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I didn't know where else to post this, so I think it fits best in here. Anyways, recently the death of my LG R500 has made me furious and I had to seek a new laptop quick.
The LG R500 was only 4months over a year old and it died! Im probably never going to buy a LG product again, I don't know if this was a 1 in a million thing. But one night it was fine, the next day I turn it on, screen back light doesn't come on, neither does anything on the screen, and If I plug it in externally, no picture. And if it runs on battery the fans don't come on, but the lights do.
Anyways I bought it on Visa so they extend the warranty by 2 years. So they will repair/cover the costs or just reimburse me the amount I originally paid for it.
Anyways it died, and I'm in the middle of a 3D contest and I can't live without a computer for longer than a couple of weeks, so I went out the next day in search of laptops. In Canada we have a very poor selection of good gaming laptops, none of the laptops at future shop or best buy had a GPU over the 9600M GT, and thats not bad but the screen resolutions were terrible all 1280x800. And its a must for me to have 1680x1050 or higher.
As a last resort that night, I went to London Drugs (I think its only a Canadian store), I saw something that caught my attention. It has a ATI 3850 GPU, after going home that night and researching I bought it the next day.
It was $1999 and I got a discount having it only cost around 1600$. Then tax.
First thing I noticed was it looked very similar to a MSI GT735, the laptops brand that I got was Certified Data (A London Drugs Brand), good thing is if it needs repairs the headquarters where they repair it is only a hour drive away from me. I believe it was a custom/rebrand of the MSI GT735.
Lets get to the specs.
17" Laptop, 1920x1200 Resolution!
AMD Turion X2 Ultra Duel Core ZM82 2.4Ghz
ATI 3850 (Up to 2GB with TurboCache, I think dedicated is 512 or 1GB GDDR3)
320 GB Hard Drive
4GB RAM
Blu-Ray Player
4.1 Speakers, Sub woofer in Bottom.
Its far more superior quality compared to the LG I had. Yes its red lining on edges, looks very nice in my opinion. Its fairly light, its touch panel above the keyboard to turn on certain modes the ECO Drive and stuff doesn't have the Red lines like the MSI GT735, its just black. I can't find the turbo mode, but then again I only got this laptop like a day ago. On the bottom I like all the vents on all the covers giving fantastic airflow, looking through one I was able to see two big copper pipes going to the CPU, which I think provides fantastic cooling.
When giving it a go I was amazed seeing that no OS was installed, it came with the manual/install CD for Vista x64 Bit with a CDKey.etc all packaged, unopened as if I bought vista separate. It came with Office, and some crap but I don't like that (i just use open office).
After installing all my programs I was surprised to see it was much cooler than my last Laptop (LG R500), Its CPU was idling at 36-42C (!WOW!), and its GPU was 42C-48C. Desktop use it never really goes much higher than 46C on CPU and 50C on GPU. The screen is great, it shiny, but has a bit of a frosted style unlike my R500 that was completely shiny. The frosted screen style makes it much harder to get annoying reflections which is good, but it takes a bit away from the laptops appeal when its off (you don't see it all shiny reflections is more blurred), but who cares.
The AMD cpu in this laptop is a bit slower than my R500s T7500 CPU at extracting. However I noticed the desktop experience on the AMD CPU's is much more stable. Theres no hiccups or quick pauses when opening a large number of programs.
Next I installed Crysis Warhead. And Ill tell ya, this laptop owns!. My R500 was able to pull off Mainstream graphics ok, and gamer/mainstream mix with lots of lag in some later levels.
With this laptop, I was able to run at 1280x800 Windowed (Sorry, I just tested it out late last night after I installed all my apps). With everything on Gamer, and Shaders, Particles, Post, Textures all on Enthusiast. It was very playable with just some jitters at save points. Ill grab the FPS and post it today.
FEAR2 ran no problem all maxed at 1680x1050.
GTAIV runs great at 1280x800, Medium Textures, Highest Render, Sliders set to 25% and 5/8 on Shadows. I can pull off High Textures but then when you have tons of stars it gets a bit hiccup-y.
UT3 is flawless 1920x1200.
And it handles all my apps perfectly.
While gaming, I noticed highest temps were:
GPU 86C
CPU 78C
which isn't bad, considering I had to undervolt my R500 to get those same temps.
All I can say is I hope this product stands up and lives more than 1 year, (R500 didn't!). I use my laptop every day for about 2+ Hours, on desktop (3D Apps) and every now and then for gaming.
(I want this laptop to last 5+ years, even though I get new ones by then, I still like having useful computers lieing around, my P3 is 7 years old and still working on 24/7 used as a server, and its never had a problem.)
I'm open to questions, if you have any...
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If anyone is worrying about the AMD laptop CPU, id say dont worry. I was worried too, but I now ran WPrime32 and It scored faster than my old T7500.
So yes a AMD Turion X2 Ultra Duel Core ZM80+ (Is Better) than a C2D T7500.
Well in some things...
My WPrime32 score was like 34.X seconds, I forget it was 34.8 or near 35 seconds.
But slower in unzipping, C2D won there. But HD video play uses like none of AMD's CPU. -
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The reputation of receiving a lappy and being infatuated with it until your start settling down always amazes me
But the thrill of updating drivers FIRST and then playing with a new lappy makes me have babies crawling out of my rectum
PS: This is a hilarious post, I didnt even think about what I said hahaha
+REPS?
New Laptop! Excellent Performance
Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by MonkeyMhz, Mar 9, 2009.
