$1,000 (or close to it) Gaming Laptop

I'll give a little background before my questions. I'm looking to make a major PC upgrade as I enter college, advancing into dual-cores as well as PCI-express from my current desktop. I had originally gotten the idea to do this with a top of the line laptop, where I arrived at the Clevo M570RU (one hell of a machine).

I've recently been thinking that for the same amount of money (or close to it) I could build a more powerful desktop which has ample room for upgrades, as well as a decently powerful laptop.

So here, I'm looking at a $1300-$1500 desktop, and a $1000-$1200 laptop. I've found a pretty well equipped PC for $1298 ( Howie's 2007 Dream, or something of similiar components/price), which leaves me with around $1,000 - $1,200 for the laptop. It doesn't need to be the gaming monster that the Clevo would have been, but I would like it to be powerful enough to play current gen games on decent settings/next gen games on medium to low. DX10 isn't a priority, but would of course be nice to include.

From the same provider, Cyber Power (I'm not a spokesman , my brother purchased his PC through them and found they had pretty good prices), I'm looking at the Xplorer X5-5900, which gives me a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, 2GB PC5300 DDR2, and a Mobility Radeon x1600 256mb video card. Pretty good little set-up for $1,200 I think, but I've been having difficulty finding any alternatives.

(tl;dr starts here)

1. Trying to build a gaming laptop for $1,000-$1,200, aiming to handle current gen games competently, next-gen games on mid to low settings.

2. Power of the Radeon x1600? I've read mixed things, and I worry it isn't a strong enough card to last into next-gen.

3. Are there better cards than the x1600/GeForce 7600 at my price point?

4. Is the whole concept even feasible, or should I settle for (seemingly) the best I can get from Cyber Power?

Additionally, I want to thank everyone on these forums. I've read through many of the topics, and all of your posts have been incredibly helpful. The entire community here seems very well-informed, and has provided me a lot of insight on my future purchase. (tl;dr again) Thanks!!

 

Take a look at this laptop. It'll give you about the same performance as that Xplorer X5-5900 for under $1000.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834280004

You should upgrade the ram yourself. I think it's the best bang for buck laptop on the market if you don't mind having an older video card. Also, the 7600 is better than the x1600 so you'll get better gaming out of it.

 

hi CyrixD, I have the Asus Z96jm laptop, which is pretty much the same as the Xplorer X5-5900; same case, same video card, just that I purchased as a barebone and added my own CPU, RAM, hard drive etc. into it. So far, I really like the laptop. For the Mobility Radeon x1600 card it has, 3dmark06 I can get 1740 scores (I'm only using a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB ram).

Playing games are totally fine with it. I can play Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, both at 1280x800, not the highest settings but with AA on... totally playable.

Do you like Dell? If you want stronger graphics card, the new Dell 1520 has the Geforce 8600m GT, and it does not cost alot (after coupon), which is worth a look.


-Vaitte

 

Thanks for the replies guys

Destin, that laptop looks great- I like the 17", plus it comes with practically everything I'd want at a very nice price. Except, I'm not liking the Turion 64... I'd prefer to have a Core 2 Duo, so I'll take a look and see if the EVEREX brand offers something similiar with an Intel processor.

Vaitte, I appreciate the personal testimony, now I have a good feel for the power of these laptops. The one you mentioned is nice, I'm just having trouble finding a site that offers it as barebones + parts for a decent price. The best I've been able to do is RKcomputers.com, and it comes to $1249, with some components lesser than the Xplorer. I'd love to hear where you found yours, and where/how you ordered your parts from.

EDIT: Almost forgot, I'm against Dell Not interested in over-paying just for their brand, when products like the Asus you mentioned are available.

FINAL EDIT: Just looking at xoticpc, I've found their Force 3660 model to be pretty perfect...seeming...
Based on the Asus S96s Vaitte had mentioned, it comes with a GeForce 8600GS, up to 4GB of RAM, and the Core 2 Duo Santa Rosa CPU, for under $1,200. However, it says it is the Centrino Pro, as opposed to the Core 2 Duo... I'm assuming the Centrino is the laptop CPU, while the Core 2 Duo is a desktop processor fit inside a notebook? Is there a large discrepancy in performance, or am I completely off?

 

Centrino Pro does include Core 2 Duo. Centrino Pro is just the branded name for the Santa Rosa platform. This means that it is the name that Intel calls a system that has a Memrom processor (Core 2 Duo), Intel Mobile 965 Express chipset, Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN, NAND flash-memory caching branded as Turbo Memory, etc. Core 2 Duo's are in both Desktop and Mobile units.

 

A pretty good choice for that Force 3660! 8600m GS is sure a newer GPU than the one I have. Plus, it is a DirectX 10 card, which means it can last longer in the long run. And dont worry about Centrino Pro, like camsimple said, not only Centrino Pro is a Core 2 Duo, but also it's using the newer Core 2 - which has 800MHz FSB. So definitely an upgrade version.

