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**cavalcade** · 20-07-2007, 14:35

First of all ask yourself do you really want a laptop? For £500 you'll get a decent gaming rig (indeed glazza is selling one on this forum) and a decent 22inch monitor capable of chewing most modern gaming titles.

Laptops are not ideal platforms for gaming. They are expensive, date quickly, and are difficult to keep up to date and repair. I have a Rock gaming laptop that is about a year old, and it cost £3K new. It's probably worth a third of that now. It is awesome, but you can practically hear it depreciating when it's sitting on the table.

Processor speed and memory are only part of the problem in creating a gaming laptop. The critical bit is the graphics chip (and to an extent the quality of the screen). And the Dell, like most, if not all laptops in that price bracket features a dreadful integrated graphics chip that has no dedicated memory, and will struggle to even render PacMan. Finding a laptop in the price bracket you're looking at capable of running Half Life 2 as Valve intended can be challenging.

To be fair I had some positive results on HL2 with an ancient Dell Inspiron 8200 with a 64Mb dedicated graphics chip, so the Dell you suggest might be able to cope, but I'd scour eBay for a laptop (Rock I would recommend, or Alienware, or some of the Evesham gaming range, or perhaps an older Dell XPS) which was perhaps a cutting edge gaming machine 3 years ago - you may well get lucky. I'd look for at least 128Mb dedicated VRAM, maybe 256Mb if you're really lucky. I have seen a couple of bargains come up on rllmuk along these lines too.

Other things to consider:

Most laptops are designed as laptops. A gaming laptop may pack a desktop chip, and a power hungry graphics card. Don't expect it to be portable. And don't keep it on your lap, or you won't have kids.

Remember to a get a screen you like. Glass faced screens can offer greater contrast, but also greater reflection. But coated screens can drive some people mad. Remember to get a resolution you're comfortable with, and which the graphics chip can comfortably output to.

Most laptop hard drives are SLOW. 4200rpm is common. Find one with at least a 5400rpm drive, or preferably a 7200rpm one with a decent cache, or you'll be waiting 3 hours for Far Cry to load.

Finally - don't buy one. Gaming laptops are the most ostentatious things in the gaming universe!

**cavalcade** · 20-07-2007, 14:37

PS: And don't go into PC World. You may as well visit a robber and hand over your money to them.

**Malc** · 20-07-2007, 14:43

So i should buy a PC with the specs i'm looking for?

**cavalcade** · 20-07-2007, 14:51

Originally posted by Malc View Post

So i should buy a PC with the specs i'm looking for?

I would only buy a gaming laptop if:

1) Money is no object or you have more money than sense
2) You have a genuine need for high mobility for your gaming rig

Laptops in general are a great idea. Gaming laptops are a dumb idea. I have one of course, but then I'm a rich idiot.

It's very much up to you, but if you want to play Oblivion at a decent clip, looking nice, on a large monitor for ?500 the only way you'll realistically get that is via the Desktop route (i.e. you could buy glazza's rig, and spend another ?200 on a large widescreen monitor). You might turn up a bargain, but realistically I think you'd be looking at the first wave of gaming laptops now sitting in the ?500 bracket, which means bulky chassis, lots of heat, no battery life, and probably poor resale value. If you had the money for an Xtreme CTX Pro or similar (rockdirect.com) then the experience would be very positive - true portable gaming. But it's probably 4 times your budget.

If you were willing to not worry so much about Oblivion and STALKER, and concentrate on HL2 era PC games, then you could probably get something in the sub ?500 range that would cope quite nicely - but again, you have to balance this against a desktop PC, or 360 + HDTV rig....

**Malc** · 20-07-2007, 15:00

If i was to get a PC which type would you reccomend for me that could run Oblivion and Stalker etc, around my budget? (If possible a link?)

Also would i be able to use a PC monitor to view my Xbox 360 games through it? As If i Bought a PC then it would have to take over my TV position

**cavalcade** · 20-07-2007, 15:16

Originally posted by Malc View Post

If i was to get a PC which type would you reccomend for me that could run Oblivion and Stalker etc, around my budget? (If possible a link?)

