Choosing a Laptop

I'm trying to choose a laptop at the moment and I'm finding it hard to do. I primarily want it for gaming and want it to play all the latest and greatest games.

Originally, I wanted an Alienware but I can't justify the price to be honest. Maybe the M11X but I'm not too sure if thats very good for gaming.

These are the laptops I'm looking at:

DELL Studio 17
DELL Studio XPS 16
Alienware M11X

The studio 17 has a 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 560v

The XPS 16 has a 1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics card
&
The Alienware M11X has a 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M

Which is the best graphics card out of these? I know theres more to it than just a graphics card but I thought that would be a good place to start. Also, the i7 processor would be best I think so does that cancel out the M11X? Which laptop would you get for gaming? Personally, I'd like the 17 inch screen size as I'm out of college and don't really need the portability anymore - I use my iPhone for most of my web browsing nowadays. Basically, I'm looking for a really powerful gaming laptop for around €1,200.

Cheers in advance.

 

Check this page out: Notebookcheck: Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards

It doesn't have the 560v (or at least I didn't see it), but that site provide a rough gauge of video card rankings and puts the 4670 slightly higher than the 335M. Having said that though, there are ofcourse the known issues with the XPS 16, which you might want to take into consideration. I personally haven't had a problem with heat/throttling, but then again, the toughest games I've thrown at my XPS 16 are Dawn of War II and Stalker. Still they run brilliantly at 1920x1080 at high details.

 

The 4670 is, as RacingGun said, the best graphics card out of the three. They will all play older games (2007/8 and earlier) very well, even at a high resolution, although you will have to tone settings down for newer games. But they are still only upper mid-range cards, and they might not suffice since you wanted a powerful gaming laptop. If these are available, you could also consider the MSI GX640/740 that sport an ATI 5850/5870 respectively, which both offer much better gaming performance than the cards you've mentioned. They can play all current games smoothly at native resolution and high settings, with some games even with AA/AF turned on. I believe the MSI GX640 starts at €999, while I'm unsure of the price of the GX740 (around $1400, probably will end up being €1200). Since you don't need the portability, these will last longer for future games and still fit into your budget nicely.

 

Are MSI's good? Never heard of them. Where can u buy them?

 

They (and specifically these models) are pretty decent from what I've seen in reviews, both here and elsewhere, although build quality and screen quality are obviously not on par with the Alienwares and perhaps even the Dells you mentioned. But you do get what you pay for in general. Nonetheless, I still think those MSIs have the best bang for the buck, as you won't find many laptops with that much gaming performance for much less.

I know these are sold on Amazon in the US, but I'm not sure where these are sold in Europe. I only suggested them because I remember reading that MSI launched these in Europe. Perhaps you should also check/ask about it in the MSI forums. There are definitely a lot of reviews on MSI laptops, and I'm sure you can find someone who has bought it in Europe.

 

Cheers for the advice. I stumbled across the ASUS G73 gaming laptop. It looks sweet and appears to be really powerful and a lot cheaper than Alienware!

 

That model was what I would have recommended as well, but I wasn't sure if that was available in Europe. Congrats if that's what you've decided upon. I've only heard good reviews of that laptop on this site as well as notebookcheck. Apparently that laptop runs very cool, so gaming shouldn't be a problem. Also, remember you can ask in the What Notebook Should I Buy? subforum here on NBR or the Asus forums if you still have questions.

Hope this also helps.

 

Cheers dude! You've been a huge help, thanks!