Gaming Laptop Reccomendations?

So yesterday I came home to find my laptop locked up with a fried motherboard. Bummer. However, me and my parents had already been talking about getting me a new computer anyways, and this looks like a good time to do so.

So I ask you, what do you think is the best gaming laptop out there? I'm currently unsure about the price range, so I'll get back to you guys on that one. I would like it to be able to run CoH on max settings (plus ultra mode), as well as upcoming games like Starcraft 2 and Mechwarrior.

Just start throwing ideas at me, let's see what sticks.

I was looking at this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220696

Seems like a real good bang for the buck.

My question to you is: why a gaming laptop specifically? Will you actually be wanting to game frequently in different locations? Because if all you're wanting is to do some gaming at home, and also have a laptop to carry around when you want to do laptoppy things, I would personally get a desktop and a cheap netbook. My guess is that you could probably get roughly equivalent power out of a desktop *and* get the netbook for about what you'd spend on a gaming laptop.

I did what you are thinking of 3 years ago when I went off to college; I bought a relatively expensive, high powered laptop so that I could both play games and have a laptop to carry around. It worked well enough for a while, but now I'm sitting here with a laptop whose hardware is horribly out of date and can't be upgraded, whose battery has degraded enough to the point that it can't really be used as a mobile device anymore, and which wasn't ever *that* useful as a mobile device to begin with due to short battery life and high weight.

Netbooks didn't really exist at the time I made my purchase, but if they had, I think I would have been better off splitting the money I spent on this laptop between a netbook and a desktop. I would have gotten a laptop that was actually useful on the road, and a gaming platform that wouldn't have had the overheating problems my laptop has and would have actually been upgradable.

I am a relatively knowledgeable computer user but not a techie, I wouldn't really know where to start recommending specific laptops/computers, so take it with a grain of salt, but my opinion is that unless you are specifically looking to take your gaming platform on the road frequently, you might be better off with a desktop and a netbook.

Muon's got a point. Gaming laptops make sense only if you're never at home.

I'll share some advice I've found since beginning my pursuit of a gaming laptop myself. I am home less than 2 days a week, so I needed a PC that could fulfill my desktop demands, and one of which was to be able to play CoH on the road.

While my pursuit got derailed thanks to Real Life, I can share what I've learned at least for others who seek as I once did.

=====

TAHQ'S LAPTOP SHOPPING GUIDE - 2010
If you really want a gaming laptop, expect the following:


-- BRAND LOYALTY/TECH SUPPORT vs. NEWEGG DARLINGS/"GO IT ON YOUR OWN": You're going to pay more for a laptop than gaining similar or superior performance on a cheaper desktop IF YOU CHOOSE A KNOWN BRAND (HP/Lenovo/Sony/Dell). Evidence: you've got $1,200 and have a choice between an HP laptop (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834157113) compared to this HP desktop (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883147038). The premium is that you can play on the go, simple as that, but you'll be playing on the go with a slower (not markedly, but noticeable) GPU, and a CPU difference of an entire 1.0 GHz, both in which are in the desktop's favor. If you need to be able to send a PC to decent warranty service (and with that, for every testimonial, there's two horror stories about that same company) then go with the big four.

If you are not afraid of doing your own tech support, consider brands like ASUS, Acer/Gateway (they're the same) and MSI instead. Just know what you're getting into, and should something go south, you may overclock a $1,000 pizza box if you get too froggy. Temp controls have improved dramatically since the 2004 Dark Ages of Overclocking, but it still happens.


-- WHY LAPTOPS ARE STILL PROFITABLE, EVEN IN A RECESSION: Laptops are not upgradeable. Well, they're upgradeable insomuch as you can get bigger memory or a hard drive, you can even swap out keyboards on some models, but changing CPU's or graphic cards is mostly undocumented and warranty-breaking territory. If one of these two PC components fail or gets outdated in a desktop, 2 out of 3 you can change it to something that works or works better. If a laptop CPU or GPU fails, most of the time the whole 'book is toast.

Even if it doesn't, consider future games and their needs: your state-of-the-art in two years will be excluded by riskier developers (re: Crysis), and in three years will barely run new titles. With a Desktop, you can squeeze a few more years out with upgrades and replace a whole system once every five years or longer if you're not worried about top-of-the-line parts. But with gaming laptops, once they're ready for that Unreal Tournament in the sky, you'll basically Craigslist your current one to buy your next one. Anyone who buys computers can tell you they never appreciate in value, no matter how much you paid for it. (Car manufacturers would LOVE this rate of churn, if you haven't guessed.)

