The Best Gaming Laptop Money Can Buy 161
Parz writes "Gameplayer has gone live with their winners for the best gaming laptops money can buy as of Q3 2008. The analysis is broken into three sections to cater for three different budget requirements. There is a detailed explanation of why each laptop was selected, going into each hardware component individually. Regular Slashdot users will remember the site's article from a few weeks ago, which analysed the Best Gaming PCs that Money can Buy. Prices may vary depending on where you live."
Results will be valid for four days... (Score:5, Insightful)
...until the next one comes out.
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Which is why I went with the best deal I could find for ~$1,000. But if you want to spend more I'd much rather go with something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220364 [newegg.com]
Just the slightest bit slower than any of the 3 listed in this 'article' and barely half the price of the cheapest of the three.
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I like the review where it says "..one game completely destroyed vista...". ;)
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The G series are a nice series from Asus... although you can get the same laptop much cheaper if you don't get a G series. It seems the lights and cover cost an extra $500-$1000 depending on the model you look at.
Instead of a G1 (which I couldn't afford at the time) I went with an F3JP which is a bit slower but all together a nice gaming laptop. I use it all the time when I go overseas and still am able to play the games I love fine.
In some ways, having an overspecced laptop really defeats the purpose of ha
Never use a laptop for gaming. (Score:5, Insightful)
I always think that using Laptops for gaming is a bit of a silly idea. Every couple of months a new game comes out that requires more powerful graphics, and you can't upgrade the graphics cards in a laptop. So your top of the range laptop bought today will be a pale shadow of its former self when playing the latest game in a year's time. With a desktop PC, you can simply replace the old graphics card with a new one.
Re:Never use a laptop for gaming. (Score:4, Insightful)
You are right. Using a laptop for a primary gaming device, unless you have a lot of money to burn is a rather silly idea since you cannot upgrade it. I found when I was in college and doing a lot of gaming that having a desktop I could upgrade every two years for about $500-800 was the way to go, and it would give me another two years of being able to play the latest titles.
I recently purchased a fully-loaded Dell XPS 1530 laptop for Photoshop on-the-go functionality, and it has been fun being able to to play some older titles like Half-Life 2 again, but I don't expect it to be able to keep up with what is coming out.
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There's still an issue in budgeting. I'll pay about twice as much to get myself a gaming PC and a capable laptop (one that can run apps and flash games well). While having the PC is nice for upgrading, having a gaming laptop will work well for about two years (by which time any "budget" laptop will be all but obsolete). Plus, there's the advantage of mobile gaming.
If you really use your laptop, it's worth it to get a nice one. If you play games only at home, however, there's obviously no sense in forking up
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Re:Never use a laptop for gaming. (Score:5, Interesting)
well, there isn't too much better than a 8600M GT as of yet, at least performance-wise, but that card is one generation behind. The best nVidia you can get is still a 9800M GTX, and those are just a die-shrink of the 8xxx line (the GTX 200s don't have a mobile platform yet).
If you always want the latest-and-greatest graphics in a laptop, you should maybe look for something upgradable - nVidia standardized their mobile graphics on the MXM platform and, although ATI has a competing standard (AXIOM), it has so far been losing badly and it is now fairly common to find ATI cards that use MXM.
The real problem comes with MXM systems that are upgradable - the ASUS C90 is, and I've read MXM Acer laptops are, but after that it's anyone's guess - some MXM computers like the 24" iMac are not. There are also 4 separate sized slots - MXM I, MXM II, MXM III, and MXM HE and larger slots can take the smaller GPUs, but not vice versa (most laptops I've seen that have them are MXM II). Sometimes you also need to buy the notebook manufacturer's branded card, as well. Also note that there is now at least one desktop card that uses MXM - the ASUS Trinity. Basically, it has 3 MXM modules on a regular PCI-E card, and when the graphics card needs updating, you replace the MXM modules, not the card, supposedly saving you some expense.
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yes, there is an improvement, but unless you have money to burn, the value of replacing a laptop that is only a year old to get that performance probably isn't worth it - the 8600M GT was in $1800 laptops a year ago, the 8800M GTX is in $1800 laptops today.
I don't know of any 8800M MXM cards yet, but ACER has 8600M cards on the market to replace older 8400M cards, and ASUS has cards for the C90, so a market is emerging... slowly.
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There are laptops, where you can upgrade the cpu, the ram and the graphics card. Oh, and exchange various components like a dvd drive and other stuff.
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And those formats are standardized too.
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Does the original Gameboy Count? (Score:2, Funny)
Except it's not PC games (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see your point, but the question and the context was about laptops that run PC games.
