Budget Gaming Laptop

Kennders · 7 May 2013 at 22:26

I spend a lot of time at work twiddling my thumbs and wasting a lot of time watching TV or playing certain games on my iPad, so I thought I would consider purchasing a laptop so I could play online games on that instead.

I was looking at between £250 - £350, now I know that this is not a lot but there must be some sort of laptop out there that would play some of the latest games on medium(ish) quality for this price?

tereu5 · 8 May 2013 at 08:19

I'm afraid that you will have to bump the price up a little. "Gaming" in general never has a price tag set that low. Also which games are we talking about? Some games possibly will run on a basic setup with the dedicated GPU (which is not that awfully fas - nevertheless maybe enough). Another are you looking for good screen or basic 1366x768 will do (my opinion - take best screen you can afford) Usually checking youtube will answer that - many ppl post the videos of various games on various laptop GPU so you roughly can see if that is what you looking for.

All little over the budget ...

Inspiron 17R - 5720
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-3210M (2.50 GHz)
Windows® 8 Pro
6 GB DDR3 Dual Channel 1600MHz (2 DIMMs)
1 TB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Display : 17.3 Inch High Definition+ (900p) WLED TrueLife
Graphics : 1 GB Nvidia GeForce GT 630M
Back Up Media Not Included
Windows 8 Professional (64 Bit OS)
Wireless : Dell Wireless 1704 Card
LCD Back Cover : Moon Silver Switch Cover
Battery : Primary 6 Cell 48W/HR
Internal Qwerty Keyboard
£384.90

Base Inspiron 15R - 7520
Processor Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-3230M (2.60GHz, 3MB cache)
Operating System Windows® 8
Memory 6 GB DDR3 Dual Channel 1600MHz (2 DIMMs)
Hard Disk Drive 1 TB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
Media Bay 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
NoteBook Screen Display: 15.6 inch High Definition LED Display (1366 x 768) with TrueLife
Video Graphics: 2 GB AMD Radeon HD 7730M Card
Software Back Up Media Not Included
Windows® 8 64bit (Englilsh)
Network Interface Card Wireless : Intel Centrino Advanced-N 2230 (2x2, a/g/n) + Bluetooth
System Color LCD Back Cover : Aluminium
LCD Back Cover : Aluminium
Laptop Battery Battery : Primary 6 Cell 48W/HR
Keyboard Internal Qwerty Backlit Keyboard
Adapters 3 Pin 1M 90W AC Adaptor
Power Supply: 90W AC Adapter
£416.03

Kennders · 8 May 2013 at 08:46

Main reason im looking at getting one is for playing games like EVE Online, Skyrim and possibly even some GTA 4. I suppose I could up the price to about £450 maybe if it gets me that extra bit of performance, 17 inch screen is also what I'm after, I don't really like small screens.

I will certainly take a look at YouTube for some idea as to which one to purchase.

iv-tecman · 8 May 2013 at 11:05

Skyrim and GTA 4 will need a decent ish mobile GPU. GTA 4 also likes a good CPU but that is generally a poorly optimised game in general.

I'd look in the GT 650M if you can stretch to it. http://www.notebookcheck.net/ gives an idea on what each mobile GPU can be expected to perform like.

For example the GT 650M is listed here -http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-650M.71887.0.html

Skyrim will reach at med settings up to 58 fps depending on other settings like screen res and levels of AA

But finding a laptop for your budget with this type of mobile GPU will be another challange, maybe see if you can find a second hand one. Or check Dell outlet.

Marine-RX179 · 8 May 2013 at 11:42

iv-tecman said:
Skyrim and GTA 4 will need a decent ish mobile GPU. GTA 4 also likes a good CPU but that is generally a poorly optimised game in general.

I'd look in the GT 650M if you can stretch to it. http://www.notebookcheck.net/ gives an idea on what each mobile GPU can be expected to perform like.

For example the GT 650M is listed here -http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-650M.71887.0.html

Skyrim will reach at med settings up to 58 fps depending on other settings like screen res and levels of AA

But finding a laptop for your budget with this type of mobile GPU will be another challange, maybe see if you can find a second hand one. Or check Dell outlet.

Yea...the problem is getting a laptop with a i5-M CPU and a GT650M would cost at least close to £600.

If Intel's Iris Pro 5200 on the top range Haswell i7 CPU really live up to the hype of "compariable (not saying it will beat it)" to the GT650M, then we MAY BE able to get a laptop at £500-£600 with a faster CPU (and Quad-core instead of Dual-core), and a comparable integrated GPU.

Kennders · 8 May 2013 at 20:24

Been doing some research and yeah it seems like I'm gunna have to fork out some more money, or buy a 2nd hand one. Thanks for the info!

Glaucus · 9 May 2013 at 08:24

One thing I'll say is do you need a dedicated gfx card.
I spent ages getting a budget laptop with discrete gfx and so far run all my games from the intel. Ok they aren't graphically intense games, but I'm surprised how well things run. KSP, endless space, stardrive, civ5

So worth thinking about, if you want more grunt haswell is certainly worth thinking about, batteries should last a fair bit longer and double the onboard gfx.