Granted, there are strides being made towards upgradeable laptops (Read Engadget's Shuttle SPA article: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/s...dards-launche/), but prior attempts failed when different manufacturers couldn't find common ground on a single standard and let it die. This may go the same way, especially when the big four stand to lose profit vs. manufacturing "one-take-charlie" machines. But I digress...


-- DIMINISHED RETURNS: Overall, the same spec card on a laptop WILL PERFORM SLOWER than it's desktop counterpart. FatherXMas talked about the downclocking of the GTX200 lineup in another thread and I can attest to this: the prior desktop GTX 260 cards ran 700MHz+, whereas most gaming laptops are downclocked to 500MHz with their mobile counterpart of the same card, the GTX 260M (okay, XMas was discussing later run desktop cards being downclocked and not laptops. I took some liberty on that one. :P) This sounds insipid, but there is a very good couple of reasons why this is:
----> Heat Dissipation: Desktop PC's can have fans, cooling assemblies (heat-pipes, waterblocks, etc.) and a bigger interior to mitigate temperatures with. Laptops have a lot of demanding components in a small body. Laptops usually get 1-2 fans and a single exhaust port. This affects things- the cooler your GPU, the less errors it gets (if any) and the smoother frame rates and texture fills run.
----> Power Requirements: Desktop cards can accept more power through a single or multiple cable input direct from the power supply, which may carry 30-40 amps for the card on a single 12 Volt rail of a 600 Watt power supply. Laptops get a huge power brick, but a tiny cord of DC delivering around 20 Volts, but 7 Amps on a decent gaming laptop that it has to share with a processor, motherboard and IO/USB components. A desktop will have typically three times as much power available.

Your laptop GTX 260M will run ultra mode. It'll run it with a lot of settings turned above minimum, but it won't compare blow for blow to the Desktop GTX 260. The laptop will still beat a GT 240 or 220 desktop card, however.

On that note, my final point:


-- IF YOU'RE USING THE LAPTOP FOR GAMING: disregard the battery life. An upgrade to an eight-cell or twelve-cell battery doesn't make sense if it's on DC Power to keep the processor and GPU running at full speed to begin with. You will use the battery only for non gaming tasks. If you try to game on it, expect about 45-60 minutes before the lights go out. Not kidding.


FINALLY, THE LINEUP
So, one more time, what kind of Laptop are you looking for? There's four groups that come to my mind, priced from highest to lowest:

-1- Professional Gaming Laptops: $1,400 +. This kind of category makes me ill, so I'll recommend such types to visit Alienware (part of Dell). Their Area 51 Laptops are very powerful, even at their 'bargain bin' sub $1,500 price. The only kind of laptop I've seen them sell is "big", but their website assures me indeed that they do sell 15" laptops, and they are releasing a Gaming 'Netbook' that's 11" and costs around $800. It's all over their homepage: http://www.dell.com/content/products...n&s=dhs&~ck=mn.

If the fact that you can customize a PC to cost $24,000 for a single machine makes you as ill as it does me, there's other manufacturers out there: Voodoo PC (part of HP now), eBuyPower, and the brick-and-mortar-free Newegg and TigerDirect offer high end models as well. Gaming PC's come in all shapes and sizes.

-2- Desktop Replacement: Expect $1,000-1,200 out of pocket, a large size to handle the cooling requirements and bigger screen real-estate (16" or bigger), and expect the machine to run on a table. The positioning of the vent ports expect a solid surface. Playing CoH on your lap or a hotel bed will block the vents without a lap-desk (or a flat flank of wood I find works if you want to avoid paying $60 at Best Buy for recycled soda bottles made into a board.)

BOTH OF THE ABOVE feature High Performance or Maximum Performance cards, so Ultra Mode is easily possible, but at reduced settings if you want to keep the heat draw and driver errors down. On both, I'd recommend a "chill mat" to place under the laptop to give it extra cooling to squeeze an extra 5-10 FPS out of them while gaming. These are types of laptops, not solid rules, and there are exceptions: ASUS Republic of Gamers line and Gateway's FX line aren't considered 'desktop replacement' machines but both lines tend to be cheaper than $1,400; of course neither will have GTX 285's or ATI Radeon HD 5870's in them for that price.

