Gaming Laptop £1,500 Budget

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Gaming Laptop £2000 Budget

I saw in the this week only thread they had this Laptop for sale : http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LS-000-MS

MSI GX660R 15.6" WLED TFT Intel I5-460M, 8GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, ATI HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 Graphics, Win7 Home Premium 64-Bit - Black/Red @ £1,174.80 inc VAT

Should I buy it ? I have no idea what gaming laptop to buy so need a lot of help I'd need one by March as I'll be abroad until June/July possibly even until the end of the year if sporting aspirations workout :cool:

(Yes I know I could get a gaming rig) but I need something portable for the time being that'll still let me game when I want to wind down and relax and that can handle all the other things (blu ray playback) without the need for me lug around a PS3+Monitor to get the best out of blu ray and what not.

Well please help if you can. :D (Earliest I can purchase is in a few days anyway) as I need some extra funds to come in.
 
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5870m is currently one of the fastest graphic chips out there, so wouldn't be a bad choice, it's about on par with a 5750/5770, so it'll play just about anything well as long as you're not overambitious with settings.

Personally I'd go for one of these:
Spec is almost identical and the £150 off would mean you could upgrade the spec at your own choice, (a standalone lappy blu-ray can be had for £50 as an example).

Alternatively, personally I feel Clevo models are better built based on feedback from owners of the MSI and Clevo, but it'll take longer to take a Clevo as they tend to be custom builds.

You MIGHT see 6970m models arrive in the next few months which is about 50% stronger, BUT whether it'll be in time for you going is another thing.
 
Alexrose1uk said:
5870m is currently one of the fastest graphic chips out there, so wouldn't be a bad choice, it's about on par with a 5750/5770, so it'll play just about anything well as long as you're not overambitious with settings.

Personally I'd go for one of these:
Spec is almost identical and the £150 off would mean you could upgrade the spec at your own choice, (a standalone lappy blu-ray can be had for £50 as an example).

Alternatively, personally I feel Clevo models are better built based on feedback from owners of the MSI and Clevo, but it'll take longer to take a Clevo as they tend to be custom builds.

You MIGHT see 6970m models arrive in the next few months which is about 50% stronger, BUT whether it'll be in time for you going is another thing.
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Thanks for the suggestions I'll check them out now. Was there meant to be a link there for after your comment :Personally I'd go for one of these: as I see nothing afterwards :D if so please let me know what laptop you were suggesting.
 
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Alexrose1uk said:
Sorry, was one of these I was linking
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-025-MS&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat=

Its the same as the MSI you're looking at, but without the BR, and slightly less RAM.
6GB is still more than enough, and as I mentioned, you can spend the cash on a better CPU, BR drive (and you can buy your own for ~50), whatever if you so desire.
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Thanks for the recommendations will definitely be mulling over my choices. Another question if anyone doesn't mind answering would it be worth getting an Alienware M11x ? (I'd get one sent over from the USA) I'm just so tempted by it's size!!
 
It's not too bad for the size, but last I checked the specs, it was heavily outmatched in terms of gaming by virtually any larger gaming laptop.

If you intend to keep it as a general use gaming machine after your travels, something with a solid GPU would be a much better choice, as invariably they're the hardest part to upgrade, and the quickest part to outdate.
 
Alexrose1uk said:
It's not too bad for the size, but last I checked the specs, it was heavily outmatched in terms of gaming by virtually any larger gaming laptop.

If you intend to keep it as a general use gaming machine after your travels, something with a solid GPU would be a much better choice, as invariably they're the hardest part to upgrade, and the quickest part to outdate.
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Yeah it'd have to last me a couple of years at the very least but what if I got the top of the line M11x (Bar the Hard drive) I see it would only run me around £950 until March 3rd (can get a relative to order it for me and ship it over) with the following specs

Processor Intel® Core™ i7 640UM (4M Cache, 1.2 GHZ with 2.266 GHz Max Turbo Frequency) - Overclockable
Memory 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz
Power Adapters Alienware M11x 90W A/C Adapter
LCD 11.6-inch WideHD 1366x768 (720p) WLED
Video Card 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M
Hard Drive 320GB SATAII 7,200RPM (I'd upgrade later on)

Or should I just go with the smarter option of a more powerful beast like you're recommending. Although as you've said not as good on the gaming said as others may have to look into this way more than I thought :)
 
The problem is the GT335, which at the end of the day is a low-mid range part. The only reason it just about gets away with it, is its pushing a pretty low res screen. As a comparison to ATI's mobile range, it's beaten by the 5650m, let alone the 5870m, which up til very recently was ATI's fastest mobile offering.

