Laptop for games.

[Germain]

What should I look for when buying a laptop mostly to play games.

Dual core? 1.8 Ghz or higher I suppose.
Video card, what kind?

What else should I look for

Thank you.

[osprey4]

It's nearly as cheap to buy a laptop for general use, then build a desktop strictly for gaming. Laptop gaming = way too much money for far too little capability.

The Dell XPS models are supposed to be pretty good, but still quite steep.

[ShyguyXPC]

Video card/chip, make sure its a dedicated or "Discreet" chip or solution... any onboard crap from Intel or other lesser names like SIS, or whatever won't cut it.

ATI or nVidia are pretty much your only choices... I wouldn't go for anything less than a Geforce 7600 on up or 8400 on up for an nVidia solution, not too familiar with ATI's Mobile Radeon's that are comparable to these for notebooks, but basically upper low end or mid level graphics chips or better... but it really depends on what games your going to be running.

currently I don't think their are many choices for laptops that can run Crysis on high settings, except for a few select SLI setups...

-would also make sure the laptop has AT LEAST 2GB of RAM... faster the better, but make sure it has at least that much.

-Dual core... yes, although some single cores do nicely (like older Pentium M based systems), but for newer games, probably better off going with Dual Cores, either Intel Core 2 Duo, or AND Turion 64 X2's...

-plenty of hard drive space, DVDRW drive.

-LED backlit LCD Displays

-Which ever OS you think you like better, Windows XP (Home, Pro, Media Center 2005, etc), Vista (Premium, Business, Ultimate, 32-bit or 64-bit)

-if you could I'd go for Vista 64-bit, this way should you upgrade to 4GB or more RAM you can use all of it. but its hard to say.

as far as I know, Vista 64-bit has far better support, especially for gaming, than WinXP 64-bit does.

if you can afford it & its available for options, go for a Hardware sound solution rather than the onboard stuff (was pricing some Dells last night & they offered an ExpressCard Slot version of the Creative X-fi, which would of been better than the Onboard Audigy HD Software based chip/solution that was being offered as an option, over the standard crap 2.0 sound that was stock)... but this option does kind of take a back seat to many of the others...

but if you can afford the upgrade get the best available sound chip you can for the laptop.


I was actually looking at some Dell Refurbs on their site last night, looking at some "older" Intel Core 2 Duo Dell Workstation lappys, they had decent 2-2+Ghz Core 2 Duos, 2GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2500M 512MB chips (lower clocked versions of the same chips used for the 7900GTX, but optimized for 3D Graphics & Animation, but still work good for many games), decent 100GB HDD, Windows Vista Ultimate as the OS, & Wireless N, for just under a grand, was eying up some refurbs to spend my extra $600 from income taxes on. Looking for something that was a slightly lower performing stand in for my main rig for on the go. (Core 2 Duo @ 2.13GHz, 3GB RAM, 500GB storage space, 320MB 8800GTS, etc)


but yeah, the above are some of the things to look for in a gaming laptop, or one intended for gaming...

also make sure to opt for the larger capacity Batteries, will need them. gaming on battery power can & will take up considerably more juice than just using it for basic tasks.

[ShyguyXPC]

Originally Posted by osprey4

It's nearly as cheap to buy a laptop for general use, then build a desktop strictly for gaming. Laptop gaming = way too much money for far too little capability.

The Dell XPS models are supposed to be pretty good, but still quite steep.

another good point.

would be a good idea to check out the Dell Refurbs over at the Dell Outlet store on the XPS's, ran across some decent deals last night, though many were with the lower end Geforce 8400M GS chips, there were some 8600M GT's in the $1500 range if I remember...

best thing I'd do is search the outlet store for ones running mid level to top of the line chips from previous gen graphics cards, can find some nice deals on those..

[Rootstonian]

And if you're going to be using this literally on your lap, it's going to get really freakn' hot too. Games these days really crank up the gpu and cpu usage and that generates heat.

Agreed on the general purpose...I saw a Sony lappy, dual core, 1 gig RAM, 80 gig HD at Best Buy last week for $469!! Now, I already have 3 computers and 1 laptop at home, but I almost bought this just because. Hell, you could use it for a year and if it broke, it only cost you a little over a $1.00 a day.

[TimeDeatH]

Originally Posted by osprey4

It's nearly as cheap to buy a laptop for general use, then build a desktop strictly for gaming. Laptop gaming = way too much money for far too little capability.

The Dell XPS models are supposed to be pretty good, but still quite steep.

Newegg for cheap prices!

[qrs321]

On the ATI side of things, i think the HD 3650 is a good choice. Here is a relitively cheap lappy that could probably play games decently.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220303
If you can say a budget that would help.=)

[TimeDeatH]

I am running on an acer 7720 with a 17" screen 358 mb graphics card 2 gb of ram windows xp professional 2 70 gb hard drives intel dual core processor.

Unfortunately, out of all of this i have an integrated graphics card, but it doesnt seem to conflict with many of my games, which run smoothly.
There is another acer laptop with a 15.4" screen, but with intel core 2 duo and an nvidia graphics card, only 1 gb of ram though with 2 50 gb hard drives, you'd be buying that cheaper than the 7720. The 7720 costed 900$. The other laptop (which is a 5 somethin somethin somethin) is at a godly price of 600$. Both have vista