Returning to PC gaming.... what constitutes a decent gaming laptop these days?

JobiwanKenobi

Hello,
Time was, back in the olden days of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, I kept up on PC hardware and generally had a pretty good idea of what would make a good gaming rig... Those days are long gone.

Lately I've found a number of games that I want to play that aren't available on my army of consoles, and the coming of a new Diablo is the clincher. It is time to return to the madness that is PC gaming. Unfortunately, I don't have space at home to dedicate to a tower and multiple monitors so I am looking into getting a laptop. [Maybe my 4 year old MacBook would cut it, but this is an excuse to lust after some Alienware hardware... *shiny*]

So, any recommendations on what to look for in a gaming laptop? Any websites that you know of with good gaming-focused performance stats? Any reasons not to buy a laptop in the next three to six months? [Such as, "In Nov Intel is expected to release their Sand-Castle series of mother-in-law-boards which is twice as fast and practically guilt free (*warning, may contain guilt)"]
Cheers,
Jobiwan

Elimination

Does it HAVE to be a laptop? A desktop will do you much, much better for gaming. You can always put together a Micro ATX tower, it takes up very little space, and there is no need for multiple monitors so im not sure where you are getting that idea from. There are a few good Micro ATX cases that will fit full sized cards in them no problem.

In any case, i'd go for any of the $600+ AMD Vision APU laptops. I have one that cost $600 around and it has a quad core, and a 5670 video card, and 6gb DDR3, so far its run everything on high/highest settings with no problem, including stuff like Bad Company 2 (Runs it on highest without AA. and gets 40FPS.). Games tend to be, on a general scale, better optimized these days than they were say, 5 years ago. Video is the most important part, so no matter what you pick up, you have to look at the GPU first and foremost.

mutantmagnet

It sounds like you would be satisfied with a Desktop Replacement. Those types of laptops hardly anyone would count as portable because of size and weight but they have a drastically smaller footprint than a desktop.

If you are going for something like that I would suggest looking around for a Small Form Factor PC first. They'll offer a lot more power and offer other creature comfort advantages.

Try looking for small PCs like Digital Storms's Enix, Puget's Serenity-MIni, or Falcon NW's Fragbox
http://www.digitalstormonline.com/compblackops.asp
http://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/serenity/SPCR/customize.php
http://www.falcon-nw.com/desktops/fragbox

If you aren't interested in boutique vendors you can build your own spending a lot less money than either system but technical support is all on you.

Researching parts can be a long process so I recommend the Falcon chart which was updated recently.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af150/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png

Shadowfire

Gaming laptops are perfectly serviceable, but you will pay for the ability to move it around. A lot. Mine was $1300 last March and it still does pretty well, but not nearly as well as a $1300 desktop would do.

That said, I haven't shopped for laptops recently. http://www.xoticpc.com treated me very well when I bought mine. Depending on your budget, I'd look toward ASUS, Sager (Sager runs a bit more expensive, plus you have to supply the OS, but they are really nice), ASUS, Sager, ASUS, or ASUS. I'm sure you can tell which one I bought, and I love it. Also, the systems have a 2 year stock warranty, and include 1 year accidental.

If you want some good advice, take a look around here. There are some great folks there with good information.

Edit: I hear Toshiba gaming laptops are really great too. Forgot to mention it before.

Artereis

The Asus G line of laptops is exceptional, and the cooling system inside them is the best I've seen.

Elimination

Artereis wrote:

The Asus G line of laptops is exceptional, and the cooling system inside them is the best I've seen.

I saw a cheaper version of one of this in the store the other day. They are indeed very apetizing. The one i saw was a quad core i5, 4gb of ram and a GTX 540, and it was cold to the touch and had been running all day. Was under a thousand bucks too.

BladeOfSanjuro

I picked up a laptop 2 months ago just for work and a trip to Thailand and I ended up spending $950, and it turned out to be a very handy gaming rig(I was also a PC gamer through the height of UT99, ending around when UT2k4/Battlefield Vietnam came around, then moving to consoles).

I have a Samsung RF711. It's a 17" monitor, BD Combo, i5, 4GB Ram and a Geforce GT 540M(its a 1GB card, mid range I think), 500GB hdd

The screen is extremely nice. Very little bloatware. I like the keyboard a lot, the buttons are spaced very well. The touchpad is a little too sensitive at times, but it's big and accurate(I actually ran through some L4D single player at work just to pass some time). It does get hot, so its not something where I'd game with it on my lap, and the size would kind of make that awkward after a while too. It did survive a trip to thailand and some airport check-ins on my EVE Online character though, haha. Overall it is extremely nice, and I would recommend it to others looking to spend at/around 900-1000 on a laptop.

Games that run extremely well:

-TF2
-Left 4 Dead 2
-WH40K DoW 2: Retribution
-WH40K Space Marine
-Red Orchestra 2 Beta

Games that run acceptably, but would run significantly better on a more powerful system:

-Dead Island
-Nuclear Dawn Beta

Games that run, but are clearly out of the system's range and barely playable:

-ArmA 2: OA

mutantmagnet

Shadowfire wrote:

Gaming laptops are perfectly serviceable, but you will pay for the ability to move it around.

They are serviceable but since it sounds like his primary reason for looking at a laptop is to not have to deal with a system taking up living space I envision someone who is not interested in taking it out their house.

