Building my first gaming laptop

Ciano35

Hi everybody, i want to build my first gaming laptop. My budget is ~ €1000, and it has to be a laptop because i'll be using it for college next year.

I built this on Dell.ie, it's an xps 17. I'll be using it mainly for playing games like battlefield 2, and 3 when it comes out, GTA4, Dirt 3, Fifa 11 and so on. These are the specs:

XPS 17

Base:
2nd generation Intel® Core™ i5-2410M processor 2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz

Microsoft Operating System:
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit

LCD:
17.3" HD+ WLED True-Life (1600x900) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera

Video Card:
3GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M Graphics Card

Memory:
4096MB (2x2GB) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel

Hard Drive:
500GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive

Optical Devices:
DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write)

Primary Battery:
6-cell 56Whr Lithium Ion battery

Power Supply:
150W AC Adaptor

Standard Warranty:
1 year Collect & Return Hardware Support included with your PC

Wireless Networking:
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1030 (1x2 b/g/n+ Bluetooth Combo Card)

Price of this is €1033. What do ye think? Thanks

TiNcAn

I have recently just ordered a new laptop with the following specs

Fire DTX

Konfiguration:
Bildschirm: 15,6" HD 1600 x 900 LED Backlight -Widescreen mit NON-Glare-Technologie
Betriebssystem: kein
Sprache Betriebssystem: Englisch ( Falls Betriebssystem ausgewählt )
Garantie: DevilCare: 2 Jahre DevilCare und 2 Jahre Garantie
Prozessor: Intel® Mobile Core i7 2630QM / 6MB L3 Cache, 2.00GHz - 2.90GHz Turbo Modus [+49€]
Speicher: 8 GB - 2 x 4096 MB Hochleistung - DDR3 SDRAM mit 1600 MHz [+119€]
Grafikkarte: nVIDIA® Optimus Technologie! nVIDIA® GeForce® GT555M mit 2GB Videospeicher [+59€]
Festplatte: 250 GB 7.200 U/Min SATA
CD DVD Blu-Ray: DVD-Brenner: 8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo
Kommunikation: Integriertes 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet und 56K V.92 Modem
Soundkarte: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192KHz) mit Surround Sound
Wireless Netzwerkkarte: Integrierte DevilTech Wireless-Karte + Bluetooth
WebCam: Integrierte 2.0 Megapixel Kamera
Keyboard: Notebook-Tastatur - Englisch
Maus: keine
Headset: kein
Office-Software: kein
Anti-Viren-Software: kein
USB-Stick: kein
Diskettenlaufwerk: kein
Notebook-Tasche: kein
Zusätzlicher Akku: kein


It has one of the best screens you can get however you can only get the 1600x900 resolution with this version. It also doesn't have windows but you can pick that up for ~€50 from softwareforstudents.ie
It also only came to €942.90 in total from deviltech.de

It is a much better deal to go for in my opinion.

Ciano35

Thanks TinCan, I think i won't need the i7 though, from what people seem to be saying on this forum the i5 is a better choice because the extra power of i7 isn't usually used or something. Also, ill need a bigger hard-drive than a 250gb because i had about 400gb on my last computer and used almost all of it :pac:

Tea_Bag

Why does it have to be a laptop?

Im in college and I use a PC at my accomodation?

@17", its hardly going to be portable anyway, and for €1k you can build a beautiful rig that'll actually play those games as they were meant to be played.

the bottleneck you have is the GPU: 3gb (why? its never going to use close to that, and seems a marketing gimick) GT 555m is a going to struggle at high resolutions. We've no idea what the requirements for BBC3 is going to be, but its rumoured to be build around a GTX 560Ti, and any lesser card will struggle.

as for the "dont need an i7" comment, thats in relation to hyper threading and its uses in gaming. both the i5-2410M and the i7 2630QM have HT anyway, and the difference being though that the i5 is just a Dual core, and the i7 is a real quad core (with 8 threads). Id definately take the i7 where possible (depending on price). If you're sticking to a Laptop, id reccomend TiNcAn's one over the Dell. cheaper, better, and its not a Dell. Also, HDD's are very cheap and can be easily changed, so dont let that put you off.

TiNcAn

Yep, I fully agree with Tea Bag. Don't get a laptop unless you need it.

In my case I will need it because I will be moving away from home and need something portable.

With regards to the GT555m GPU: It is not a great GPU by desktop standards but it is the cheapest you are going to get below €1000. If you want anything better you will have to spend €1350 to net a ATI 6970m, but this graphics card is a whole other beast. Upgrading from a GT460m to a 6970m is only ~€50 so it would not make much sense not to.

In terms of portability I have chosen to go with the 15" laptop because in all honesty you are not going to be able to stick a 17" in a bag a bring it around anywhere. I spent quite some time with myself deliberating over whether or not to go with the 6970m or GT555m and in the end decided to go with the GT555m because it is more portable (battery and weight). Money was really a deciding factor between the two.