Portables like the original gameboy or the newer DS, are a bit of a fixed target: a game either runs on that one configuration, or it doesn't. There are no games written for a DS with an upgraded graphics card, or with more RAM.
PC gaming doesn't really have such fixed targets. All games try to surpass last year's in terms of graphics, if nothing else because screenshots sell, and the hardware requirements are occasionally outright silly. I can think of some games (e.g., EQ2) which were launched to match hardware specs that didn't even yet exist. E.g., seriously, to run EQ2 with full graphics details you needed a 512 MB graphics card, and that just didn't exist yet. (Well, ok, maybe except as a high-end, professional OpenGL card for CAD.)
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to run EQ2 with full graphics details you needed a 512 MB graphics card, and that just didn't exist yet.
That's a good thing! It means the game will not look too outdated in a year, when that impossibly powerful hardware hits the mainstream.
People bitch and moan about Crysis, but that's a game that will continue to impress even a year or two from now, as GPU power increases as well as monitor resolution.
Conversely, just because you can't run a game at max settings on your current rig, doesn't mean the game sucks.
Games for a DS with more RAM (Score:2)
There are no games written for a DS with an upgraded graphics card, or with more RAM.
Nintendo 64 had a 4 MiB RAM expansion (from 4 MiB to 8 MiB), used by at least Perfect Dark, Majora's Mask, Donkey Kong 64, Quake II, and one of the Turok games. Nintendo DS also had an 8 MiB RAM expansion (from 4 MiB to 12 MiB), used by Nintendo DS Browser. (Granted, it's not technically a game, but it's in the same vein as N64 games.) And plenty of homebrew software for Nintendo DS can take advantage of third-party 16 MiB and 32 MiB expansion cards.
PC gaming doesn't really have such fixed targets.
Since early 2007, there is one fixed target for games for
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I guess it depends on what you consider a hardware upgrade. Huge numbers of games for older consoles had banking hardware and saveram (some of which may be used for things other than saves) in the cart and occasionally there was other stuff in there too.
DS carts on the other hand have an interface that is disk like rather than rom like so if you want extra ram you need to put it on the GBA slot. That means an extra cart for the user to lose. So far the only commercial DS product i'm aware of that does so is
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You can get one on eBay for like $6.50 [ebay.com], with Tetris. What else do you need?
How about something that will run games I actually want to play?
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Whats your point?
I don't think that your $6.50 Gameboyrun WarCraft or StarCraft either; it won't even run Star Control.
I'm ridin' spinners, they don't stop. (Score:2)
but I'd much rather spend hours in front of Tetris
In fact, you can spend hours in front of newer Tetris games without placing one piece. Just spin the piece forever [ytmnd.com]. In fact, The Tetris Company requires this "feature" [tetrisconcept.com]. It's a good thing that fan games [tetrisconcept.com] let you turn this off.
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Going out and paying thousands of dollars on a new PC is like buying the biggest meat grinder you can find because your girlfriend isn't doing it for you anymore.
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Until you need one that requires DirectX 10. Then your Go 6800 won't be able to keep up.
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Let me know when a DX10-only game comes out...
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But DX9->DX10 [wikipedia.org] requires an OS "upgrade". DX8->DX9 doesn't, so it's not nearly as big of a deal.
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My point is that we're not in the 3rd generation of DX10-supporting cards, by the time DX10-only games come out pre-DX10 PCs will be so far out of date they couldn't play the game even if it was DX9.
"Windows NT" can already not play games a year old (crysis) on his 5 year old card, by his admission only games that are 3-4 years old work. By the time DX10-only games come out in a few years, only people with (then) 4-year-old PCs won't be able to play them.
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*now in the 3rd generation ...
You don't need DX10 to play a music CD (Score:2)
Halo 2.
I've played Halo 2 [wikipedia.org] on my PlayStation 1 and Halo 5 [wikipedia.org] on my Dreamcast. If I wanted, I could play Halo 2 on an old Mac from 1995.
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I just got a laptop for gaming. It's a 1.13 GHZ P3 with 256MB of ram. I spent all weekend playing apple II and TG16 games on it. I had a blast.
It's not playing games on laptops that's silly. It's the obsession with playing the latest resource hogging games that's silly.
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I just got a laptop for gaming. It's a 1.13 GHZ P3 with 256MB of ram. I spent all weekend playing apple II and TG16 games on it. I had a blast.
It's not playing games on laptops that's silly. It's the obsession with playing the latest resource hogging games that's silly.
