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Affordable Gaming Laptop?
BlankZoe
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey there H/A,
I am looking for a new laptop. Something in the 500-600 range, maybe a bit more if necessary. My current laptop is, well, a piece of shit. It is two years old and wasn't very good when it was new. I tried to run The Old Republic today and got a lovely Star Wars themed slideshow. So, I am looking for something that is fairly decent for games. I don't need to run Battlefield 3 or Rage on High or anything, but I would like to be able to play new things.
Any advice?
I am looking for a new laptop. Something in the 500-600 range, maybe a bit more if necessary. My current laptop is, well, a piece of shit. It is two years old and wasn't very good when it was new. I tried to run The Old Republic today and got a lovely Star Wars themed slideshow. So, I am looking for something that is fairly decent for games. I don't need to run Battlefield 3 or Rage on High or anything, but I would like to be able to play new things.
Any advice?
BlankZoe on
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That is why I am asking for one.
Best to look around on newegg. Can't do any searching at the moment as I'm on my phone, just wanted to offset the idiotic "lol gaming laptop" replies.
Not necessarily....
$600 will get you a decent laptop with (most likely) an onboard intel video chip or a low end ATI, but it'll have a core i5 and 4 gigs of ram behind it, with possibly a 7200 rpm hard drive.
I mean obviously video is going to be the dominant factor, but I've got a build similar to that in my laptop and I can run most games fine as long as I'm not all about the high end graphic sliders.
There's a difference between "can it run this game at a reasonable 20 something fps so it's enjoyable" and "can it run RAGE on full blown money shot mode"
But honestly yeah, I laptop that will run games at the console standard of graphical enjoyment is probably going to set you back closer to $800 after taxes. I think for that you can get one with a 1gig dedicated card and no battery life.
However since you already have a laptop that'll check e-mail and play the youtubes $600 will get you a decent mid range gaming PC.
This isn't the chart I normally link for laptop GPUs, but for some reason I'm having trouble finding the one I'm thinking of. If I do, I'll link it. That said, this one looks to be similar and about as accurate.
So, I'd basically identify a large group of laptops in your price range (that run ATI/nVidia GPUs), hunt up which ones have the best GPUs, and then compare the rest of the hardware in the systems.
Might let you run SWTOR on medium settings. Don't get your hopes up, gaming laptops are generally terrible, or super expensive.
Some gaming laptops are undoubtedly impressive machines for what they are, but for the same amount of money you could get a very good gaming desktop and a netbook or a decent desktop and decent general-purpose laptop.
Not with the amount of money ($500-$600) he has to spend he's not.
You might be able to find a refurb in your price range that'd give you better value, but 'refurbished laptop' is an even bigger RUN AWAY sign that 'gaming laptop.'
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They have a website where they list newly refurbished ones everyday, and if you're patient (and perhaps don't mind a scratched case) you can actually get some good stuff at a great price.
http://www.dell.com/outlet
You have to check it out regularly though as they only usually have one of each model. So be quick.
Agreed. I don't know how much cheaper electronics are in the US but in the UK a gaming laptop worth the name will set you back £1000 at least, a decent one would be £1200 and the mutts nuts will be ~2k. $600 is probably decent general purpose laptop money but not a gaming rig. I would consider either stashing the money until you can save an extra couple of hundred and get something worth the cash or changing your laptop only stance.
Just look for AMD heavy laptops, as the APU/crossfire hybrid laptops are fairly cheap, and have real dedicated video on them, not those crappy intel integrated chips. These should allow you to play anything out there. Maybe not everything at the HIGHEST, but you'll be able to play at decent and playable settings anything that is out there. APU/Onboard hybrid laptops also dont run very hot AT ALL (Mine sure doesnt, even in heavy gaming at lan parties or when im travelling.) so the "it overheats!" is a misconception with AMD parts.
I got an Alienware M11x for like $600 when they were doing the hardware refresh. It's no beast, but being able to play Civ5 and such while at the cigar bar is nice. I don't really endorse Alienware, but it's a solid laptop and portable to boot, if that's your thing.
Still, remember that with a laptop you're committing to the life of the hardware, inside and out. Whether waiting until one of those stops being useful or dies, that's how long you're making this investment for. You're buying a system that will last you for a few years, you should plan on it not being a paperweight by then. Unfortunately, that's going to cost you way more than such a machine would really be worth, in my opinion.
The laptop in question is an Asus Republic of Gamers laptop, and it's worked pretty smoothly for me. I got it because my 4 year old laptop (which was top-of-the-line in 2006, and cost 2400$CA) couldn'T run Starcraft 2 acceptably. The new laptop runs Starcraft 2 at 1920x1080 smoothly. In fact, the only upgrade I've been considering recently is to add more RAM (4GB is getting a bit tight for when I'm running a bunch of things simultaneously.)
Not much point in recommending my particular model, but I recommend taking a look at what Asus currently offers in that particular line. Here's a link to Amazon.com which shows all the relevant models:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=asus+republic+of+gamers&x=0&y=0
You might have to consider going up to 800$ or 900$ for something worthwhile, because at less than 700, I wouldn't expect much more than integrated Intel video, or something equally low-end, which will be OK for 2-year-old games, but not for current games.
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I would head over to G&T if I were you. They'd know.