Help Me Decide on Gaming Laptop.

The new Xbox Scorpio will be my pick

a reply to: schuyler

I get what you're saying but a lot of the newer laptops aren't coming with writers or dvd slots so either way one would get cords. I guess it depends on the laptop.

I had to ask myself the same question several months ago and I need something with real power. I am a graphic designer and I multitask like crazy while running 3 monitors off of the laptop when I am at home. I just scored the ROG 752.
This is what's in it:
i7, 24gb ram, 1TB hard drive and 1 SSD, NVidia GEFORCE 970M and a ton of other extras. Running Win10 and nothing---I mean nothing can can cause this thing to stutter. I will stick with ASUS forever if they keep making these powerhouses. Mine fits well within your budget. I purchased it for $1,500 brand new and the only downside, albeit expected, is the weight. 12lbs!!!

I hope this helps as I highly recommend this laptop for gamers and graphic designers alike.

Order brings up a good point. These days solid state drives are affordable and the problems with reliability are largely over. They move faster than a normal hard drive, which can be crucial in some game environments which constantly make calls to the disk for graphic content.

a reply to: OrderOfIntent

build one yourself . . . it will be cheaper plus customizeable to you personally, and easier to upgrade in future.

a reply to: Tarzan the apeman.

I recommend you should not buy a laptop if your main purpose is gaming. Laptops don't disapate heat well and often I have seen the GPU comes un-soldiered from the board (usually when people use them on their lap as the name implies). Most GPU I have ever seen on a laptop board are bottom mounted -- gravity is playing a role here too. Note that the GPU is the primary component you need to play a video game. Its not an FRU ( Field Replacable Unit) or upgradeable (by conventional means) and if it fails (outside of warranty) you cannot even connect an external monitor to use your sweet $1800 gaming rig. I think its fair to assess that somewhere around 90% of the GPU problems I have seen were on HP laptops FWIW. That is my empirical experience...

If I were to consider buying a laptop for gaming, I would stick to the same brand I use for business: Lenovo. They got a bad rap for that superfish thing, but thats behind them now.

-d

a reply to: OrderOfIntent

This one keeps coming up in my searches. Gets good reviews and doesn't heat up badly. I am leaning towards this one.

a reply to: Tarzan the apeman.

I'm not sure why I didn't mention that. The cooling setup is awesome and it actually works...like really well. Anyway, I hope that my post helps. I love mine.

a reply to: Tarzan the apeman. Hay. I have experience with ASUS ROG 8gb ram. It was majestic machine. I advisy you go for it but with the 16 GB ram version. However if you don't put. Windows 8 or better, the scrolling of the pad won't work due drivers problem. Anyway I like better windows 7 so I lived that drawback of OS. I sold my ROG as I was getting to much gaming inspirations and my other interests started to suffer. So I sacrificed it. Sold it cheap months ago 500$. I am sure you can find similar offers for ROG 16gb for less than 1200$. Go to the pub and drink the rest with your gaming friends.

originally posted by: drewlander
a reply to: Tarzan the apeman.

I recommend you should not buy a laptop if your main purpose is gaming. Laptops don't disapate heat well and often I have seen the GPU comes un-soldiered from the board (usually when people use them on their lap as the name implies).

This comes up every time someone wants a laptop for gaming. The heat dissipation is a real issue and can be addressed. I've never even heard of these other issues with laptops and I would suggest that they are quite rare. The fact of the matter is, if you want a laptop, you want a laptop. I can't imagine gaming with a desktop which more or less requires you sit at a desk with your back to the world, cords dangling everywhere with the machine dominating the room. It's fine if you live in your bedroom or the basement, but it's no good if you want to game and interact with others. I much prefer to sit on a comfortable couch with a laptop which moves if I want it to, with everything I need in that small package. No huge monitor with two separate cords. No mouse with its cord. No separate keyboard. No desktop case, floor mounted or not, roaring its fans in the background. A laptop is much less intrusive, especially if other people are around who would be bothered by it. And if that's the way you like it, and if someone comes around and says you really ought to get a desktop, they just don't get it.

As to heat dissipation, that has already been mentioned. Some laptops, especially those designed for gaming, have given special attention to this issue with internal channels to pipe the heat away. You can also get, very cheaply, an external fan set up that fits on the bottom of the laptop and works off a USB port for power. These are very lightweight, separate your lap from the laptop, and add two or more fans to the equation.

a reply to: schuyler
Acer has a laptop you can take out the blueray drive and put a fan in its place. Also see there are some laptops out there that are liquid cooled. I have been doing a lot of gaming card homework today. Will no by tomorrow which one I'm going to order.

I bought an MSI GT72 Dragon edition.

i7, GTX 970m 6gb video ram, 16 gb system ram.

It runs all games at highest 60FPS with some unnoticeable dipps.

And laptops do not run warm, i rarely hear my dual fans, it's very effective cooled.

I will suggest MSI.

a reply to: Tarzan the apeman.

Would like to thank everyone for your suggestions and help. I looked at pretty much every brand MSI, Alienware, Acer, etc etc. I found this one ASUS ROG GL702VM-DB74 (newer model). Seems like an all around decent laptop. $200.00 under budget.

a reply to: Tarzan the apeman.

Score!

a reply to: schuyler

It comes up every time because its an issue that has burned a lot of people and their money. Just one quick search on google for youtube videos of "HP no video gpu" and you can see by how many videos and commenters per video providing feedback the problem is wide-spread.

www.google.com...

I'm not an omnipotent net-spert grandstanding straw man arguments against laptop gaming. I speak from empirical experience with two very different HP laptops which I've had to re-ball the GPU and finally gave up on after repairing them several times. If you had better experience with gaming on laptops then that's great! I hope the OP has good luck with his choice as well.