Looking for a gaming laptop

[kinkladze10]

Hoping for some advice.

Am in the market for a new laptop.
Want to run the latest games on good settings.

Budget around £1500 could probably push a little higher if I needed to.

Am looking for a reliable supplier too but I don't have a clue where to go and what I need.

Help....!!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would wait for this deal to come back into stock:

http://forums.hexus.net/shopping-ret...ainsburys.html

[kinkladze10]

It's actually too low for my needs, I want something a bit beefier, I'm quite happy to pay for quality and really want to make a purchase within the next weeks if possible

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It's actually too low for my needs, I want something a bit beefier, I'm quite happy to pay for quality and really want to make a purchase within the next weeks if possible

Considering that MSI make some of best gaming laptops out there,the quality is fine and the laptop was around £800 for the model in the link to around £1000 for one with a better CPU.

On top of this spending £1500 on a gaming laptop is a waste of money considering the GPUs they have.

The fastest AMD card is the HD6990M which is an underclocked desktop HD6870 1GB graphics card which is more like the desktop HD6850 1GB in performance.

The fastest Nvidia card is the GTX580M which is an underclocked GTX560TI graphics card which is between a desktop GTX460 1GB and GTX560 1GB in performance.

Even with £1500 you can barely get a laptop with an HD6990M:

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...m17xr3n00w7v01

The GTX460M is found in laptops costing well over £1000:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-m...-bag-mouse-win

[Jasp]

Have a look at PCspecialist, their top laptop the Vortex II is built off a Clevo chassis and fits around your budget depending on spec. Normally i'd recommend Kobalt computers as a Clevo reseller but they seem to have gone downhill of late.

Theirs basically only Dell and Clevo that are in the high end laptop market these days and Clevo based laptops are very hard to find over here, theirs plenty of American websites if you willing to import that deal in them and you won't get better performance then a Clevo.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Have a look at PCspecialist, their top laptop the Vortex II is built off a Clevo chassis and fits around your budget depending on spec. Normally i'd recommend Kobalt computers as a Clevo reseller but they seem to have gone downhill of late.

Theirs basically only Dell and Clevo that are in the high end laptop market these days and Clevo based laptops are very hard to find over here, theirs plenty of American websites if you willing to import that deal in them and you won't get better performance then a Clevo.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

They look cheaper. You can get a GTX580M,i7 2630QM,8GB of DDR3 and a 500GB 7200RPM drive for around £1450 to £1500 with either a 15.6" or 17.3" screen.

OTH,even the GTX580M will most likely will struggle with newer games at 1920X1080 next year 2012. Even ATM, a game like Crysis 2 in DX11 mode will barely run at full settings on a faster desktop GTX560TI.

The new consoles are being released next year and so are the next generation engines which will be more demanding.

[kinkladze10]

Considering that MSI make some of best gaming laptops out there,the quality is fine and the laptop was around £800 for the model in the link to around £1000 for one with a better CPU.

On top of this spending £1500 on a gaming laptop is a waste of money considering the GPUs they have.

The fastest AMD card is the HD6990M which is an underclocked desktop HD6870 1GB graphics card which is more like the desktop HD6850 1GB in performance.

The fastest Nvidia card is the GTX580M which is an underclocked GTX560TI graphics card which is between a desktop GTX460 1GB and GTX560 1GB in performance.

Even with £1500 you can barely get a laptop with an HD6990M:

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...m17xr3n00w7v01

The GTX460M is found in laptops costing well over £1000:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-m...-bag-mouse-win

Ok thanks for that, I didn't realise this was the case so appreciate the advise.
Do you think that laptop deal will come back in stock?

If so how would it perform, I understand what you are saying about performance, basically I'm looking for a decent laptop that I can enjoy good performance on when I need to.
If I can save some money then great but I would've been happy to pay a bit more.
Don't really want to import from the US.

Finding a decent supplier with a warranty is important to me too

[Blackmage]

Would a laptop and PC not be a better solution? With that budget you could get both!

Edit: unless you want to game away from home?