-3- Notebook/Subnotebook-class: These are the most affordable and reasonable. Costs ballpark $600-800, has an acceptable graphic card (may be mid-range, may be entry level, depends on the overall cost of the machine and it's physical size, but be warned: +$1,000 laptops that are less than 16" do exist... with no graphic card at all... this confuses the hell out of me too). Mid-sized, ranging from 11-16 inches, and since less heat draw is made they can be played on your lap easily but gets warm after extended periods. Subnotebooks will not come with optical media drives or extra ports, limiting the roles the computer can take when exchanging data is necessary: buy an external hard drive to share optical media (when possible) or a DVD Recorder. A decent type of either device costs about $70-90 extra, and you'll only need one.

You can run CoH, but you can forget about Ultra Mode with these. Recommended or Performance settings are more than possible on these machines at 30 FPS.

-4- The Doldrums: This isn't a category, but a warning: these are business class or school ready laptops that cost anywhere from $400-700. They may or may not contain graphic cards, but if they do, most of them are intended to boost Windows 7 performance at best. There is one salvageable model of laptop: ones with Intel MHD4500 WILL play CoH, but they deliver no graphic options, no antialiasing, shading, or anisotropic filtering, and does weird glitching at points (particularly bases). Their performance is comparable to a GeForce 6200 with overall better FPS (CoH at release in 2004 recommended this card). I heard Intel HD Graphics does better, but I have yet to hear or see proof of such. But that is a best case scenario: most of these laptops in this group will NOT play CoH well or at all. If it's costs $400-600, be skeptical of it until you know what card it uses. Most integrated chipsets will not play games with very FEW exceptions; that's why they're affordable.

So, in short, if they don't mention the graphic card in the ad (never buy a gaming laptop at Sears/Amazon, people, the salespeople often don't know themselves), it's called integrated graphics, or if it's Intel GMA 900 or similar, avoid at any price.

-5- Netbook: This class of laptop isn't even game-able until ASUS released the first Netbook with a Graphic Card-- The N10 lineup (discontinued - you can eBay for them, though): $600, but had built in GeForce 9400 GS M, that can be switched off to an Intel GMA 900 to save battery power when using it as a (gasp!) netbook! Now you can find netbooks like the Alienware M11x mentioned above in group 1 which allows the graphics to be switched down from the GeForce GT 330 card for battery savings. The HP Mini 311 series you can find in your neighborhood-friendly Best Buy for $400 with the NVidia ION LE chip (GeForce 9400, underclocked) that runs COH at Recommended settings with 20+ FPS no problem. My netbook, a Gateway LT3000 series, comes with a Radeon X1200 built in (cost $400, runs COH at 15 FPS, forget even Performance settings.) which allows me to play at least, but there are folks who won't forgive anything less than 30 FPS. Your expectation on these machines should be tempered: at best, they offer 30 FPS, at worst, they're unplayable. Don't just buy any netbook: Eee PC's will not run CoH above 2 FPS (I've tried!) Just like subnotebooks, these are built for size, not capability: get an external HDD or DVD Recorder to keep as a go-between for optical media (again, when possible) since their biggest lacking feature is an optical drive. And whether gaming or not, these get VERY hot. Buy a chill mat to save your legs from scarring.

The main selling point on these: they're cheap and tiny! Costing less than a single bi-weekly paycheck from a full time job, you can get one in two weeks and play CoH anywhere (not fast, but anywhere.)

=====
Wow, I think I might submit this jazz to ZombieMan. Give me a week, you'll see! I'll need to add more sections to be 'holistic' and format it better overall.

Attribution:
FitzSimmons - Alienware M11 is out now, $799 uncustomized. Thx!

That's as exhaustive as I can write for now. I can answer any questions if you can answer one of mine-- Mr. Squid, which of the four above are you looking at for your answer? I can pick better results with your answer and not waste your time with the unreasonable/unattainable.

I think the Alienware M11x is shipping as of March 2nd. Looks alright but may be an underpowered processor and of course a small screen and keyboard.

800 bucks though, not too shabby. 950 bucks for a 2nd processor and 2gb more RAM.

They don't call it a netbook for no reason. Playing games versus not playing at all, or choosing another netbook for that purpose, it's still an option for a small-form-factor. I'd just hate to lose it at an airport.

Your suggested laptop is a good choice: UM ready, plenty of mem/HDD for CoH, doesn't have that annoying touchpanel jazz that similarly priced Acer laptops have for media controls or ejecting discs (imagine grazing the media player button just moments before a wipe... I'd deliberately try to break the panel so it wouldn't happen again).

Resolution is 16:9, a little small at 1366x720, but for CoH it's not exactly a deal-breaker. A UI-heavy title it might be.

I've also been awake since 2pm yesterday. I need to stop typing already.

