Gaming laptop

Willbo

Willbo

Willbo

Associate
Joined
28 Jul 2004
Posts
1,215
Location
Solihull, Birmingham
Just started to look around at laptops as I dont use my main PC much anymore apart from office, internet and some game usage (which isnt as much as i used too)
Couple of questions...

Just wondered what laptops would people recommend for the above kind of usage?

And, has anyone tried playing games like mass effect, grid, crysis on a laptop? How do they perform?
 
I have a Dell M1730 with 8800M GTX in SLI config and it runs roughly on a par with a single 4870. Crysis is a very demanding game for most setups, but Grid, Mass Effect, COD4 all run pretty well at the native screen res of 1900x1200.
 
Well, broadly speaking, gaming laptops fall into 3 categories:

Option 1 (Price range £600 -£900)

For this, you'll get a laptop with a mid range core 2 duo processor and a single 8600M GT graphics chip. The 8600M GT has enough grunt to play most modern games at low -medium detail at medium resolutions, (eg. 1440 x 900). An example of this kind of laptop is a Dell XPS M1530 or MSI GX600.

Option 2: (Price range £1000 - £1800)

Spending over a grand should get you a laptop with a single 8800mgtx or 9800mgt graphics chip. These chips have 96 shader units and a 256 bit memory interface, and should be able to game at 1680 x 1050 at medium/high detail. An example is the OCUK Ultima Extreme Mobile


Option 3: (£1800 upwards)

If you've got deep pockets, you can get laptops with dual 8800m GTX graphics cards running in SLI. They will be paired with high end dual core or even quad core cpus and come with glossy 17" 1920 x 1200 screens. These are large units and are basically desktop replacements. They will be able to run games as well as a high end desktop can, so that means gaming at 1920 x 1200 and 2560 x 1600 at high detail. An example is the Dell XPS 1730.

In a gaming laptop, the most important thing is the graphics chip. I wouldn't consider anything lower than an 8600GT for gaming. When shopping, be wary, as not all laptops are designed with gaming in mind. E.g some expensive Sony Vaio's only have low end graphics chips, as they are designed with battery life/portability as the main priority.

A bit wordy, but I hope this helps :)
 
Got a Dell XPS M1530 and for the money, its a cracking little gaming laptop at medium res and details, as mea98rm said.

I havent installed a game on it yet that it's tripped up over or threw a "wobbly" at running. :cool:
 
If you want a kick ass gaming lappy then I would look at Rock or Kobalt as there specs are the highst ive seen and there not charging exstortionate prices like Voodoo or alienware:rolleyes: , but saying that they both fall well in the option 3 catagory but they will come as close to a desktop that a lappy can .;)
 
OcUK's Ultima Mobile, great bang for buck and it's 15.4" :) so actually viable for moving about (I personally find 17" too big)
 
Just got a HP HDX9430EA, 20" screen (advertised as WSXGA but was WUXGA when it arrived), 8800GTS, 2 x 160Gb HDD's....£1k at various places but got it for £950 as i had a £50 off voucher. If you dont need portability then this is great!
 
matt1 said:
OcUK's Ultima Mobile, great bang for buck and it's 15.4" :) so actually viable for moving about (I personally find 17" too big)
Click to expand...

Not trying to put anyone off, but the Ultima Mobile has a 9800m GTS GPU. Bizarrely, this has less shaders than the 9800m GT (64 vs 96). I can't find any benchmarks for it as it so new, but I'm guessing it'll run a bit slower than the GT and might struggle a bit running games with all the bells and whistles on at 1680 x 1050 (which is the native res of the screen in the laptop).
 
Don't worry you didn't put me off :)

The GT is in short supply, going on current word. It also costs about £80 more and isn't much faster than the GTS, although admittedly it is slightly faster. I was surprised to see such a small performance difference, as I was dead set on the GT until I saw the benchmarks. It is a laptop at the end of the day.
 
matt1 said:
Don't worry you didn't put me off :)

The GT is in short supply, going on current word. It also costs about £80 more and isn't much faster than the GTS, although admittedly it is slightly faster. I was surprised to see such a small performance difference, as I was dead set on the GT until I saw the benchmarks. It is a laptop at the end of the day.
Click to expand...

Actually, I may have spoken too soon. The 9800m GTS has the same number of shaders and mem bandwidth as a desktop 9600GT, but has lower clock speeds.

Looking at reviews of the 9600GT, it performs quite well at 1680 x 1050 even with some AA turned on:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/graphics/review/2008/02/22/nVidia-GeForce-9600-GT/p5.

The Crysis scores are low, but everything performs like a dog in that game. If the 9800m GTS can perform within a few percent of this, it should be a good card.

If you can get that laptop for a grand that performs like this, it makes you wonder why there is a need for desktops.
 
Theres a Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List here

I had a HP Laptop (now returned) with a NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT (ranked 35 on the above list) And played BF2 very smooth (4,600 3d marks 2006) Also Oblivion, and Dirt - though GFX on the lattter game needed to be toned down a bit.

What about the Toshiba Qosmio X300-11S , It's got quite a fast GFX card in the NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GTS, and gets about 8000 3d marks. Would say this will play all current games reasonably well at medium settings, depending what game it is.


~Ant
 
mea98rm said:
Not trying to put anyone off, but the Ultima Mobile has a 9800m GTS GPU. Bizarrely, this has less shaders than the 9800m GT (64 vs 96). I can't find any benchmarks for it as it so new, but I'm guessing it'll run a bit slower than the GT and might struggle a bit running games with all the bells and whistles on at 1680 x 1050 (which is the native res of the screen in the laptop).
Click to expand...

Well, the 9800 GTS does beter in 2006 Benchmark 9,683 for the GTS versus 7966 for the GT
(8th and 9th on the above notebook table linked)


~Ant
 
Davey D said:
Or there is always the next model up Toshiba Qosmio X300-11w £2000 but it is a damn nice setup :-D

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe....rvice=UK&PRODUCT_ID=1057359&toshibaShop=false
Click to expand...

The lower priced toshiba looks OK, but I'd still get OCUK's Ultima Mobile over it as it has the faster GPU.

The more expensive £2k Toshiba one looks overpriced imo. It only has a single GPU (albeit a 9800m gtx), - other manufacturers will give you SLI'ed 8800m gtx or 9800m gt for that much money.
 
mea98rm said:
The lower priced toshiba looks OK, but I'd still get OCUK's Ultima Mobile over it as it has the faster GPU.

The more expensive £2k Toshiba one looks overpriced imo. It only has a single GPU (albeit a 9800m gtx), - other manufacturers will give you SLI'ed 8800m gtx or 9800m gt for that much money.
Click to expand...

but for that £2k you do get a Core 2 Extreme x9100 @ 3.06Ghz where in other manufacturers youd get something around 2.5Ghz, and you get 2x 320Gb drives, where in most you'd get only 1 drive
 
Davey D said:
but for that £2k you do get a Core 2 Extreme x9100 @ 3.06Ghz where in other manufacturers youd get something around 2.5Ghz, and you get 2x 320Gb drives, where in most you'd get only 1 drive
Click to expand...

Very true, that Toshiba does have an X9100, but modern games are mostly GPU limited rather than CPU limited when running at high res with lots of AA. You will get more bang for buck in gaming by going for SLi over a faster cpu.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom