Also, the Civ games are fairly CPU intensive, especially when you have larger maps, more opponents, or reach late game. Any of those three can really slow down your game without a powerful CPU. I haven't played Civ5, but I assume it's the same in that regard as Civ4.

tl;dr: don't skimp on your CPU if you're serious about Civ 5.

 

To be fair, these laptops that he's considering are all Haswell i7's, so he's fine on the CPU power.

 

Okay, I've finally got enough money set aside to be able to splurge on a new fuckin' laptop. I've been doing some research, and I've come around on the MSI GE60 2PC Apache.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152561

The version I'd get is the 15.6", i7 proc, 8 GB DDR3, and the GTX 850M gDDR5 gpu.

Anyone here have/know of anyone with this machine? The one review at newegg is glowing, but SSS since, you know, just one review. Does anyone here catch any immediate red flags from looking at it/know of any machines with better specs at a comparable ($1100 USD) price? Also, is the i7 important? I just chose it because it's new and shiny and looked better, but could I get a machine with an i5 that does the same things (read: games and movies) very nearly as good for cheaper?

 

Looks pretty damn good for the price. The page isn't loading properly for me in Australia and web proxys don't like the jscript on that page or something, but I think I can see the right info.

You only get 8GB of RAM, but importantly it's a single stick [8GB x 1], which is great, because you can upgrade with another stick at a later date, assuming there's two RAM slots which I think there always is.

Windows 8.1 64-Bit - Good. I prefer Win7 64, but I'd use Win8 if I could get my head around it. I'm a stick in the mud.

Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4GHz - Decent. TDP of 47W which isn't bad. Lower is better. There's no need to go with i7 over i5. While i7 is often a better class of CPU, that isn't always the case. Decide based on price, heat, and whether you need the extra cores. Unless you're doing a lot of compression, encryption, or rendering, then the last two cores on a quad core CPU are often going to be doing nothing. In my favourite laptop build [internet window shopping] I've got an i5 dual core because the i7 quad generates too much heat and draws too much power.

Use this site to compare mobile CPUs: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-4700HQ-Notebook-Processor.93264.0.html

NVIDIA Geforce GTX 850M - A decent card. A little on the low end, but still a very respectable gaming card for a new machine. It'd blow the doors off my current dinosaur. ):

Use this comparison site for mobile GPUs: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile...chnology=0&vantage3dmarkgpu=1&vertexshaders=1

The laptop has a decent number of ports, good video resolution, non-reflective screen. It seems like a buy. If you had more money then an SSD would be nice as well as 16GB RAM, but it looks good as is.

 

Heh, yeah. I'm gonna continue my research tomorrow (when i'm not functionally cross-faded and Amazon-Tempted to buy a $2000 laptop.

I don't really need a super high end graphics card, I think. Benchmark noting sites tell me that the 850M can run Skyrim and Civ V (and most games before that) on high, and shit, that can keep me going for a loooong time.

I'm gonna look for machines that use i5 processors with similar specs in other areas as comparison. CPU heat is what killed my old ASUS G71Gx (that and substandard care, but shit that fucker still lasted 6 ish years. I'm pretty shocked in hindsight), but now I know about thermal coolant pastes and other stuff - and am less nervous about dicking around inside a laptop.

I can't comment on the operating system since my recentish experience is limited to Vista 64 (which I didn't really hate tbh, a fact that makes me think I could come to not-hate any OS) and whatever OS a chromebook uses.

---------- Post automerged at 02:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:27 AM ----------

Okay, I found another MSi laptop:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152563

The differences:

AMD A-Series A10-5750M (2.50GHz) as opposed to the intel i7 4700HQ processors

HDD AMD Radeon R9 M290X 2GB as opposed to the GTX 850 GPUs

This one is 2 pounds heavier and just all-around bulkier.

Everything else is the same, even the price.

I don't know much about processors, but the benchmark sites are telling me that the i7 is better than the AMD proc, but I don't really know by how much, or if it's important. W.R.T the graphics card, the AMD card looks better (http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html). It's 21st on that list, as opposed to the NVIDIA card which is 49th, but both are on the "high end" list. GameDebates comparison tool has the 850m card as 29% worse than the M290x.

Any opinions?

 

M290X is a much better card, but the A10-5750M looks like a much worse CPU.

Hmm... decisions. Usually your CPU is not your bottleneck in gaming. It's almost always your video card. Doing some research on that CPU, it's pretty much AMD's best mobile CPU and it has a TDP of only 35W, which is fantastic. To get a better AMD CPU you increase your TDP to 95W+, which is pretty ridiculous.

Comparison of your two CPUs: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile...es=1&threads=1&technology=0&64bit=0&daysold=0
Comparison of AMD CPUs: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile...es=1&threads=1&technology=0&64bit=0&daysold=0

Generally, AMD + ATI is great, since they're all the one company you can expect things to be pretty smooth. nVidia has a better reputation for compatibility with new games, but in my experience [Intel CPU + ATI card], I've had no trouble at all gaming on my laptop with an ATI card.

