Laptop question

[Waalker]

Hello

I was looking into buying a laptop, hopefully geared up for gaming. My question was basically what I should look for in one, I know enough to get by on desktops but im a newb on laptops. I was looking at an alienware one with sli cards and so forth, but I just read mobius's post and you all dont seem to keen on alienware...at any rate any info would be great. Thanks~

Waalker

[Nil]

Originally Posted by Waalker

Hello

I was looking into buying a laptop, hopefully geared up for gaming. My question was basically what I should look for in one, I know enough to get by on desktops but im a newb on laptops. I was looking at an alienware one with sli cards and so forth, but I just read mobius's post and you all dont seem to keen on alienware...at any rate any info would be great. Thanks~

Waalker

Laptops are a different animal, really - they're tough and expensive to build on your own (and it's hard to find them with gaming processors). Take a look at http://killernotebooks.com. At least you know you'll get good support with these.

I'd scarecely recommend an SLI desktop, much less an SLI laptop.

It does look like the future will bring us external video cards, though. I'm really looking forward to that for what it means for laptops. You could get a laptop with the proper port and plug in the latest video card. That'll be sweet.

Until that time...

[Mobius]

Hey Waalker I say sit tight and wait on a response from Pirotess and Nil they are the experts in this area, maybe they can drop you some sound advice on Laptops, good luck man.

[Mobius]

lol Nil beat me to the punch, that man is on the job haha

[Nil]

Originally Posted by Mobius

Hey Waalker I say sit tight and wait on a response from Pirotess and Nil they are the experts in this area, maybe they can drop you some sound advice on Laptops, good luck man.

Neatton is actually the pro around here. It's just a hobby for me, and I believe the same is true for Pyro.

[Neatton]

With that I will drop my two cents on this area. I recently purchased myself a laptop which I was hoping to do some gaming on. When getting a laptop for gaming keep in mind its not going to be the nice little machine that you can easily take anywhere. The more power the push into the laptop the larger they become. Mine has a 15 in screen and even though its about an inch deep it is still fairly large. I know however lots who swear by laptops and have the money to keep it up. Even though it is getting better laptops have a limited amount of upgradeability. You can usually upgrade the hard drive, Proc, and ram but even today the vid card is hard to upgrade if you can at all. The main reason is that parts are soldiered to the boards. So if you have lots of money to buy a 2000 to 2500& machine every few yrs then laptops are ok. If you do not have that much money to keep it up you will quickly find your laptop behind the times and unable to play your favorite new games. On the flipside though man it really is nice to be able to connect from almost anywhere..I can tell you its gotten me out of jams locating unsecured networks all over the country

[Waalker]

Yea this one I was lookin at was about $2600 all told when i did my customizing options on it, the way it comes is already a step up from my desk top which is still pretty good. I havent upgraded a whole lot on it and I can still run games on that with little difficulty so, I guess im not that worried about upgrading every year. Why not recommend the sli though, I am still learning about that technology, but I thought 2 vid cards running properly together would def be better then 1?
at any rate thx for all the responses, very helpful.

Waalker

[Nil]

Originally Posted by Waalker

Why not recommend the sli though, I am still learning about that technology, but I thought 2 vid cards running properly together would def be better then 1?

Better yes. Much better, no. You pay fully twice as much (and even more fun, get twice as much heat and power consumption), but you'll only get a 40% increase in FPS in the best cases. Most of the time, it's more like 20%.

Generally, you're better off spending the money you would have spent on SLI on memory, a better video card, or a better CPU.


A note about this in case anyone reads this and applies it to desktops - having an SLI-capable motherboard is still desirable. That other slot can hold a physics card (don't buy one now, though, unless you're too rich for your own good), or more likley, another video card that will soon be doing your physics calcs. So the capability is something to consider for desktops.

[Ethanael]

I just bought a Dell XPS (2800$) and I am very satisfied with it. You really can't beat dells customer service. For example, My girlfriends monitor was already having problems about 4 months into her purchase of a Dell Laptop. They were at our doorstep that next day with a brand new 17 inch monitor. Took 5 minutes to replace the monitor and they were out of our hair.

I bought a monitor and needed another power cord. Called them up at 5PM, I had a cord on my doorstep the next morning at 8AM.

I can run Oblivion with near max settings (though, I had no reason to try to max it... The glow gets to me after awhile. ;o)). It does run hot, but what powerhouse of a laptop doesnt?

I program on this laptop all of the time and it takes the beating I give it well. Also, having it for college is a great asset.

Anyway, if you have the money or the credit, spend a lot. My last laptop lasted me 4 years. This one will last me another 4 years. Of course, it wont be a gaming laptop for 4 straight years, but it'll work.

Regards,
-Dave

[Quester]

Ethanael sounds sweet
Just a few questions on your Dell XPS
(1) can you post all your specs/options of your machine?
(2)would you change anything about them to run Vanguard?
(3)whcih service pack do you have..sounds great?

Thanks guys/ladies for taking the time