The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Capable laptop for work and play
GurtPerk
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey, everyone. Got a question for those more tech savy than myself.
I'm looking to buy a laptop because I do a lot of work on my digital tablet and will be doing a lot of traveling. Now I also got into Team Fortress 2 in a big way. So my work mates told me that if I'm spending upwards of $500 for a laptop, mine as well get a powerful gaming laptop that can handle both modern 3-D modeling programs and online game play.
Does anyone know a laptop that I can get that can handle this task? Price range isn't too much of an issue, but cheaper is always good. I'm looking for quality and long life span.
Thanks all.
I'm looking to buy a laptop because I do a lot of work on my digital tablet and will be doing a lot of traveling. Now I also got into Team Fortress 2 in a big way. So my work mates told me that if I'm spending upwards of $500 for a laptop, mine as well get a powerful gaming laptop that can handle both modern 3-D modeling programs and online game play.
Does anyone know a laptop that I can get that can handle this task? Price range isn't too much of an issue, but cheaper is always good. I'm looking for quality and long life span.
Thanks all.
GurtPerk on
0
Posts
Seriously though, we had this exact thread two days ago, check it out here for loads of good advice. Personally, I agree with what most people say in response to this question: a gaming tower and a light basic notebook are generally far better bang for the buck. For you though, mobility is a specific requirement here since it's going to be for use while you travel so feel free to disregard those gaming tower + ultralight notebook suggestions.
I can tell you that TF2 runs Ok on my work laptop, which is a ThinkPad T61 with an Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M graphics chip (which is based on the 8400M chip). I had to turn down the detail levels a little in order to get decent framerates, but the game is quite playable. The forums at Notebookreview.com are a very useful resource for figuring out which models are worthwhile. I particularly recommend the Mobile Graphics Card Info thread, which has a handy breakdown of what all the different graphics chip models are and where they rank relative to each other. Whatever model you pick, just make sure its graphics chip is rated equal to or better than an Nvidia 8400M in "THE BIG CHART".
And now, having talked up the Nvidia 8400M a bunch, I'll contradict all that! I actually would recommend that you avoid any laptop with an Nvidia 8300M, 8400M, 8600M or 8700M graphics chip. Due to a manufacturing flaw in those chips, which were based on the G84 and G86 cores, they're experiencing abnormally high failure rates across all manufacturers' designs (I know HP, Dell and Apple are affected, and I suspect others are as well). I didn't realize my work notebook was affected as well until I google'd it just now. Oh well, it's not like I paid for the thing... but you're paying for yours, so watch out for those! Something like a Radeon X1600 Mobile or higher, or an Nvidia GeForce Go7600GT or higher would be safe choices, or an 8800M or higher if you can fit it in your budget.
I'd reccomend a Sager 2096 myself or a Power Pro 15:3 based on the MSI 1651 barebones.
Seriously that forum puts this one to shame in terms of educated notebook opinions.
I have the same exact laptop, and I do love it. Vista locks up on me sometimes, but I attribute this to Vista being Vista. Also, the 17" is nice when you're sitting around watching movies or something...but it really is a pain in the ass to carry around. Other than that, it runs games well and has a beautiful display.
Weaboo List
I'm going to second the MacBook Pro. The only downsides are the premium price (well worth it, IMO) and the fact you'll have to buy another windows license for the thing if you don't already have one.
Bonus: When the time comes to get a new computer, you can get way more money for a used Mac than you can a used PC.
I bought a MBP for my girlfriend and read about this issue two days after it arrived. I plan to follow up on this G84/G86 issue in six months or so and make a decision on picking up AppleCare for it at that time. No one's 100% certain at this point on how widespread the issue is, so I'm hoping there'll be more concrete info available then. The design of the MBP itself is absolutely fantastic, I have to say, and my girlfriend absolutely loves it so I don't really regret the purchase. Unlike a tower, where it sits under your desk and you rarely touch the machine itself, with a laptop you're interacting with the unit all the time so paying extra for good design pays off IMO. I have yet to see a laptop that even comes close to rivaling the MacBooks in this regard, but to be fair I haven't exactly been looking all that hard.
Yeah, Macs tend to hold their value really well. The only recent exception was the switchover from PowerPC to Intel processors. The resale value for PPC-based Macs plummeted once the Intel-based Macs were on the market, but that wouldn't be a consideration in purchasing a new Mac, since they're all Intel-based now. My girlfriend's beat-to-crap iBook is worth next to nothing, but it's seen over four years of heavy use so I can't really complain.
There isn't a one-to-one mapping between core designs and finished products, which is why there's four or five different products using each core. After a chip is manufactured it's connected to a special tester that validates each of the internal components on the die and checks to see how high it can be clocked before errors appear. If a part is found to generate errors past a certain speed threshold, or if some sections of its on-die cache are bad, it may be binned as a lower-speed or lower-cache version of the same core. This is done to maximize the number of chips on a wafer that can eventually be sold.
A GS chip would have been tested and found to have some defective stream processors after fabrication. It would have gotten binned with other G84 cores with the same flaw, and all the parts in that bin would have been modified to run using half as many stream processors. It's still a G84 core, though, and aside from the defective bits it's identical to every other G84 core out there. Sadly, that includes whatever off-spec material causes the defect in these units.