Sony Vaio for gaming?

hit_it_strong

Hey everyone,

Anyone know how does the Sony Vaio generally rate for gaming? I'm thinking in particular of the AW21Z/B. The spec...

# Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 / 2.66GHz (Dual-Core)
# Memory: 4GB DDR2 RAM
# HD Capacity: 500GB Serial ATA 4200 rpm + 64Gb solid state
# Display: 18.4" 1920 x 1080 - X-black, dual lamp
# Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512MB
# Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
# Optical Drive: Blu-ray

It's significantly cheaper one of Dell's big XPS's with a similar spec (the graphics card being the main difference)

I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions!

FruitLover

hit_it_strong wrote: »

the graphics card being the main difference

The graphics card will be the main difference for gaming too, so make sure the card in the vaio will do what you need. Have a look for benchmark comparisons online.

hit_it_strong

This is the only comparison I could find online:

"The performance of the 9600M GT should be somewhere between the 9500M GS and the 8700M GT (depends if GDDR2 or GDDR3 memory chips are used).

Compared to desktop graphics cards, the 9600M GT is similar to the GeForce 9500GT (which also descends from the G96 core). The desktop CPU 9600 GT has a 256 bit memory bus and is therefore much faster."

I heard that the "M" processors were not too good for gaming but it seems reasonable here. Any ideas?

Samurai

hit_it_strong wrote: »

# Display: 18.4" 1920 x 1080 - X-black, dual lamp

massive :pac:

Voodu Child

The 9600M GT is a quite reasonable (mid-range) graphics card. It will perform reasonably well, especially with older games. It's not really powerful enough to game at 1920x1080 though, so you will definitely need to game at a lower res. This usually makes the screen pretty blurry, so it's your call if it's a good choice or not.

For €2000 though, it is not good value as a gaming laptop. You will get something that equals or outperforms it (in gaming) for ~ €700-800 no problem.

Part of the reason it is so expensive is that it's got a 64GB SSD, do you really want/need one of those?

Kinetic^

If it's gaming primarily you're after a laptop for then get an XPS 1730 with dual sli 8800, this will run games very well. Up the ram to 4gb if you plan on keeping Vista.

Sephiroth_dude

Is your heart set on a laptop?You could build a desktop with a better spec than that for half the price.

hit_it_strong

Yeah I definitely need a laptop. The comments above lead me to the Acer Aspire 8930G. It's €400 less with most of the spec preserved. Actually it has the 9700M GT so could be slightly better.

It also runs Vista Ultimate which I believe has less networking hassle. It's the 64-bit version, which most of the high-end seem to be now.

I have experience with Dell, HP, Sony but not with Acer. Any idea how they generally rates as a brand?

FruitLover

Personally, I think buying a laptop for gaming is a little odd. For the same price, you could buy both a decent enough desktop machine for gaming and a netbook for portability (how often are you really going to need to play games on the go?).

Voodu Child

FruitLover wrote: »

Personally, I think buying a laptop for gaming is a little odd.

Lots of people buy gaming laptops, or mid-range laptops with a view to doing the odd bit of gaming on them. People who don't have the space/need for a permanent desk setup, people who move accomodation a lot, students staying in digs etc. Just because you don't want one doesnt make it odd

Yeah I definitely need a laptop. The comments above lead me to the Acer Aspire 8930G. It's €400 less with most of the spec preserved. Actually it has the 9700M GT so could be slightly better.

It also runs Vista Ultimate which I believe has less networking hassle. It's the 64-bit version, which most of the high-end seem to be now.

I have experience with Dell, HP, Sony but not with Acer. Any idea how they generally rates as a brand?

Spec looks good, and it's certainly better value than the Sony. The current range of Acers are well-regarded in terms of build etc, and im sure you'll find reviews of that model if you want. The 9700M GT is just a higher-clocked 9600M (same number of shader cores - 32), so it's still only mid-range in performance, but again, you'd be happy enough once you're not hoping to max current games.

Also look at the 17" MSI GT725. Its got Blu-ray and a good processor (P9500), user overclocking, and has a high-end GPU (Ati 4850). It was about €1300 on laptopsdirect, although they don't have it in stock now, just the more expensive quadcore model.

Also, consider the Novatech X80:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/range.html?t=nb&c=gaming&r=X8N

That's got a 9800M GTX, which is very high-end. Although the system comes without an OS from the looks of it. They've a few more models if you browse through the site.

hit_it_strong

Thanks a million for the info guys - defo will help me make a decision. Purchasing the novatech tomorrow.

WillieCocker

I have a Sony Vaio VGN-NS20Z.
Similar lappy, works nicely with games.