Hmm... read these three articles, especially the second one. It's not exactly your notebook, but it's very close. That AMD CPU might not be enough; I didn't read it close enough to be sure.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7106/...art-1-the-apu-and-radeon-hd-8650g-performance
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7111/amds-a105750m-review-part-2-the-msi-gx60-gaming-notebook
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6949/msi-gx70-3be-richland-a10-apu-and-neptune-8970m-gaming-notebook

 

A general question at the gaming laptop crowd.

Do you feel like it was worth buying a laptop as opposed to the regular, desktop PC?

If mobility wouldn't have been a turning point for your decision, would you still have bought a laptop? (And by mobility, I'm referring to the ability to take it elsewhere, not move around the flat/house/barn - the latter I'd assign to comfortability)



To clarify, I plan to buy a new machine sometime this year, since my old PC is getting, well, old, and I've never had a gaming laptop, so I kinda need to figure out the benefits.

I'm weighting two options here.

Getting both a light netbook for internet surfing/writing and a desktop PC for gaming and coding or buying a single laptop machine, that would probably end up more cumbersome that I truly want it to be since it would have to fulfill both roles.

I figure I should hear a few good things on Gaming Laptops before making a final decision.

 

I have a gaming laptop, but I bought it for mobility/cost. It would be annoying in my tiny room to have a desktop computer so there's that as well. Ideally, I think I would buy a desktop and a MacBook Air. I would only use the Air for school/general browsing and use the PC for gaming, obviously.

But I actually love my laptop, it is very sturdy, fast and can run any game I want. Plus I'm not the biggest gamer so I probably don't ask of it what others might and don't need the customization that they do as well.

 

If mobility isn't an issue, then consider the size. You can have a laptop anywhere in the house without it seeming weird and it doesn't take up too much room in your office, etc. It uses less power. Also, it's easy on moving day. Light weight, no dozens of tangled cables you have to untangle, etc.

But if none of that's a concern, then I'd go for a desktop. If you're a tech-minded tinkerer, then it's easier to fix and upgrade. And it's better ergonomically. With a laptop the keyboard is attached to the monitor, so if I have the machine at a comfortable height for typing, then I'm always tilting my head downwards to see the screen. My natural eye line is about... 20cm above the top of my laptop screen.

A gaming PC and a light weight notebook or tablet would be ideal, I think.

 

4th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-4210M processor

vs

4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-4710MQ Processor

How big/small of a difference is it? Google fu says not much, but I'd like a second opinion.

Also, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M graphics with 2GB total GDDR5 vs

NVIDIA Geforce GTX 850M

Any help super appreciated.

 

860M is a bit better, but not always, and not to a huge degree. If you could get the 4GB version, I'd say to go for it. Whereas 850M and 860M have similar performance, the 870M is a big step up.

850M vs 860M: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile...&memorybus=1&directx=1&technology=0&daysold=0


Because the two processors are so new, there isn't much in the way of benchmarks out for them yet: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile...es=1&threads=1&technology=0&64bit=0&daysold=0

In this case, the two CPUs are related. The i5-4210M is a good dual core, and the i7-4710MQ is almost a double up of that dual core, forming a very good quad core chip.

So, the i7 is high end, but also uses more power and is about 10W hotter. It'll be better for gaming, but not much better. Where it will really shine is heavy duty compression, encryption, rendering, etc. I'm more of a gamer and web browser, so I'd go with the i5 myself, especially since it saves me a few dollars, overheating issues, and battery life. The i7 here has more grunt though.

 

Why so?
What ruined everything?

 

All good points, but you can mitigate some of them.

Heat? Use a low TDP CPU. It's really the GPU that can crank up the burned thighs though, so make sure that those GPU fans are working by keeping them clear of dust and changing the fans if they start making noise or stop.

Also, use either an Intel/nVidia solution and ensure it has Optimus GPU switching. Or use an AMD/ATI solution and ensure it has AMD Hybrid Graphics [aka Hybrid CrossFire / Hybrid CrossFireX / Dual Graphics]. Both of those systems use the much weaker integrated video which is embedded in all Intel/AMD CPUs these days and seamlessly shifts video processing to the more powerful nVidia/ATI GPU only when it needs it, such as for video gaming. This means that for most of the time your GPU is doing little to nothing and staying cool. Also it's fan isn't being overworked.

I'd forgotten about Optimus and Hybrid tech. It's fairly new and my older gaming laptop doesn't have it. Wish it did tho.

Dust? Dust is a problem for all computers, not just laptops, but it can be harder to deal with because many laptops are...

Difficult to dismantle to clean. My Asus G-series gaming laptop is like a damn puzzle box, and the keyboard has never sat right [and it never will] after the one time I took it apart. I'd never have succeeded without a tutorial on Youtube. The newer Horize laptops on the other hand are fucking awesome and totally designed to be stripped down by the end user and put back together. Easy breakdown for cleaning is one of the features that they were showing off at the PAX Con booth in Melbourne.

