I'm not saying he's wrong in wanting a Quad Core and you're definitely right about price no longer being an issue, but power consumption and heating issues would make an impact on his choice between Quad and Dual. MonkeyEpoxy, if you don't mind your laptop being a bit hotter and a shorter battery life, I'd say you should get the Quad Core. It's always good to future prof your laptop.

 

Whelp. This is what I get for not waiting until you edit your post.

Well, a quad core doesn't actually produce all that much heat. Nowadays these newfangled CPUs are so efficient that they barely produce any heat to begin with (unless you have a laptop with shit cooling....it happens) -- the main source of the heat will come from the graphic card.

 

I think the main point that people are trying to make in regards to the CPU discussion, is that you aren't going to bottleneck your CPU. In terms of gaming, as long as you get a relatively recent CPU, i5+, you'll be fine.

What's going to limit you, gaming wise, is your graphics card.

TLDR, don't worry about the CPU too much.

 

I've been looking at graphics cards and comparing the common ones i'm seeing (Radeon 8670M, NVIDIA 745, 750, 755M) to my NVIDIA GTX 260M.

I seriously fucking overestimated the tech growth in GPUS the past 5 years, good god. THat Radeon card is utter shit, the 745M is still worse than the 260M. Thank god the 750M is better.

Benchmarks i'm looking at:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+260&id=17

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GT+745M&id=2564
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GT+750M&id=2492

 

The first link is to the desktop version of the 260. You want to look for 260M -- that's the laptop version. Desktop graphic cards are always going to be far more powerful than laptop graphic cards.

That same website indicates that the 750M is roughly 3 times stronger/better than 260M.

 

Well, a cunt driving like shit in the snow and drilling my car has put to rest any thoughts of spending >$400 on a laptop right now. Fuck.

Looking at getting this, now, though. It actually seems like a great, great budget laptop. High RAM, good reviews, good screen size, the GPU is integrated which blows, but it's a pretty high end integrated one, apparently, and I'll be able to play most new games on med-high and most old games on max which is good for me. It's refurbished, but most of the people reviewing/answering questions are saying that the machine looks factory stock.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...p=&AID=10446076&PID=3753211&SID=187vvwg64n5hn

 

Sorry to hear about your accident. Insurance won't cover you?

THat laptop is okay, so far. What about this one?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231422

Better APU (faster clocks, better iGPU) and you get better screen resolution too. It's bigger and slightly more expensive too, so if that's a problem, let me know and I'll look for others.

 

Well, insurance is covering some. I have a $300 deductible.

And, naturally, that laptop is now sold out. Oh well, it said the deal was ending Jan. 14 anyway, and I wasn't going to get it before then.

THanks for that link too, I'm gonna bookmark it, though I'm starting to shy away from getting another 17.3" laptop. 15.1 is still perfectly fine, and way more portable in my backpack.

 

I spilled a cup of water all over my desktop and am looking for a laptop now. It'll be 3 months at least before I can purchase this but I think it's powerful and worth the price.

What I don't particularly like is the silver coloring. I'd prefer a black but that's cosmetic and I can overlook that.

I'm also wondering about my options in this price/performance range with a touchscreen. So my selection isn't concrete, but if anyone has had experience with the Asus N5xx line I'd love to hear it.

If not the 15 inch then perhaps this 17 inch model. I think it has a lesser graphics card and I don't like the way the Republic of Gamers laptops have the rear portion jutting out but it's the closest thing I can find to meeting my wants.

I would love to hear what laptop you'd recommend. So long as it has an i7 core and a graphics card I think I'll be happy. I tend to favor Asus for the gummy plastic they use. That happens to be my favorite.

Also, I don't think they make laptops with a cache larger than 6 MB. I know that it affects performance but that's about it and would like a larger sized L3 cache for the mobile i7's. Assuming it's within my budget of course. I'm willing to spend ~1200. Thanks for your help.

 

The ASUS N550JV-DB71 (at $1,192.00) is the best choice in my opinion; better hardware at a better price.

