PC Guru's - Best Budget Gaming Laptop.

[CORY]

Bout to wait for the 1070 to drop in price.

Is a laptop really necessary? You could get a pretty good desktop with that kind of money.

 

[TonK]

Is a laptop really necessary? You could get a pretty good desktop with that kind of money.

Yeah, my buddy text me today and said the same thing - I really like sitting in my recliner to play. I'm not real hardcore into raiding or anything.

Loli told me the 1070's should drop in price in about a month.

Do you think the 960 would be enough for JUST WoW for a few years?

I really want a laptop - almost pulling the trigger on that MSI.

 

[tacoguy]

Sorry Tonk, I thought having a GTX 960m would have been good but apparently they are severely limited.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-960M-Review.137893.0.html

Anyways I now would have to recommend waiting for a price drop on a GTX 970/980.
You will get anywhere between 60%-100% more performance.
Though if you are only going to be playing WoW you might be ok with a GTX 960m.

 

[Tanooki]

Before jumping on a MSI could I possibly prod you into looking over at a Sager Computers/Clevo laptop? Best people to deal with on that would be xoticpc.com though (killer warranties and random huge deals/savings around any holiday and one is upon us.)

The reason I'm going there with this is that Sager/Clevo have advantages in a laptop. They cost less for starters. They do not have pre-loaded bigbox manufacturer bullshit on them anywhere. The clevo guts Sager uses are the same essentially as a DIY desktop, it's a frame, NOTHING is soldered into it, everything is replaceable individual parts. Internally they have strong cooling systems, dual fans, copper, the works if you want (into water cooling etc.) The frames are solid, they sport excellent LED (OLED I think they do now too) screens with amazing color quality and eveness to it all.

Christmas 2014 I bought my first as I like the ease of space, ease of non-wasted plugs, portability (as you said in your chair use) factor, but without the compromise. Mine could come with various graphics chips, I maxed it with an Nvidia GTX980M with 8GB of RAM on it. This was the first new gen of Nvidia chips for mobile where only 10-15% of the desktop variant power is lost (previous, any maker laptop versions of chips were like 50%+ shittier in quality, even the 960/970M are weaker.) I've got a mid tier i7 chip in this that is around 2.5ghz but goes to 3(intel turbo boost) for games and other intense stuff, and I've got 16GB of ram (can do 32 I believe max.) It's a beast. I can run that new DOOM game on max settings very nicely, stuff like other PS4 games (No Mans Sky conversion) is excellent on here too. Years of breathing room. And when it gets a bit long in the tooth, I can pop the back off it, and discard the i7 for one that's 3ghz base or better with a 500mhz intel turbo boost on top plus more RAM. It also has many empty bays for a RAID setup of 3-4(remove optical drive) SSD/HDDs. Back then it cost me $2K but that included a 3 year anything goes come to me/replace it warranty if it eats it, had I not it would have been around $300-400 less I forget.

If you got what I have now it would cost a good bit less being a year and a half old, but you'd be well into probably wearing it out before it's useless to your needs and it definitely as parts get cheaper cost a lot less.

 

[TonK]

Before jumping on a MSI could I possibly prod you into looking over at a Sager Computers/Clevo laptop? Best people to deal with on that would be xoticpc.com though (killer warranties and random huge deals/savings around any holiday and one is upon us.)

The reason I'm going there with this is that Sager/Clevo have advantages in a laptop. They cost less for starters. They do not have pre-loaded bigbox manufacturer bullshit on them anywhere. The clevo guts Sager uses are the same essentially as a DIY desktop, it's a frame, NOTHING is soldered into it, everything is replaceable individual parts. Internally they have strong cooling systems, dual fans, copper, the works if you want (into water cooling etc.) The frames are solid, they sport excellent LED (OLED I think they do now too) screens with amazing color quality and eveness to it all.

