Looking into buying a new laptop that can actually handle games

mkenny

Honorable
Feb 14, 2012
3
0
10,510
None of them.

I recommend the Lenovo Y580 with the i7-3630QM, nVidia GTX 660m, and a 1920x1080 resolution screen. It is out of stock at Newegg, but you can always order directly from Lenovo. It costs $949 after using the coupon code and you'll need to pay taxes. Since it is coming from China, it takes about 10 - 14 business days to ship once it has been assembled which probably takes about 5 days.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=AC523278A4F13F27A84F5F5622D1AC7A#.UJG94YalunM
 

mkenny

Honorable
Feb 14, 2012
3
0
10,510


What about the lenovo Y480? Is that one any good?
 

jackspeed

Distinguished
Jun 29, 2011
169
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18,660


Its much worse then the y580 but its ok... Do you want the 14" screen? The y580 is an ok gaming machine. I would recommend a gtx 660 minimum and idealy a 670 or 675. The one I suggested was $20 aboove your price range. If you want a small laptop, get a netbook and put the rest of your budget into a gaming desktop. You will have a laptop $250 and you will have a better gaming machine at 1k.
 
First thing ya need to know that most brands you know (HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, etc) don't actually "make" a laptop .... they are all made my ODM's who slap the brand names on em. Clevo is a "boutique" ODM who made their initial claim to fame as the original builder of Alienware laptops. WindowPC, Falconnorthwest, Sager etc. are built on Clevo chasis.

First decide on a GPU you can afford and then pick the rest from there.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

3Dmark 11

670M - 2728.9
675M - 3248.8
670mx - 3978.5

The Sager NP9170 (Clevo P170EM) goes for about $1,220 (after $100 discount) with the base build including a GTX 670M 1.5GB GDDR5 ..... upgrades are as follows:

GTX 675M 2GB GDDR5 (FREE Upgrade) $0.00
GTX 670MX 3GB GDDR5 Memory $100.00
GTX 675MX 4GB GDDR5 Memory $200.00
HD 7970M 2GB GDDR5 $300.00
680M 4GB GDDR5 Memory $495.00

Other upgrades I'd consider

8 ---> 16GB of RAM = $50
750 GB Seagae Moments Hybrid SSD / HD = $100
Blue Ray Capability = $55

Find em here:
http://www.lpc-digital.com/sager-np9170.html
 

jackspeed

Distinguished
Jun 29, 2011
169
0
18,660


So can you find an example of a laptop with a MX gpu? How close to his budget would one of these laptops be? under the buy option for the cards it list laptops without the mx.