Also would i be able to use a PC monitor to view my Xbox 360 games through it? As If i Bought a PC then it would have to take over my TV position

PC Desktop recommendations... I'm not much use there, I don't have my finger on the pulse on desktops any more! I'm sure other members here can step in and help out!

Yes, the 360 can output via VGA, or component. There are a fair few flat panels with component/VGA and HDMI inputs - the 24inch widescreen Dell panel is very good, but still fairly pricey. So it would be easy to have a 360 and PC connected to a monitor.

But it might make sense to get a HDTV though, which can double up as a monitor if you intend to use one as your main TV. There's something on the Bargains subforum about a ?299 32inch HDTV which is meant to be decent. Perhaps that and some boffin here can find a decent desktop rig for ?200.... ?

All very complicated questions though - and I don't want to put you off a gaming laptop if that's what you really want!

**Malc** · 20-07-2007, 15:24

But i'm put off for good reason!

Basicly all i would like is a decent PC setup which can play some newer games, around the region off £500 pounds, I don't have a money plantation in my garden to buy a full on HDTV, and a PC. But i've wanted a decent PC for ages and have only just made a move to get one.

Thankyou for all your help cavalcade!

Very much appreciated.

Can anyone else suggest what kind of specs i would need to run Oblivion or Stalker well? Not full spec' just decently with no real problems. As i have to chose on Dell's website what parts need to be what power? e.g RAM, Processor, graphics card etc.

**Malc** · 20-07-2007, 15:59

How would this cope with the Oblivion and STALKER era of games?

PROCESSOR:AMD® Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+

OPERATING: SYSTEM:Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic - English

MONITOR: Dell™ 17" Value Flat Panel (SE177FP) - UK/Irish

MEMORY:2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]

HARD DRIVE:160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache

GRAPHICS CARD:256 MB ATI® Radeon® X1300 PCI Express graphics card

OPTICAL DRIVE:16x DVD +/- RW Drive

Anything there too powerfull for the rest? I may aswell degrade it to save money if one thing is too powerfull and won't do anything. I customised it on DELL, and it comes to £591.01 alltogether

**sj33** · 20-07-2007, 16:17

The graphics card is very low end, it might be good enough, but if possible look at how much it would be to add something a bit better, X1650 Pro or XT maybe.

You really do make a better PC by building it yourself, though I appriciate not everyone feels comfortable doing that first time.

**Malc** · 20-07-2007, 16:22

I went for the 2nd one up with the graphics card. The next one is a 256MB nVidia GeForce 8600GT graphics card. Theres no other higher options, would that be alright?

Also would that monitor be able to work with my Xbox 360? And alltogether do i have to put all the parts together or do DELL do that for me?

**sj33** · 20-07-2007, 16:45

The 8600GT will be fine, it's high-mid range, will run any game.

You will be able to use your 360 on basically any monitor, you just need to use the 360 VGA cable. Be aware that monitor is not widescreen though, and since there is only 1 VGA port on the screen, you will have to unplug between the two. If you have the option to order the PC minus screen, you could do that and get a monitor elsewhere.

Dell will put it together for you, that's what you pay the preimum price for.

**Malc** · 20-07-2007, 16:54

It doesn't take much to swap the screen between 360 and PC so i should be alright.

What type of era of games will this rig be able to play, I think it says i can upgrade parts to this type of computer, so later on i could allways upgrade.

PROCESSOR: AMD® Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3600+

OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic - English

MONITOR: Dell™ 17" Value Flat Panel (SE177FP) - UK/Irish

MEMORY: 1024MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x512]

HARD DRIVE: 160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache

GRAPHICS CARD: 256 MB ATI® Radeon® X1300 PCI Express graphics card

OPTICAL DRIVE: 16x DVD +/- RW Drive

**Malc** · 20-07-2007, 21:20

Right, i've decided i'm gona make my own PC but does anyone know the best place to order the parts from?

Cheers,
Malc

**wakka** · 20-07-2007, 21:39

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ and http://www.ebuyer.co.uk/ are good places to start.

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