Yeah...ok. I mean great, I'm glad you enjoy your retro gaming. Heck I even like firing up some of the older stuff now and then. But your kidding right? You think that modern games should be forced into near decades old hardware requiremen
2600 can't do action RPGs, but NES can (Score:2)
Could a game like Mass Effect be played on a 2600?
The Atari 2600 doesn't have the resources to render an action RPG. But the NES does: witness The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and me-too clones such as Spiritual Warfare. Take a step up to the Super NES and you get the Mana series.
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Some of us are willing to pay more than that to get old games like warcraft 2 working smoothly.
Hehe. Speaking of which, I played Warcraft II yesterday for a few hours on my Dell Inspiron 8100 that I bought in like 2001... for gaming.
It's suited my every gaming need since that time and I still play World of Warcraft on it. I couldn't play Doom 3 on it back then, but when I bought a gaming desktop a few years back, I just bought Doom 3 then.
It's a great machine for running my other older games I never got a chance to play, like Baulders Gate, Fallout 1 & 2, Warcraft 2, and Starcraft. And for pla
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I always think that using Laptops for gaming is a bit of a silly idea.
And a lot of other people would think using a DS or a PSP for gaming is also a bit of a silly idea, for much the same reasons. If developers choose not to to make games whose graphics scale down to the capabilities of two-year-old laptops, then they choose to let someone else sell products to owners of two-year-old laptops.
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You're right of course. Instead of spending $5k on the newest top of the line laptop, you can spend a mere $1.2k on a pair of the newest top of the line graphics cards.
Re:Never use a laptop for gaming. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Really, what is silly is that laptops don't have upgradable graphics.
--
I agree that it is silly. But for some people it is necessary.
I am a programmer who does a lot of gaming, and writes games on the side. I got hired to do development at a job that requires me to travel, so I had to get a laptop. Since I use the same tools at work and at home, I either ditch the desktop and use the laptop for everything (including games), or I try to install everything on both computers and keep everything in sync. Th
MOD DOWN (Score:2)
LAPTOPS HAVE UPGRADABLE GRAPHICS - SEE THE MXM SLOT. Dell had a laptop YEARS AGO with a full-sized AGP slot in it for THIS VERY PURPOSE (Inspiron 9800 IIRC)
For crying out loud, drop this false and nonsensical notion that YOU CANNOT UPGRADE LAPTOP GRAPHICS. It's been false for YEARS.
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Business-class HP Laptops use an MXM slot for graphics. I think the NX9420 or newer model might be up your alley, although if you don't need the uber-shiny shit, you can do an NC6400 or some such with an earlier-gen MXM Type I slot.
As it is, most companies don't advertise that their laptops can be upgraded GPU-wise, because in order to do so you have to disassemble the laptop. Until they redesign it to where the common user can just pop the back open, remove the GPU heatpipe, switch cards, apply thermal pas
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HP won't reference it because it's not even in the technical manuals - when I ran across the MXM card for the first time it was in an NX9420/9440 and I was working as an HP laptop repair tech. I had just been moved over to the commercial line of laptops because I was too good to be used on a consumer end (I worked too fast.) After looking the card up in the parts database and realizing it was a swappable GPU I started looking up everything that I could - nobody actually advertises it, and you won't know if
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http://www.mxm-sig.org/ [mxm-sig.org]
Companies that have adopted MXM are:
Dell
Acer
MSI
HP
And many more - just because MXM isn't stated doesn't mean it's not in use. I'll be willing to bet the high-end laptops all have MXM type-III slots
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I had a Sager 5680 (3.2 GHz P4, Radeon 9600, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB 4200 RPM HDD) Sept 2003 to Jan 2006 and it played everything I threw at it at 1600x1200. Granted, I spent $3,150 on it at a time when I could have build the same in a desktop for approx $2,000.
True gaming laptops are a luxury.
Why is it silly? (Score:2)
I have my laptop for less intensive games, like Open Arena, or Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, plus the thousands of ROMs and the emulators that play them. It also serves as my portable HD video player and music player when I'm on the road or elsewhere that I cannot lug my desktop and 32" LCD.
Just because it doesn't do BRAND-NEW gaming doesn't mean it's useless for gaming. People flip out all the time at the astounding MUGEN character list I've created (over 10K characters, only 300 actually in the game and w
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That is not true. I had an Alienware 7700m. Upgraded the vidcard from a Geforce 6800 GO to a Geforce 7900 GO.
You don't "require" a new vid card every few months. Game tech(bloat) is fast but not THAT fast.
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It all depends on your situation. I moved to Korea for a year about 3 months ago. The size of the place I'm staying just wouldn't allow me to have a desktop so I'm happy to have my m1710 with a Geforce 7900GTX in it. If I can get my hands on an m1730 with 2x8800GTXs in it, I'd happily do so.