Plus If you go onto the deviltech.de site you can customize your own laptop, in other words you can choose to pick a 750gb hd and a i5 instead of a i7. The i5 is also roughly the same price as the i7 (the i7-2630 is crazy good value) so I would only choose an i5 if you really want some really long battery life.

Ciano35

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Why does it have to be a laptop?

Im in college and I use a PC at my accomodation?

@17", its hardly going to be portable anyway, and for €1k you can build a beautiful rig that'll actually play those games as they were meant to be played.

the bottleneck you have is the GPU: 3gb (why? its never going to use close to that, and seems a marketing gimick) GT 555m is a going to struggle at high resolutions. We've no idea what the requirements for BBC3 is going to be, but its rumoured to be build around a GTX 560Ti, and any lesser card will struggle.

as for the "dont need an i7" comment, thats in relation to hyper threading and its uses in gaming. both the i5-2410M and the i7 2630QM have HT anyway, and the difference being though that the i5 is just a Dual core, and the i7 is a real quad core (with 8 threads). Id definately take the i7 where possible (depending on price). If you're sticking to a Laptop, id reccomend TiNcAn's one over the Dell. cheaper, better, and its not a Dell. Also, HDD's are very cheap and can be easily changed, so dont let that put you off.

Fair enough, ya i chose the 3gb gpu because it was €50 extra than the same gpu with 1gb, i thought it would be worth it. Tbh i'd prefer a laptop because i want to bring it home every weekend etc... So you reckon i should go for tincan's one? How do you build a laptop on that website, i can only figure out how to build a desktop... Cheers.

Ciano35

TiNcAn wrote: »

Yep, I fully agree with Tea Bag. Don't get a laptop unless you need it.

In my case I will need it because I will be moving away from home and need something portable.

With regards to the GT555m GPU: It is not a great GPU by desktop standards but it is the cheapest you are going to get below €1000. If you want anything better you will have to spend €1350 to net a ATI 6970m, but this graphics card is a whole other beast. Upgrading from a GT460m to a 6970m is only ~€50 so it would not make much sense not to.

In terms of portability I have chosen to go with the 15" laptop because in all honesty you are not going to be able to stick a 17" in a bag a bring it around anywhere. I spent quite some time with myself deliberating over whether or not to go with the 6970m or GT555m and in the end decided to go with the GT555m because it is more portable (battery and weight). Money was really a deciding factor between the two.

Plus If you go onto the deviltech.de site you can customize your own laptop, in other words you can choose to pick a 750gb hd and a i5 instead of a i7. The i5 is also roughly the same price as the i7 (the i7-2630 is crazy good value) so I would only choose an i5 if you really want some really long battery life.

Thanks i think ill go with your one now, sorry about being so naive about gaming computers :pac: i think ill go with the i7.. Battery life shouldn't be a problem because ill be using it in my apartment most of the time. Thanks for that link as well by the way.

Serephucus

Personally, I'd go with a desktop+cheap-as-chips netbook option.

I'm in college, and I have a watercooled i7 GTX 580 SLI 6TB HDD dual 24" monitor monstrosity sitting beside me. I'll be using an ASUS Transformer for taking notes and whatever else needs doing.

You could easily build a fantastic desktop for €800 that would actually do those games justice, and have enough left over for a basic netbook, if you need do so some basic stuff on the go.

Tea_Bag

Serephucus wrote: »

Personally, I'd go with a desktop+cheap-as-chips netbook option.

I'm in college, and I have a watercooled i7 GTX 580 SLI 6TB HDD dual 24" monitor monstrosity sitting beside me. I'll be using an ASUS Transformer for taking notes and whatever else needs doing.

You could easily build a fantastic desktop for €800 that would actually do those games justice, and have enough left over for a basic netbook, if you need do so some basic stuff on the go.

This. I really don't understand the need for an expensive laptop. For casual internet browsing on the couch, I use my phone anyway...

ED E

Serephucus wrote: »

Personally, I'd go with a desktop+cheap-as-chips netbook option.

I'm in college, and I have a watercooled i7 GTX 580 SLI 6TB HDD dual 24" monitor monstrosity sitting beside me. I'll be using an ASUS Transformer for taking notes and whatever else needs doing.

You could easily build a fantastic desktop for €800 that would actually do those games justice, and have enough left over for a basic netbook, if you need do so some basic stuff on the go.

Was about to say this, but you got there first it seems:)

Doing Computer Science in college and trust me, even a 15" will end up being a pain in your hole after ten minutes. Get a basic netbook and a desktop.

Serephucus

Hell, I've used a 17" laptop, and even that was a pain in the hole doing any sort of coding.

Ciano35

Ya actually i'm probably much better off going with the desktop, think i'll go with that and the netbook option now, thanks lads.