X-Mas Gaming Under $500

[gdriveramiller]

Hey guys!

With the holidays coming up, I decided it would be nice to be able to play some of my games and a few others higher than 15-20fps haha. I was trying to nab a Doghouse Systems laptop, but that was just a little to high right now.

My budget is likely sub $500.

Below are my requirements:

1. What is your budget?
$300-$500

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15"+

3. What screen resolution do you want?
at least 1366 x 768, preferably bigger

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
either

5. How much battery life do you need?
at least an hour while gaming, doesn't matter much as it will be plugged in almost all the time

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)?
Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, SWTOR(all high-max)
MAYBE Guild Wars 2 if possible

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
250gb maybe?

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
http://www.amazon.com/
http://www.newegg.com

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
3-4 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD, no writer necessary

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.
Reputable brands that have a good track record

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Just want something that can play my games at a decent fps(40-60) while still looking nice.

No idea if it is even possible to achieve this on such a low budget, but any help is appreciated. I prefer to buy pre-built, and since I'm in college a desktop(pre-built or otherwise) is not an option.

 

[bruce555]

A gaming laptop that runs with med-high details is not possible with that budget. There is kinda a base cost to all systems and you have definitely hit the bottom of the base cost just to get a running system.

You could get a system for that money but you definitely have to start at that budget and work up to get a gaming system.

EDIT: And I am talking about $500 being the base cost of a system but not anything that could really run games. It would be an integrated GPU with the CPU and that isn't gaming. Check ebay for some used gaming laptops.

 

[gdriveramiller]

Integrated GPU isn't really an issue for me, as I'm not planning to upgrade it. As soon as I get out of college I will be building a Desktop PC for my primary gaming needs.

This is really just so that I can run the above games(WoW, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, SWTOR) at a decent FPS and with decent graphics.

I can probably expand my budget to $600, but that's about it.

Is there really nothing on the market that would work?

 

[gdriveramiller]

Additional note: Graphics isn't nearly as important as frame rate. Although I would prefer not to have to put everything on low, I'd rather play a not-as nice smooth game as opposed to a choppy nice one.

My laptop now can run WoW on min settings at 25-30fps, Diablo 3 it barely runs as well as SC 2 and SWTOR. So anything that is cheapish and can run these at med-low to medium settings at a 30+ frame rate is acceptable.

 

[dscudella]

You would probably be better off going used. For $500-$600 now you could get a 1-2 year old beast that someone upgraded from. $600 would build a nice desktop but unfortunately for Laptops you're kind of limited. I'm not saying it's not possible, just going to be very hard.

Check out this website Gaming Laptops Junky. For $600 you can get an i5 & discrete graphics. That should hold you over until you can build a desktop.

Something like this Acer Aspire i5-2450M Nvidia GT630M

 

[ArcticWonder]

Have a look at this: http/www.ebay.com/itm/Sager-NP8690-Powerful-Gaming-Laptop-Full-HD-GTX-460m-w-1-5GB-quad-i7-more-/121001339973?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item1c2c3dec45

 

[dyc4ha]

this is your best bet i think:
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246619&name=Laptops-Notebooks

I think you will get playable fps for sure, but dont expect high settings.

 

[spentshells]

Have a look at this: http/www.ebay.com/itm/Sager-NP8690-Powerful-Gaming-Laptop-Full-HD-GTX-460m-w-1-5GB-quad-i7-more-/121001339973?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item1c2c3dec45

Im not much of an ebayer but that is about the best you could hope for at that price range.

 

[jaguarskx]

Maybe you should wait for Cyber Monday for some deals.