With the advancements of Wireless Display connectivity and case designs improving the viability of itx and microatx motherboards I really don't see a reason to go for a laptop when you can instead connect to a much larger screen and punt your mini-desktop under a sofa.

If he actually wanted something to carry around regularily my response would've been different and I would've said he should wait a few months to see if laptop manufacturers correctly leverage Intel's Ivy Bridge to make gaming laptops that are far more powerful in a single generation than ever before seen in prior generation leaps.

TOGSolid

If you're not actually taking this thing anywhere, then don't bother with a gaming laptop. You're gonna be paying for equipment you can barely service if it breaks down, has heat issues even with a cooling pad, and cannot be upgraded for the most part. I've got a lot of experience with gaming grade laptops and while they are awesome if you're on the go as much as I am, they're not a good idea as a home computer. You're paying for portability, not for power.

I'd highly suggest looking into the wide variety of smaller, lan style cases that are available these days. As mutantmagnet pointed out, wireless connectivity is better than ever allowing for a largely cable free setup solution to cut down on clutter. Monitor mounting products offer a wide array of fixes to your storage space issues as well or you could just hook it up to your tv (yay HDMI!)

P.S. Alienware is overpriced garbage to be avoided at all costs.

Dirtyboy

When asking for help on hardware buying advice I would recommend listing your budget, knowledge level, and what types of things you plan on doing with it.

As for laptops I would say buy an ASUS G-series like suggested above. You can get a pretty loaded one for under $1500.

Elimination

TOGSolid wrote:

If you're not actually taking this thing anywhere, then don't bother with a gaming laptop. You're gonna be paying for equipment you can barely service if it breaks down, has heat issues even with a cooling pad, and cannot be upgraded for the most part. I've got a lot of experience with gaming grade laptops and while they are awesome if you're on the go as much as I am, they're not a good idea as a home computer. You're paying for portability, not for power.

I'd highly suggest looking into the wide variety of smaller, lan style cases that are available these days. As mutantmagnet pointed out, wireless connectivity is better than ever allowing for a largely cable free setup solution to cut down on clutter. Monitor mounting products offer a wide array of fixes to your storage space issues as well or you could just hook it up to your tv (yay HDMI!)

P.S. Alienware is overpriced garbage to be avoided at all costs.

Yeah this guy echos my thoughts but worded better. And yes, he's right, Alienware is marketting hype garbage. They do nothing better than any other company, and many things worse (Like cooling and power management.) and cost way more money than they are worth.

A $700 Micro ATX pc that can fit behind your television in a small little box will be more powerful and upgradeable than a $1500 laptop for gaming, have better cooling, and a far, far longer lifespan.

JobiwanKenobi

Thanks for all the feedback!

I had considered building a micro-atx PC, but I just don't think that I have a space that I can dedicate to PC gaming. [One additional requirement that I should add in is that I can't hook this up to the TV because I'd like to keep the TV available for console gaming.] At this point I'm fairly open to considering options as far as whether to invest in a portable gaming PC or a desktop replacement. In either case they aren't going to leave the house very often [mainly for business trips and vacations (flight to PAX East for example...)] but it will need to go to wherever I happen to feel like gaming that day. [FSM forbid, perhaps even a lan party...]

I'll definitely look into the Asus and Toshiba laptops. I just hit the configure option at Falcon to which I must say "Ow, My Wallet!" I'll also add that a lot of my fondness for Alienware goes back to the days when they built laptops that you could upgrade the video card on... oh well, looks like those days have past.

IDDQD

I'm here to extol the amazingness that are Asus gaming laptops - specifically the G73JW-A1, a system I picked up about 4 months ago. It runs even the most system heavy games to Ultra settings in most cases, and can be found for a reasonable price. I paid about 1500 for mine, but it may be hard to find this specific configuration as it looks like its been discontinued since it is pre-Sandy Bridge. It's not the most portable system around, as its kinda heavy, as are most 17.5 inch laptops - but they were kind enough to package a really nice backpack with the purchase so bonus+. The basic specs:

Core i7 740QM - runs overclocked out of the box
GTX 460M - 1.5GB (not the most current GTX-M, but it hasn't let me down)
8GB 1333MHz memory
Blu-Ray burner
KILLER cooling system - one of the main reasons I picked up the G73

If you have any specific questions, please feel free to PM me!

DarkMecha

Just as someone who owns a 17.3" laptop, it's not that hard to deal with if you have a nice bag for it. Sure, it's not exactly super portable but it's great if you go over to a friends house to hang out and game together, go on a trip, want to use it in the living room ect. It'd rate it as still quite portable, but requires alittle planning rather than just 'oh , my laptop' *picks up on way out door*, basically.

*Edit - Oh and to give you an idea of how powerful these other laptops like the awesome G73 above are, I only have a Dell Inspiron (bought it for school / light gaming) with a core i5 2410m @ 2.3ghz, 4gb of 1333, and a GeForce 525m but it runs most things quite well, 30fps+ on med-high settings. So if you go for an actual gaming laptop it will be really awesome!

Kalkino

I just picked up a custom built machine last week and while I am loving it, I suspect now that perhaps Acer might make a quieter machine. Oh well.
I did get an ATI 6990M ard though, which released a week or two before I ordered, so that at least should do me right for a couple of years on high settings.