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Gaming laptop for ~1000

Son0fZeusSon0fZeus Member Posts: 49

 

 

I'm l for a gaming laptop for ~1000$ (could go up to ~1250 if there is a HUGE advantage) 

I'm currently waiting for Diablo III, Tera, Archage, and afcourse GW2. 

I'm looking for a computer to run those games very smoothly. 

I tried looking myself and I was about to build my own PC but the one I have is still doing fine and I would like a laptop this time. When I looked online there was so many different sites promising this laptop is #1 for the price right now...but I dont buy it.

Something with a mininmum 15.5" screen would be nice, and I'm not sure how much I trust cheap brands so the better reputation of the brand, the better for me. 

I was thinking of buying the laptop very soon but might way till August latest, by the time fall semester starts I need to have it.

If anyone can help me out that would be great. 

 

PS: I dont need windows7 to be installed on the laptop nor any type of antivirus protection.ooking

 

Comments

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347

    In that case, I'd strongly recommend waiting, as important new hardware is coming very soon.

    On the processor side, rumors say that Intel's Ivy Bridge processors will launch on April 29 and AMD's Trinity APUs will launch on May 15.  Ivy Bridge will be a lot better than Sandy Bridge and Trinity will be a lot better than Llano, so anything that you could possibly buy today will be very obsolete and very soon.

    On the video card side, AMD's Cape Verde and Pitcairn GPUs are vastly better than any laptop video cards you can buy today.  (Pitcairn for high performance, Cape Verde for decent performance with low power consumption, and PowerTune on both.)  AMD hasn't officially launched them yet for laptops, but they're ready (and have been available for purchase in desktops for a while now) and AMD could do the official launch whenever they feel like it.  Presumably AMD is waiting until some laptop vendor wants to actually use the new cards in a laptop, which probably means, when Ivy Bridge and/or Trinity launch.  A new laptop released today would be a very short-lived SKU because of the upcoming processor launches.

    Nvidia has their GK106 and GK107 GPUs coming as well, but it's less clear as to when.  They're also much better than any laptop video cards that you can buy today.  Nvidia has let some information out about GK107, but hasn't said anything about GK106.  I'm guessing that the rough hierarchy in laptop GPU performance will be:

    GK107 < Cape Verde << GK106 < Pitcairn,

    but that's just a guess.  Nvidia will surely launch their Kepler cards in time for Ivy Bridge if they can, but that's a big if.

  • Son0fZeusSon0fZeus Member Posts: 49

    thanks man guess ill just watch the forums n wait till fall 

  • BrendaarBrendaar Member Posts: 2
    Look at ASUS gaming laptops (Republic of Gamers line). I own one and have been very very happy with it. For about 1200 dollars you will get a machine that will run almost every game on high settings. ASUS knows what they are doing when it come to gaming rigs.
    I have an MSI gaming laptop as well. Its good, but if anything happens to it ill be SOL because the customer service is the worst ive ever seen. Buyers be warned.
  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,435

    Originally posted by Quizzical

    In that case, I'd strongly recommend waiting, as important new hardware is coming very soon.

    On the processor side, rumors say that Intel's Ivy Bridge processors will launch on April 29 and AMD's Trinity APUs will launch on May 15.  Ivy Bridge will be a lot better than Sandy Bridge and Trinity will be a lot better than Llano, so anything that you could possibly buy today will be very obsolete and very soon.

    On the video card side, AMD's Cape Verde and Pitcairn GPUs are vastly better than any laptop video cards you can buy today.  (Pitcairn for high performance, Cape Verde for decent performance with low power consumption, and PowerTune on both.)  AMD hasn't officially launched them yet for laptops, but they're ready (and have been available for purchase in desktops for a while now) and AMD could do the official launch whenever they feel like it.  Presumably AMD is waiting until some laptop vendor wants to actually use the new cards in a laptop, which probably means, when Ivy Bridge and/or Trinity launch.  A new laptop released today would be a very short-lived SKU because of the upcoming processor launches.

    Nvidia has their GK106 and GK107 GPUs coming as well, but it's less clear as to when.  They're also much better than any laptop video cards that you can buy today.  Nvidia has let some information out about GK107, but hasn't said anything about GK106.  I'm guessing that the rough hierarchy in laptop GPU performance will be:

    GK107 < Cape Verde << GK106 < Pitcairn,

    but that's just a guess.  Nvidia will surely launch their Kepler cards in time for Ivy Bridge if they can, but that's a big if.