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I always think that using Laptops for gaming is a bit of a silly idea
I'm a new dad, and was a busy person before then. I use the laptop on my hour commute each way. Sometimes I watch DVDs, but often it's flight simulators that I use this time for (MS flight sim and an r/c flight sim). I have a much better desktop but it probably gets about a quarter as much use as my Dell Inspirion 9400 (which incidentally has been a nightmare but I'm still grateful to have a working laptop with an 8800GT in it). Latest and
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I game on a laptop for the simple reason that I have two homes (due to work). So I bought a decent spec laptop and stick it in the car when I switch houses.
I have a power supply, mouse, headset at each house. I also have a USB powered laptop cooler at each house. Something akin to http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=280872&sourceid=2459&CAWELAID=84125196 [misco.co.uk]
(I don't have that model. Google for 'laptop cooler' and see what comes up).
It's a little noisier, but it means I
Too much RAM? (Score:1)
Re:Too much RAM? (Score:5, Funny)
GPU - ATI 4870 X2
Price: ~$655
If Golem had a computer, this would be his precious.
The guy can't even spell "Gollum".
Geek license revoked!
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You may want to look that word up some time.
In addition to the obvious mythological reference, which has nothing to do with Tolkien, the Hebrew word 'Golem' means 'fool', 'stupid' or 'clueless'. So, with that in mind, the review can be read as "If a stupid, clueless fool had a computer, this would be it."
The only way you could praise it more would be to say that it has "more schmaltz for your schlemiel".
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Considering the author had blatantly incorrect things like:
I would bet you all the money I have right now that he didn't know the Hebrew meaning for golem, and was in fact trying and failing to reference the Lord of the Rings character. It's very nice that you give him the benefit of the doubt, but the writer gives way too many places to doubt to make that even slightly noble.
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And the use of a different name implies that it is not.
And yes, you have.
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Sorry as an explanation as to why:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32_bit [wikipedia.org]
"The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or 2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory."
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Not completely. Sure, they won't see all of the ram with 32-bit windows. But, in my experiences, windows will recognize between 3.25 to 3.5GB in a 4GB system.
Ideally, 3GB would be the config to use for modern gaming PC's running 32-bit windows (gaming benchmarks seem to indicate that 3GB is better than 2GB for current-gen games). However, if you don't run matched pairs, your ram isn't in dual channel mode.
So what do you do? Run 4GB across 2 or 4 sticks. It's your best, albeit slightly wasteful, memory conf
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Just browsing through quickly, it seems that at least the extreme models ship with 4gb of RAM + video card memory. Assuming they use 32 bit window - due to the better drivers, from what I've seen it benchmarks better than 64 bit, isn't this completly pointless?
under an OS that only supports 4GB of address space 4GB of ram tends to give you a little extra usable memory over 3GB (how much depends on the other hardware in the box). Also with some chipsets using a matched pair gives better performance than an
From the article... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Your hardware wonâ(TM)t function without an OS, so what better choice than Microsoftâ(TM)s latest offering. Despite the constant criticism, Vista is a very stable, secure and enjoyable platform to work with. In collaboration with the latest gear, games will play at high speed and detail to whet your gaming appetite!"
Nice to see they are still paid by Microsoft marketing arm. That entire statement goes against everything every reputable gaming site and expert says..
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Re:From the article... (Score:5, Funny)
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Despite the constant criticism, Vista is a very stable, secure and enjoyable platform to work with
Geez, Your funny
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I am normally the first person to put down these conspiracy theories. But being that all laptops that are good enough for gaming come with Vista as the default OS, and the increasing difficultly of getting a legit copy of XP. It seems like a pointless sentence, unless you will get $500 for it. As well it seems way to familiar to Microsoft current advertising of saying "NO WE DON'T SUCK THAT MUCH!".
Having used Vista on a fully capable system, it is not as bad as Slashdot says it it. But it is still not tha
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Sez you. The best place I know of to get a decent gaming rig, Vigor Computing, is still very willing to ship with XP. I just ordered a gaming laptop from them with XP; I'll be getting it in a few days.
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Hence why I said with "increasing difficulty". I didn't say it was impossible just more difficult then it was before. I have never heard of Vigor Computing before, as I am sure many people haven't either. But compared to 3 years ago. Getting XP was available for most brands sold.
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Good thing the Linux marketing arm showed up and posted a correction, eh?
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Adhering to the truth makes one reputable... and every REAL reputable gaming site acknowledges Vista is the best platform for gaming.
Links/citations, please?