Gateway's P-series has some pretty good models. Among the more recent is the P-7908 FX. 17" 1440x900 screen, GeForce GTX 260M graphics card, Intel Dual-Core 2.53 Ghz, 4 gigs of RAM, 500Gb HDD, and a 9-cell lithium-ion battery.

Hrm. I'm liking the whole netbook/desktop idea, i'll have to consult with my parents on this since they're footing the bill.

One more thing. I really don't want to get something that is mostly in pieces. I would really like to buy a PC that comes with monitor, speakers, ect, and not have to assemble something from a bunch of disparate parts. I mean if I could I would, but that's really more of a hassle than me or my parents are willing to go through.

Well just talked to my parents and they said they actually like the netbook/desktop combo idea, so I think I'm going with that. Price really isn't an issue, as Obama has said you can use tuition money to pay for any computer until the end of 2010 as long as its used for educational purposes. And since I am majoring in game design, I need a good gaming PC .

So, we have a netbook recommendation, talk to me about good bang-for-your-buck desktops.

Netbooks:

Beat me by 10 minutes... Which netbook did you settle with?

Computers (KVM included):

Bang-for-your-buck -- (cheap as possible)

But to give you an idea what to look for at minimum, let's try HP's Pavilion line -

Go to: http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/sh.../p6310t_series

Click on "Customize and Buy" for the Base Configuration model, then choose the following:

-- Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual-Core processor E5300 [2.6GHz, 2MB L2, 800MHz FSB] , this will add $20.

-- Video Card: 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4350, which will add $50. If you want higher graphics, GeForce GT 220, or Radeon 5450 are available, but will add another $50-90 to the price.

-- Monitor: HP w1858 18.5-inch 16:9 HD Ready Widescreen Monitor, which increases the price by $129.99.

No other options need changed: click "Review and Buy".

Final out-the-door price: $549.98 (this is the cheapest CoH-Ready build I could make with a monitor, keyboard and mouse included). If you want to play with the options yourself, you can, but each boost in performance will raise the price.

Better and bigger - Around $800-1000 all inclusive:
You said money is not an object, but most Financial Aid disbursements are rarely larger than $1,200-$1,400 in a single check. Besides, it's wise to put some of the money away for the unexpected.

Hate to say it, but with the better gaming-only systems from TigerDirect and Newegg, you'll need to buy a separate monitor. They don't sell PC's with monitors, it's the 'modular' mentality... Get a monitor, keyb, and mouse you like, then replace the PC every "X" years (If you want to develop games, one PC per two years isn't an unreasonable cadence. If you make casual games that aren't resource intensive, you can go even longer.)

Monitors - Widescreen for Less than $150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824254046 - Hanns-G 20" 5ms Monitor, VGA/DVI, $139
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001312 - Samsung 18.5" 5ms, VGA only, $129
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824160043 - AOC 20" 5ms with USB Hub, VGA Only, $149

Computers - Lowball
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883227222 - Athlon II x4 (Quad Core) with Radeon 5750 - $800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229143 - Core 2 Duo 3 GHz with GTX 260 - $789
http://www.frys.com/product/5822103?...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG - Core 2 Quad with SLI GeForce 9800 - $499

Any of the above PC's will run Ultra Mode at low-to-medium quality.

Computers - Highball
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...6611&CatId=114 - Core i5 with Radeon 5770 - $999
Theoretically, this machine will run Ultra Mode at full strength. I can't recommend a GeForce GTX 280 or better PC for less than $1,000, simply because there isn't any.

Computers - Obscene (Overkill for CoH)
http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/deskt...s&cs=19&~ck=mn - Alienware Aurora ALX Starting at $2,229 Base Model - Core i7, Dual GeForce GT 240 SLI Mode (ATM, CoH does not support SLI, possible with Ultra Mode but not likely. Other games might love this machine.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229154 - Core i7 2.93GHz Quad Core with a Watercooled GTX 285 - $1,889
*I don't expect these to be on your radar, just to give you an idea.


OR: SHOP FOR YOUR OWN!
Absolute minimums for a monitor: resolution should be somewhere above 1024x768 (for 4:3 aspect ratio) or 1366x700 (for 16:9 aspect ratio or 'widescreen' in other words), be wary of resolutions above 1920x1200, which mean your graphics card will need to run acceptably well with that high of a resolution to achieve intended results. (It's easy to get a high power graphic card running faster on a lower-resolution monitor, but not a low powered card on a higher resolution.) It should also run at least 16.7 million colors, with no dithering, refresh time 5ms or less, contrast ratio 3000:1 or better. These stats are tricky as well, because monitor manufacturers use plenty of doublespeak and marketing BS to cover up bad statistics.

