Portability/gaming

[maxpain456]

Ok so both of these are within my budget of less than $800, but the main question is which is better for gaming? i like both due to the backlit keyboard and upper sleekness.

the tougher graphical games i play are: Red ochestra 2, bf3, shogun 2, and arma 2.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834256339&name=Laptops-Notebooks

or

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215392&name=Laptops-Notebooks

Andddddd go. (P.s have newegg store credit so can only buy from there.)

 

[nbelote]

7690m but holy crap the pain it suffers... its driver support is TRASH, it's the lost bastard child of the 6770m and whatever AMD started to make for its 7XXX mobility series but then changed to adapting their desktop GPUs. It's not getting official support at all, so far, and even Leshcat (the almighty zen-master of AMD hybrid graphics drivers) can't get it to work right.

I'll admit, the Acer M5 series ultrabooks are slick little machines, but that i5 in it is pure crap. Its a ULV CPU, so it's very underpowered. The 640M LE that accompanies it is much worse than the regular 640m... you could game on it, but you probably would have to stick with Medium settings. I'd buy it for my wife, because she'd rather game on a desktop and would only do that on the ultrabook if we're on a trip (she likes the portability of ultrabooks) whereas I would never game on one of those. Too slow/ugly.

Your best bet is this bad boy:
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834131394

It doesn't have a backlit keyboard but it'll run circles around the other two. The 7730m runs like a full-fledged 640m.

 

[DarkSable]

Shogun isn't graphically intense, it's cpu-intense.

The second one is more powerful by a fair bit, but it's a refurb, so you'd be taking a chance.

 

[maxpain456]

o.o i mean i figure if i stick with the stock drivers i should be ok. and the 640m le actually boosts its self to 580mhz when gaming.

 

[maxpain456]

is the driver support really that bad? for amd.

 

[teaser]

I dont think nbelote means amd in general......i think he means driver support for that specific mobile graphics chip...that Samsung he directed you to is a really nice machine...if you really need backlit on the keyboard you could always pick up a backlit usb keyboard like the logitech,its really thin and very nice mechanical keys........

 

[maxpain456]

I dont think nbelote means amd in general......i think he means driver support for that specific mobile graphics chip...that Samsung he directed you to is a really nice machine...if you really need backlit on the keyboard you could always pick up a backlit usb keyboard like the logitech,its really thin and very nice mechanical keys........

i dont need one would just be nice and yea i think i may go with the samsung, for that price. have you used the 7730m?

 

[jonathan_569]

THe second one would be best for gaming IMO since it uses the GT640M but its LE although it has 1GDDR5 which could match or excel the GT650M (DDR3) in some games.

 

[nbelote]

The LE version of the 640m is just crap. The ULV CPU in that same laptop is also bad for gaming... I wouldn't expect a lot of performance out of it.

The 7730m is rather new and I haven't personally been handed a laptop with one in it but I know the architecture well: it's the same that's in the 7970m (regular desktop GCN architecture, the same as what's in desktop Radeons)... it's just clocked down some. With it being a 7730m, I would say it's at about desktop 6750 or 6770 power, which is beastly for a laptop.

Edit: the new GCN-based laptop GPUs and desktop Kepler-based GPUs are top of the line. The only desktop-based Kepler that nVidia has is the 680m, and it just eats games alive just like the 7970m all the way down to the 7750m, most of which are not available yet. The 7730m is a second-glance after the 7970m, and the 7970m runs like a desktop 7850 (which is where I was able to draw the 6750/6770 comparison). It's like someone gave the regular hamsters in your laptop some steroids.

 

[chaoscrum]

Why not this?
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215541

 

[nbelote]

And then there's that.

 

[maxpain456]

i havent had a 17" i ahve had a 15.6" but ive messed with a 17" it just seems a little big but yes i know im getting the gt 640m and i7. although the 17" i messed with was a giant asus g75. so would i "normal" 17.3" not be that much bigger than a 15.6?

 

[jonathan_569]

a 17.3 inch is definitely larger than the 15.6 by length and width just add ~1-2 inches from the 15.6