[Jasp]

Please see for benchmarks and specs on the 460m, bearing in mind most the tests are the newer gen i7 chips.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.33612.0.html

The newer gen of mobile GPU chips are far more powerful then their older siblings, mostly because the high end chips are now 100w not the capped 75w like they used to be.

The 580m for example will run Crysis 2 on ultra in dx11 at 35fps, BF:BC2 on ultra 50-57fps depending on CPU.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Please see for benchmarks and specs on the 460m, bearing in mind most the tests are the newer gen i7 chips.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.33612.0.html

The newer gen of mobile GPU chips are far more powerful then their older siblings, mostly because the high end chips are now 100w not the capped 75w like they used to be.

The 580m for example will run Crysis 2 on ultra in dx11 at 35fps, BF:BC2 on ultra 50-57fps depending on CPU.

That is Crysis 2 in DX9 mode though. In DX11 mode with high resolution textures even a desktop GTX560TI will run it at 1920X1080 at around 34FPS. The GTX560TI has the a core clock of 822MHZ and shader clock at 1645MHZ. The GTX580M has the core clocked at 620MHZ and the shaders at 1240MHZ. Both have 384 shaders although the GTX560TI has higher clocked RAM.

If the 32NM process had worked we would have had much faster laptop chips but they have been stuck at 40NM for a while. Hopefully,when AMD transitions to 28NM this year we will get faster laptop GPUs.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Would a laptop and PC not be a better solution? With that budget you could get both!

Edit: unless you want to game away from home?

A small SFF PC based around a Shuttle or SG05 or SG06 would be able to run a fairly decent graphics card and even a Core i7. Get hold of a 19" monitor and it does not take that much space up.

This is what I did and it proved very cost effective too. My Shuttle SD37P2 has given my over four and a half years service.

[Jasp]

Im just going off this review here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-...k.58812.0.html

I stand corrected was on extreme setting but still high res and DX11, doesn't say what setting AF and AA were on though.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The review with the desktop GTX560TI was with the Ultra setting which is really nice. Crysis 2 really pushed my overclocked HD5850 1GB(near HD5870 speed) but still apart from slowdowns it was fine at 1440x900 and a bit worse at 1680X1050.

The thing is though since you can't upgrade the graphics card in lapops which makes me think whether the GTX580M will have enough "in the tank" for games next year. The GTX560TI is around 20% to 25% looking at the specifications alone. I can see games based on older engines being fine but I am not so sure about the ones based on newer ones unless you turn down the settings or resolution.

It is really a shame that the 32NM process had issues otherwise the graphics cards in the laptops would have been much faster.

[kinkladze10]

Thanks for the above comments although I don't really understand any of the technical details.

Was looking at this laptop from Scan

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-m...bluetooth-webc

Would that give me decent gaming for the next 2 years?
I noticed this has a SSD which sounds good.

Also I do have a desktop but I'm working away so much I'm hardly at home nowadays so it has to be a mobile solution

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks for the above comments although I don't really understand any of the technical details.

Was looking at this laptop from Scan

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-m...bluetooth-webc

Would that give me decent gaming for the next 2 years?
I noticed this has a SSD which sounds good.

Also I do have a desktop but I'm working away so much I'm hardly at home nowadays so it has to be a mobile solution

The £400 laptop I suggested has the same graphics card. The HD6990M in the Alienware and the GTX580M in the laptop Jay suggested are the best you can get ATM.

OTH,what sort of games are you intending to play?? I am making the assumption you want to play the most demanding FPS games.

If out want something to play a few games and also be portable I would consider an Alienware m11X:

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-m11x-r3/pd

It will be fine with games based on older engines and some modern ones:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4505/a...ble-powerhouse

[bibio]

Hi, one thing i would consider with a laptop is warranty ( & thats debateable, if it ain't a good one. OK , might not be relevant, touch wood, bit hard to say you have spilt a cup of tea over a desktop, but a laptop ? etc etc). Otherwise, in a lot of cases, when they break, chuck then in the bin.



Cheers BOB