Christmas 2014 I bought my first as I like the ease of space, ease of non-wasted plugs, portability (as you said in your chair use) factor, but without the compromise. Mine could come with various graphics chips, I maxed it with an Nvidia GTX980M with 8GB of RAM on it. This was the first new gen of Nvidia chips for mobile where only 10-15% of the desktop variant power is lost (previous, any maker laptop versions of chips were like 50%+ shittier in quality, even the 960/970M are weaker.) I've got a mid tier i7 chip in this that is around 2.5ghz but goes to 3(intel turbo boost) for games and other intense stuff, and I've got 16GB of ram (can do 32 I believe max.) It's a beast. I can run that new DOOM game on max settings very nicely, stuff like other PS4 games (No Mans Sky conversion) is excellent on here too. Years of breathing room. And when it gets a bit long in the tooth, I can pop the back off it, and discard the i7 for one that's 3ghz base or better with a 500mhz intel turbo boost on top plus more RAM. It also has many empty bays for a RAID setup of 3-4(remove optical drive) SSD/HDDs. Back then it cost me $2K but that included a 3 year anything goes come to me/replace it warranty if it eats it, had I not it would have been around $300-400 less I forget.

If you got what I have now it would cost a good bit less being a year and a half old, but you'd be well into probably wearing it out before it's useless to your needs and it definitely as parts get cheaper cost a lot less.

I don't understand anything you said, but I'm listening.

Taco guy - thanks for the input on the 960 - would of felt sick had I ordered one yesterday.

 

[TonK]

Can anything be had with a 970/980 and a SSD for under a g?

 

[Tanooki]

I don't understand anything you said, but I'm listening.

Taco guy - thanks for the input on the 960 - would of felt sick had I ordered one yesterday.

I tried to explain what I did when I got mine and that it was a year and a half ago so it would cost quite a bit less now I'd think, especially with the new line of 10X0 nvidia mobile chips hitting. I was $1700 into it roughly with more with a warranty on top. I also tried to give a general idea how well it handles new stuff throwing DOOM out there.

An SSD will cost you more, they're also not smart to have as your boot drive I keep reading. Look at xoticpc.com for their sager/clevo laptops. They're do it yourself style, all of it, everything, it's modular like a desktop pc you build. There's no bullshit background programs from the likes of HP, Lenovo, etc on there being a nuisance eating up space and resources, it's vanilla windows. I went with a 1TB Western Digital HDD, a DVDburner/BR(read) combo drive, i7 CPU aroundn 2.5ghz, 16GB of RAM, the Nvidia 980 video chip w/8GB of ram on it.

Hit either of those sites, see if you can custom build one with those parts and see what it hits. Maybe you'll find a way to get 1G but it probably will be a little over, yet worth it.


Here try this for example, $1279 free shipping, has some nice freebies included too. -$50 for a 15" instead of 17" screen. Only downer is the 8GB of ram but +$65 gets you to 16.
http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8171-clevo-p670rp6.html?startcustomization=1

Fairly similar to what I'm running but this has the new 1060 video chip vs the 980 I have.

I can't find people selling hte 970/980 anymore really, I think because they're fairly closer to the 1060 and have +2GB of ram on then (1060 comes with 6GB) they want it out of the way because the crappier 960 and under you can get still easy.

 

[TonK]

Tanooki, I appreciate your help - but I'm not one to set up a new PC - that's why I like Mac, they work right out of the box flawlessly.

If Apple made a gaming platform, I'd buy it immediately.

But HAVING to settle on a Windows platform - what are the pros and cons of this?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-15-...00.p?id=bb5219400&skuId=5219400#bundle-offers

 

[Tanooki]

There is no setup involved. You turn it on and Windows 10 pops up, it's an idiot OS that works like a tablet but you use a mouse. The only setup required would be the same on a Mac, you install games and apps to it. When I got this one, Windows set itself up (which was 8.1 at the time), and that was it, done. I just put my games and apps on it and that was it. As easy as Windows 7 was 8 was even dumber and easier to setup with less headache and Windows 10 made the 8 setup seem annoying it was so simple.

