Gaming on Laptops?????????

toxic

toxic

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Can you game well on a laptop...and if so what kinda money do you have to spend on one to get good performance?
Also looking for a decent sized display...and playing the likes of 2142, BF2 and maybe Quake Wars and Crysis when it comes out.

Anyone have some comments/recommendations?
 
Dunno about those games, but my friend just bought a £900 laptop and it plays CS:S on medium/high no problem :)
 
My 2 year old Alienware M7700 plays BF2 and 2142 fairly well, but it lags behind in modern games. Most of my gaming these days takes place on my main desktop rig, and the Alienware hardly gets used, since it lacks the power to take on modern games, and then there's the fact that it weighs the same as a Soviet T-72. You're better off with a fairly beefy desktop.

Looks the part though!

11330704a4376238377b275477311l.jpg
 
Buying a laptop for gaming is not recommended because you really have to spend more money than a similarly powered desktop PC. But if you really want a gaming laptop, there are plenty available but they are generally £1000+ for the good ones. Asus, Dell, MSI, and Alienware do good gaming laptops. Just make sure you read up on reviews about them. CustomPC mag tends to have quite a few reviews on gaming laptops each month.
 
dell m90

paid 1000 including three year next day swap out
core 2 duo m2500 = 7900 gtx 512
plays most thins well even in vista!
 
Nice - It is now not nearly as expensive to run a desktop replacement as it used to be. The gap between desktop and laptop has narrowed by a fair bit, and it is more than possible to play the latest releases on the 'go' - just don't expect much battery life ;)

I'm running a m1710 with the 2ghz C2D and a shiny 7950GTX that buts my main rig to shame! I think the mobile 8800s are available now too - but will have a look around - for about £1500 you should be able to play the latest/greatest on the hoof without too much hastle! (Mine was £1200 BTW, and at the time the GFX card was the best money could buy and I've got a stonking screen!)

Yep - 8800 go is around - not sure how they perform though!
 
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I still game on my laptop which I have had for a little over a year now. Plays most of the latest games just fine but games life BF2, 2142 etc I can max out at 1920 x 1200 and they look great ;)

I'm tempted to upgrade the gfx card to a 7950 GTX but I am unsure what kind of extra performance I would get from it over the 7900 GTX I have at present. i may well stick 4GB of RAM in soon though and upgrade my HDD as it's a bit small.
 
Yes.
Plug in a mouse and it's like using a pc.
I spent £700 on my new laptop that can play almost all new games. BF2 works fine but I've never played the others.
 
Trouble is with laptops apart from them not being as powerful and more sensitive to heat, they are not upgradeable apart from maybe RAM and HDD, so when it becomes unable to cope there is very little you can do about it. In my case the temperature thing became a serious issue, when it became too hot the cpu would clock down to 800MHz. Therefore whenever i was playing a game eg. CS:S it would play great on high settings until it got too hot, then would become unplayable. No matter what settings it was on it would be impossible to play during the slowdowns
 
Mindriot said:
Trouble is with laptops apart from them not being as powerful and more sensitive to heat, they are not upgradeable apart from maybe RAM and HDD, so when it becomes unable to cope there is very little you can do about it. In my case the temperature thing became a serious issue, when it became too hot the cpu would clock down to 800MHz. Therefore whenever i was playing a game eg. CS:S it would play great on high settings until it got too hot, then would become unplayable. No matter what settings it was on it would be impossible to play during the slowdowns
Click to expand...

I have never had that problem - what laptop was it?

I use a laptop riser as I find it more comfortable to type with the keyboard at a slight tilt - it also has the added bonus of extra cooling as the bottom is completely lifted free of my desk.
 
I recently bought the GX700 from MSI for £900 (discount through work) good gaming specs and a WSXGA 17" (1680x1050) screen, great for gaming!
If you search hard enough you can get a decent gaming laptop for about £700 but the best ones will all be £1000+
 
Thansk for the replies..guys!
Im going to be working away a month at a time abroad...and will have an apartment in a hotel which i know has wireless broadband access. Im not looking forward to not having my online gaming fix for months at a time...so im debating whether to buy desktop components and carry them over in my case and build a system when I get there ...or buy a laptop. Laptop...les powerfull...and more money...but less issues getting it about. Desktop....components OK to ship...buy monitor and a case...Im not sure. Ive allready got a spare 20" LCD...so id just have to buy componets..C2D...8800GTS etc. I could do it for about 4-500£..but getting the LCD etc there might be hard. Just wanted to see what people thought on laptop gaming these days.
 
You definitely want to go for a laptop - just a matter of identifying your price-point. How much would you like to spend, and what would you like to play. CS:S and BF2 are playable on tiny specs, but anything newer will require something a little beefier. Remember also that upgrading a laptop is considerably more difficult/costly than a desktop, so it's important to buy the best you can with the cash you have (having said that I upgraded my Ram/hdd/bluetooth with more to come - so it's not impossible - and the Dells are very modular which helps :) )
 
my friend brought a ( another word for a stone) laptop as he lives near the store with 2 x NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512MB cards and 4 gig of ram with a Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz Dual Core processor and 2 hardrives. cost him £1500 as they was having some deals on, think he got a free upgrade from 2gig to 4gig and the extra 7950 GTX.

and boy is it fast, sucks the juice though from the battery
 
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Have to say I've always been impressed by the spec that Rock offer - with Raid 0 hdd's and sli'd GFX cards they produce some mighty impressive machines! Anyone know what the build quality/support is like?
 
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