Need recommendation on gaming laptop

mattangle

Honorable
Jun 16, 2012
8
0
10,510
I am looking to purchase a gaming laptop to replace my desktop as I am traveling for work quite a bit these days. I have looked through the forums and have not found a post similar enough to what I am after, I have read the sticky and will keep my recommendation request as clear as possible.

I am looking for a laptop capable of playing Starcraft and WoW on medium/default settings with decent FPS (I don't have a number just whatever is good enough you don't see any issues). As well I would love it to be able to play Ark Survival Evolved on low/medium settings but I think that game is pretty graphics intensive, those three games are the only purpose of this laptop.

1. What is your budget?
Looking for the cheapest machine that can perform the stated criteria above. Ideally closer to 600 but my max is 850.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
17" would be great, but if I have to downsize to 15" that's okay.

3. What screen resolution do you want?
I'm not super familiar with monitor specs, whatever is standard.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Needs to be relatively portable. 70% on my home desk 30% in hotels.

5. How much battery life do you need?
Will almost always be plugged in so no need for anything beyond standard. It can be a power hog.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop?
Starcraft medium settings
WoW high settings
Ark low settings (however this might be to much for my budget)

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop?
Virtually nothing besides those three games, maybe a few lesser steam games.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500gb would probably suffice.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
I have some amazon gift cards I'd like to use but I can easily trade them for full value as well, so preferably amazon but it really doesn't matter.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
If I can get 2 years out of it on those games I'll be happy.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Minimum optical drive I wont ever use it accept to maybe Fdisk if something goes wrong.

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.
I won't buy Samsung. I work for Imflash (owned by Intel and Micron) I just don't like to support such a direct competitor. No preferred brand.

13. What country do you live in?
Western coast of the United States.

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
None.

Any recommendations/help on this is greatly appreciated.
 

mattangle

Honorable
Jun 16, 2012
8
0
10,510


I don't know a whole lot about GPUs, will that run Starcraft, WoW and Ark?