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Gaming Laptop reccomendations..
- Thread starter Timmay
- Start date
Scirocco GT 2.0
Having spent a huge amount of time researching gaming laptops recently your going to need a 512mb dedicated graphics card as minimum, fastest one you can afford coupled with 4GB of ram and a 2.4GHZ core 2 duo should run most things on medium - high settings depending on the screen size.
Spend the money now as you can't upgrade GPU or CPU at a later point. Get at least 3-6megs of cache on the chip too!
I generally found it easy to find a good specced rank looking laptop or a great looking lowly spec version. Ended up with the Toshiba Qosmio range which have all the lights, bells and whistles and some nice Nvidia graphics chips. They also run with dual HD setup so you can replace one with a Solid state drive if need be.
Spend the money now as you can't upgrade GPU or CPU at a later point. Get at least 3-6megs of cache on the chip too!
I generally found it easy to find a good specced rank looking laptop or a great looking lowly spec version. Ended up with the Toshiba Qosmio range which have all the lights, bells and whistles and some nice Nvidia graphics chips. They also run with dual HD setup so you can replace one with a Solid state drive if need be.
Darren S
ClioSport Club Member
The first question you need to ask yourself - do you really need a laptop in the first place? Could you get away with a desktop if you shuffled about a few bits and maximised the space?
The concept of a proper gaming laptop is just a complete paradox. A gaming PC needs shitloads of power to feed the CPU, GPU(s) and of course, memory. Big power requirements either translate to a large, heavy battery pack and a power supply the size of a house brick. Or both.
Then, no gamer wants a mere 13.3" screen, do they? So you're looking at 17"+. Soon the whole 'mobility' concept becomes a little bit daft and you're lumbered with a heavy and expensive laptop that would get trounced by a PC that was a third, if not half as expensive.
The last proper showing of a gaming laptop I had was a £1,300+ Toshiba running COD4. It did look good, but no different that a PC running a £200 graphics card onboard.
The final nail in the coffin is their expandability - or rather, lack of. Decent gaming laptops can have a bit more memory, maybe even swap out the GPU. But I could rip out the mobo of my desktop, complete with CPU and memory and swap it out for an i7 solution for much less than a very good gaming laptop. All the while, retaining my power supply, case, keyboard and mouse.
Gaming laptops generally age. Very quickly. If you still want one, then it's both your choice and your money. But a desktop does it better, smarter, quicker and cheaper.
D.
The concept of a proper gaming laptop is just a complete paradox. A gaming PC needs shitloads of power to feed the CPU, GPU(s) and of course, memory. Big power requirements either translate to a large, heavy battery pack and a power supply the size of a house brick. Or both.
Then, no gamer wants a mere 13.3" screen, do they? So you're looking at 17"+. Soon the whole 'mobility' concept becomes a little bit daft and you're lumbered with a heavy and expensive laptop that would get trounced by a PC that was a third, if not half as expensive.
The last proper showing of a gaming laptop I had was a £1,300+ Toshiba running COD4. It did look good, but no different that a PC running a £200 graphics card onboard.
The final nail in the coffin is their expandability - or rather, lack of. Decent gaming laptops can have a bit more memory, maybe even swap out the GPU. But I could rip out the mobo of my desktop, complete with CPU and memory and swap it out for an i7 solution for much less than a very good gaming laptop. All the while, retaining my power supply, case, keyboard and mouse.
Gaming laptops generally age. Very quickly. If you still want one, then it's both your choice and your money. But a desktop does it better, smarter, quicker and cheaper.
D.
^^F'uck me. Have a word with yourself. No offence, but only a melon would recommend any Apple Mac as a games machine. Darren knows the score. Gaming laptops are nice. There's something quite cool about them. For about a week. Then you realise you need more power and you're never going to get it. As a dual puprose machine, they are fine but, bought soley for gaming - f'uckin' forget about it. Been there done that. Windows desktop PC is the only way to fly. Ask any gamer, any real gamer. Blow the welds on the intake etc.
Apologies if this post sucks. iPhone...
Apologies if this post sucks. iPhone...
Whilst I do agree with Roys/Darrens comments on performance/upgradeabilty/etc theres a lot of crap in this thread about heating and cooling, do people not realise laptops use a low wattage versions of cpu's and graphics cards??
Thats why they cost so much! They do not need the uber cooling systems of a desktop, a heatsink and fan is just fine as it is for things like air cooled 911's
Thats why they cost so much! They do not need the uber cooling systems of a desktop, a heatsink and fan is just fine as it is for things like air cooled 911's
Actually the all in one integrated 24inch apple i macs are in fact 'sex' would have got me laid with the Mrs if I had bought one but i pointed out to her that a hooker would be cheaper if not more enjoyable
??
Darren S
ClioSport Club Member
Whilst I do agree with Roys/Darrens comments on performance/upgradeabilty/etc theres a lot of crap in this thread about heating and cooling, do people not realise laptops use a low wattage versions of cpu's and graphics cards??
Thats why they cost so much! They do not need the uber cooling systems of a desktop, a heatsink and fan is just fine as it is for things like air cooled 911's
Exactly. And that's where the problems arise. Starving half-decent kit of plenty of wattage is like running an F1 car on a pint of fuel......... with the todgers of mice acting as an injectors. All show & no go! :rasp:
D.
Better than yours. C*nt.
But they are being starved - otherwise the 9600m GT would be as good as one of my 9600 GTs (pre SLI). Which it isn't. And my 2.8GHz Core2Duo laptop would be faster than my Pentium D 3.0GHz. Which it isn't.
What is it you're failing to understand? If people could make chips that ran on nothing in the first place (a la 9800m GTX), then they wouldn't make the desktop version hotter, more power hungry and bigger in the first place.
Benchmark proofing is the 9800m GTX is only hitting 10,000 3DMarks in 3DMark06, where my 8800GTX standard hits 14,000 and the 9800GTX hits 15,000.
The laptop versions of these chips DO NOT meet the performance levels of their desktop counterparts. They cannot. It's an impossibility.
And as for the guy who keeps telling us that a Cackbook Pro can play games, go back to playing Solitaire, and maybe have a quick go on something like Command and Conquer on low settings.
As for still being able to play modern games, my watercooled 8800GTX overclocked (running about 16,000 3DMarks) can only just manage Crysis on medium settings at 2x AA, so how the hell do you think any laptop chip will come close? More than anything they just don't have the memory required for that sort of crap - my GTX's memory bus is maxed out swapping textures around, with my 8GB RAM at 90% and quad core processor equally nailed...
It's scary how much someone learns from 'their mate down the pub who played this wicked shoot-em-up on this guy from works new laptop'.
