Yet another buying-new-laptop thread

[narcusyetra]

im gonna buy a new system by the end of the month

im looking for a laptop....wud i be able to keep it on for days at stretch?
recommended configurations?

[vuzedome]

Yo, wassup?
You in the wrong thread?

And here's my suggestion, get one with a Core i5, 3-4GB RAM, SSD for storage and some awesome nVidia mobile graphics(preferably something between the 5th or 6th in the series, eg. GTS 250M...).

[Micharus]

im gonna buy a new system by the end of the month

im looking for a laptop....wud i be able to keep it on for days at stretch?
recommended configurations?

Sure, keeping it on for days at a stretch is no problem.... as long as you keep it hooked up to mains power and most importantly, make sure it is set up in such a way that it has good airflow to keep it cool.

As far as configuration goes, I'm not into laptops.

[fohfoh]

As long as the computer is well ventilated, you can leave it on for days on end. Try to get some decent sized notebooks so that it's not a super compact one that has issues with ventilation.
As for power wise.... really up to you. I'm more inclined to say the P series cpus from intel are nice and powerful and cool at the same time. But for performance, you're still better off with a desktop.

[sdedalus83]

You could go weeks on end with an old 386 laptop and a big deep cycle marine battery.  You'd need a very aggressively reinforced backpack and one hell of a pair of legs though.

[lapa321]

I'm using these. Even without the fan, it's pretty well ventilated. Granted, mine's just a netbook, but i've had it constantly running for a year now (Low power use (12-16 watts) = 24/7 Torrent!)

[Mag-X]

recommended configurations?

What are you going to use it for? If you just want to watch movies, screw around on the internet, and use instant messenger, literally anything above a netbook will do. If you want to play games or run photoshop, you'll need much more.

[Stsin]

This should cover all your needs:

ASUS G Series G73JH-X1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220695

Intel Core i7 720QM(1.6GHz)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1 GB DDR3
8 GB RAM DDR3 1333mhz
LCD 17.3" 1920x1080
Windows 7 Home 64bit

Only $1,650 (used to be lower).  That is if you can find it in stock

Better than 98.9% of the desktops here.
May want to add an SSD in the second hard drive slot to compliment the slow 500gb Seagate.

Free notebook cooler with purchase, though may not need it since it stays cool with dual port exhaust.

[xShadow]

This should cover all your needs:

ASUS G Series G73JH-X1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220695

Intel Core i7 720QM(1.6GHz)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1 GB DDR3
8 GB RAM DDR3 1333mhz
LCD 17.3" 1920x1080
Windows 7 Home 64bit

Only $1,650 (used to be lower).  That is if you can find it in stock

Better than 98.9% of the desktops here.
May want to add an SSD in the second hard drive slot to compliment the slow 500gb Seagate.

Free notebook cooler with purchase, though may not need it since it stays cool with dual port exhaust.

I wouldn't go for that at all. The graphics card on it actually performs between a 5750 and 5770 (desktop version), from what I've read. The 8 gigs ram is also rather pointless; you really shouldn't need that much. The Core i7 is also quite deceptive, as it's much worse than a desktop core i5.

Put simply, it feels like a complete waste of money. Maybe if you're determined to play Crysis on decent settings wherever you want (for whatever reason), it might be alright...
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but I can tell you that even that concept is actually rather inconvenient, at least moreso than it sounds. One thing I certainly didn't factor in when I thought about playing games at crowded places is that you'll have to take piss breaks. Sounds funny, yes, but then you try it yourself, you get it. Every time you use the restroom, "should I leave it here, or put it up in my backback and take it with me...?" As valuable as that type of laptop may be, it may get stolen if you just need to use the restroom; people have crafty hands, and your laptop is quite worth taking. Unless you're planning to drag a friend around with you everywhere, I wouldn't suggest it. This is just coming from a college student with experience in having a gaming-grade laptop in crowded places. "Gaming everywhere" just isn't as fun as it sounds.

Otherwise, you'd be MUCH better off just building a desktop for about 1000$ (you could get a very nice one, too), and then just shelling out 600$ (or less) on a decent laptop. Then, you have something good to use at home (something nice, and stable, where you don't have to worry about temperatures), and something good to watch anime on (and maybe do some light gaming on) at other locations. I can tell you right now that shelling out lots of dough for a gaming laptop is kinda overrated. Great for randomly located LAN parties, sure, but the fun definitely wears off... especially when you realize you might as well just be playing DOTA with your friends over vent and garena/hamachi, rather than bothering with actually being in the same room.

[Stsin]

im looking for a laptop....wud i be able to keep it on for days at stretch?
recommended configurations?

It's still one of the best gaming laptops, when they are normally over $2000 of this caliber.  I wouldn't go so far as to call it a complete waste of money

Of course it depends on what you want to do.  An atom is capable if you just want to play movies.  My friend is ordering this soon and none of your reasonings would ever change that.

