Need help buying a mid range gaming laptop

[moodypanda1]

1. What is your budget?
Around £600-700. I may be able to stretch a little higher if needed.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15''-16;;

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1920x1080

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portability does not matter much to me, so long as it is not too bulky.

5. How much battery life do you need?
Battery life whilst gaming will not be an issue for me as the laptop would be plugged in most of the time whilst playing games, but a good battery life (4-5 hours plus maybe) whilst using the internet, writing essays ect would be a plus.

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)?
I do want to game yes. Apart from playing games like World of Warcraft and League of Legends with good settings (high+), I would like to be able to play games such as GTA V and Far Cry 4 in atleast medium settings at 1080p.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Apart from watching videos, browsing the internet and writing essays, nothing.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
At least 500gb would be nice, and SSD would of course be great but its not needed.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
I have not had a great deal of luck looking so far, but here are a couple of links to laptops that are around my budget and are brands I like, although they may not be powerful enough.
http/ and http/ .

I am very interested in the ASUS N56VM, but I cannot find it for a decent price in the UK.


10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
At least for the 4 years of my university course, but so long as it lasts me a few years I am not too worried.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD ROM is important to me, and a blueray drive would ne nice, but is not required.

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.
This would be my first laptop for gaming, so I am not very knowledgeable about brands. I have heard good things about MSI and ASUS however, so I have been looking at those laptops.

13. What country do you live in?
England

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I am starting university shortly, so the laptop will be required for study, and I cannot bring my desktop due to having to transport it back and forth over a pretty great distance.

I would prefer that it does not get too loud when not playing games, as it will see a decent amount of use in libraries.

Thanks for reading!

 

[1shado1]

Of those 2, I would personally prefer the GE60. But here is a quote from a notebookcheck review:

System Noise

"We were a little disappointed by the fan. The GE60H can also get quite loud at load (45 dB(A)), but our test model manages to reach 48 dB(A). At full load, the GE60 reaches 50 dB(A). The GE70 is far superior as it is quieter despite powerful hardware."

But the fans should obviously be much quieter when not being pushed.

You're right, the pickings in your price range seem very limited in the UK.

Here's an Acer, just slightly over your budget, but has the best GPU between the 3 mentioned so far:

http/www.ebuyer.com/706840-acer-aspire-vn7-591g-laptop-nx-muvek-001

And here is an Acer Nitro which has been getting pretty good reviews, but it is substantially over your budget, and is also a 17 incher:

http/www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6V62SS5634&cm_re=gaming_laptop-_-9SIA6V62SS5634-_-Product

Here's a review of the Acer Nitro:

http/www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-V17-Nitro-VN7-791G-759Q-Notebook-Review.126701.0.html

There is a 15 inch version of the Nitro, but it is out of stock at the UK Newegg, and I don't know where else folks shop online in the UK.

 

[moodypanda1]

Of those 2, I would personally prefer the GE60. But here is a quote from a notebookcheck review:

System Noise

"We were a little disappointed by the fan. The GE60H can also get quite loud at load (45 dB(A)), but our test model manages to reach 48 dB(A). At full load, the GE60 reaches 50 dB(A). The GE70 is far superior as it is quieter despite powerful hardware."

But the fans should obviously be much quieter when not being pushed.

You're right, the pickings in your price range seem very limited in the UK.

Here's an Acer, just slightly over your budget, but has the best GPU between the 3 mentioned so far:

http/www.ebuyer.com/706840-acer-aspire-vn7-591g-laptop-nx-muvek-001

And here is an Acer Nitro which has been getting pretty good reviews, but it is substantially over your budget, and is also a 17 incher:

http/www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6V62SS5634&cm_re=gaming_laptop-_-9SIA6V62SS5634-_-Product

Here's a review of the Acer Nitro:

http/www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-V17-Nitro-VN7-791G-759Q-Notebook-Review.126701.0.html

There is a 15 inch version of the Nitro, but it is out of stock at the UK Newegg, and I don't know where else folks shop online in the UK.

Thanks for the reply!

I'm very interested in the Acer Aspire (your first link), and think my budget would probably be able to stretch to that.

The only thing that worried me slightly was the CPU on that model, do you think it would be a bottleneck for the 960M?

If that were the case, would I be better of picking up the MSI GE70? Even if it is 17.3''.

http/www.ebuyer.com/716964-msi-ge70-2pl-apache-473uk-gaming-laptop-9s7-175a12-473

I'm aware that the MSI laptop has a worse GPU, but I was wondering if gaming performance would be as good or better bearing in mind it has the superior CPU.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[1shado1]

Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable can answer your processor bottlenecking question. I don't think it would, but I'm not positive.

As for the MSI having the weaker GPU, the performance difference between the 860M and 960M is marginal. They even use the same chip (but the 960 is clocked slightly higher).

And you are more than welcome for what little help I can provide.

 

[velo3100]

I would look at a barebone laptop for you as they are best. You could look at the acer v series as they are good in this price range.