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Help me choose
Which of these laptop cards is the best for todays mmo's? I know there are other hardware variables to consider, but I am only wanting to know about these cards.
Thanks in advance
1. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics, 1024MB DDR3 VRAM
2. Radeon HD 6490M switchable graphics with 1024MB GDDR5, up to 3813MB total memory
3. AMD Radeon HD 6770M
4. AMD Radeon HD 6850M
5. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M graphics with 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM
6. NVIDIA GeForce GT 550M 1GB graphics with Optimus
Comments
With those choices I would go for number 5, it performs best among them and should be able to run any game if not maxed out then at least close.
Fast GPU, lots of memory.
The downside is that it uses most power of them all, so if you want to have longer battery lenght you should probably take number 1 instead, but it have a lot lower performance.
This one as well
6. AMD Radeon HD 6750M switchable graphics with 1024MB GDDR5, up to 4085MB total graphics memory
Actually I have narrowed down the laptop I want into just 3 of them now. Here are the specs for each. Could you please tell me which would be best for gaming. And, these are within my budget and I am able to finance them with a company that I am a member with, so this company is my only option right now. Thanks in advance:
1. Acer
Includes Aspire AS8943G-6449 PC, eight-cell lithium-ion battery, AC adapter, PC Treasures software (ships separately)
2.53GHz Intel Core i3-380M processor
18.4" diagonal CineCrystal Full HD widescreen LED-backlit display
4GB DDR3 RAM
500GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive
8X DVD SuperMulti double-layer drive
802.11b/g/n wireless
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics, 1024MB DDR3 VRAM
2. HP
ncludes Pavilion dv7-6179us PC, nine-cell lithium-ion battery, AC adapter, PC Treasures software
2.4GHz 2nd-generation Intel Core i5-2430M processor, up to 3.0GHz with Turbo Boost
17.3" diagonal HD+ BrightView LED display with 1600x900 resolution
6GB DDR3 SDRAM
750GB 5400 RPM hard drive, HP ProtectSmart hard drive protection
Blu-ray player/SuperMulti DVD burner
802.11b/g/n WiFi
Intel Wireless Display technology/WiDi-ready
Bluetooth technology
Radeon HD 6490M switchable graphics with 1024MB GDDR5, up to 3813MB total memory
3. HP
Includes Pavilion dv7-6165us notebook, nine-cell rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and AC adapter
VISION A8 technology from AMD with 2.4GHz/1.5GHz AMD quad-core A8-3500M accelerated processor
17.3" diagonal HD+ BrightView LED display with 1600x900 resolution
6GB DDR3 SDRAM
640GB 5400 RPM hard drive with HP ProtectSmart hard drive protection
SuperMulti DVD burner
802.11b/g/n wireless LAN
AMD Radeon HD 6750M switchable graphics with 1024MB GDDR5, up to 4085MB total graphics memory
OP, of the options you presented, I would consider the 5650 and 6490 no-goes from the start. They're not in the same league as the others.
Of the remaining options, here is the order from fastest to slowest:
1.) Geforce GTX 460M
2.) Radeon HD 6850M / Radeon HD 6770M (yes, they're about the same speed)
3.) Geforce GT 550M
What you should consider, is that Nvidia is nowhere near AMD in performance per watt. This means that a laptop with an Nvidia GPU will suffer from much greater heat and power draw. That may not matter much in a desktop, but in a laptop, that's critically bad for all sorts of obvious reasons.
#3 is the fastest for gaming, though it will actually go faster in many games if you can turn hybrid crossfire off.
Among the cards you list, the hierarchy goes:
GeForce GTX 460M > Radeon HD 6850M > Radeon HD 6770M > Radeon HD 6750M > GeForce GT 550M > Mobility Radeon HD 5650 > Radeon HD 6490M
Where are you able to buy the laptops and have them financed? None of those are overly sensible hardware configurations.
I am restricted to qvc.com right now because they will let me make deferred credit card payments. I need one now, but I won't take away from family Christmas gifts right now to get one. So, deferred payments or layaway is all I can do right now. But, if anyone knows of a place that will let me make interest free deferred credit card payments like qvc, let me know.
And what if qvc.com charges $1000 for a laptop that you can get for $700 elsewhere? You'd be better off paying $700 elsewhere and running a credit card balance for a while until you can pay it off. I think it was qvc.com that someone linked to once, saying he needed to buy from there, and the deals on the site were completely awful.
I just sent you a PM with some details.
What would you recommend in the 1200.00 range? Is this one a good gaming system?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1219120&CatId=4938
if you're okay with that price range, you could easily get the GTX 570M in an MSI laptop for roughly the same price.
GTX570M is roughly 15-20% faster than the GTX560M.
Asus does make quality products. They may not be POWERHOUSE products but you will not be dissapointed.
*Corsair Obsidian Series 650D *i5-2500K OC'd ~ 4.5
*Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 mother board
* Radeon HD 7970
*8GB (4GBx2) 1600MHz Kingston HyperX
*240GB Corsair Force GT Series SATA-III SSD
Do you have any good links to a suggested system in that range?