    What do you suppose the laptop price point will be for these once they launch.  Will the lower end machines likely start using them or at first will it only be in the 2-3K tier?

    Might be better to buy a low end Asus for this year and plan on upgrading to this new hardware once they migrate downward some.

     

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  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347

    If you want me to take a stab at guessing prices, I'll say that at launch, it will be somewhere around:

    Top bin Trinity running integrated graphics:  $700

    Top bin Trinity plus top bin Cape Verde:  $900

    Ivy Bridge Core i7 plus top bin GK107:  $900

    Top bin Trinity plus top bin Pitcairn:  $1400

    Ivy Bridge Core i7 plus top bin GK106:  $1400

    I don't say top bin Ivy Bridge because the top bin will be $1000 for the processor alone.  The quad core Core i7 bin that most people actually buy will be more like $200-$300 for the processor.

    I don't know if we'll see Cape Verde and Pitcairn paired with Ivy Bridge processors or not.  I'd be very surprised to see Trinity plus Kepler laptops.  I'm expecting the performance hierarchy on video cards to go:

    GK107 < Cape Verde << GK106 < Pitcairn, with a chance of Nvidia eventually cramming GK104 into laptops to ensure that they have the fastest video card there.

    My guess is that on the processor side, you'd rather have Ivy Bridge than Trinity, and on the video card side, you'd rather have Southern Islands than Kepler.  But both of those will be by narrower margins than the previous generation.  Trinity will at least have a strong case for being "good enough" for gaming, which Llano never did.  And AMD's performance per watt advantage over Nvidia has vanished, leaving PowerTune as the main reason to prefer AMD video cards in a laptop.

  • eyceleycel Member Posts: 1,334

    Iv been purchasing gaming laptops since they were made available, well the good ones, in at around 2002-2003 when laptops became a viable alternative to desktops, with 128 mebabytes of video memory.  The current market is one that its easy to overpay like Iv mentioned in alot of my previous posts.  If your a first time buyer, I would definitely not overspend on something your not to sure about.  The 15 inch market for laptops is definitely there but, in that class size its easy to start overspending on stuff that isnt worth it as apposed to the smaller 11-14 inch market.  To be honest, from my perspective as a buyer, who only wants the best of the best in terms of bang for buck and usability and power, there really isnt a whole lot out there to suggest to you. Sure theres dozens of gaming laptop brands but none that hit the 3 things i mentioned.  I will go ahead and list some any way to you. 

    The first thing that comes to my mind when looking at your specific requirements would be a clevo branded laptop, malibal makes a very nice one for exactly $1000.00, here is link http://www.malibal.com/boutique/pc/configurePrd.asp?idProduct=524.  That is a very powerfull laptop that would definitely run all your games you could throw at it for years with the 670m nvidia.  Its a clevo made laptop though, so sager makes the same thing as well as xotic pc but its cheap at malibal.  

    Even tho you said you didnt want to go lower then 15 inch laptop, I cant help but mentioning the new Lenovo Ideapad Y480/580, the 580 is a 15 inch laptop.  Its shipping with brand new Nvidia Geforce GT 650/660 graphics cards.  The 480 is set to release later this month in april, here is link to that, http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/ideapad/y-series/, the y480 is there to click on it if you want to read about it.  I own the Y460, it was last years model, and after owning gaming laptops, I have to say Im so very impressed with the Y series Ideapad.  I game on it every day with all the latest games, you can see how it runs games on my youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/notebookplayer, everything on that channel was run of my laptop.

      Like I was saying at the start of my reply, its hard to find a laptop that hits all the areas well thats makes it a good buy.  I have to say, being a laptop enthusiast, the best possible buy you could do this month is by leaps and bounds the Y480/580 series.  It will have the new Ivy bridge processors as well as the brand new Nvidia GPUs. A good portion of the laptop market is non-legit with overly expensive SSD's and video cards that are underclocked with GDDR3 memory in them instead of better GDDR5 memory(the new Y series lenovos have GDDR5), also lacking many features for no good reason which the Ideapad series has backlit keyboard and just a better keyboard in general compared to most laptops specifically gaming laptops. 

