Gaming Laptop

Hi, I googled for the gaming laptop review and found out about this forum. I've been using ASUS products for quite sometime now. My latest one is G50 series, which is working fine at the moment. I've not seen anyone using Sager but it seems to be fairly good for gaming. I wish to spend about low $1000. I don't know which games require the most computing power but something that can run following programs smoothly: WoW, L4D2, COD, etc.

I also looked at ASUS G73series but wasn't sure if that's the best solution. I've purchased another ASUS computer for work use but it's overheating like CRAZY.

NP7130 or 8690 are ones I am looking at for Sagers. I'd appreciate for help!

 

Sager 8690 would be a good choice for you but I'm not sure about your budget.

Check out RJTech.com

 

your laptop was probably not overheating just because its an asus...

 

you got that wrong. i bought anther asus based on specs but it ended up overheating and ran very slow. the asus g50 that i currently have (2 year-old +) run better than that computer, which is hard to believe.

i didn't say that asus computers overheat. it was that particular model that failed.

[edit] i posted under "what notebook should i buy" subforum. thanks for your help!

 

rjtech sells barebones so you will have to build the laptop yourself
check out xoticpc.com instead. they are selling the 8690 at 1200usd atm with a 460m.
add an additional 300usd and you get the 470m.

 

rjtech has the option of hardware installation

 

The configuration for that price is OK, the processor is an i5 460M that won't be a bottleneck in most games. HD is a bit smallish (320 GB).

The MSI GX660 has a similar price and performance, so it's another option to consider.

 

You see the thing is Asus had some 'heat' trouble with their gaming laptops, especially the previous G51 series had gpu temps of 90+ celcius.
While these temps are not too high, it is best for your gpu's lifespan (and all the hardware around it) to stay below 90 celcius.

To solve this problem asus completely redesigned the cooling system in its new G73/53 series. It takes air from above trough the keyboard instead trough the bottem.

Here's a thread where you can see how that worked out for them:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/474721-asus-g73jh-gpu-temp.html

About Sager/Kobalt/clevo (Normally i'd mention XXODD aswell but they went bankrupt recently) are sturdy laptops with very good cooling, but they are slightly above your budget I think.

Here in Belgium, the cheapest gaming brand is MSI, their GTX series cost like 1200€ here (asus goes for 1700-1900€ in retail stores, and about 1300-1500€ in webstores). The problem is that their laptops looks very childish.

 

my top gaming laptops would be the sager, asus and msi
i think asus has solved that heat issue for the most part.

 

both jw series are available online from newegg and the promotion is gone as of today :/ i am glad to hear that about the new cooling system for asus. i guess one of my biggest dilemmas is that justification of spending mid $1000 compared to low $1000.

i bought all laptops from newegg, just because they've been around for such a long time but that doesn't limit myself from buying laptops from elsewhere as long as they have good reputation in terms of quality.

as for the MSI GX660, price seems to be reasonable but they only use ATI GPU, which i never used.

sager, asus, and msi are indeed on my list. though i was mainly considering sager and asus based on popularity. with the given budget of low $1000, can someone recommend a specific laptop setup or perhaps higher budget laptop with some justification? thanks!

 

How does this look for sager? I think I am going to try out Sager. Any heating issue with this specific model?

Do I see the need of upgrading processor/GPU/memory/etc?

I am judging everything based on ASUS G50 series, which has been performing very well. At the moment, ASUS price for G53/73 series seem to be a little bit out of my reach. I am really trying to pull the trigger today or tomorrow.

Thanks.

[edit] got off the phone with the sales guy...recommended 560M instead of 460M and 8gig memory instead of 4gig.

 

Why don't you use ati? The ati hd5870 in the g7jw is more powerfull than the nvidia gtx 460m.

Also, ofc the sales guy recomended you 8 gb, but do you really need it (for photoshop or video-encoding)? If that laptop is for gaming purposes 4gb should be more than enough. I barely use 70% of my 3gb 667mhz ddr 2 ram, so 4gb of ddr3 ram will do just fine.

I'd go with the 560m (didn't know it was available tbh), since you should always get the best gpu in a lapto psince thats the biggest bottleneck in a gaming system.

Also, i'd recommend to put a quad core i7 cpu in your system, because more and more games will be using multiple threads. The i5 you selected isn't bad, but...not so futureproof (in the very small way that a gaming laptop can be futureproof).

 

Someone know a store that do trade-in for old system ? I would like to upgrade my W870cu to a 7200X but i'm too lazy to just sell it on the forum.

 

not so much that i dont use ATI, but i always used nvidia. i read so many threads for past couple hours on this forum and here are things that i found:

-always get the "best" CPU and GPU. (first priority)
-ATI > nvidia (cost/performance is superior on ATI than nvidia)
-must get quad over duo

ATI isn't offered through Sagers (or at least for 8690). Is it gone for good? only GTX 460 and 470 are available.

search continues...this became "not so obvious" subject...

 

Do we really want them to be ordering directly from Sager (basing this off of their screenshot)? I've heard their customer service is pretty poor.

 

Please don't order from Sager. Order it from one of the resellers and you might wanna get the 470M.

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I usualy check prices at kobalt computers uk, and they do have ati cards. But I only checked the 17" models.
Atm I'd only go with an ati card for the reasons you already mentioned: they are cheaper and more powerfull, what else do you need right?

 

I am sorry for bumping this thread but I am ready to buy now. I was waiting for Sandy Bridge to be available through Sagers and now that it has arrived, I am ready to pull the trigger. Only dilemmas are the followings:

1) Is it worth getting 485M over 460M for gaming (such as WoW, HoN, CoD, etc.)? I don't think any games nowadays require high requirements for graphics card but WoW is the game that I play the most.

2) I think memory of 4GB (standard) is sufficient for gaming and simple documenting. Do I see the need of getting 8GB?

3) Thermal compound...I read it from other posts that it's WORTH getting IC Diamond/Thermal Compound on CPU/GPU. Is this still true and applicable to my case?

I think everything else is quite trivial. I don't think I should be worried about reliability of new technology (Sandy Bridge/SSD) but are there any things that I should be aware of? Please let me know if I am missing something. Thanks!

 

460m is fine for those games, 4 gb is still the best for gaming, IC diamond is not worth 40$ or 20$, you can do it yourself with a quick read and only spend a few bucks, the chipset (on the motherboard) for the sandybridge cpus has been recalled, I believe all the resellers have stopped selling sager laptops with sandybridge till its fixed (march/april)

 

It's going to be a long wait.

Of course it is worth the long wait, but it is going to be a while since you actually see the laptop..

 

Well you won't be getting a laptop until around march if you can wait that long. Honestly depending on what your budget is now, I would get the M6970 over the 460M or the 485M when the time comes. Will be no more than $200 more than the 460M and will be 2x the performance. Do yourself the favor and just buy what you can, because newer games and tech comes out so fast, the GPU is always playing catch-up.