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.

 

[Ozhorezon]

I'll probably fork out the 1500 or so for a decent laptop for SCII and DIII.

Probably forgo Dawn of War II for a desktop. Since the laptop will mostly be for school.

 

[cbrunnem]

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?

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

ok come on man do some reasearch. the 485m is not the top mobile graphics card on the market. if your going to give advice atleast know your stuff. http/www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
now the 580 isnt that much better but its definitely better. the 6990 is about 10 fps better in starcraft II but its hard to find a laptop with it.

i personally think the laptop you linked is way to expensive and no one needs 16gb of ram and i have heard not to much good things about nvidia 3d vision due to driver support.
http/www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8150-clevo-p150hm-p-2972.html?wconfigure=yes
about 1500 with the same options as the clevo lacking 3d.

 

[Ozhorezon]

I like the look of that one, it looks sleek and more professional.

 

[chaorace]

Honest mistake, I was reading a nvidia blog and some misinformed designer misinformed me about a comparison of the two. notebookcheck.net shows a very negligible 7% +/- difference in performance for the +$300 difference in price...

Also, good choice, I'm using the clevo they used as barebones for that sager for my build; go for the extra color gamut if you've got the money.

 

[Ozhorezon]

What's the difference between those and the "90% color gamut"?

Also, what's the optimal RAM for a gaming laptop? Around 8,000 MBs or so?

And which of these Intels would be best? There's a few and they're only a few points of GHZ and 300$ apart which... doesn't make much sense.

And what's "overclocking"? I hear this term a lot and I have no idea what it means or does, it says it shows the safe levels so your computer doesn't overheat but... is that it?

 

[chaorace]

The higher the gamut, the more colors a screen can display; it's a decent upgrade for gamers and movie watchers if they can spare $100

Optimal RAM would be 8GB+ 1600Mhz. Of course, you need to use use special tools to take advantage of the extra 300Mhz, so go with 1300Mhz or the PnP (plug n' play) RAM.

The extra Ghz only offers minimal performance gains... it's really for splurging...

Overclocking is a process that changes the frequency of the processor, it gives the processor a roughly 15-20% boost, but voids the manufacturer's warranty and can cause the processor to wear out faster. Luckily, XoticPC offers their own warranty on their OCed processors for 2-months (much less than intel's 3 year warranty)
OCing can also raise the temp's depending on the degree of OC; usually to counteract this effect, OCers apply thermal paste such as IC-Diamond, Artic Silver, or MX-2

 

[Ozhorezon]

Ok so... OCing is not what I want to get then?

The graphics card says on the side "user upgradeable" does that mean I can switch it out for another graphics card later on?

Edit: I can replace the HD, disk drive and RAM cards someone said, is that true?

 

[cbrunnem]

if it says that the gpu is user upgradeable then yes you can upgrade the gpu later but there is a catch. the catch is that you can only replace the gpu with a limited range of gpus as many laptop gpu's dont have the same socket. if you plan on going that route now id do some research on different sockets. for example an AMD gpu cant be upgraded for a Nvidia and chances are you wouldnt be able to upgrade a gt 540m to a gtx 560m or 580m, it would be surprising if you could but i have not heard to many people doing it so i wouldnt know for sure. also one more thing to note, from what i understand the replacement gpu's are more expensive then what it would be to upgrade now by a large amount.

yes you can replace the hard drive, i assume by disk drive you mean like a dvd player optical disk and yes you should be able to replace that, and ram you will be able to upgrade as it is the easiest thing to do.

about the overclocking, i personally wouldnt do it for gaming but comparing the 2630qm and the 2720qm there is a decent jump in performance. the base clock is .2 ghz higher but it turbo's .4 ghz higher which is a decent amount. id would consider that upgrade if you have the extra 100 dollars.

 

[chaorace]

I got that upgrade, check out the difference in benchmarks:
2.0Ghz: 3DMark 06 - CPU: 4892 Windows experience index: 7.4
2.2Ghz: 3DMark 06 - CPU: 5529 Windows experience index: 7.5

In other words, I found that $100 bucks extra was better spent on an ssd... Corsair makes some pretty decent ones right?