As an example, the GT335's vantage *GPU* score is in the 2600 range, the 5870m nets somewhere around 7600 as a GPU score. Should give you some idea as to the difference between the cards once you're plugged into the mains!

As you want to game, and the machine to last a while, given the cost difference (about £60) it'd be insane to go for the M11x over the cheaper MSI, and as your budget runs a bit higher there's nothing stopping you upgrading the MSI. The 5870m will still be useable with compromise on new games in a year or two, the GT335 likely won't.
I don't particularly LIKE Notebookcheck, but if you checkout the two cards comparative ratings....well it should give you another indication :)
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

As mentioned previously, I personally (and this is bearing in mind I almost bought an MSI, but couldnt find one in stock when I had the cash read) believe Clevo models are more study, and there are better GPU's round the corner, but with your time limations I think the MSI is THE best gaming laptop you're going to find for the £1k in the UK.
 
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Alexrose1uk said:
The problem is the GT335, which at the end of the day is a low-mid range part. The only reason it just about gets away with it, is its pushing a pretty low res screen. As a comparison to ATI's mobile range, it's beaten by the 5650m, let alone the 5870m, which up til very recently was ATI's fastest mobile offering.

As an example, the GT335's vantage *GPU* score is in the 2600 range, the 5870m nets somewhere around 7600 as a GPU score. Should give you some idea as to the difference between the cards once you're plugged into the mains!

As you want to game, and the machine to last a while, given the cost difference (about £60) it'd be insane to go for the M11x over the cheaper MSI, and as your budget runs a bit higher there's nothing stopping you upgrading the MSI. The 5870m will still be useable with compromise on new games in a year or two, the GT335 likely won't.
I don't particularly LIKE Notebookcheck, but if you checkout the two cards comparative ratings....well it should give you another indication :)
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

As mentioned previously, I personally (and this is bearing in mind I almost bought an MSI, but couldnt find one in stock when I had the cash read) believe Clevo models are more study, and there are better GPU's round the corner, but with your time limations I think the MSI is THE best gaming laptop you're going to find for the £1k in the UK.
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;) Thanks for persuading me not to I suppose I can always drop down the resolution on those bigger laptops to get a better performance out of them!

I'll be looking at the Clevo models now :D
 
Clevo models are good, just beware of the longer lead time. In this country you're probably looking at a lead time of a month or so, whereas the MSI are prebuilt.
 
Alexrose1uk said:
Clevo models are good, just beware of the longer lead time. In this country you're probably looking at a lead time of a month or so, whereas the MSI are prebuilt.
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Too good :D If only I had more money :eek:

I've seen a MSI GX660R on Ebay for a slightly cheaper price with what I assume is a better CPU ( i7-740QM)/More Ram (12GB DDR3) so I may get that if my money comes in before the auction ends in 4 days. I didn't link as I assume that's against the forum rules.
 
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Haha yes, some Clevo models are rather nice :D ;)

The 740qm has a slower base speed, but more cores. 12GB RAM is overkill for gaming, frankly 8GB is overkill :)
460m is a dual core with a base clock of 2.53, but turbos up to 2.83Ghz. The 740qm bases at 1.73Ghz but turbos up to 2.93.

What I mean by turbos up to is that the I mobile chips independantly switch unused cores off, and overclock the others. In the I7's case, if only 1 core is being used, the others will be switched into power saving mode and the remaining core will run at 2.93Ghz, when all 4 cores are being used, each will operate at 1.73Ghz.
 
