Recommend a Gaming laptop

Benzino

My mate is looking for a laptop in which he will be using it for games. His price range is 1500euro. He wants something that will be able to play games at decent speeds for the next year and a half or so. Can you recommend a laptop?

Thanks in advance for your help and input.

Linoge

May be a little above your budget but I would recommend

http://www.alienware.co.uk/product_detail_pages/Aurora_mALX/aurora-m_overview.aspx?SysCode=PC-EU-LT-AUR-M-ALX&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT



Seriously though, check out the Dell XPS because of course being a Dell its very customisable.

Zapho

The XPS might be a little out of his price range too, but check out the Inpiron 6400 on dell.ie and upgrade it. You can put some nice things into it to make it very powerful, it'll be just 1500 then.

oceanclub

Linoge wrote:

May be a little above your budget but I would recommend

http://www.alienware.co.uk/product_detail_pages/Aurora_mALX/aurora-m_overview.aspx?SysCode=PC-EU-LT-AUR-M-ALX&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT



Seriously though, check out the Dell XPS because of course being a Dell its very customisable.

There doesn't appear to be much if any difference between an XPS and an Inspiron 9300 (upgraded to the same graphics card if necessary), but there is a huge difference in price. I have a 9300 and it plays anything I can throw at it (Day of Defeat Source, Counterstrike Source, World of Warcraft) - I won't make any psychic predictions about the next 18 months though.

There is one minor problem with the 9300 in that the hard drive is set by default to "power saving" mode, causing stuttering, but this is easily fixed - see my post here for more details:

http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/ftopic204685.html

So before buying an XPS, check out a comparable Inspiron.

P.

Zapho

oceanclub wrote:

There is one minor problem with the 9300 in that the hard drive is set by default to "power saving" mode, causing stuttering, but this is easily fixed - see my post here for more details:
P.

Thanks for the tip, I've a 9100, same problem sometimes.

I agree with that though, there isn't much of a different between XPS machines and certain inspirons. XPSs just look flashier and cost more

Linoge

oceanclub wrote:

T
So before buying an XPS, check out a comparable Inspiron.

P.

But! Check out the famous overheating issues first, associated with the Inspirons especially when it will be used for CPU intense gaming.

oceanclub

Linoge wrote:

But! Check out the famous overheating issues first, associated with the Inspirons especially when it will be used for CPU intense gaming.

Any links to discussions about it?

Have never noticed mine to heat up too much, though having the fans only on the underside is a bit silly since these are easily blocked if you put it on your lap - I've adopted a bow-legged seating arrangement to get around this

But there's also this app which allows you to manually turn the fans on in case you're worried:

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

P.

Linoge

oceanclub wrote:

Any links to discussions about it?

P.

In this very same forum!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054993292

But in more detail

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=166703&view=by_date_ascending&page=27

This problem was not just confined to the Inspiron 5150/60, but has been found to be a design fault with numerous models.

oceanclub

Interesting - I don't have time to read all 28 pages at the moment , do you know what max CPU temperature users should watch out for? The temperature control functionality in I8kfanGUI can be set up to start the fans at the required limit:

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/manual30/index.html#temp

P.

Linoge

28 pages? Its 57 in total!!

Don't know the temps but here are the recommended settings.

Dspman wrote:

If out of warranty, use i8KfanGUI for better tradeoff between dust and operating temps. (I found 'floor' temp by letting CPU temp settle at idle and fan on slow, then setting 'off' temp to 'floor' plus 4-degC, 'off to slow' temp 4-degC higher, and 'slow to high' temp 4-degC above that. This is currently floor=32, profile=36/40/44-degC on my machine, and is pretty optimum for me; adjust to your preference. Be aware that 'floor' temp depends on dust buildup and room temp, so check it periodically, especially with change of seasons. Another benefit of this or similar fan profile is temp swings are minimized, reducing thermal stress on the board.)

[/QUOTE]

oceanclub

Zapho wrote:

Thanks for the tip, I've a 9100, same problem sometimes.

Unbelievably(*), Dell refuse to own up to the problem; see my posting on their blog at:

http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/08/22/2131.aspx#2635

(*)Actually, the more I read about Dell, the more believable it is. I'm reminded of the quote "You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing."

legs11

there are two very noticable differences between these, the xps apart from being able to support 4gigs a ram also has dual cooling pipes for the cpu and gpu.....

im not 100% positive, but i dont think the inspiron 9xxx got cooling like this, hence the price hike, but having said that you can pick up a good deal with a 9xxx if you shop around.