Looking for good priced gaming laptop

[Adviceasker]

While looking for a new (my first) gaming laptop I was repeatedly visiting this site for answers to my questions. So, does anyone know of any sub $800 gaming laptops that are any good? I realize thats not an amazing budget but I will mainly be playing games like Minecraft (hoping for max settings), but also some games like Skyrim (medium?). Any suggestions would be extremely helpful. Also recommended specs would be helpful as well as I know a bit about computers but not enough to make certain decisions (ex. intel vs. amd for the money, or nvidia vs amd graphics). Thanks in advance!

 

[IInuyasha74]

Look up Lenovo y510p. The cheapest one usually sits right around $800 and is a pretty good system
Or the y410p is pretty similar to it but cheaper, though it has a smaller screen, and doesn't have a number pad on the side.

As for in general while looking at other specs, Intel has much better CPUs than AMD. AMD's CPUs are only really considerable if you are looking at cheap laptops below the Intel i5 price range. On the desktop market I think AMD is pretty good price/performance wise, but its the same scenario there really. The best AMD desktop processor fights with the lower Intel i5's.

For graphics Intel is on the opposite side of things with much weaker graphics that only compete with the lowest end chips from AMD and Nvidia. Here is a quick naming guide to help.

Nvidia:
###X. Example: 620M
The first number, in the example "6" is the series of cards.
Second and third numbers are the card rank in the series, in the example "20".
The "X" is just a letter. In desktop cards there isn't a letter, and on mobile cards there is an "M".
The higher the first number, the newer the technology. Its more recent. The higher the 2nd and 3rd numbers the better the card is in that series. They usually go up or down in increments of "10" but on the mobile ones its not too uncommon to see them go by increments of "5".

AMD's old naming scheme is pretty much the same. For example "7850". Drop the "0" at the end and its the exact same as above except that 3rd number can be either a "3", a "5", or a "7" but its never anything else.

The new naming scheme for AMD is a bit different and I am not the best person to describe it to you.
For Intel's graphics, they are really low end. There best mobile graphics "Intel HD 4400" is only a little better than the "Nvidia GT 610M". The "Intel HD 4200" is pretty much the same, and the "Intel HD 4000" is just a little weaker being a tie to the Nvidia GT 610M.

As for which is better overall, neither AMD or Nvidia is really better than the other, so it all depends on which specific cards.

 

[LummusMaximus]

If you'd like a specific recommendation,

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314240&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=5257136&SID=ShopAMD

An AMD based laptop will always be cheaper. This one should get you decent performance at a sub-$600 price.

 

[IInuyasha74]

The one LummusMaximus posted is actually a pretty good one. the graphics in it are pretty capable. It doesn't hold up against the Lenovo y510p, but with a $200 price difference thats a bit of a given and just another thing you should consider.

 

[Adviceasker]

The one LummusMaximus posted is actually a pretty good one. the graphics in it are pretty capable. It doesn't hold up against the Lenovo y510p, but with a $200 price difference thats a bit of a given and just another thing you should consider.

About how much more powerful would the y410p than the one posted by LummusMaximus? How much better would it be? And how upgradable are the 2 laptops in regards to future-proofing (don't want to need to buy a new one in 6 months).

 

[LummusMaximus]

The y410p can do SLI, correct? If you get it like that, the Y410p is easily the most future-proof of the two systems.

 

[Adviceasker]

What about the Acer Aspire V3 systems? The ones from $599 to $799? And most of all how do the y410p, Acer Aspire V3, and earlier mentioned Acer V5 AMD processor one match up in terms of performance (ex. an estimate of how high of settings i would be able to run BF4 on with each)?

 

[IInuyasha74]

I don't know the Acer V3 specs right off so I cannot tell you, but here is a comparison for the other two.

First, easy to mistake but the y410p doesn't get SLI. There just isn't enough room in them I suspect, but Lenovo only sells the y510p models with SLI, and thats only the more expensive models.

Here is the general important hardware though. ACER:
http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-A-Series-A10-5750M-Notebook-Processor.92882.0.html
http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-8750M.87147.0.html

Lenovo:
http/www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-4700MQ-Notebook-Processor.92959.0.html
http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-755M.102020.0.html

In terms of CPU performance off these benchmarks the Lenovo at $780
http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/

Of which I highly recommend the $780 y410p because of better processor and screen resolution, anyways that one in terms of CPU power will give 333% of the CPU in the Acer.

While the Graphics in the Lenovo will give you 208% of the performance the GPU in the Acer would give. (Based of Bioshock Infinity High quality FPS)

The Lenovo is much more future proof and much better performance, I actually didn't realize to what extent until I compared these numbers. I would say get it for sure.

As for future proofing though, while the Lenovo is a great system, I don't think a laptop is made that will max all games currently. Its just too much to fit in a laptop.