There's not much of a con with Windows10 other than like any mobile tablet/phone app it has a lot of talk back chatter to MS for analysis reasons. You can easily disable that if it bothers you. The menus are very simplified, you just click on little boxes or basic menus and stuff works. If you have to tweak things, they put stuff in various generalized name sections where it's more of a common sense approach of what you're after versus the old cryptic windows know where things are what they're called or your lost thing. I'm not very versed with Macs, but I've used them and I know how easy they were with the bar across the bottom with the icons to get to things, MS kind of does this with their tile system that's really meant for mobile devices on the PC version too. I think your road block here would just be getting used to poking around is all until you're aware of where things sit and that's about it.

 

[TonK]

Went and looked at a MSI GS62VR Stealth Pro - the construction is so fucking shoddy.

I'll wait for the MacBook PRO refresh and see what GPU comes in it.

My MBP is running Legion at 60fps without breaking a sweat. No add ons or other programs installed on it. Fresh OSX install, fresh WoW install and that's it.

 

[Tanooki]

If you're more comfy with a Mac just stick with it, they're PC's anyway these days just with their own OS on it. I remember now with you saying that when I was researching and went with the way I did it, that the MSI stuff was looking both flimsy and overly expensive for the parts.

 

[greedostick]

You could go used, and get an alienware M17X similar to this...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Perfect-Con...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Not sure what specs warcraft needs thse days, but I am sure there is an alienware you can get used under a grand that will run it. I use to have one and loved it, only issue is the video cards are soldered in, and a pain to upgrade. It is fully illuminated though, which is great if you play in the dark. Kinda fancy, but they are really nice, and affordable "IF" you go used.

Don't buy a new one though, they're crazy expensive.

If you did decide to go desktop, we could go to microcenter by my house, and we could build it over at Kurts. You would save a lot of money, and have a PC that can last 5-10 years, instead of 2-5

 

[TonK]

If you're more comfy with a Mac just stick with it, they're PC's anyway these days just with their own OS on it. I remember now with you saying that when I was researching and went with the way I did it, that the MSI stuff was looking both flimsy and overly expensive for the parts.

Thanks for all your help man. I'm sticking with Mac.

You could go used, and get an alienware M17X similar to this...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Perfect-Con...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Not sure what specs warcraft needs thse days, but I am sure there is an alienware you can get used under a grand that will run it. I use to have one and loved it, only issue is the video cards are soldered in, and a pain to upgrade. It is fully illuminated though, which is great if you play in the dark. Kinda fancy, but they are really nice, and affordable "IF" you go used.

Don't buy a new one though, they're crazy expensive.

If you did decide to go desktop, we could go to microcenter by my house, and we could build it over at Kurts. You would save a lot of money, and have a PC that can last 5-10 years, instead of 2-5

Thanks Jer. I don't want a desktop, else I'd take you up on the offer.

 

[tacoguy]

The only thing i'm uncertain about macs is price. I don't know if it still holds true or not but you probably wont be able to get something with close specs to these $1000 for the same price on a mac.

 

[tacoguy]

The only thing i'm uncertain about macs is price. I don't know if it still holds true or not but you probably wont be able to get something with close specs to these $1000 for the same price on a mac.

 

[Cylotron]

You can get older Macbook Pro's (1st / 2nd gen i5's/i7's) for decent prices. They're upgradable to 16gb ddr3 & you can swap out the standard hd for an ssd(the newer Mac's use proprietary ssd's). There's also the option of getting an external video card adapter(such as a Bizon Box --- there's cheaper models out there as well). So of course with the adapter you'd be able to drop in a 1080 if you'd want & run off of that. You can also dual-boot OSX/Windows.. or just install Windows 10 & only use that.

 

[Tanooki]

The only thing i'm uncertain about macs is price. I don't know if it still holds true or not but you probably wont be able to get something with close specs to these $1000 for the same price on a mac.

No you're right, if you're not buying second hand when you get a Mac you're paying the Apple Tax on it. Same parts as a PC, can even run windows 10 if you dual boot it, but you're getting the privilege of running MacOS and having the bitten apple logo and style case design on your computer -- that's it. I really considered it myself as I'm ok using either or back when they stopped being unique and went with off the shelf computer parts and could dual-boot windows but the price increase was just hipster like gouging bullshit. I've had some of their devices in the past like an ipad2(bought when 3 came out due to price drop) and I have an iphone5s I got from my moms family phone plan. I like(d) them and how they worked and how easy it was to do stuff and get around, but the OS and shell the hardware came in didn't justify the expense to me when PC's have become such idiot box easy too especially since Windows 8 and 10 popped up with their phone like tiles and simple prompts.

