Hi all, I'm starting a new job in the new year - after having lost my last job 2 weeks ago! It starts with me working away for the first 6months and as such I need a laptop for gaming purposes in the evening, does anyone know of any good gaming laptops for under £800? I'm thinking a minimum of a GT 555M- I like to play BF3 but very happy to play on High / Med specs. As most of the time it is stationary, would ideally like a 17"/ 1080p screen, and for CPU minimum an i5, or squeeze an i7. I'm keeping my ear to the ground of Dell Outlet (as I have managed to score a few bargains on it!) but found a very suitable 15" Asus N55SF for £745, just wish there was a 17" version! (that didn't cost the earth) Any help much appreciated!
I think you might struggle to find a >15" laptop with those specs for that price. After having a quick blast around the usual haunts, I cannot find anything with better than a GT540M (although it was 17", and had an i7).
Just found these two deals on dell outlet, think it might be the way forward - though i'm not the biggest fan of Dells!
Was about to recommend Dell outlet. As I have said in a previous post, bought my GFs laptop from them and it said it was refurbished....looked brand new to me. The money you can save comapred to a brand new money is quite extraordinary sometimes.....over £100 for me. Also you still get a years warranty. Dells sometimes get a lot of stick, but if you look after it you shouldn't get a problem with it.
Here is a good article by Anand highlighting the main routes to go down when purchasing a gaming laptop. It might give you some ideas.
Bear in mind the native res of the screen. 17" often come with a 1080p screen - good for work - very bad for gaming. The less pixels your mobile GPU has to push the better. Also bear in mind, the nomaclature of mobile GPUs is very, very convoluted, even more so than the desktop versions. Two laptops, both stating they contain 540M's can have very different specs in terms of clock speeds and core count. Notebookcheck is well worth a visit As you can see the 555M comes in 5 flavours. 144 cores 709MHz (GF106), 128Bit GDDR5, e.g. MSI GX780 144 cores 590MHz (GF106), 192Bit DDR3, e.g. Dell XPS 17, Alienware M14x 144 cores 590MHz (GF106), 128Bit DDR3, e.g. Schenker XMG A501 / A701 (Clevo W150HRM / W170HN) 96 cores 753MHz (GF108), 128Bit GDDR5, e.g. Lenovo Y570p / Y560p 144 cores 525 MHz (GF116), 128 Bit DDR3, e.g. Medion Akoya P6812 Also, its worth knowing that at the moment the Radeon series, particularly in the higher end, are offering a lot more bang for buck.
Cheers! Definitely going down the midrange gaming laptop route- just waiting for payday (friday) before ordering, think I am set on a Dell XPS 7202 as listed above, just hoping for a 1080 version to turn up Still around £600 for that kind of laptop, I'm definitely more interested in bang for buck and midrange has always suited me nicely!