Time to simply be a smug git - Options?

[FatRakoon]

I am not much of a Laptop an by any standards, I have never liked them, not really.

Sure, they are incredibly handy etc etc but compared to even a fairly basic desktop, laptops are utter plonk in comparison ( usually )

Anyway, it seems, that for some strange reason, pretty much since I got out of hospital, that I seem to have added laptops to my collection of utterly stupid things I buy for absolutely no sensible reason at all.

Ok, well, its allowed me to get a Lappy each for the kids, one for the missus, and, as irritatingly usual, 3 for me.

My 3 are fairly good.

Samsung R60 that I was given as a smashed up pile a few years ago, and with the help of the by, have replaced pretty much everything in it and its now a great little solid workhorse, currenty running Sabayon MATE, and sporting 4GB and a 320GBHD. Could do with a little extra boomph put its fine.

HP 6730B. A gorgeous 1650x1080 screen makes the display incredibly crisp on this. Its got 4GB also but this time I have swapped the DVDRW with its 500GBHD and I hjave added a 60GBSSD to boot onto. its a Core2Duo at 2.53 so nippy enough for anything you would want to throw at it within most bounds of reason, and I love it.

My latest was purely a "Sod it, Im having that!" while walking past a shop window.

HP DV6 I7
Again stock 500GB has been transfered to external USB case and its now double HD'ed up like the 6730B but this time with an OCZ120GB SSD and a 1TB Hybrid for the junk, and upped to 8GB although I found no actual benefit from adding the extra 4GB to be honest.
This one however is running ATI 65xx GFX so its capable of many games ( but not at any serious pace I have to say ) but capable enough to allow me to play and that will do for now.

Here we are now on tho the crux of the matter.

Since my accident, I am for want of a better word, utterly shafted for getting out and about. I am still unable to ride my bike, or drive my car... Although I have done both on my driveway, I dare not try it on the road, just in case, and so, I am totally reliant on my friends to drive me about.

What I now do, to release some of the boredom, is take my I7 Lappy to Costa or similar, and plonk my bum down in the corner and simply vegetate for an hour or two. It gets me out of the house once of twice a week you know.

But what it is, is simply this...

I have decided to splash out on a decent Laptop.

So, I am going to go, for an AlienWare or the Dell Range anyway.

I am wanting to simply buy the best I can possible buy, but we are talking £3K for the Alienware 19

Is that worth it? I have been reading that A/W are simply no longer worth it anymore and that you are only paying for the name? - Is that true?

When looking at OCUK range, I see that there are some fantastic looking options in there, and for half the price of the A/W ones, are they any cop though ( What a silly thing to say I know ).

One of the oddest things I am going to ask now, is this :-

Do Seriously high end Laptops based on AMDs actually exist? Only I dont seem to have seen a single one recently?

One thing I have hit with both my HP laptops is that I normally run Sabayon on them, however recently its done something and I can no longer run Sabayon, after some moving to MINT, that did the same now too, and now, the DV6 is running on Kubuntu 13.10 and so far so good, so, Linux compatibility is absolutely not negotiable.

Dedicated graphics on a Laptop? Is it upgradeable?
Can I even go with an ATI card instead of nVidia? I only seem to see nvidia? - Not that I dislike it, Im just curious!

Anyway, I waffle like hell, so I will shut my gob here and see if anyone gives a monkeys.

Thanks for getting this far at least!

Tara

 

[thedinks]

The new alienware 18 has a few problems at the minute, fan table is wrong and they don't overclock properly.

I love my alienwares they were worth every penny to me.

Dedicated gpus are upgradeable but mucho denero. ATI don't seem to have a high end card out this generation.

 

[Richdog]

I take it you have a ton of disposable income that you don't have to worry about making purchases of grossly excessive amounts of laptops?

Anyway the best laptop GPU's are Nvidia... more pricey of course, but faster and cooler in general and don't seem to suffer many bugs or performance issues.

PS: Yes, your posts are almost painfully wafflish and rambling to read. But best wishes and get well soon.

 

[Meaker]

The msi 3k edition is worth a look to, it's nice and portable and wont eat more than a table width like the 18.

 

[FatRakoon]

Aye, noted on the waffling... I dont mean to, Im just a bit mental these days.

Saw the MSI on OCUK.

RAID SSD PLUS normal HD = Sexy
under 2 grand

Yeah, the missus isnt happy about the idea, she is right. I am simply dreaming, but its a dream that I want to make happen.

I now think that maybe Alienware may be too much for not any real benefit other than name.

I have been happy with MSI hardwre in the past, so why not go that path?

What I will do, is hang on for a few more months and see what I think in the new year

Thanks guys.

 

[Pookie Bear]

I recently bought a Clevo laptop, admittedly not through OCUK, but they stock the same chassis (P170SM). I did a lot of research before making my purchase and spent quite a lot of money - but not quite at your budget.

Nvidia make the fastest single graphics option, the 780m. AMDs top option, the 8970M is second in the listings by quite some distance, but ahead of the 770m. Of course, on some individual games the numbers show otherwise, but those are due to special optimisations - these are general positions.

AMD do have some mobile CPU options - and by all accounts they work fantastically with AMD GPUs to produce some lower cost high gaming performance machines (but they lack in other areas). So, in a nutshell, for high performance, Haswell is the way to go.

My machine, an i7-4700MQ with a 4GB 8970M runs like an absolute dream - yes, it's big and heavy, but it handles everything I throw at it. For the price, a custom-build Clevo will knock the pants off most MSI/Alienware/Gigabyte options - but it won't look as pretty for some (I think mine looks great!). Plus since mine is running off an SSD, its CPU benchmarks are incredible (the benchmarks show it performing less than 1% off the best mobile CPU available). Gaming-wise, I'm running Rome 2 on high, at 1920x1080, at 90 fps - not really sure I need more!