I'd like something under 17" and preferably an nvidia card. I also have my own hard disk so I'd rather use that (1/2TB 7200RPM) Found this for £545.59: 15.6" Intel i5 3230M Dual Core 2.6Ghz Novatech 320GB 2.5" 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive (44 quid off the list price instead of the 750GB momentus XT) 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Memory http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/range/novatecheliten1540.html Can get it down to under 540 if I go for 1333Mhz ram. Also - on the OS - would be running linux so not a huge issue. Any thoughts?
I like that Gaming and Linux don't spring up any immediate window licking responses nowadays. Oooppss... looks like I did it.
Gaming laptops and budget don't really go together. If you can put up with what you lose then its a good deal. Word of warning on using own hard disk it must be 2.5 inch drive to fit in the space provided. So a 3.5 inch 1tb would not fit for example. Screen and poor / no battery life and heavy is the usual 3 cons.
And the award for window licker goes to.......... On a serious note as said above I have several family laptops (i5/i3) in various configurations for email/net etc. All bought for around £500 and not one of them I would game on. Either it is poor graphics (screen/GPU) or cheap build (any amount of key bashing would break keys etc) Will they work yeah just on lower graphics settings with longer load times & usually epic battery drain. Will it last long probably not. It is generally why "gaming laptops" are more expensive. It has a lot to do with the parts and build quality and not just the spec.
On the whole it's more for when I travel. I do sometimes do a bit of virtualisation work but it's more trying to get an all rounder I can fit into my work bag. My last one was fine for about 3 years till I managed to break the screen I understand the worries around build quality though. My last one would handle most things even at lower graphics. I'm not too fussy on that front. Just want to be able to play! (starcraft 2 is the attraction of the quarter!) but maybe battlefield 3 or bioshock infinite down the line.
FYI there are multiple versions of the 650 GT - some with DDR3, some with DDR5 - the DDR3 ones aren't very good at all, the DDR5 version, not bad, but you won't be able to play games like BF3 at 1080p (also none of those games even work on Linux, are you planning to dual boot?)
The screen is not even 720p so not sure why he would need to play the game at 1080p. For the screen resolution that the laptop has it will suffice.
Yep, dual boot at some point in the future. Not a top priority right now. Thanks for advice on memory types! -------Edit ------- Turns out this doesn't play nicely with linux so it'll have to be using windows 7 from the old machine Also probably ddr3 for power saving. On the resolution front... 720 is fine!
Ah yes, my mistake, saw something about 1080p here "NVIDIA GeForce GT650 Graphics Based on the fast and efficient NVIDIA Kepler architecture, GeForce GT 650 provides the perfect entry point to Direct X11 and 1080P HD Gaming in your favourite FPS and MMO games." ...and thought that must be the panel size. Should be good for 720p.
I have a 650m with GDDR5 and whilst I haven't tested it with BF3 it does play Bioshock Infinite at 1080p if needed (my screen is 1366x768 but I have it hooked up to U2711 via HDMI) I'll put some Bioshock benches up later just for reference. Using the inbuilt benchmarks for Bioshock Infinite I got these results : High (Run 1) - Avg : 32.52 Low : 18.48 Max : 48.26 High (Run 2) - Avg : 27.95 Low : 13.66 Max : 41.47 High (Run 3) - Avg : 27.99 Low : 12.02 Max : 42.21 Medium (Run 1) - Avg : 27.97 Low : 11.65 Max : 43.91 Medium (Run 2) - Avg : 32.57 Low : 14.41 Max : 167.34 Medium (Run 3) - Avg : 32.58 Low : 9.49 Max : 91.39 I've been using GeForce Experience to quickly set the settings and this is what it uses and get a steady 60fps (the odd dip here and there when it gets really manic)
Are you sure yours is GDDR5? According to the PCS website that model comes with DDR3 on the card. Still - glad to hear you can get decent benchmarks! I am probably going to see what I can get 2nd hand.
Given the likelihood of a graphics chip problem emerging in any given line (a la nvidia defect a few years ago), I'd strongly recommend either buying first-hand or making sure you get the original purchase receipt from whomever you buy it from. People who bought nvidia-cursed laptops back in 2007 were claiming significant amounts of money back from their original retailers as late as 2012 (warranty irrelevant, because it was declared a known, endemic manufacturer defect) but those who had lost or never had the original purchase receipts were screwed. It also covers you against the outside possibility of board faults and the like in the first year, which can happen. Laptops just love to suicide, gaming laptops are no exception (in some ways they're worse, as they tend to be more heavily used).
Good point on warranty Apparently 12.10 doesn't work on the laptop in question (check reviews). 13.04 might. -----edit------ Turns out that there may be a way to get it to work but it's a little fiddly. That doesn't bother me so this laptop is back on the books May keep the Momentus XT. performance and space gains for a touch under £50 seem like a good idea