From seeing the photos, the case for the Force 3660 is I think the same as my Z96jm, which is very solid. Nice Find!


-Vaitte

 

Oh yea... I purchased my barebone at 1toppc, which is mainly Asus laptops. They have reasonable prices there.


-Vaitte

 

A dell 1520 with a 8600GT can come pretty close to 1K after coupons. You might be able to get a steal of a deal towards beginning of school (mid sept).

 

Look at the Acer Aspire 5920 @ best buy

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8391901&st=acer+aspire&type=product&id=1179876462320

It's equipped with a core 2 duo, and an 8600m GT. (which will DEFINITELY fun this gen and next gen games)

And it also has an HD-DVD drive... all for $1100.

 

Check out the sig:

I bought the Explorer X5-5900 from cyberpowerpc.com last month. It ended up costing me $972 shipped to my door. The actual cyberpower configuration was 1 GB of RAM bought I bought another 1 GB from newegg fro $40.

It is definitely a good looking laptop. I guarantee you the display on the Asus Z96Jm/X5-5900 is vastly superior than any of the laptops mentioned above. There aren't any laptops out there with a better video card for $972. I managed a 3DMark06 score of 2067 with the X1600. Thats with a processor slower than the one you configured. I have never seen my T5500 get maxxed out during gaming too. You might get the Dell close to $1500 after coupons and tax with the 8600GT but it will have the crappy screen (no tax with cyberpower btw).

I have mine up for sale right now if you want to see some pics of what it will look like.

Asus Z96Jm- C2D T5500, ATI X1600, 2GB RAM, 15.4"...$900 or trade for MacBook

 

I found the c90 to offer the highest performance for the money. Granted mine came up to 1500$ wich is over the 1000$ budget line.

but I have way above normal level stuff in there (4gb ram, 250gb hdd ect)

 

Where did you configure it for that much?

 

got the barebone at gentech for 1000$ then went and hand picked parts.

> western digital 250gb 5400rpm 180$ newegg.com
> 2x2gb OCZ DDR2 667 so-dimm outpost.com 169$
> E6700 C2D 150$ ebay.com

get 2 or 3gb of ram instead (2x1gb as low as 46$ in the ram deals thread or a 2gb sodimm for about 70ish)
settle for a lesser hdd because the 7200rpm or really high capacity ones go for a high premium. So say a WD 120gb 5400rpm from newegg should be like 70$
and get a E6600 (or lower) for 220$ newegg.com

and your looking at ~1300$ for a still top notch machine, I just went the extra mile because I am doing a triple boot and need the space and also plan to have alot of games/media, also I wanted to test 4gb of ram but I found out early that it wont do 4gb only 3... so no need to spend the money on 4gb.

you can get away with anywhere from 1300$ and up depending on what you put in it, if you scavenge and pick up used stuff who knows maybe 1200$ or less.

 

Thank you everyone for all of your help. I think I've narrowed it down between two options now, the Xplorer X5-5900 from Cyber Power and the Force 3660 from XoticPC. Both are based on the Asus S96, yet the Force 3660 seems to be the most updated/recent model. It has a Santa Rosa CPU with a GeForce 8600GS, while the Xplorer is just a Core 2 Duo and a Radeon x1600. Both would serve me well for my needs, I just need to evalute if it's worth paying $158 more for the new processor and GPU.

Thanks a lot guys!

 

I'm looking for the same type of laptop as the thread starter... I think the HP DV6000t is the best bet... But the only downside is that it only has GeForce 7400...

 

There are more differences between the two models besides just the GPU and CPU. There is going to be a huge gap in screen quality. The Z96J will win in the that category hands down. The Santa Rosa CPU is slightly faster than the Merom CPU but I doubt it would be anything you would actually notice. Merom chips are by no means obsolete.

I believe the dv6500t is the santa rosa update for the dv6000t.

 

i agree with this guy.

 

Yes i also second dell 1520. I am buying a complete notebook for 1192,0 with taxes and shipping included...

I like this notebook configuration a lot.

 

Just to say, the 8600M GT is quite a good bit better than the 8600M GS and way beyond any of the older generations (1x00 series, 7x00 series).

I wouldn't buy anything less than an 8600M GT for gaming, especially considering that you can get the Compal IFL90/Sager 2090, Dell 1520, and Acer 5920G all for less than other configurations. Laptop GPUs are not as powerful as thier similar titled desktop counterparts, so they will inevitably be the restraining part of your gaming experience. Buying the best possible GPU is the only good option.

 

It is, but it only will upgrade to the 8400M GS, which isn't very good for gaming.

 

just a heads up, the Xplorer X5-5900 doesnt have the ATI Card, it has the nvidia 8600

 

You can get a Dell with a 8600GT graphics card for a little bit more than 1,100 now.