Get real (Score:2)
Windows is *NOT* a platform. A platform is the hardware architecture, OS, programming languages, runtime libraries, and on occasion a graphical user interface. Windows is only a PART of the platform.
Who's the one brainlessly spouting stuff, again?
Re:From the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista gaming is now on par with XP.
Good. Still no need to "upgrade" then...
How about... (Score:4, Funny)
A Beowulf cluster of Eee PCs glued to a go-cart. ...what? Can't a man dream?
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zzzz (Score:1, Offtopic)
oh whats the point?
seriously, if it browses the net, reads email, and allows me to use office 'ware I'm happy. games are what I have a PS3 for.
"The Best Gaming Laptop Money Can Buy" (Score:5, Funny)
I have no money, is there a list of laptops for people with large piles of string?
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You don't need money ... (Score:1)
Should have done best servers for the money (Score:2)
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anybody get a cache of the site before the server melted?
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Don't waste your time.
There are no tests performed, no benchmarks, no comparisons.
The guy only went to 3 websites (Dell, Alienware and some other), read the specs, and said what he though of it.
Completely useless. Glad I use AdBlock. That site doesn't deserve a cent of advertisement money.
Reviews on spec (Score:5, Informative)
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While I cannot say I spent any quality time with Vista, Window XP-64 is a rock solid gaming OS. With 8G of physical RAM, I've found I can alt-tab in and out of a game with my resource intensive apps running. Using 3.2G of RAM on the 32-bit version of XP, I had to be more cautious.
Granted, 4G RAM chips (since most laptops only have room for two) is a bit outside most (sane) folk's budget. While my laptop has 4G and a 64-bit OS, the video and CPU are not quite there for gaming.
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With the forums and community of laptopvideo2go.com, buggy driver versions are few and far between on my laptop.
Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Regular slashdot users will remember the site's article from a few weeks ago, which analysed the Best Gaming PCs that Money can Buy.
Whereas regular Slashdot editors might remember how the last article was panned by readers, and might have ceased spamming us with articles from this site.
They might also remember to capitalise the name of their own site, but I guess all this is too much to hope for.
I reject these totally (Score:5, Informative)
A gaming laptop review without reviewing one from Sager?
Ridiculous. I love my Sager, and the company is great.
http://www.sagernotebook.com/ [sagernotebook.com]
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All three of the 'extreme' laptops, and if they had included the equivalent Sager, were the exact same laptop: the Clevo 901. Just with 3 different brand names attached and the alienware has a custom screen cover. The inability of the 'hardware guru' to detect this, and even that he didn't already know it, says a lot about game hardware fanboys.
why? (Score:2)
Its dissapointing that even though laptops have largely taken over from desktops for general personal computing use, still no laptop even comes close to the price/performance and especially upgradability of an atx case system.
If your primary motivation is high-GPU games like crysis, you're still way better served by a conventional PC box rather than a laptop.
Whats the best bicycle for crossing the atlantic? (Score:2, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Gun Analogy (Score:2)
Sure you can buy the most powerful handgun, .50 Auto Express [remtek.com]. But don't expect it to be more powerful than even a moderate caliber rifle.
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You have perfectly described the Alienw
This list is a joke. I don't get it... (Score:2)
Even the "budget" laptops on their list aren't as powerful as the Gateway P-7811FX [gateway.com], which leaves those laptops in the dust for a couple of hundred dollars less...
Seriously -- the Gateway has 9800M GTS graphics (compared to the puny 8400M models they listed in the "budget" section), comes with 4GB of RAM -- AND it costs a couple of hundred dollars less.
No Driver updates (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest problem I have with laptops it the lack of driver updates.
My laptop has a nVidia graphics card, but is unsupported by nVidia.
The drivers need to be updated by the manufacturer and I cannot use the universal
driver. My old laptop with Geforce 2, hasnt had a driver update since 2002.
S
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Just to play devils advocate (Score:1)
It's more like a shoebox computer with a built in UPS, if the line hiccups or you accidentally disconnect, you don't reboot. Not that it's the correct way to do things, but thats how I basically use my laptop anyways.
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I question the sanity of sticking SLI/RAID0 configurations with enormous screens in a notebook formfactor. You're essentially giving up on the idea of portability, particularly given that the battery in one of those things can't even keep the machine running for an hour.
You still get portability. You just don't get to be unplugged. A notebook like this means that you can sit on your couch and play games, or move into your bedroom, or take your computer with you on vacation and play some, etc. Lugging around your desktop is probably not an option in many cases.
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I've used laptops as my primary machine for at least 7 years, and I'm the same way. It's plugged in most of the time, and I primarily like it for its portability (I'm not tied to a desk--just to any given outlet.)
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