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Alexrose1uk said:
Haha yes, some Clevo models are rather nice :D ;)

The 740qm has a slower base speed, but more cores. 12GB RAM is overkill for gaming, frankly 8GB is overkill :)
460m is a dual core with a base clock of 2.53, but turbos up to 2.83Ghz. The 740qm bases at 1.73Ghz but turbos up to 2.93.

What I mean by turbos up to is that the I mobile chips independantly switch unused cores off, and overclock the others. In the I7's case, if only 1 core is being used, the others will be switched into power saving mode and the remaining core will run at 2.93Ghz, when all 4 cores are being used, each will operate at 1.73Ghz.
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So it'd be better to get the OCUK one over the Ebay model I saw then ?
I don't want to spend all that money just to see the next great thing come out 3-4 weeks later for £300-500 more when I could get it, like you already said.

I think I may need to extend my budget to £2000 and hold out until March/April or even May in that time I can gather some knowledge about the upcoming cards (even if I have to wait slightly longer) just so I can get a machine that kicks ass day 1 even if it get's outshone a few months later :p just seems to be my mentality if I'm going to drop this much cash on the thing.
 
Well, there's the 69** cards coming soon, and they're quite a bit nippier than the 5 series cards, early benchmarks for the 6970m put it about half as fast again as the 5870m.

Its just the whole waiting thing :)
At the end of the day though there's always something new around the corner!
 
Alexrose1uk said:
Well, there's the 69** cards coming soon, and they're quite a bit nippier than the 5 series cards, early benchmarks for the 6970m put it about half as fast again as the 5870m.

Its just the whole waiting thing :)
At the end of the day though there's always something new around the corner!
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True that but I'd like to be at the top of the curve :) if only for a nanosecond.
Thanks for all your help I've been looking into those future cards and they seem to stack up well with all the current games bar Crysis and Metro 2033 at the very highest settings. I don't know how anyone decides what to pick without wanting to push up their budget to the top of the line systems.

Quick Edit : Sager NP7280/Clevo x7200 If I order one in from the USA with a single nVIDIA GTX 485M it'd fit my stretched budget of £2000 just about may have to push it slightly further I may just have to do that if I'm ever able to make my mind up :) (if I do get a gaming laptop it'll be this one it's a beast)
 
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If you're going that way, wait for the X8100's replacement ;)

Should be better value if the current version is anything to go by, the x7200 is a desktop chip utilising monster, and aimed at the workstation as much as the gaming community.
 
I would definitely agree with Alex, the clevo/sager models are the way forward. They don't have the bells and whistles of a dell/alienware but are very well built.

The only problem you have is where to get it from. I bought mine on the recommendations of some people here from Kobalt computers. The lead time from ordering to receiving the laptop was ridiculous. Bare in mind they buy the chassis then just fit the components you want so it's not like they are building you a ground up custom machine. It was unbelievably frustrating to say the least as they already quoted me 1 month from order to dispatch and took 2x as long with little or no contact even they had my money within hours of ordering. You just have to look at their own forums to see that they are still taking the **** by using the same old excuses.

That being said if you were to order from them the support you would get from after sales would be second to none. I had the MD of the company personally call me up a number if times and gave me his direct number and email address as he appreciated my frustrations. It is because of this excellent after sales I would still buy from them rather than anywhere else as saving a few bucks when buying your £1500+ laptop and then having shoddy aftersales if it breaks would break my heart lol.

To sum up if you can handle the wait and possible broken delivery time promises you know where to go!
 
Yeah I've been looking on there I guess their pricers aren't too bad. Would still prefer to get one sent to family in the U.S and then have them ship it to me here as the prices even going SLI with the 485's would be of a similar price maybe even cheaper. (For the two models I'm interested in)
 
Problem is, if anything goes wrong you'll have to ship it back to the US which...for a weighty package, certainly adds up.
Given these are enthusiast machines, you've gotta be prepared. Europe rather than the US would be a much more sensible place to look outside the UK.
 
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