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Thread: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

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    is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

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    its a dell studio 17. need a laptop asap thats good for gaming and has good specs and storage for around 700.

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    Chillie in here j.o.s.h.1408's Avatar
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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    GRAPHICS CARD 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650
    I think that GPU is crap for playing most modern games on medium details and seeing as that monitor also sports a high res, that will further restrict your gaming unless you game low res which looks like dog puke compared to when just lowering the settings of a game

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    The Mobility HD4650 is not that great unless it has at least 512MB of dedicated GDDR3 RAM.

    Here is a comparison of notebook graphics cards:

    http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...ist.844.0.html

    A mini-ITX based gaming build based around a Silverstone SG05 would be FAR superior for the same money.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    ok, thanks for that. so what laptop should i consider at that range? i'm as confused as heck over here lol.

    are toshibas good, HP or acer?????

    a diff dell maybe?

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    I know Packard Bell aren't the best make but this notebook looks good for the money if it is still available:

    http://www.dixons.co.uk/product.php?...rmationSection

    Specs:

    http://www.dixons.co.uk/product.php?...rmationSection

    The graphics card is around the speed of a desktop 8800GS/9600GSO:

    http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...TS.9918.0.html

    The other alternative is to look for a notebook with a mobility HD4670.

    Any gaming notebook under £900 is a waste of money. Even an HD4670 or 9600GSO will start to struggle with newer games. If you want to get a decent gaming notebook look to spend £1000+ and also expect it to be useless for gaming within two years as the graphics cards cannot usually be upgraded and if they can it is expensive.

    Buy a desktop for gaming. You can build some very small ones based around mini-ITX motherboards or a Shuttle barebones instead. My main desktop uses a Shuttle P2 case and I have a small bag which I can use to carry it around if required.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 08-11-2009 at 12:38 AM.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    well i have a ps3 and wii for gaming mainly, but i cant play fps on them as i struggle with the pads. will mainly play games like fm2010 and codmw2. no high high res stuff.

    i like the look of the toshiba a500-17x which sems good and in budget. similar to dell which i imagine would run the games i am looking to play.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    Why don't you look at an SFF build like an SG05?? It is tiny!



    I have known many people buy notebooks for gaming and within a year have been absolutely dissapointed. The lack of upgradeability of the graphics card means that once newer versions of the COD series come out the notebook will struggle to play them. Unlike console games which are coded to a fixed specification(that of the console) PC games will be coded to what is available in the desktop market at the time. For example the desktop version of GTAIV is extremely demanding on PCs since it looks better and is displayed at a higher resolution too. Consoles game tend to be upscaled to match the resolution of the TV you are using.

    The 128 bit memory access of the GT230M coupled with GDDR2 and GDDR3 means it is severely limited with regards to memory bandwidth meaning the card will struggle once the game settings are increased. The nearest relative in the desktop market is the 9600GSO which has a 256bit memory access and higher clockspeeds and this is not that great a card either.

    To put it in context a £50 desktop HD4670 GDDR3 will destroy it in most games and a £60 HD4770 will be at least two to three times faster.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 08-11-2009 at 03:46 PM.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    that looks a good option, and i love building my own machines, but the problem is when one is watching tv and the other wants to play on the pc and surf net etc which my lass does alot, i'd need a seperate monitor again. with my old machine, i found myself not gaming that much at all except command and conquer and odd football manager games. i did have a few others like prototype but didn't play them. its also a space thing. i ended up using my laptop more recently and playing less games. the way things are going with the lass and everything, i'll play less and less fps and more on the lap sims. but being able to play fps at low res would be a bonus to. i'll just play more with the ps3 or buy a keyboard and mouse for that.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    Why don't you look at an SFF build like an SG05?? It is tiny!


    Its all good having a desktop pc bu is it portable enough to say umm can bring it on a plane or a long train journey and game a bit on it?

    The OP wants a portable system and that is why gaming laptops will always have its place in the market.

    Toss in the fact that you would need to carry all the cables plus a monitor with that desktop pc makes it less appealing.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    Quote Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408 View Post
    Its all good having a desktop pc bu is it portable enough to say umm can bring it on a plane or a long train journey and game a bit on it?

    The OP wants a portable system and that is why gaming laptops will always have its place in the market.

    Toss in the fact that you would need to carry all the cables plus a monitor with that desktop pc makes it less appealing.
    Unless you can a special deal sub £800 notebooks tend to have very poor graphics cards for gaming. The Packard Bell I linked too had a decent graphics card for notebook but of course it was refurbished and also I am uncertain how well the notebook is built. Once you start gaming battery life tends to tail off dramatically and most desktop replacement notebooks which have the better graphics cards have very poor battery life.

    Also desktop replacement noteooks tend to be quite heavy and run hotter too!!

    My Shuttle P2 SFF is small enough to have a dedicated case so I used to take it home with me on the train without any issues.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    i have maybe found a good deal, hopefully. what do you think:

    Acer 8930G laptop
    intel core 2 dupo T6400
    4 gig of ddr3 ram
    500 gig hdd
    full hd screen 18.4 "
    1 gig nvidia 9600M GT graphics
    blu ray drive
    bluetooth
    and other bits
    £699 i canhave it for ex shelf last one reduced from £899. 1 yr normal warranty.

    at pc world next door they have the same but with T6600 processor but no blu ray or bluetooth but same i belive everything else for same price. the top is actually £719 on shelf but i asked for more off. pc world will do their one for £717 but its new boxed.

    good deal?

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    The 9600M GT is actually the same as the desktop 9500GT. The GT230M would be a better choice.

    If the HD4650 in your first choice has GDDR3 or even DDR3 it would be the best choice IMHO.

    I will try to check if the Dell has the DDR3 or GDDR3 version of the HD4650.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    This Mesh looks promising:

    http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default...gle&KEY=647175

    It is around £630 with an OS and excluding postage. I you can supply your own OS it is well under £600 excluding postage.

    It has the HD4650 DDR3. According to this review its bigger brother with the same graphics card and screen can run COD4 at around 30FPS:

    http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/labs/...-m870r-cs.html

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    caught between the rock and hard place because i really do want 17" plus display as does the lady.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    I cannot find out whether the HD4650 in the Dell Studio 17 is the DDR2,DDR3 or GDDR3 version. I would e-mail Dell to find out.

    The problem is that the higher resolution the display the beefier the graphics card you need to play at the native resolution of the panel.

    Can you stretch to the Studio XPS 16??

    It has a Mobility Radeon HD4670 card:

    http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...75883824506127

    Here is a review:

    http://hothardware.com/Articles/Dell...Review/?page=9
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 10-11-2009 at 02:01 AM.

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    Re: is this a good laptop for £650 for gaming etc

    nope. can't i upgrade the card at a later date?

    and i need a laptop now as no machine except work lappy.

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