 

[hyper]

labor-day weekend sales at newegg soon..

I'll keep an eye out for anything good

Don't get the 960m its straight up garbage

you're paying a thousand bucks, get your money's worth.

and if you want performance at reasonable prices you can check Apple off the list.. their hardware is extremely overpriced for what you're getting and forget about GPU power

if you want a tiny 1/2 pound laptop to read micro-brewery & fixed-gear-bike blogs on a starbucks arm chair all day and you have $2500 too much in your checking account then get a macbook

 

[TonK]

labor-day weekend sales at newegg soon..

I'll keep an eye out for anything good

Don't get the 960m its straight up garbage

you're paying a thousand bucks, get your money's worth.

and if you want performance at reasonable prices you can check Apple off the list.. their hardware is extremely overpriced for what you're getting and forget about GPU power

if you want a tiny 1/2 pound laptop to read micro-brewery & fixed-gear-bike blogs on a starbucks arm chair all day and you have $2500 too much in your checking account then get a macbook

lol, hipsters

 

[greedostick]

If your just looking to play wow and sell your laptop when youre done, just go pc. If youre one of the mac users that uses mac cause youre less likely to get a virus, dont let apple fool you into buying a half as powerful laptop for 2.5 times the cost of a windows pc. There are plenty of options on windows to recover your pc to factory settings, or backup and rollback to an an earlier date. Its so easy with a google search you could do it. I mention this because 99% of prople i speak to buy mac cause they think they cant get a virus, and are scared their pc would get a virus. It is really easy to recover a messed up pc. Basically you push one button at startup and follow the directions.

Of course if you plan to keep it for years, and can justify the premium price go for it.

But do not let apple trick you into thinking you need them to have a computer that works.

 

[tacoguy]

Yeah you kinda gotta pick your poison. A laptop with a powerful GPU in a thin form factor like those high end MACs will cost you $2500 minimum. You can probably get something older and save some money if you're going the mac route but you better make sure you get something that can play WoW. On the other hand, if the only game you care about is WoW then you might be able to get away with something halfway decent since I don't think WoW requires much power at all. I got an older intel chip and the integrated graphics does a decent job on games that don't require a lot of power.

 

[hyper]

except no macbook that exists carries a proper gpu

they all use shitty amd radeon-lite chips from 4 years ago

you pay out the ass, Apple stockpiles billions in hard currency

 

[greedostick]

except no macbook that exists carries a proper gpu

they all use shitty amd radeon-lite chips from 4 years ago

you pay out the ass, Apple stockpiles billions in hard currency

Exactly. Nac isnt made for gamers. Its made for people who do regular everyday tasks, and people who still believe the myth mac is better for video editing and audio creation.

Mac builds a pc and says " I know exactly what you want in a computer, so you will get that, and only that".

PC says "I dont know what you want to do with your PC, but we will give you the option to tweak it to exactly what you want".

Buying mac is like buying a stock Mustang, and being denied the ability to ever upgrade it. Doesnt make sense when you can buy one for less, and upgrade it exactly the way you want.

 

[TonK]

Waiting on the new Mac announcements - I hear a Polaris GPU is in the pipeline.

No good?

I do need a new laptop soon because my Mac CRAWLS during particle effects on AoE from bosses.

Someone with the knowledge (Andy) find me a Labor Day deal pls.

Also, Andy, if possible, can I have the laptop sent to you or maybe Jeremy to remove all the bloat ware and update drivers/BIOS as needed?

I heard it takes 4-5 hours to get a MSI properly set up.

If I'm not getting a Mac, I want something decent. Within the next 2 weeks.

 

[Dr Shroom]

Just format it and reinstall windows (and download the drivers from MSI before you do it if they don't come on a CD), shouldn't be a problem if you aren't totally retarded. Annoying bloatware shit, my HP was the same.