gaming notebook

Hail. I'm looking for a good gaming notebook for ~$1500 or under. I was thinking on HP until I noticed asus and sager, which seem to offer more for the price than HP does. After a look it looks like sagers seem to offer more for the same price than asus (or am I wrong)?

Is there a particular sager notebook you'd recommend for gaming (and college too) that when customized will be ~$1500 or less?

Thanks!

 

I recommend gateway p-6860fx for gaming. or NP8660 if you can afford little extra.

 

you can look at the asus m50sv and the sager np2096 at xoticpc.com and powernotebooks.com

 

Is the prostar JHL90 the same as the sager np2096?

It looks the same. I ask because it's cheaper at pro-star than sager, powernotebooks, or xoiticpc. How is prostar compared to these other places?

Also, is "intel 2GB TurboMemory Module" something worth getting?

And is kingston memory better than normal memory and by how much? Pro-star offers 4gb kingston for 40 bucks more than 4gb other memory.

Lastly is the P9500 / 6MB L2 Cache, 2.53GHz processor worth getting over the T9400 / 6MB L2 Cache, 2.53GHz processor?


Thanks!

 

Performance wise, the P9500 and the T9400 shouldn't be different (as they both have 2.53ghz) However, the P9500 should have less heat

And personally, I wouldn't get the Turbomemory thing

 

I would second the p-6860fx from Gateway. For the price it's hard to beat. This is really the wrong forum to be asking in though. You should try in the What notebook should I buy forum?

 

Yes

Check all of them out at ResellerRatings.com = ProStar, PowerNotebooks.com, Xoticpc.com, Sager

PowerNotebooks.com and Xoticpc also sell their own branded version of the JHL90. The PowerPro P 12:15 and the Force 3310

The new Intel Turbo Memory 2.0 which you would be getting now will be a nice improvement over the original version, and will also include "pinning".

"Some details regarding Turbo Memory:

Turbo Memory 1GB (Ver. 1.0) was on the original Centrino systems, and was divided into 2x 512MB, 512MB to Vista Ready Drive, and 512MB to Vista Ready Boost. It had its minor boosts under Windows Vista if it was used to Windows Vista specifications.

With the launch of Intel Centrino 2, Turbo Memory got upgraded from Ver. 1.0 to Ver. 2.0 (2GB/4GB). However only the 2GB module with driver version 1.6.1.1004 has been released. At this time when the 2GB module is paired with the 1.6.1.1004 driver will not show much of improvement as it is being utilized just as turbo memory ver. 1.0 was. (512MB to ready drive / 1.5GB to ready Boost).

The true turbo memory ver. 2.0 requires a driver software update that will be released by Intel, with the rough ETA of sometime in Q3 08 or Soon. Once this driver update is released you will then have the option to select how the 1.5GB of space should be used between the following 2 options, Vista Ready Boost or Intel Pinning.

What Intel Pinning does is you will be given a dashboard that will allow you to drag and drop your most used applications or files into the turbo memory module (it is smart enough to not duplicate files already pinned. The whole Office 2k7 suit will only take up about 600mb) and it will remain in the module, until removed from the dashboard by the user.

This will make the 1.5GB space a mini SSD for your most used applications and from internal testing this has shown a great performance boost in the application load time for the applications that has been pinned.

Turbo Memory 2.0 is quite a great alternate Mini SSD drive for the cost. Intel needs to finalize the new driver and makes a public release."

For gaming the Kingston HyperX is lower latency and therefore a bit faster. For the small price difference it is probably worth it.

 

Do you know if Turbo Memory counts towards the ~4GB memory limit of Vista 32-bit OS?

 

Donald, I'm assuming you are quoting the Intel marketing docs.

When I read the section above, here is what immediately came to my mind: "Right, here's a claim made by the same clowns (I mean Intel) who were telling us that Turbo Memory 1.0 was the greatest thing on earth since sliced bread and in fact, when people who were not trying to sell the darn thing tested it, was found to be a lame duck."

Given how Turbo Memory 1.0 turned out to deliver much less than advertised, I think skepticism is in order. In other words, I won't believe any of this until some third party tester I trust performs some real world tests and confirms that Intel is not once more lying to its customers.

 

Skepticism is healthy and I too am waiting to see more real world testing.

However I think you are a bit strong with the things you said about a $40 upgrade. It's not like it was a materially important component upon which people were relying in a significant way.

Nor is there any evidence that anyone at Intel intentionally misrepresented the product...which would be required to say they were lying (the L word is really pretty strong). I think if you look around at the history of technology development there have been many companies that have introduced products that didn't work out as well as they had hoped, and I don't think the market generally attributed any sinister motives behind their release.

Bottom line is the changes that have been made to version 2.0 are precisely what was wrong with version 1.0, and with the doubling and quadrupling of the density plus the addition of "pinning" I do believe this version has a good chance of being a significant improvement.

We should know for sure within another month or so, and since it is now only a $45 upgrade for twice the capacity there isn't much risk in taking the chance that it will be worth every penny.

 

This belongs in "what notebook should I buy"

 

Since the Turbo Memory is storage, just like your hard drive, it does not count toward the limit of addressable memory for 32bit operating systems.

 

That powerpro has a killer warranty included, wow i wish the np8660 had that =/

 

I posted it in both places and I got more replies here so I'm glad I did...

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm not sure pro-star is the way to go after reading its reviews. It's a tough call since it's 80 bucks cheaper and offers the kingston memory upgrade too.

The sager np2096 is built on "compal" instead of clevo. Is compal quality good? I've only ever had a dell and hp so I don't know what to think of others...

The np2096 seems to have the most for the money so I think that's the way I'm going to go unless someone convinces me otherwise.

Is the P9500 worth the extra money over the T9400 or no?

Also the only notebook I owned was 1400x900 resolution, which was fine for me. But that's not an option on the np2096. The only options are 1280x800 and 1680x1050 (for 60 bucks more). Any thoughts on which I should choose?

Thanks!

*edit*
I did check out the PowerPro P 12:15 and the Force 3310, but they're too much money for my liking.