Solved! Need some help with laptops.

[Ozhorezon]

I have been looking all around on newegg for a good laptop and I'm willing to spend... enough money. I want some recommendations for laptops that will come with all around specs like this one: http/www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=n82e16834214414

But I want them to be able to play Starcraft II on high graphics with no problems or Dawn of War II.

I don't know if it's possible, but a friend recommended this computer to me and I'm curious to see what Tom's community might think.

I want it to be a toshiba laptop because I trust them over anything else (even HP). But other than that, those are my specifics. I will be using it for school too, college, but that's not as high demanding as games.

Thanks for the assistance.

 

[chaorace]

First, Pre-assembled or custom made?

P.S:
HP has 2 Class action law-suits against them, because of their poor customer service and poor laptop construction. I suggest outlet stores to minimise markup, a $700 toshiba is a $500 dollar outlet laptop. Toshiba's are assembled by machines, while outlets are hand-built in the US

 

[Ozhorezon]

Hmm... I never thought of that.

I suppose price isn't as important as much as performance. I know the "Fallout 3/Dawn of War II" is a little high-end for a laptop and probably impossible.

But how about one that could run them with decent graphics where they don't look shoddy? Or at least Starcraft II (and possibly DIII decently whenever Blizz releases the specs) on high/very high settings?

Where would I find these "outlet" laptops? Does Newegg have them?

 

[chaorace]

No, try avadirect.com; They have two major options under gaming laptops:
Standard gaming laptops: They have a higher starting price, but each part is priced at market value
Branded Gaming latops: They have a 20% lower starting price, but the cost to change an individual part is around double.

I suggest a branded notebook as the defaults are already good and you can save a decent amount of money.
I also suggest a nvidia 540M or an equivelant ATI GPU (I don't buy ATI, so I wouldn't know)

ALSO:
That newegg one is a good deal, but to maximize your use; what is your budget?

 

[Ozhorezon]

I feel stupid looking at all this stuff. I'm not sure what's what.

I'm ready to spend as much as I want but not *too* much, if you know what I mean, I don't want to fork out 4k (not paying for an Apple). I just want one that's good for school and I can play the games I want on it, like Dawn of War and such. I mostly play old games, like Baldur's Gate and such.

But I do intend to play SCII and DIII, so I would like a laptop that can run those as well, and I want a laptop over a desktop because I'm kinda mobile more-so these days and I'm tired of towers.

If that helps any...

 

[chaorace]

Ok, well if you want a nvidia chip (my specialty), you have two options the cheaper 540M or the more expensive 560M (these are the cards that handle the graphics), plus you'll need an i5(cheaper) or an i7(more performance).(these are the chips that do the crunching like word text and making those jagged edges in games look smoother). Finally, you'll need to choose form factor (15 inch for power/portability or 17 inch for more power at the price of portability). Fill these in and I'll bring up several pc's that each have unique features.

PS:Fallout 3 is child's play, the engine is faairly outdated and can be handled by almost any gaming laptop made in the last 4 years

PSS: There are other laptops outside the above ranges that are even more powerful, but are mostly 17" if you wanna make the portability sacrifice)

 

[Ozhorezon]

On the site, I'm a little lost on a lot of things.

This is the laptop I'm looking at: http/www.avadirect.com/gaming-laptop-configurator.asp?PRID=20680

But Intel is really expensive, isn't AMD the same thing but cheaper? What's the W stand for at the end or the HD Graphics 3000? Lol, there's so much stuff here I don't understand.

The Blizz site shows the recommended is a GeForce 6600 or 8000, what are the 540/560's in that depo?

Maybe a i7 Dual Core? I hear those are nice. And of course, it has to be portable so a 15" is nice.

I heard MSI's are really good brands, compared to others like Toshiba or HP.

I'm still lost on things like these "memory" with little chips, 16 GB's or something. What are those for? RAM? What's the difference between HD's? There's so many brands and specs, are any really that much better in terms of specs?

 

[chaorace]

Okay... I'll correct/ answer those in chronological order

Intel and AMD are tottaly different beasts (and to my knowledge, they cost about the same)

Those Geforce chips are desktop GPU's...

You mean the clarksfield processors? Trust me, go with the i7 quad-core or at least an i5 quad-core. i7 dual cores aren't compatible with the latest technologies...

15" sounds like a good choice

MSI is a good brand, but so is Clevo

Memory is a whole other lesson... http/www.youtube.com/user/CrucialMemory?v=4YQuoBpz8dk&feature=pyv&ad=6175082543&kw=ram?cpe=pd_google_us&ef_id=lAROKHxf2E0AAImc:20110722234015:s#p/a/u/2/Ye6W6mMSPl0

HDD's come in two basic types with some smaller sub-categories:
HDD:Traditional hard drive, laptops use the 2.5" variety and they spin at two different speeds, 5200 or 7400 RPM, The higher the RPM, the higher performance the hard drive
SSD:Flash memory drive or Solid State, laptops still use the 2.5" variety, but they don't spin, the advantage is that the removal of any moving parts makes your computer 2x as resistant to drops and can (in some instances) triple your computers file transfer speed. The downside is that the technology is so new that the price is much higher and less dependable.

