewitafro]

How far would I have to increase my budget to comfortably play those games?

with my student discount and 15% off I can get a lenovo y460 with i5 and radeon hd 5650 for $830..

Anything else around 800 that would do the job similar?

 

[$amurai]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220715&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Notebooks-_-ASUS-_-34220715
This is a beast for the price, should play those games in medium, though I'm not sure about bad company. But that's a great one.
Best Buy has a refurb G72gx, search for it. Nice GPU and Processor, I think I'm going to get it, should play all those games fine.
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115763
For exactly 800 dollars, This is the same as that lenovo but a little cheaper.
Personally, I like the second one (mine soon!) but the others are good options too.

 

[joewitafro]

wow.. does the 260m really out perform the 5650 that much?? i think im getting that top asus

 

[Maziar]

That Lenovo model you find is a good choice.
And as for G72,although GTX 260M is faster than a 5650M,G72 uses Core2Duo CPUs which are out of production.
And i agree with $amurai,the Acer one has the same specs like the Lenovo model but its cheaper,so consider it too

 

[joewitafro]

it does use a core 2 duo, and only uses DDR2 800 vs DDR 3 1033... but it is also $685 vs $830.

Btw.. Isn't lenovo a better (more reliable) brand than Acer?

 

[Maziar]

DDR2 vs DDR3 won't make a noticeable difference in gaming.
As for Lenovo,well i think it has a better build quality than the Acer one

 

[joewitafro]

do you think the asus g60vx is a good buy? I am liking the price as it would be much more affordable and I could get it asap.

 

[Maziar]

Of course,its has a great perforce/performance ratio

 

[joewitafro]

should I worry about people saying it runs hot? I dont think I could always use a laptop fan under it

 

[joewitafro]

its been a undecisive day.. so I ended up going to best buy and purchasing a asus G60JX for $899. It has the i5 processor, 4gb ddr3 memory, geforce GTS 360m 1gb video card which out performs the 5730 and 5650..

I really am liking it thus far.

 

[joewitafro]

i dont have crysis atm, but on MW2 on max resolution with max settings (AA off) i was getting almost a constant 90FPS. I was VERY happy with that!

 

[$amurai]

Nice! That's a great choice.
I'm looking at that laptop vs. the G72 from Best Buy. Can you just tell me, what sort of FPS do you get on Crysis on very high settings?

 

[$amurai]

WOW. That's amazingly good.
I think there's a Crysis demo you could download online--I hate to ask, but then again you'll probably want that game for eye candy to show your friends how good it looks.

 

[joewitafro]

Np. im curious how it would do aswell, so i downloaded the crysis demo and did a little testing. I havent changed or messed with anything on the computer.

CPU benchmark -

DX10 1024x768 AA=NO AA, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 34.225

GPU benchmark -

DX10 1024x768 AA=NO AA, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 34.94

 

[joewitafro]

Btw, I will do a counterstrike : source benchmark, half life 2: lost coast aswell, and ill download a 3Dmark program or two.

 

[joewitafro]

half life 2:lost coast average FPS on all high settings, native resolution, No AA = 81.51
cs:s average FPS on all high settings, native resolution, No AA = 132.04FPS

Overall build looks awesome, the feel of the laptop is great.. I am in love with it. It doesnt seem to get hot as a whole, but the left vent does blow some decently hot air. Speakers are a (little) quiet compared to what i am used too, I even went into bios and turned the volume up to 8, and removed the explosion sound upon startup. I will do more benchmarks sunday.

 

[Maziar]

wow congrats on the purchase
And thanks for posting the benchies,they look very good.I hope you enjoy it

 

[joewitafro]

for some reason when i test with 3dmark it says "GPU - chipset missing"

but any ways.. with 3dmark vantage it didnt give me an overall score, but it did give me cpu/gpu scores.

Cpu - 18084
gpu - 5365