This isnt a good place to ask about whats best to game on laptops, I dont think any of these people like laptops in the first place or game on any of them either. Here is my youtube channel, http://www.youtube.com/notebookplayer, it shows how the ATI Mobility radeon 5650 plays in quite a few different games on my Lenovo Ideapad Y460.
You could try going to techinferno, its a laptop forum although there gaming knowledge isnt really much but they know a little about laptops, mostly alienware fans.
I would suggest a Lenovo Ideapad Y470 with a Geforce GT 550m graphics card, here is link, the Y470 as you can see is one of the best deals your going to find on the internet for 649.00$ althogh you can always find cheaper stuff out there.
There are plenty others as well, most of these laptops are under 500.00$ and all will game well.
Will your laptop, or any others you linked, play the higher end mmo's including SWTOR? Any build that you suggest would be greatly appreciated.
Yea, my laptop will play SWTOR maxed out. During intence PVP action when there is going to be alot of things going on, Ill overclock my graphics card with a software called "GPU TOOLS" and also use another software called "Gamebooster" to free up memory and shut down processes that arnt being used. Also turning down the settings some.
Im into the 13-14 inch laptop market, so for me my taste may be different then yours but ill list some of my current favorites. The nice thing about these types of laptops is you can take them anywhere in your house and game or outside as well, there light, small enough to carry around without much hassle and have as much power as most medium sized multimedia notebooks. The 15 inch market in laptops is definitly saturated, there is so many that are pritty crap but to the ill informed work as intended but for the gamer or enthisiast "aint goin fly". Also the 17 inch market is same way, theres alot of crap that isnt worth the money.
One thing to buy a laptop by is to know that just because its a bigger laptop doesnt mean its suppose to cost more. Its the components inside, to some degree. I really like the SONY CA series, the MSI x460DX(here is one in stock and if you see the refurbished link in there its even lower for 649.00$) is one of my favorites at the moment, it can be found cheaper on newegg, all the alienware laptops are premium, you can find 25% off coupons around the internet all the time for the outlet and for retail also if you look on slickdeals, i posted the link above in my last post.
http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8170-clevo-p170hm-p-2971.html?wconfigure=yes
This is a Sager Clevo model. ~ chip in the HD 6990M (Tied for Fastest Mobile GPU with the GTX 580M) and maybe slightly upgrade the CPU to the i7-2670QM. I would also drop to a 500gb 7200rpm HDD. This will cost you ~1480$$ with the instant savings. This laptop right there.. Will give just about the highest tier gaming performance you can get off a single GPU laptop. I game on a laptop as well, and would highly recommend that option.
Anything under that, I would get the MSI :
http://www.xoticpc.com/force-16f2012-msi-16f2-preorder-p-3376.html?wconfigure=yes
Upgrade the CPU to the 2670QM, change RAM to 2x4gb 1333mhz and swap HDD to the 500 gb 7200rpm. ~ 1280$$
Note: the Sager model up top with the 6990M in it will out hustle the MSI GTX 570M by roughly 15-25%. So in theory, you would be paying about 200$ more for 15-25% more power. Which could make a good difference. Another option would be to Accept the MSI gtx 570 for its lower graphics compared to the Sager (for lower cost as well) and throw in an 80-120gb SSD drive for primary and 500gb HHD for secondary.. and still be spending less than the Sager w/ 6990M with no SSD. SSD's are great for load times / responsiveness in all aspects of your rig, if you were okay with spending a few more $$ I would highly recommend grabbing one and keeping your OS and main games on it.
*Corsair Obsidian Series 650D *i5-2500K OC'd ~ 4.5
*Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 mother board
* Radeon HD 7970
*8GB (4GBx2) 1600MHz Kingston HyperX
*240GB Corsair Force GT Series SATA-III SSD
Those are very Low priced items, and very low tier benchmarks for gaming as well. Laptop gaming is not science OP, you don't have to go digging through multiple websites to try an find good options. If you tell us exactly what you are okay with spending, we can tell you what the 'BEST' options will be for you at that range. a 1400$ performance laptop can more than triple a 600$ laptops strength. So having a set price range will mean a lot. The two I have listed Above are ideal for 1200-1500$$ . They will indeed future proof you as well for several years.
Alienware - stay away from
*Corsair Obsidian Series 650D *i5-2500K OC'd ~ 4.5
*Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 mother board
* Radeon HD 7970
*8GB (4GBx2) 1600MHz Kingston HyperX
*240GB Corsair Force GT Series SATA-III SSD
I'd going to go a different tack and pick "The one with the best cooling system."
I've had too many overheating nightmares with laptops and games, I guess
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
My max budget is $1200.00. But, if I could stay at $800.00 - $1000.00 it would be great.
I want something that I can play SWTOR, RIFT and WoW on medium settings or higher. I play MMO's only, so I am not worried about maxing out other games.
And, thank you all very much for the help. I have very little experience with laptops.
Jarazar, if that's your max budget, then here's what I think your best options would look like.