    Other brands to look at of course would be asus,acer,sony,hp,dell/alienware,cyberpower,msi, in all those though I cant really recommend anything at the moment.  Alienware is nice but I would never recommend it to a first time buyer, owning an alienware my self they are very expensive and you dont get a whole lot unless your an enthusiast.  Asus, everyone seems to love them but I wouldn't recommend the G series in any circumstances, just to gaudy looking to me, altough they are built well I think, they are so damn cheesy, I tend to recomend something that has more taste that you wouldn't be embarrassed to show to adults or some where in public.

    Another new laptop to watch out for is the Acer Timeline Ultra M3, its labled as a gaming laptop on the go, its 15 inch laptop which should start at 999.00$ and have a late april release or early may.   With a buy like this laptop, the best thing to do if you got cash to spend on a laptop is not to buy something that has been released for years and pay top dollar for it, your better of buying something brand spanken new, being the first few to get your hands on it and own it is worth it if at all possible.  So before buying something that is old, I would suggest the M3 acer or the new Ideapad Y480/580 to be released later in april.  I would have to say though, to definitely check out the Y480 laptop, Iv never been so excited for a release of a laptop, its very revolutionary being able to fit a GDDR5 dedicated graphics card with so much power in a 14 inch laptop, its definitely more powerfull then 99% of the 15 inch laptops available I would say.



    Theres a ton of laptops to talk about, not all of them as exciting as the soon to be released Y480 or Acer M3 but there out there none the less. Envy has some cool new 15 and 17 inch laptops, they even got IPS displays but there expensive and used underclocked GDDR3 graphics cards in them. I would steer clear of MSI this year, even though they got some good gaming laptops there very expensive for what you get and there upgrades are terrible this year if you ask me.  If you have any questions if you find something you like hit me up on my youtube channel if you like or skype, my nick name is jefferybaks.

    image

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347

    The Malibal laptop you link is well over $1000, and that's even with no OS and a dual core processor that will struggle with games sooner rather than later.

    The Acer Timeline laptop that you link has a low voltage processor that will struggle greatly with more than a few games on the market today.  That's only going to get worse in the future, and it's not a gaming laptop at all.

    The Lenovo Y-480 might be a decent option once it launches, but there's no reason to believe that it will be much better than other companies launching laptops based on the same hardware at the same time.  When the Ivy Bridge embargo ends, it ends for everyone, not just Lenovo.

    That said, it's far from clear that Nvidia will have enough GK107 dies available for what laptop vendors need in time for the Ivy Bridge launch.

  • gordiflugordiflu Member UncommonPosts: 757

    Unless you want/need to move often and want/need to be able to play wherever you are, there's not much point in getting gaming laptot.

    You mentioned you have a "normal" PC.

    I bet you are aware that the money that can buy you a decent gaming laptop can buy you a beast of a gaming PC.

    Now, if you do want to be able to bring your laptop to places and play everywhere you are, ppl here have been giving plenty of good advice.

    I am just saying becouse I am lately seeing lots of people buying laptops just becouse it's fancy and all that, without actually needing them, thus spending way more money than what they actually need to.

     

  • xenogiasxenogias Member Posts: 1,926

    Originally posted by gordiflu

    Unless you want/need to move often and want/need to be able to play wherever you are, there's not much point in getting gaming laptot.

    You mentioned you have a "normal" PC.

    I bet you are aware that the money that can buy you a decent gaming laptop can buy you a beast of a gaming PC.

    Now, if you do want to be able to bring your laptop to places and play everywhere you are, ppl here have been giving plenty of good advice.

    I am just saying becouse I am lately seeing lots of people buying laptops just becouse it's fancy and all that, without actually needing them, thus spending way more money than what they actually need to.

     

    So sick of seeing comments like this. "Well you know, you dont really need a laptop except for reason xxx". Guess what. The person decided they wanted a laptop and its thier money. They dont wnat your opinion on why they should or shouldnt get one. In paticular people looking at gaming laptops. They know they want one and how much they have to spend on it but may not know where the best deals are. I was in the same boat. I ended up getting an 18inch Clevo from cyberpowerpc (which I wouldnt reccomend based on a bad service experience and alittle higher prices compared to other custom laptop sites). I was told 100 diffrent times on diffrent forums that it "wouldnt be what you want" because of size/weight and "if you are getting something like that its not for transporting daily, get a desktop". Thoes people where wrong. I LOVE the laptop and I do take it to work with me on a daily basis.

    Sorry bout the little rant. Just get tired of people trying to tell other people what they need/dont need. OP, follow quiz's advice. He knows what he is talking about. Also keep in mind when the new hardware comes out the older stuff will drop in price and a laptop you would pay 2k for now (like I did a few months ago) will be closer to 1k. Get an idea of what you want and then price shop. Malibal is definitly a good site to keep your eye on imo. Also if you look hard enough you an find discounts by joining certain websites. I dont have it on me now but if I dont forget when I get home from work tonight I'll get a link to a laptop forums where joining and posting a few times will get you a 5-10% discount through various dealers (malibal being one of them).

  • gordiflugordiflu Member UncommonPosts: 757

    Originally posted by xenogias

    Originally posted by gordiflu

    Unless you want/need to move often and want/need to be able to play wherever you are, there's not much point in getting gaming laptot.

    You mentioned you have a "normal" PC.

    I bet you are aware that the money that can buy you a decent gaming laptop can buy you a beast of a gaming PC.

    Now, if you do want to be able to bring your laptop to places and play everywhere you are, ppl here have been giving plenty of good advice.

    I am just saying becouse I am lately seeing lots of people buying laptops just becouse it's fancy and all that, without actually needing them, thus spending way more money than what they actually need to.

     

    So sick of seeing comments like this. "Well you know, you dont really need a laptop except for reason xxx". Guess what. The person decided they wanted a laptop and its thier money. They dont wnat your opinion on why they should or shouldnt get one. In paticular people looking at gaming laptops. They know they want one and how much they have to spend on it but may not know where the best deals are. I was in the same boat. I ended up getting an 18inch Clevo from cyberpowerpc (which I wouldnt reccomend based on a bad service experience and alittle higher prices compared to other custom laptop sites). I was told 100 diffrent times on diffrent forums that it "wouldnt be what you want" because of size/weight and "if you are getting something like that its not for transporting daily, get a desktop". Thoes people where wrong. I LOVE the laptop and I do take it to work with me on a daily basis.

    Sorry bout the little rant. Just get tired of people trying to tell other people what they need/dont need. OP, follow quiz's advice. He knows what he is talking about. Also keep in mind when the new hardware comes out the older stuff will drop in price and a laptop you would pay 2k for now (like I did a few months ago) will be closer to 1k. Get an idea of what you want and then price shop. Malibal is definitly a good site to keep your eye on imo. Also if you look hard enough you an find discounts by joining certain websites. I dont have it on me now but if I dont forget when I get home from work tonight I'll get a link to a laptop forums where joining and posting a few times will get you a 5-10% discount through various dealers (malibal being one of them).

    OMG, ppl in these forums are just hilarious sometimes.

    The OP asks for advice, so I give him advice, simple as.

    You are free to waste your money however you like. I couldn't care less. The guy was asking for advice, and mine was "if you don't really need/want a laptop, you can get more power for the same price. If you do need/want it, there's plenty of good advice in the previous posts". This simple. It was a honest friendly one, with good intentions.

    Bloody forum berserkers...

     

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347

    While we're on the desktop versus laptop bit, I think it's important for the original poster to realize that a laptop isn't just like a desktop except portable.  There are some serious disadvantages that the laptop form factor brings in order to make it portable.  If you've got a decent gaming desktop that is two years old, then a $1000 gaming laptop will probably be a substantial downgrade in performance.

    If you understand that and accept that, and need a laptop for some purpose, and figure you might as well throw a few hundred extra dollars more at it to make it viable for gaming, then go ahead.  Especially with the next generation hardware that is coming soon, it will be decent enough for gaming, and not at all like the gaming laptops of a few years ago that could run games, but not at the settings and frame rates you want even when brand new, and then performance only goes downhill from there as time passes.  And now you can get gaming desktops with decent idle battery life, too, which is also a relatively new development of the past two years or so.

    Just don't get the idea that the laptop is going to be an upgrade or make it so that you don't need to upgrade/replace your desktop as soon as you otherwise would.

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