Alienware Notebook?

CDon326 · January 15th, 2009, 09:20 PM

I am looking for a gaming notebook to take with me when i leave for school. I have heard that the Alienware notebooks are fair price but i also have heard that they are way overpriced. I have friends who have made custom computers but I have none who have made custom notebooks so i have no idea how i would even go about that... Alienware? Build a Custom Notebook? Buy a custom notebook?

MD1032 · January 15th, 2009, 10:09 PM

"gaming" and "laptop" do not really go together in the same sentence, I hate to say it. Your only hope is a high-end Dell (or alienware, now owned by Dell) or Sony Vaio. The main thing is the graphics card. Pay close attention to which card(s) are in the laptop you want. Believe it or not, my T60 I got a two and a half years ago came with a graphics card, a Radeon X1400, which turned out to be great since I can play Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 with it (but not anything really high-end). Some cards are better than others, I guess I just got lucky that IBM chose a decent card for my laptop.

CDon326 · January 15th, 2009, 11:07 PM

Ok so the two types of notebooks im looking at now are from Alienware and from Cybepowerpc.Each are around $1500 One of them has a ATI Mobile ATI Radeon HD3470 and one has a 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8700M GT.... I dont know much about graphic cards but i do know that both are good.. i just dont know which is better? Is there anything else i should be looking for?

MD1032 · January 15th, 2009, 11:26 PM

Read a lot of reviews. Start at notebookreview.com for starters.

ShyguyXPC · January 15th, 2009, 11:39 PM

8700M GT will be better, should anyways...

8700M GT: Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT

HD3470: Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470

the radeon is a whole class lower than the Geforce. (The Radeon has sluggish 64-bit memory bus, one of its biggest downfalls, vs the Geforce's 128-bit)

**RicheemxX** · January 15th, 2009, 11:47 PM

CDon326 I move your thread moved to mobile computing forum, the community is geared towards off topic discussion.

EXreaction · January 16th, 2009, 02:12 AM

A gaming laptop, for the far majority of people, is a silly idea. If you do not absolutely need to have the ability to play games while mobile and instead can have a dedicated desktop for gaming and then a separate laptop for mobility, not only will you save money, battery life, and have a much faster gaming system with the desktop, but whatever you purchase in the laptop for a graphics card won't be anywhere near a decent desktop card, so it won't take long for new games to go far beyond what your laptop can handle (and there are plenty of games now that are beyond what a laptop can handle).

Instead of spending $1500 on a "gaming" laptop, you would be much further ahead spending $750 on a desktop and $750 on a laptop, even if the only thing you use the desktop for is gaming.

CDon326 · January 16th, 2009, 02:56 PM

Ok so should i go with a custom desktop or an alienware one?
and would should i be looking for when it comes do desktops instead of a notebook?

EXreaction · January 16th, 2009, 03:05 PM

No, stay away from alienware. Overpriced junk is what they are.

If you would be able to build the desktop yourself or know someone who could that would certainly help. Otherwise you may have to go with something like Dell, then add in a new graphics card. So could you build it yourself?

CDon326 · January 16th, 2009, 03:10 PM

I would probally be able to get someone to help me put it together.... i though dont really know what all to get... Someone else also told me to order one from cyberpowerpc?