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The Best Gaming Laptop Money Can Buy
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."
...until the next one comes out.
No sig today...
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.
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?
"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..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
A Beowulf cluster of Eee PCs glued to a go-cart. ...what? Can't a man dream?
but does it ru....
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.
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.
Based on a couple experiences with Falcon Northwest and Alienware laptops, apparently the idiots who buy these things are willing to tolerate battery lifespans in the range of 20 minutes on a full charge.
At that point, why not just buy a fucking shoebox machine?
I have no money, is there a list of laptops for people with large piles of string?
Worthless Slashvertisement. The article talks about a Dell XPS, an Alienware and some off brand. Doesn't even mention Falcon NW of Voodoo PC.
You can get one on eBay for like $6.50, with Tetris. What else do you need?
Then perhaps the page would have withstood being slashdotted. Instead their poor server is a smoldering pile of nothingness - but hey their gaming laptops are 5up3r 1337 ! woot!
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
you can try to barter with somebody.
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.
It's obvious from the article that the reviewer didn't actually use the machines in question, and some of the choices are really questionable - he recommends a machine with Vista 64bit. Given the continued instability of a lot of 64 bit graphics drivers even on desktops, buying a laptop - where custom drivers tend to rule (and ruin) the day - with the OS seems like a massive waste of cash. I think this is a case of Reader Beware.
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.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
...I ever made was purchasing a laptop as a gaming machine. Cooling issues, lack of upgradability, and with latest drivers and tweaked settings it performs worse then a 4 year older dell desktop with half the ram on mobo and on the graphics card. 9800M GTX with 512 ram, and more then 10 minutes of the new penny arcade game and it overheats enough to auto shut down. other games like bioshock it runs poorly with graphics turned all the way down and in low resolution (800x600, going to a non native resolution increased FPS considerably).
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.
A gaming laptop review without reviewing one from Sager?
Ridiculous. I love my Sager, and the company is great.
http://www.sagernotebook.com/
Moo.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If a gaming site rails against Vista... they aren't reputable.
Brainlessly spewing Slashdot's MS-hating FUD doesn't make one reputable. Adhering to the truth makes one reputable... and every REAL reputable gaming site acknowledges Vista is the best platform for gaming.
Oh... but perhaps you would prefer to get in on the Windows Mojave beta test? Let me know, I can hook you up for really cheap.
Well, it's just as valid a question...
Yeah, but is the laptop moist and chewy?
Laptops are a STUPID idea for games.
If you want to play a game on a laptop, that instantly means you need a very high end machine. High end laptops are a total rip-off. They're approximately three times the price of their desktop equivalent. They're also sealed devices which are not upgradable (VERY BAD if you're a gamer, because that means your incredibly expensive machine will now only be useful for about a year). You can't upgrade the CPU or even upgrade the graphics card. Even the a very high end gaming laptop is well off the performance of even a fairly average gaming desktop at less than half the price.
I presume the only reason the poster requested a laptop is for portability. I would suggest that even a compact portable desktop machine is a much better buy. Yes, it's not going to be battery powered, but it will be FAR cheaper, quicker and more upgradable than any laptop.
will heat up like the center of the sun, whir like a 747, weigh a metric ton and never be moved from the desk upon which it will sit, consume as much power as a low end desktop, and work for about 6 months to 1 year until thermal stress takes hold and it becomes worthless for any use. much like jumbo shrimp, conservative republican, and tactical nuclear weapon, this "gaming laptop" capable of running crysis for all of 20 minutes before thermaling out, is an oxymoron.
the gaming laptop was contrived as a marketing competition tool to push the limits of the laptop form-factor with complete disregard for longevity and end user functionality.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Gaming and Laptop.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Even the "budget" laptops on their list aren't as powerful as the Gateway P-7811FX, 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.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Try a HP Pavilion dv7-1020us.
It retails for 1500, which is cheaper than all 3 "budget" laptops. It's on newegg for 1220.
It has a Blu-ray Drive, bigger hard drive, more ram, better video card...