 

[cbrunnem]

I got that upgrade, check out the difference in benchmarks:
2.0Ghz: 3DMark 06 - CPU: 4892 Windows experience index: 7.4
2.2Ghz: 3DMark 06 - CPU: 5529 Windows experience index: 7.5

In other words, I found that $100 bucks extra was better spent on an ssd... Corsair makes some pretty decent ones right?

wait till bf3 comes out then say it was a bad upgrade. new games will be quad core optimized and put more load on the cpu especially bf3 which will have its physics engine cpu based. is a big jump and based on your numbers it is an 11% gain for only 50-100 dollars.

 

[chaorace]

both feature 4-cores and like I said, I think the 40% +/- gain from using an ssd would offer more bang for the buck

 

[cbrunnem]

both feature 4-cores and like I said, I think the 40% +/- gain from using an ssd would offer more bang for the buck

ssd's have no effect on gaming. i used to have my games installed on an external hard drive thorugh usb 2 which is limited to about 25 mbp/s compared to a ssd which for a good one will transfer over 200mbp/s and when started putting them on my hdd i saw no performance gain. now i absolutely love ssd's i would never go back but for purely gaming the 2720qm would be a bigger gain.

toms had a article a while back comparing a SB mobile cpu to a i7 990x and the mobile cpu won in gaming. granted it was a 2920xm but still.

 

[chaorace]

ssd should shorten the loading times, the new processors won't bottleneck for another 2 years anyway, and at that point, the money is more well spent on the backwards compatible ivy bridge cpus

 

[Ozhorezon]

What in the world?

Stupid question; what's an SSD?

 

[chaorace]

ssd's are solid state drives they replace hard drives. Why should the hard drive need be replaced? Good question, hard drives have not changed much in the last 15 years, they have higher storage capacities and faster speeds; but it still stays true to a design that's older than the internet. So, SSD's were designed to replace HDD's. They have faster read speeds (which boosts load times and boot ups), are more energy efficient (saves battery), and they have NO moving parts, which will make your computer much more likely to fuction normally after a harsh drop. The downside? Slower write speeds, general performance loss in some specialised applications, Less storage space (even the priciest SSD's have only 500GB), they cost more per GB ( a 128GB SSD runs in at $200), and they are still a new technology ( like a beta product, they are so new to the market that the are still kinda buggy)

PS:
any mobile processor with a 2 at the begining of the model number is a SB chip, so the only difference between the two chips is .2 Ghz and $100

 

[cbrunnem]

a SSD also known as a Solid State Drive is a type of storage device that has no moving parts and is much faster than a conventional spinning hard drive. it is basically a oversized flash drive. a flash drive and a ssd use the same principle but a ssd is MUCH faster.
http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive
its main benefits is that they are impact resistant, faster, and use less power. they reduce operating system load times and program load times as well as loading levels inside games but will not increase frames per second.

 

[chaorace]

my post was 2 minutes faster!

PS:
in responce to your previous question: What's a GPU?
Simple, a GPU is a graphics processing unit, it takes the load off the cpu for rendering your game and does about a 10x better job! Picking the right GPU is tough and a higher price or model number doesn't neccessarily mean it's better!

 

[Ozhorezon]

Hmm. Neat.

I wish I came to this site a long time ago, I'm learning a lot.

So SSD's are slightly better, but like some other things that come with laptops, they're still "iffy" and come with cons, like glare vs. matte screens?

I play on a matte screen on my desktop, and the anti-glare, I find to be extremely useful, compared to the glare of my iPad. While the iPad has some nice colors, I notice the matte has a smoother vision to it.

Edit: Something I was going to ask sooner and it slipped my mind: What's "SB mobile CPU"?

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been moved from the section Video Games to section Laptops & Notebooks by Mousemonkey

 

[Ozhorezon]

Sorry if I put it in the wrong section. I was initially asking about gaming laptops but it moved into educational. Lol...