To put things simply:
This laptop could work:http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152264
It has a 2.5Ghz quad core processor, 6GB of RAM (better than average amount),

 

[Ozhorezon]

That video helped a lot, comparison was good.

Thermal is to stop the computer from overheating but... how long would it last until it had to be replaced?

I did some tinkering with one of the Clevo's and this is what I got: http/www.avadirect.com/gaming-laptop-configurator.asp?PRID=20700

Seems like a very good price, what do you think?

Edit: Never mind, I switched the chip with a 2 x 4 one, that was around 49$ and moved the processor to an i7 Quad Core, the top one.

Other than that there wasn't a change in anything else.

 

[cbrunnem]

http/www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-laptops-with-nvidia-video-cards-ct-95_51_178.html

 

[Ozhorezon]

Why can't I view the full site? It cuts off on the left.

 

[cbrunnem]

ok let me try and correct some things here. it seems like avadirect.com is overpriced. not by much but they are. also amd and intel cpus and not even CLOSE to the same beast. AMD processors get raped by intel processors but intel costs a tad more with the SB models. also dont just get and i7 get a Sandy Bridge i5 or i7 denoted by a 4 digit code following the i5 or i7. it the number is 3 digits its and old series i5 or i7. another thing is hard drives have to main speeds 5400 and 7200 not 5200 and 7400.

so with your none existant "budget" lets see what i can dig up without you having to get too confused.

http/www.xoticpc.com/force-16f2-msi-16f2-p-3078.html?wconfigure=yes
if your going to spend around 1000 dollars this laptop will be hard to beat and nothing mentioned so far will beat it. it has the 560m and make sure to upgrade the hard drives to 7200 rpm and the cpu upgrade is up to you. i would get an i7 but and i5 will be "enough".

http/www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8170-clevo-p170hm-p-2971.html?wconfigure=yes
if you feel like spending a lot of money take a look at this one. the 580m is just about the fastest single gpu for a laptop out there outside of amd's 6990. this laptop will play every game you throw at it on high. even metro 2033.

the gt 540m is a good gpu but it is not a "gaming" gpu. gaming gpu's are denoted by a gtx not a gt. but that gpu will play most games on medium or high. some other gpus to look at are the 550m 555 the 560m 460m(thats the 560m but old gen) 470m 485m(thats a fast one right under the 580m) or amds offering of there extreme 6970(just as fast as the 485m but half the price).

let me know what you think and ill try to steer you in the right direction

 

[Ozhorezon]

Thanks for all the help.

The second one seems a little pricey, but more reliable and more customizable. If that helps.

Edit: I have a minor question, though. If at any point I decided to try out more impressive gaming and didn't get everything high-end, but it has slots available. Could I upgrade without purchasing a new laptop?

 

[chaorace]

technology moves fast, while you can upgrade with whatever is available now, the tech of tommorow would require a new plug here or a new frequency there.

 

[Ozhorezon]

Ah, well it will be a month or so before I'm able to purchase the computer, schoolbooks and whatnot come first.

But this is giving me a better idea of where to look and what to look for.

 

[cbrunnem]

Thanks for all the help.

The second one seems a little pricey, but more reliable and more customizable. If that helps.

Edit: I have a minor question, though. If at any point I decided to try out more impressive gaming and didn't get everything high-end, but it has slots available. Could I upgrade without purchasing a new laptop?

no you will not be able to upgrade the gpu unless it says you can. most laptops these days have none replaceable gpu's as the are soldered down. you could upgrade the cpu but the new SB cpus will take a long time to be the bottle neck. my cpu never goes over 20% usage in ANY game.

 

[chaorace]

Also, there's another "less overpriced" site called rjtech, they take training wheels off when building a comp. Just remember: the prices are without the windows and cpu price added; to change the price to the actual one you must use the drop down bars to add them on.
The best PC I found you can really buy at the moment:
http/www.avadirect.com/NVIDIA-3D-Vision-Gaming-Notebooks
It has the most powerful mobile gfx card to date, (optional)dual HDDs, up to 16GB of RAM, support for a SB i7 Extreme processor, and a 3d screen with free 3d glasses!

Obviously, you probably don't wanna spend 2K on a laptop how's 1K?

 

[Ozhorezon]

Well, the computer chaorace showed me it said I could replace the graphics card, hard drives should be able to be replaced at any time, right?

What's a GPU?

 

[Ozhorezon]

Also, there's another "less overpriced" site called rjtech, they take training wheels off when building a comp. Just remember: the prices are without the windows and cpu price added; to change the price to the actual one you must use the drop down bars to add them on.
The best PC I found you can really buy at the moment:
http/www.avadirect.com/NVIDIA-3D-Vision-Gaming-Notebooks
It has the most powerful mobile gfx card to date, (optional)dual HDDs, up to 16GB of RAM, support for a SB i7 Extreme processor, and a 3d screen with free 3d glasses!

Here's the most powerfull Laptop

Wow, that's... pricey. Lol. But it does look a lot cheaper with better mods than some of the others I looked at with more "top notch" gear slammed in them. 2.2k compared to that one sites computer with all the stuff was around 3k.

 

[chaorace]

yeah, that was essentially the "max" you can expect from a laptop, the "min" being a netbook with an atom processor.

Now, with so many options... a price range could really help any loose limitation like 800-1200 or 1000-1500