To clean dust I use a non-static paintbrush and a can of compressed air with one of those thin straws in it to blow accumulated dust bunnies out. It's necessary to open the laptop up first so that you can see what you're doing, otherwise you may be shifting dust to an even worse place inside the laptop.

Didn't like the keyboard. This can be a problem. It's unrealistic to expect people to be able to try it first when we're buying online. Try out a few different laptops and see what you think about how the flat, recessed keyboard compares to a regular PC one, and what you think of the permanently attached screen. You can always get a good keyboard that you like and plug it in with USB, but then you need to have room for it on the desk, and that's another 20cm distance between you and the screen.

Plenty of people are happy with their laptop keyboards, even regular typists such as authors, but it's something to keep in mind.

Glossy 17" monitor wasn't all that big in the end. First of all, never get glossy. Always get matte. Glossy looks neat on the showroom floor, but it's just shit to use. It always reflects the room lights across the screen and keeps fingerprints clearly visible. If you're a graphic artist in a dimly lit room, then apparently there is a case for a glossy screen to be used, but for everyone else: Matte! Matte! Matte!

Almost all gaming laptops have an HDMI or other video out port, so it's no big thing to add a cheap 22" monitor if you're unhappy with your current one. Consider that using an external monitor and keyboard would mean that you're just using your laptop as a mini PC.

For the money I spent I could have gotten a nice mid-range gaming PC that would have performed much better. No one gets a gaming laptop because it's cheaper. You get it for portability, or size, or simplicity, or because you don't know where you'll be living in 12 months. They have their good points and their drawbacks. You need to choose which solution matches your set of circumstances best.

 

Had a gaming laptop. Sold it after a year to buy a desktop because I realized I never actually took it anywhere - it just sat on my desk hooked up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I now have a desktop that's every bit as powerful as the laptop (and cost me ~$300 less) as well as a cheap fauxltrabook (can't call it an ultrabook because it's AMD) that I use when I need portability. Basically, for only a tiny bit more than the cost of my gaming laptop, I got a desktop and a laptop that do their respective jobs better than the gaming laptop did either.

 

So, I've decided to go with this Lenovo over either of those two MSi laptops.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834317538&ignorebbr=1

It has a graphics card (GeForce 860M) that is only slightly worse than the Radeon M290x, and has the i7 processor so I don't have to deal with the shit Radeon CPU.

 

Nauro, I have had both a gaming laptop and a gaming desktop PC both of which were very expensive, but I found I very quickly stopped using my laptop because if I wanted to play games on it properly I still need a mouse and a keyboard (well, you don't need a keyboard but I like to use one) and that means I could only use it in areas where I had lots of space, and when I was out and about there weren't many areas that fulfilled the space requirements.

Also, Gaming Laptops are very expensive, and a PC at the same price will be much better. This is to do with lots of things but one of the main reasons is that they are so much harder to make and therefore the price goes up. Get a Desktop PC for the same price or better, build your own, it isn't very hard to do (just think of it like a 3D Jigsaw Puzzle with pieces that cost hundreds of pounds).

 

A follow up to my previous post, concerning netbook + gaming stationary pc* combo.

I've been looking through netbooks, and got my eyes on Asus x200CA. It's 290 Euros, and weights ~1.24kg. A touch screen seemed like a gimmick at first, but then I realized that it could help immensely as a replacement for a mouse, without needing me to take one with myself.

I'm personally biased favorably towards Asus products, because I haven't yet been betrayed by them, and there's a local Asus-shop that delivers product the next day from ordering date.

Still, maybe you know any close competitor in the same price range with at least equivalent functionality? (<=300 Eur price, low-weight; for surfing, writing, and maybe some coding.)


--
*Preliminarry, I'm delaying buying the gaming PC until Cristmas or so, but I could use a netbook for writing and stuff where mobility is needed.

 

Looking at the specs, you can choose from 3 different CPUs.

1. Intel® Core™ i3 3217U Processor
2. Intel® ULV Pentium® 2117U Processor
3. Intel® Celeron® 1007U Processor

You can see the comparison here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile...es=1&threads=1&technology=0&64bit=0&daysold=0

The 1st and 2nd CPUs are similar in energy use and processing power, but what really sets them apart is the integrated GPU. Whereas the 2117U and 1007U are based on Intel HD Graphics 2500, the 3217U has an Intel HD Graphics 4000. The 4000 is much better, albeit hampered by the CPU speed.

Being an ultrabook, all of the CPUs listed are ULV, so that "30% slower" thing is only in comparison to powerful desktops. It's still miles better than the other two CPUs.

Oh, I just remembered that you're going with a mouseless touchscreen solution. Maybe you don't need a GPU that's good enough for some basic 3D gaming.

The tl;dr: For general tasks, the 2nd CPU is good enough. If you want better video then go for the 1st CPU listed. The 3rd is by far the worst, though it might be good enough for general use - you'll have to look for reviews and check.