The best way to check out a monitor you like is to simply go see it at work. Check out Best Buy, or Radio Shack, or Fry's or any other computer place and look for yourself. If it looks good and doesn't blur on fast moving stuff, it might do well for you.

Absolute minimums for a desktop machine if you shop what's in stores: You will need a Pentium Dual Core (E5000 series, or higher number) or Core 2 Duo processor (Intel Core i3/i5/i7 is all good, no matter what you get) or with AMD Athlon I X2 / Athlon II or better (Phenom is all good as well) instead of Single Core processors if it can be helped. Avoid Celeron or Sempron if possible (this is a new PC, you'll want one that will be fast for a little while, not the next 6 months).

Graphic Card Numbers Game: You will need a discrete graphic card: NVidia GeForce or ATI Radeon HD higher numbers indicate higher performance usually. For Radeon, it's nice and simple - cards with the second digit (0X00) higher than 4 should handle CoH very well. 6 would work great, 8 or 9 is high performance.

For NVidia, if the letters are in back (8500 GSO), the same rule applies as Radeon. If the second digit is a 6 or higher, it's a good video card for CoH.

The 1,000's digit indicates age - For Radeon HD, 2000/3000 is on it's way out (DX 9/10), 4000 is entry level (DX 10), and 5000 (DX11) is their newest cards. For NVidia, this is where it gets confusing. They changed the numbering scheme halfway through the current lineup:

6000 - DirectX 9. Desktop available, first series to offer NVidia's GeForce "Go" Laptop card with the 6800.
7000 - DirectX 9. Desktop and Laptop available.
8000 - DirectX 10. Desktop and Laptop available.
9000 - DirectX 10. Desktop and Laptop available.
G 100 - Preinstalled on-board only
G 200 - DirectX 10/11, successor to 9000 line. Desktop and Laptop available.
G 300 - Preinstalled on-board only
G 400 - Unreleased, successor to G 200 line. Desktop and Laptop available.

The GeForce 6000, 7000 and 8000 series are on their way out (Direct X 9.0c-10.1), and 9000 is the new 'entry level' (DX10.1). The G 200's (DX 10.1-DX11) now and G 400's in late March are the more current cards.

So, the same reasoning is present for NVidia cards, but if the letters are in front (GT 220, GS 240, GTX 250, etc.), the second digit of the three digit number is all you need (0X0): if it's a 4 or higher, you'll do fine. All they did was move the letters to the front and trim off the unused 0 from the number.

Examples: Cards not wise to purchase for NVidia include 6200, 7800, 8200, 9100, G210. Bad ideas in ATI include HD 2000, HD 3200, and HD 4100. Better cards in NVidia are the 9800, GT 240, GTX 280, and as for ATI, HD 4600, HD 4850, and HD 5750 are all full of goodness.

A Word about Integrated Cards
Integrated video 3 out of 4 times will not handle CoH at all. NVidia chipsets offering a GeForce 7150, 8150 or G120 built-in GeForce will play CoH, but at less than Recommended settings. If you must get Intel GMA built-in video for your desktop, insist on the MHD4500 which will let you barely play at a decent frame rate. Unlike the laptops, if your graphic card is underwhelming, it can be upgraded later. And if your card burns out, you have backup video in the same PC without a spare card lying around. But bad is still bad.

Financial Aid Money - Advice
While it's none of my business, Grant money I would agree with. Whatever is needed for the education you're receiving. Besides, you don't have to pay it back.

But if you're taking loans, I'd keep the loan expenditures to only what is necessary. It's not wise to buy a computer on a loan when you have to pay back in 4-5 years on a PC that doesn't work anymore. A car I can narrowly justify if it still works when you repay it (and that's asking a lot), but a PC... think about it. It's your money, and I'm not a parent, but I've been there before myself.

I'm not on any loans actually. SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) gave me a huge scholarship just for doing well in High School and on my SAT's, so if I keep a B average I can get out of here with no loans at all. I actually would like to see your recommendations for netbooks, the more the better. I'll be e-mailing this entire thread to my parents for perusal.

Ooh...I'm liking the Lenovo IdeaPad. The HP Mini looked nice too but the link on the site sent me to the Verizon Wireless site of all things, and they wanted to rope me into a wireless contract. Thanks but no thanks.

So yeah, I think I'll be going with the Lenovo for the netbook. Now to look at desktops.