Hey dudes, my friend is looking into getting a new laptop.... I say gaming but they only actually play guildwars so it HAS to play that well. But the better it can be for gaming the more future proof we will be incase they decide to play something a little more demanding. Budget is around £600... can go a little more if it would be really worth it. They have not given any other preference but I imagine a decent size screen wouldn't go a miss.. Cheers for the help/advise!
well I don't know much about gaming laptops, but I would imagine it would be pretty straight forward to round up a list of available laptops at the price range and sort them by the best graphics card. Take the top few and look at the other features, screen size battery life etc. Read reviews and make sure there are no deal breakers. http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=684&game=Guild Wars 2 there's a dealy on this website to see how your cpu and graphics work on guild wars 2
*Warning It will not play Crysis! *Warning Use not bookchecker.net to make sure the GPU has more cores/streams (the after@ number) then what the minimum req is for guild wars. Would add 20% to make sure. http://www.google.co.uk/search?clie...rceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-640M.71579.0.html Scroll down to the specs: GeForce GT 640M 384@625MHz (this card has 384 stream cores) do the same for the GPU in the game mini specs and add about 20% as that card is a desktop GPU. If you have more cores you are good to go. I.e. google gt 640m and go for the notebookchecker link. (if the laptop uses a GT 640m) ATI/AMD would look like: HD 7850m (this is what you google to find link)
Dont bother with a gaming laptop, its far cheaper to go desktop. I fell into the laptop trap and now im shelling out £1200 - ish to upgrade to a new desktop. With laptops you tend to have to live with what you have. Having a desktop means you can perform upgrades whenever you want. I wish i had listened to my older brother now
I hate it with a passion when people make this comment. Old game works so new game with better graphics should work.... You really think they have the same system requirements?
Have a look at pcspecialist's configerable laptops. I do not vouch for the company however as I have never used them but it's an idea. http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusIII-15/ You can add an i7 3610qm, 4gb RAM and WD Black 500gb HDD and better thrmal paste for a total of 650 pounds which I tink is more than worth the 50 pounds extra. and here's the link for the gfx card http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-650M.71887.0.html you can also upgrade these later if you wish as they are just standard Clevo builds Here is game debate info on the 650m. http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php?gid=832&graphics=GeForce GT 650M GDDR5
Should be OK (if the system req. is under or = to that of BF3) which is a GT 8800 = 112 stream cores. http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/game-faq/ "Our goal with Guild Wars 2 is to have it run on a wide range of Windows gaming PCs. Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better • Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlon 64 X2, or better • 2 GB RAM • NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI X1800, Intel HD 3000, or better (256MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better) • 25 GB available HDD space • Broadband Internet connection • Keyboard and mouse Note: Due to potential changes, system requirements may change over time and you may be required to upgrade your current system (or obtain a new system) to continue to play the game." Oh yeah that no problem then.
Performance depends on so much more than stream processors or cores or any of that. Please don't use core count to judge the performance of GPUs, ever. This mainly applies to comparisons across generations.
naturally thats why I suggest the 20% high margin this means that 99.9% of the time the game will work. Of course there are some exceptions where less stream cores can work if the system is set up 100% correctly with the best(not always newest) drivers for the GPU/game. Edit: You do realize I am reffereing to minimum requirements and not the difference between high end cards right?
20% margin wouldn't cut it - generally speaking I find that stream processor numbers don't provide a good benchmark at all and should be ignored completely unless considering graphics chips of the same generation and class What you want to do is use real benchmarks of the CPUs you are interested in, and compare those as required.
Yeah some Laptop OEM are real &%@# and cripple their GPUs to enable longer battery life. But in Desktop VS Desktop GPU's I have yet to find a situation where this doesnt work and even in Laptops it is quite rare. I must now ask for some examples of where you have had these issues, I might even be able to clear some things up for you. (I do this every day at work) I find that Core count plus www.videocardbenchmark.net/ has not failed me once, in a situation where they both say it should work and the fault lies with the GPU being under system requirements.
Just link me to one that'll be half decent. This is my lazy mans plan for this thread anyway. Charts and percentages are hurt for my brain
the one that Alpha.... linked with the GT 650m will work well enough, even play BF3. Otherwise post the Brand and model number of the Laptop you find and I can check the specs
