Reasonably game-capable laptop for ~?600

[sj33]

My brother is looking to get a laptop. He has a flexible budget, but doesn't want to spend too much. I was looking at Dell to see what configurations you could get for that price.

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&kc=NRS15351&l=en&m_30=111789&oc=N0053505&rbc=N0053505&s=dhs

Does anyone know of a more powerful configuration for a similar price?

The key thing is that it must be able to run FFXIV well. I know we don't know the system requirements yet, but we can assume that something at least as powerful as an 8600m will run it reasonably well. I've not really been following ATi cards, how does the 512MB Radeon Mobility 4570 compare?

[Hohum]

Tough call really. I'd imagine you'd want something a bit better than 8600 standards though, as FFXIV will probably be fairly demanding in terms of graphics. Sure, you could probably run it on mush settings, but then it really would kill the experience...

Anyway, had a quick look, and it doesn't appear you can get anything much better without spending an extra 200-300 quid. Laptops are so bloody expensive... I'll stick with my desktop.

[abigsmurf]

The desktop versions of 8600s are horribly underpowered cards. To be honest I'd wager the card wouldn't run FFXIV at all well even on low settings. They also have some fairly major reliability issues.

This is a better gaming laptop Generation in front of the 8600 and it gets about 70% more performance. Still no idea how well it will cope with FFXIV but it's DX10 at least.

Gets a fairly glowing review : http://www.laptopmag.com/review/lapt...23.aspx?page=1

I'd be surprised if you get a significantly better laptop for gaming than that for a while at that price range (although the 40nm GPUs are around the corner)

Be warned though, you're in the territory of 'desktop replacement' laptops. Big, heavy and they'll roast your thighs *cough*.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/

This is an excellent site that lists all the laptop GPUs and orders them by benchmark performance.

[sj33]

Thanks for the advice, the above laptop looks ideal.

He needs a laptop for college too, hence he's looking for one now. I have recommended to him that he should get a stopgap laptop for now (like the cheap £200 ones at Asda, or maybe a netbook) and get a laptop for FFXIV nearer the time when you will be able to get more powerful laptops for cheaper. The decision is in his hands.

[abigsmurf]

If he doesn't want it for gaming right now, a cheap stopgap is the way to go. FFXIV, assuming a fast beta process will likely be autumn next year at a minimum and there should be fairly drastic changes in both laptop CPUs (core i5s) and 40nm GPUs.

Low end laptops tend to hold their resale value on ebay fairly well as there's a big market for cheap-as-possible systems

[sj33]

He decided to go for the aforementioned Acer laptop. His decision, and it's a really nice laptop for the price. Maybe he should have waited, but he's not the type who would loose sleep if he had to drag some of the graphical settings down in FFXIV (hell, he endured the 360 version of FFXI), but we'll wait and see.

Anyway, it obviously comes with Vista, but I gather he should be entitled to a free upgrade to Windows 7? Can someone explain to me how that works?

[Hohum]

I think you'll get a voucher bundled with it, but not sure.

[sj33]

Hate to give this a bump, but it makes more sense than starting a new topic. Is the above Acer Aspire 6930G still the best deal for the price? It looks like my own laptop might be on it's own legs (GPU seems to be dying).

[Rav]

Hi Guys,

I haven't dabbled in the PC market since I last built my currect PC in 2003 and need some advice. I'm in the market for decent performing laptop to replace my desktop. So far, i,ve found this:

http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5739_Laptop_LX.PH602.198/version.asp

I've checked out reviews on this and most seem to think its a great all-rounder with decent gaming performance (for my gaming needs, i want be needing cutting-edge H/W), and it seems portable enough to take to the library.

For the specs and price, what do you think?

[sj33]

I got myself almost that exact laptop just before Christmas. It has decent gaming performance, I can play Resi 5, Mass Effect, Devil May Cry 4, Street Fighter 4 etc in max graphical settings, and older stuff like Outrun 2006 and KOTOR with 16x AA/AF That said, I paid about £100 less than that.

