Gaming laptop <£500 possible?

No.....

Ok the integrated on the A8 are better than the HD3000 and low end dedicated but not for gaming.

Try to get a GT540 minimum but even that struggles with the latest titles even on low/medium. For ATI this means a 6650 or thereabouts.

You really need to be up to a GT550 or higher if you want to consider it a gaming laptop as opposed to a laptop you can just about game on,.

If you are only playing much older games, RTS or WoW then the A8 will probably suffice.

So for £500, you may struggle to get more than a G540 on a brand worth considering. Dedicated graphics generate a lot of heat and are often the un-doing of home / low end gaming laptops after 12 months or so esp on the cheaper brands inc HP DV home laptops.
 
Scrutinize said:
Try to get a GT540 minimum but even that struggles with the latest titles even on low/medium. For ATI this means a 6650 or thereabouts.
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It does not. I have the xps l502x with the GT540 and it handles even BF3 ok, not amazingly obviously. It plays skyrim ok too, again not on all high settings.

I do have it with an i7 2630qm and 8gb of RAM though, but still it should not make that much of a difference.

I don't think we are aloud to mention the place that does cheap dell laptops, but as a guide mine cost just under £600 with a 1080p screen. It is possible to get my spec without the 1080p for around £500, thats i7 2630qm, 8gb ram, 640gb hdd, GT540m 3gb, dvd+rw etc
 
I have HP Pavillion G6 - A8-3500M and I think the onboard is a 6620G (just checked, it is). Cost me just over half what you're looking to pay (£320) and wsa marked as a refurb. Arrived as brand new - changed the 1TB drive for a Momentus XT, and upping it from 6GB to 8GB (both xt and 4GB sodimm bought from the OcUK MM) and it's a nifty little laptop.

Gaming performance is probably about what I expected - will happily play bf3 on low settings, although I dropped to 1280x720. Rift it can struggle with, but older games fly... Fifa12 also plays better than I expected.

CPU performance is very good - downgraded from my rig which was a 2600k @ 4.6GHz, and not as bad an adjustment as I was expecting.

My advice would be to work out exactly what you mean by "many(sic) be used for gaming." - what games are you looking to play, what performance compromises are you prepared to make, and (more importantly) what performance compromises are you NOT prepared to make.

If I wanted better gaming performance, I'd have gone for one of the Dell XPS refurbs/returns - the 540 (or the 555 if you look at the 17" 702x, even with 3GB option) seem to be good value.

Let me know if there's any questions you have about the a8/6620g and I'll be happy to help.
 
daz.rathbone .............Your amazing, Alittle google fu, and managed to pick up a charcoal gray G6-1220sa for £319. Its a refurb from a well know ex high street shop. Funny enough the exact same model i was looking at for £499!!!!
Thanks again mate... ow andmany..lol
 
does the extra row of keys next to the enter button on the G6-1220sa not get in the way for you guys?

2psm2o2.jpg


looks good this laptop!
 
Just arrived. All good so far, apart from one stuck pixel and the damed blotware!!! Just installing ME3, lets see how it gets on. The keys next to the enter key seem not to get in the way, though the keyboard is very bouncy.
 
Ordered this one myself except it also has a discrete 7450M. Couldn't believe the specs for £499. How well are you guys finding it? I'm hoping it will give a great improvement over my PII N930+5470M. Probably the most stressful game I'll play is StarCraft II on it.
 
Orcvader said:
Ordered this one myself except it also has a discrete 7450M. Couldn't believe the specs for £499. How well are you guys finding it? I'm hoping it will give a great improvement over my PII N930+5470M. Probably the most stressful game I'll play is StarCraft II on it.
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Its fantastic. Download a program called K10STAT, it allows you to overclock the A8. 2 mins work and alittle undervolting and "hay presto" 2.4ghz accross all 4 cores;), and lower temps!!! A few people have even benched at 3ghz. @2.4ghz it has similar performance to an i5.
I dont know how much difference there is between the 7450m and the 6620m i am guessing they are quite similar. There is no point in overclocking the gpu as it will only net you 1 or 2 fps more, and the voltage and temperature increase is not worth it.
It runs most new games fine, though you have to lower the settings a little. Mass effect 3 runs great. Though i've mostly been playing though far cry 2 again. What looks fantastic.
 
It's dual graphics, so it's the 6620G working with the 7450M ;) From a quick google both seems to perform similiar on their own.

Oh wow, you can overclock the CPU? Mind telling me your overclock settings? Will give it a go when I get mine!
 
The dual graphics is not crossfire!!! The system will use the low powered gpu for 2d/desktop use. And then switch to the descrete gpu for gaming.
As for the overclock, i used this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30zTM11hg7A for a guide, The vid is for 2.8ghz. i thought that was a little high and decided on 2.4ghz. As the gpu is the bottle neck. When clocked @ 2.8ghz i got no increase in fps.
 
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