High Performance Gaming Laptops On A Budget?

Cory Tunney writes "In my quest to find a gaming laptop that will fulfill my gaming fantasies, but not kick me in the wallet at the same time, I've come across many options. Alienware is out of the question, as are companies like VooDooPC, but out of the rough comes companies less known but with impressive hardware. Sager seems to have won over a pretty large group of fans, and iBuyPower also seems to put out a decent amount of bang for the buck. However, when it comes down to it, I am still left with several options and I do not know what road to travel. So here's the jist of it - a system with a price tag around $2,000, a high-end video card (Radeon or the equivalent NVidia) and a system with an AMD would be a plus, but I will not rule out Intel if they can offer similar performance. So, Slashdot readers, what systems can you recommend?"

Comments

powernotebooks

[Tyreth]

I haven't checked them out for a while, but these guys seemed to have good prices: http://www.powernotebooks.com/

Re:Go Small Form Factor

[jcenters]

The downside is that you'll need to haul / find a monitor wherever you go.

Not necessarily. Here's an idea, but I'm not sure of how well it would work.

Ditch the small form factor. Use a regular ATX case. Install carry handles on top and lightweight wheels on bottom.

Then, cut out a hole in the side of the case and mount an LCD there. I've never really seen a hack like this, but I've seen similar (Small LCD mounted in the front).

Oh well, an idea.

Everything you're looking in a shiny red package.

[Mr.Cookieface]

You should check out the Acer Ferrari 3200. I know, you're probabbly thinking Acer? WTF? But it's just under $2000 and has everything your looking for. Check out these specs:

Operating System:

Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional

Processor:

Low-power mobile AMD Athlon(TM) 64 processor 2800+

Memory:

512MB (256/256)

Hard drive:

80GB

Optical drive:

(Slot loading)Super Multi Write Plus (DVD -RW, +RW, -RAM)

Display:

15.0" TFT SXGA+ (1400 x 1050)

Graphics:

ATI® MOBILITY(TM) RADEON(TM) 9700, 128MB DDR

Connectivity:

802.11b/g WLAN, Bluetooth(TM), Gigabit LAN, V.92 modem, 4-in-1 card reader, infrared, 4 USB 2.0 ports and Firewire.

Did I mention that it's RED?

$1700?

[bersl2]

CyberPower Xplorer X64-8000

I don't know about tech support or quality (never bought from these guys), but you could configure a nominally good gaming laptop for about $1700.

Athlon64 3200+
1GB RAM (the low-latency Corsair stuff, even)
Radeon Mobility 9700
802.11g mini-PCI
XP Pro (wimp...)

$1774.00
Again, on paper this is a steal. YMMV.

Sager.... Cringe......

[LWATCDR]

My company used to seel Sagers about 10 years ago. Yes they have been around that long. We had to take back more systems with them than I can count. It was a nightmare to deal with them. Unless you know for a fact that they have changed I would stay far a way from them.

Re:Uhhhhhhhhh, I apologize for the incoming commen

[MemoryDragon]

Actually for gaming Centrino is a twosided sword. The Pentium-M kicks with 1.7 GHz every other Intel Prozessors butt, litterally spoken. This thing is faster than a 4 GHz P4 and uses only a fraction of energy the P4 uses. But most centrino notebooks blow the gaming performance away with the dog slow and under linux rather problematic i855/xTreme2 graphics processor. Which is fast enough for occasional games (nwn still runs ok on this one) but never try it for high end gaming, you will end with a slideshow.