This seems to be a better deal https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Fuji...60_679015.html
The spec is near identical. It is only DDR2 (whereas the other one is DDR3), but the CPU's FSB will be limiting the RAM to 800MHz even if you went DDR3. As a bonus, it has Blu-Ray and a 500GB HDD. The website is where I bought mine, so it's credible (unfortunately, they don't seem to have mine on there anymore).

Alternatively, if you wanted to stick to your original budget, this one on Play has a better CPU with 1066FSB and DDR3 RAM, but no Blu-Ray http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/121344...k/Product.html

I must say that that Aspire speakers are mighty impressive, it has a TUBA subwoofer which gives things that bit of extra 'depth'. If this is a consideration, you might want to go with the Acer.

[briareos_kerensky]

I just bought a 15.6 XPS Studio from Dell, C2D P7450, 4gb, Radeon HD4570 and extra battery for less than 900€, until the 20th of January they have some pretty decent deals. Didn't really care about the GPU as I'm not planning to do any heavy gaming on it, but they are shaving around 300€ from some of their models.

[Rav]

Cheers lads, I really appreciate your help.

Shakey: That fujitsu for the same specs does indeed look like good deal, I'll check out more of that website later.

briareos: There seems to be some decents deal on there, I have say I saw this (http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...3c655e140a8792) and was kind of tempted but a 17 inch isn't really that portable.

[sj33]

The one specced on Dell has a CPU with 1066FSB, which puts the CPU above the T6600 (which has 800FSB). Funnily enough, the RAM is 1333MHz so it'll still be throttled to 1066, but it'll be running faster than the T6600 regardless. That said, the GeForce GT 240m is better than the Radeon 4650, which might actually matter more for gaming since GPU is normally more important as long as you have a decent dual core CPU.

Note that the Acer and Fujitsu are both 16:9 ratio (rather than the standard 16:10). Many people don't like this for various reasons, but they are definately more portable (the screen, and thus overall machine, is smaller vertically than standard 15.4" latops, but longer horizonally). I was a bit concerned about portability when I got my Aspire 5739, bit it's surprisingly small footprint and light.

[Decider-VT]

An apologetic pre-amble: I haven't been in the market for a new PC for five years, so forgive my lack of knowledge.

My main desktop PC died after eight years of long service and I'm at university now, although I'm still living in my flat. Ideally I'd have a self-built desktop computer at home and a laptop that acts as a satellite for it, allowing me to work on things at university, play games if I got bored and bring all of my work home for synchronisation with the main PC.

The thing is, no matter where I look I end up feeling that I need bigger, better and faster. I really know that I should be looking for an XP laptop that costs around £400, has a decent amount of RAM and a sizeable HDD so I can save money towards the main beast. I'm a bit wary of Acer laptops as the one I'm currently writing this on arrived with a stuck pixel on the (very washed out) LCD screen and the hinges cracked after eight months of non-portable use.

I've had a look at this laptop from MESH but it probably exceeds all of my requirements by some margin and I'm not convinced that the price is the best I'd get for the performance. It also has Windows 7, which I've never used and don't really feel the need to upgrade to. I suspect that I'd get a better level of performance if I was running XP on a system with the same specifications.

Does anybody have any thoughts or suggestions? I was rather happy with MESH when I bought my desktop PC in 2002- it was well-made and neatly organised inside, with hardly any frivolous extras. I'm hoping that their laptops are of the same quality. I'm also not much of a modern PC gamer- I'd probably play WoW occasionally, interspersed with Guild Wars and a few retro titles like Planescape Torment.

[sj33]

I suspect you really will want to go Windows 7 on any new machine, as it's much better designed to utilise multi-core CPUs, and XP also won't be able to utilise all 4GB of your RAM (you will have access to about 3.5GB).