Need a new gaming laptop [solved]

alternatingAberration

So, my old laptop's mother board gave up the ghost, need a new one. I've got a limit of 900$, and I'd like to run games like skyrim fairly well. Any suggestions?

I'm having a hell of a time navigating the specs on retailer websites.

minirhyder

Does it absolutely have to be laptop?
For $900 you can build a damn good gaming machine. Or build a pretty good gaming machine for $600 and get a tablet/netbook with the remainder of the money for mobility work.

alternatingAberration

Yeah, I travel a lot and I would like to be able to play on the go.

Rollsavager

minirhyder wrote: »

Does it absolutely have to be laptop?
For $900 you can build a damn good gaming machine. Or build a pretty good gaming machine for $600 and get a tablet/netbook with the remainder of the money for mobility work.

You're going to get much more bang for your buck out of a desktop than a laptop. I invested about $400 in new parts for my desktop three years ago, and it still runs modern games very smoothly (if not on Ultra settings). The $700 laptop I bought a year and a half ago has overheating issues which drop the frame rate to a crawl, even in older games.

I want to give you a bit of cautionary hard data, and then I'll assume you know what you're getting into and start recommending laptops: in your price range, you're probably looking at a mobile graphics card somewhere in the same neighborhood as the Nvidia 730M. According to this benchmark data, that gives you a score of 1056. You could cut your budget in half and get a desktop card twice as powerful. The difference in performance is staggering.

Anyway, if you're still set on getting a laptop: save yourself some trouble and shop on Newegg. It's way easier than trying to check individual manufacturer websites, and they even have a "compare" function that will make your decision easier. As for brands, I'd recommend Acer or ASUS. Acer might give you a bit more for your money, but ASUS has a better reputation for quality. Just look for something in your price range that's been well-reviewed, and make sure it has a discrete GPU (Nvidia or ATi).

alternatingAberration

Thanks, but I just move around too much to deal with a desktop.

I'm looking at this comp here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152388
Only thing folks seem to have a problem with is the bloatware I'll remove and the heat issues, which I already have a fan pad for.
Seems to rate well on that vid card list (love that site!). Does it sound like it'll do the job, and last?

JAEF

I just spent a lot of time searching for the same thing. Check out the Y-500 or Y-510 series from Lenovo. Some people have a difficult time grasping that a desktop just doesn't work in a lot of situations. You're stuck at college all day or out in the boonies for some work "training" shit and you want to do something that's not on your phone and not a flash-game equivalent. You can't really lug your desktop around with you. Or you're over at your girlfriend's all the time and don't want to leave just because you have a hankering for some orc snuffing.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/

You can also find these on retailers like Amazon and Newegg with slightly different specs depending on how new their models are. They're just working into the refresh to the 4th gen Intel processors which offer significantly more battery life (5h vs 3h) during non-heavy use states (web browsing as opposed to gaming) if that's important to you. Skim a lot of newegg reviews to see the pros and cons. The benefits of this particular laptop (I got the 59371972 Y500) outweighed the particular negatives. Short battery life is not an issue to me as I expect to be almost always plugged in. Middling trackpad not a big deal since I expect to be using a mouse most of the time. Great keyboard with well spaced numpad, large resolution and ability to run really high end games really well were key factors for me.

Figuring out what's most important for you is going to make it a lot easier for you to find the right laptop. Lenovo's reputation for quality and the glowing reviews of PC gaming performance of these laptops pretty much sold it for me. Well that and a good long look at the specs.

Elin

When I get home tomorrow I'll post some exact info on my laptop, it's a Samsung Series 7 but I'm not sure which flavor. It's fairly light and thin, but capable if you don't expect desktop graphics on brand new games. It's a good portable option because it is actually portable feeling.

B_R

I don't think you can get a decent Samsung for gaming with a budget of 900$.

There are also the Acer Aspire M5-581TG, the Acer Aspire V3-771G, the Asus N56VB, or the Lenovo IdeaPad Y500.

But be aware, that these notebooks are not exactly made with the best parts and are prone to overheating.
They are also always rather noisy and heavy.
Possibly the dedicated video card will just stop working after 2 years.

Essee

I'll come back sometime when I'm less busy, but I don't think anybody has mentioned refurbished/open-box laptops yet? That's the best way to get bang for your buck. Newegg and other online retailers (B&H Photo and Video is my personal favorite) usually let you search for refurbs through the same searches that find you new machines. I recently got myself a wonderful $1200 (may have even been $1500... I don't remember because it's not what I was paying) ASUS gaming laptop for $600 this way. ASUS N55S. 2.2GHz quad-core with a GeForce GT555M. Works beautifully, very good graphics quality (went from ~20 FPS in several recent games on my previous laptop to around 60 in a lot of games with the settings on high at 1080p), no overheating issues whatsoever, doesn't run any louder than I'd expect a desktop to when I'm playing something really intensive, in like-new condition. My last two laptops were open-box return gaming laptops as well, and both of them still work fine with only a couple issues after at least 3 years. My previous laptop still had everything at least playable on medium/high, but I happened to get some spending money soooo I decided I'd upgrade.

Anyway, ASUS is pretty reliable and usually one of the best brands when it comes to getting good hardware at a cheap price, so looking into their hardware is a good idea. Your budget is WAY higher than mine was, so you should be able to get something even better than I got if you go bargain-hunting, and I am decidedly happy with performance of this machine. It easily acts as my only gaming computer right now, which is important because, like you, I really need to be able to move around for the next couple of years.

Jokerman

for 900 bucks, you should be able to get something p.decent to game on.

I'm using a Lenovo Ideapad right now. Dropped 400 bucks on it and it plays most things on good settings.

CelestialBadger

Skyrim is a pretty well-written game and you'll be able to easily get a gaming laptop to run it. Make sure it has a real graphics card, not integrated graphics.

I got my gaming laptop through http://www.xoticpc.com/

It was about $1000 a couple of years ago and ran Skyrim just great. It was a Clevo/Sager. It came with no bloatware.

http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-clevo-sager-notebooks-ct-95_51_162.html

They have a model at $910 that sounds great.

Essee

CelestialBadger wrote: »

I got my gaming laptop through http://www.xoticpc.com/

It was about $1000 a couple of years ago and ran Skyrim just great. It was a Clevo/Sager.

http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-clevo-sager-notebooks-ct-95_51_162.html

They have a model at $910 that sounds great.

If I'm reading the info about the model you're suggesting correctly, Windows 7/8 is not included in the price for that laptop, correct? And the price might be 3% higher depending on how you pay for it? So the OP should keep this in mind if he's shopping there. Look carefully at the info they provide about the laptops before you start trying to nab one. I don't mean don't buy from them, because I hear good things about them! Just keep an eye on the listed specs, etc. to catch any hidden costs before you get too attached.

(Also, confound it Notebookcheck! My graphics card was in the bottom rung of the high-end cards when I got this thing a couple months back and now you already have it listed in the Mid-to-low-end section! Curse all this progress!)

CelestialBadger

Yeah, no Windows. Hence no bloatware at all

The next model down looks reasonable, but don't get anything cheaper than that in that range as they have integrated graphics.

alternatingAberration

I decided on the lenovo Y500. Seemed to fit the bill. Thanks to everybody for the help!