The ASUS G75VW-NH71 (at $1,290.00) has a way better cooling system though. The pictures on Amazon doesn't do it justice, but one of them do hint that they are there. Otherwise, this should be the right one: Pic

Both are great computers for gaming, but the G75VW-NH71 will seem clumsy and gigantic compared to the other one. Plus, I've always thought that the way the screen is connected to the body feels weird. Also, 17" is way to big for touch screen use, especially the G75VW-NH71 (seriously it's enormous).

 

I did find this. It's 150 dollars cheaper than my best choice and the only drawback is that the RAM is halved and there isn't a blu-ray player.

This is fine with me. Plus for 150 dollars I figure I can upgrade the ram myself. Am I missing something?

I want the touchscreen for the novelty of it. I'm so used to using my tablet that I just expect to swipe up when reading.

 

^That one looks pretty decent to me. If you were looking at the Republic of Gamers line, this is the newer, upgraded version, better than the one you linked before for around the same price (actually cheaper at retail price), though for whatever reason it is about 2 pounds heavier.

 

Huh, aside from the chassis, I don't see a reason to change to the 17 inch laptop. I don't think they include a touchscreen either but I'll start looking.

I've managed to find something that's perfect. This.

It's an i7 4700 HQ.
1 TB 5400 RPM HDD.
16 GB of 1600 Mhz RAM.
Touchscreen (1920x1080)

I don't expect the battery to last since it has a 4 cell Li-ion, but I was expecting low battery life.

I'll be happy with this, now I just have to wait 3 months. Let me know if you have any recommendations though.

 

What are you using the laptop for? If it is just gaming, I think you will be perfectly fine with an i5. Most games don't see much of an improvement going from an i5 to an i7. So that might save you money. But an i7 is useful for some stuff, like video editing.

 

Mainly for browsing, games and occasionally CAD.

I'd rather have that extra oomph for whatever comes out in the future though.

 

Some of the newer games like Bf4 seem to benefit greatly from a quad core i7 or a six core AMD. Also, watchdogs is going to require a powerful processor according to recommended specs. Many games are switching to 64bit now and are going to start taking advantage of all those cores.

 

Sorry in advance for necro:

I'm looking to get a new laptop, specifically I've been looking at the Lenovo Y-series and since the Lenovo store is doing a sale through my work, I've potentially got a chance to get a decent one for less the $800USD.

Things I want to be able to do: Play games like Civ 5 and TF2 from Steam. Stream Netflix/Hulu and do some basic video editing using a higher end program (for class).

I'm torn between this and this. Let me know if you can't see and I'll drop the links and just quote the specs.

What do DLP?

 

Those links show me 4 different models each. However, there really aren't many differences between them. They all have the exact same graphics card, and all but one (the lowest-priced Y410) have the same i7 processor. They also all have the same RAM.

The biggest difference (apart from screen size - the 410 is 14", the 510 is 15.6") between them is the storage - some come with just hard drives, and the more expensive models add hybrid hard disk/SSD drives. Functionally though, these aren't going to do much. The biggest ones have an extra 24GB of SSD storage on them, which really isn't even enough to load your OS. Depending on the type of drive, what the system usually does is load your boot applications and other frequently-used programs on the SSD so that the computer boots faster and some of your programs load quicker.

The more expensive models also have a different network card, but I don't know if it's actually better.

So I'd pick the screen size that suits your portability needs, then get the least-expensive model with an i7 (first Y510, second Y410).

 

+1 to everything coleam said.

I have the older Y500 with the GT750M, and it's a beast (for a laptop GPU). I have no problem maxing out games at 1080p, so you'll be fine.

Seeing how they're all essentially identical except for the screen size and the SSD....just get the one with a regular platter drive and your preferred screen size.

From what I see, the Y410p (the one at $769) has the best compromise... screen resolution is 1600x900, but is 14".

Oh, and be sure to buy a wireless mouse to go with that laptop....All Y-series (extending to most of the ideapad series) trackpads are terrible. I mean, terrible to the point that you want to shoot the engineer who designed it. Everything else is fine, just that the trackpad sucks balls.