A.) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157873
That machine has a decent processor, a decent video card, and also includes a blu-ray drive, and unlike other machines linked, has considerable battery life (up to 10 hours), so when not playing games, it's a great general mobile computer and portable blu-ray player. It also weighs only 6.7lbs, which is pretty good.
The downsides are that its screen is only 1600x900; this will actually help with gaming, because you can play at the native resulotion (games look nasty when you don't), but get good framerates, something that might not be guaranteed with a 1080p screen. On the flip side, 1080p is still better looking and includes more detail, and you're not playing games that would necessarily overpower that GPU at any resolution or settings. Also, HP has a history for inferior reliability, and because their machines aren't tailor-made to gaming, I would count on them including underwhelming cooling (which is why I'd only get a 17' model from them; the cheaper 15' version I just wouldn't trust, cooling-wise).
B.) http://www.xoticpc.com/force-1761-msi-1761-p-3152.html?wconfigure=yes
This is another 17' screen, and with a core i7 2630qm upgrade, 8GB of ram thrown in (a must, because they'll only give you 4GB in single channel), and a copy of Windows 7, is squeezes just in under $1200 before shipping. It also has surround sound outputs, which I think is kind of cool, if only useful with a surround headset or speakers.
The 15.6 inch version is here, but it comes to the same price, so you might as well opt for the bigger screen unless portability is a serious issue, and really, these days 17' laptops don't weigh much more than 15.6-16' laptops at all, so it's only a size difference.
The downside is that this monster sucks power like crazy. I don't know its exact consumption and thermal output, but it has a 180W power pack (according to MSI); that should be revealing right there. That's DOUBLE my gaming laptop's power supply, and it has a power hungry setup itself: Core i7 720qm and Radeon HD 5730.
This is why, in a perfect world, I would never recommend Nvidia cards for laptops; they suck power like crazy.
This laptop DOES have one very interesting upshot for later down the road, too. I has two hard drive bays, which means you could stick with that slow 640gb 5400rpm HDD now (upgrading it isn't in your budget), and then put an SSD in the second bay later on. That way you could combined a fast SSD, say 120gb, with a slow, but larger storage drive, something that's ideal in desktops but that laptops don't usually allow.
Between then, I'd probably pick the second one; it's more powerful than the first, and it isn't an HP, which is its own benefit. I also think the storage options are really interesting
Now, there ARE machines in lower price brackets, but you really compromise performance to save that few hundred dollars, and given that you're putting down this much money for a machine, I think it's only prudent to make sure it lasts awhile, so this is one case where you want to stretch that budget.
If you're happy with medium settings, then just get a cheap Llano system and call it a day.
For example, here:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Processor&v1=AMD&series_name=g6z_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/AMD/g6z_series
Upgrade to an A8-3500M and a 7200 RPM hard drive. Either switch the memory to 4 GB with 2 DIMMs (yes, that is better than 6 GB), or 4 GB with 1 DIMM and buy your own 4 GB module elsewhere ($20) and add it yourself. That will get you something decent enough for $550-$570.
Or for something a little nicer, try here:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Processor&v1=AMD&series_name=dv6zqe_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/AMD/dv6zqe_series
Upgrade to an A8-3530MX, a 7200 RPM hard drive, and make the same memory adjustments as before, and it comes to $730-$750. The main benefit here is that the same processor and graphics can run faster with a 45 W TDP than 35 W.
Alright...I have talked the wife into the use of her credit card. These are within my budget. Help me choose the best out of these choices:
1. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7124324&CatId=4938
2. http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Qosmio-X775-Q7270-17-3-Inch-Screen/dp/tech-data/B0057483DK/ref=de_a_smtd
3. http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_020V004287934000P?prdNo=1&blockNo=1&blockType=G1
4. http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_020V004279233000P?prdNo=11&blockNo=11&blockType=G11
5. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230099&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176333&SID=pj4j1kvm3us1
6. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+/+Intel®+Core™+i7+Processor+/+17.3"+Display+/+8GB+Memory+/+1TB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/2712579.p?id=1218346639131&skuId=2712579
7. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157873&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176333&SID=q7u2qe56xest
Question:
Is the 17" screen that much better than the 15.6" for gaming?
If those are seriously your only options, then 1, 5, or 6 makes the most sense. The basic difference is that (1) has a slightly slower video card (basically the same thing but clocked lower), (5) has a smaller monitor, and (6) is $100 more expensive.
The glaring problem with (3) and (7) is that you can get basically the same thing much more cheaply if you buy directly from HP rather than getting an HP laptop resold by some other site. If a 15" monitor is enough for you, then check here:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Intel+processors&v1=Intel+2nd+gen+Core&series_name=dv6tqe_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/Intel_2nd_gen_Core/dv6tqe_series
Upgrade to the Radeon HD 6770M 1 GB and a 7200 RPM hard drive and it comes to $915.
Those aren't my only options. They are within my $1100.00 budget. If you could find me a better setup in that price range, please share. And...I am very appreciative of your help! And...does a 17" screen make that much of a difference vs. the 15.6"?