Seriously? Who is this hardware guru? Give me your job.
first time, just try to do something, sorry
I second this comment. I love my Sager NP2090 and even though it is almost a year old it would kick all of the budget laptops and keep up with most of the performance ones in this review.
I just finished my first play through of Supreme Commander at 1680x1050 and it never had a hiccup whereas it was sputtering all over the place on my fiance's new Dell Studio 15 at 1440x900.
Nevermore.
Sure you can buy the most powerful handgun, .50 Auto Express. But don't expect it to be more powerful than even a moderate caliber rifle.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
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 working properly) and that so far has managed to impress far more of my gaming friends than any stupid new bleeding-edge game.
Gaming != new and shiny games. Gaming is about enjoying what you're playing - it doesn't need the newest graphics. I still see more active Unreal Tournament servers than UT3 servers, and there's far more WolfET servers than Quake Wars.
"With a desktop PC, you can simply replace the old graphics card with a new one."
Hey! Guess what? Laptops have MXM slots FOR THE EXACT SAME PURPOSE. You may have to dig a little deeper to get the card in, but the effect is the same - upgraded system.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
And if you have been given a liquidity injection recently, you can even get the x9100 and have all the fun that the Alienware kids are having. If not, as your attorney, I advise you to just buy it anyway and file for bankruptcy when the time comes.
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.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The author didn't bother to mention an asus laptop thats sub 1k and preforms better than the asus he posts in the budget area. the F8S is much better than the one listed, but I suppose he did this because he apparently does not list ANY ATI laptops I could see. I guess playing crysis on all high at native resolution isn't good enough for a laptop...
A word of caution of people looking at this laptop. While I absolutely love mine, and it runs anything and everything I've tried to throw at it (seriously, even the bloated port of Guitar Hero 3 runs at 1900x1200 at full settings 60fps!), the power adapter died on me *12* days after getting the laptop.
I'm chalking it up to being extremely unlucky, but Gateway is now dragging their feet sending me a new one. I sent in a request Friday, they told me 3-5 business days and I'd get a confirmation email. No email came, so I emailed again Saturday. Same thing: 3-5 days. Today? Still no email, and now I'm getting angry. I'm hoping for a quick fix, but it's looking bleaker and bleaker.
But don't let me sway you. The laptop, when it works, is amazing. It doesn't run hot, I get 2 hours of WoW full settings on a full battery (brightness on low), 3 and a half at desktop. It's a REALLY nice machine, I'm just bummed that I had a bum power adapter.
When the laptops have been this keyboards? http://klawiatura.wordpress.com/
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
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 Windows: whatever Microsoft thinks is the minimum to run Windows Vista's Aero interface. If developers can get minimum settings working smoothly on the cheapest hardware that can run Aero, their products will run on just about any PC from the Vista era.
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. In fact, The Tetris Company requires this "feature". It's a good thing that fan games let you turn this off.
Halo 2.
I've played Halo 2 on my PlayStation 1 and Halo 5 on my Dreamcast. If I wanted, I could play Halo 2 on an old Mac from 1995.
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.
They support XP! Forget Acer, hello Sager!
I went to the Dell site, searched for "MXM slot", and the only place Dell mentioned it was in their Forums from 2004.
If that is a currently available option on a laptop, I'd be interested in browsing the available models for something to purchase.
Thank you!
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 paste in proper amounts, and properly re-mount the heatpipe, it's just not an advertising point.
That being said, Dell only did (upon research) an AGP-slot laptop. I had to call my friend to bring it over, and it was a custom job done for FullSail video school, a modified Inspiron 9800 with a full-sized 6800 AGP card inside, with VGA and DVI ports.
Looks like HP is the only laptop maker offering MXM slots, although Toshiba has something about upgradable graphics but it looks like mostly nonsense.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The model from Dell you mention is a Discontinued Product that sold 2+ years ago.
HP can't find any reference to MXM in their inventory & insist I meant MMX...
Alienware (now Dell) has one, but it's $2,300 for an "Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 2.0GHz 4MB Cache".
That's the same speed as my current notebook, & I was looking for an upgrade.
(Shrugs, smiles)
Oh well, it was a nice thought.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
(Gives Kudo's and a cookie.)