I also upgraded to 8 gigs RAM recently and it's money well spent.  Latest OS and future games will take advantage of it, also when I have three Virtual PCs running, I'm not afraid of opening Photoshop

[xShadow]

I'm saying this as a person that got one of the better/best gaming laptops of one of the last generations, when I was entering college (has a 9600M in it and a good Core 2 duo). Mine cost ~1500$, and I'm telling you right now that if they didn't give me the option to let it be covered by scholarships and whatnot (my college required a laptop), I definitely would have been better off with just buying a desktop for 1k$ and then spending 500$ on a laptop. I don't see how anyone in their right mind could make the decision to shell out more money of something that has much crappier specs... just because you can take it places. Unless your friend travels to other places A LOT (stays at different hotels and whatnot), I can't see the investment being worth it. It's a waste of money, pure and simple. If you travel and stay at different hotels a lot, it might be a good investment (though I don't see why you'd be traveling around just to stay at a hotel in that town and play games...), but otherwise, it's a waste of money. You're not gonna be gaming on it as much as you think.... (though I do it in classes, but whatever..)

As for the RAM issue, I'd maybe go as high as 6 gigs, but haven't been having any problem with 4 gigs on my desktop, as far as gaming goes.

Even if we take the ram issue out though, I'd still say it's a waste.

[bork]

If you are running windows, RAM above 3 Gig is useless.   Windows may impose licensing limits on how much RAM the OS will use for marketing reasons.  To see this, pull up your system information and look at the "Installed Physical Memory" and the "Total Physical Memory".

There is a kernel patch/hack that allows more then 4 Gigs to used but ...

[fohfoh]

I concur... basic use for laptop... you don't need much. If you want performance, don't bother. Heating issues kills laptops. Mine idles at like 40-60 celcius. That's fucked up. And the biggest part I can't deal with... the APi idles high and even a laptop fan can't always deal with it. So either the build has to be good, or you'll run into problems fast when you overheat your laptop.

[Proin Drakenzol]

If you are running windows, RAM above 3 Gig is useless.   Windows may impose licensing limits on how much RAM the OS will use for marketing reasons.  To see this, pull up your system information and look at the "Installed Physical Memory" and the "Total Physical Memory".

There is a kernel patch/hack that allows more then 4 Gigs to used but ...

If you are running a 32-bit version of Windows then you are limited to 3GB of RAM (which is only 1GB less than the maximum supportable by a 32-bit OS/processor anyway).

AFAIK there are no software imposed restrictions on the amount of RAM supported by a 64-bit OS/processor combo, and the physical limitation isn't even close to being reached (which is 2^64 bits or 4GB^2).

[narcusyetra]

actually im starting coll so i need to have a laptop with decent game support but id be using it watch stuff mostly so a good large screen is a necessity.... also shud i consider mac?   btw one of my desktops is going to physical dump of memory 'internet suggests formatting' but that isnt helping will a better ram help (xp 1gb ram only used for torrent downloading and music)

actually i willing to spend decent amount on it iv been saving for it a long time now and i will have to use it for atleast 2-3 years so...

[Proin Drakenzol]

actually im starting coll so i need to have a laptop with decent game support but id be using it watch stuff mostly so a good large screen is a necessity....

Buy an Asus

also shud i consider mac?

Not if you're interested in gaming. Granted, you can dual-boot, but if your primary use is Windows based anyway you shouldn't pay the hardware premium the Mac entails.

btw one of my desktops is going to physical dump of memory 'internet suggests formatting' but that isnt helping will a better ram help (xp 1gb ram only used for torrent downloading and music)

It's possible that your RAM is going bad, but without knowing the exact error code and portion of memory the dump triggers on it's difficult to say.

Also, please learn how to spell. It's a necessary skill in college.

[lapa321]

Asus G15J 3D

$1,700.00
Core i7-720
4Gig DDR3
GTX 260M 1GB DDR3
640Gig Harddrive
Blueray Drive



Includes the 3D vision kit. That's the 3D glasses he's wearing.

[Will5757]

32 bit versions of window's are limited to 4gb of memory (not 3) the issue comes from that this is all physical memory (any roms like your bios on the mobo, as well as memory on videocard, maybe soundcard, not sure how creative's new stuff works)

technically they don't have to be limited, but it's much more stable if it is (they used to create something similar to a pagefile, but on the excess memory, drivers didn't like this and often crashed)

for testing your xp box you can use memtest (a bootable cd) does a good job of testing, or you can start pulling sticks out until you find which one is the problem, if either are or both

you might want to mention what sort of games your planning to play on it, i don't know a lot about laptops, but that's going to be a key factor in what kind of machine you need.

i'll agree with the others in saying though your better off with a desktop if you don't absolutely have to game or photoshop on your laptop. heck if you don't have to do to much with the laptop you might even be able to get a cheap used one and put more into your desktop

[Stsin]

I'm saying this as a person that got one of the better/best gaming laptops of one of the last generations, when I was entering college (has a 9600M in it and a good Core 2 duo). Mine cost ~1500$, and I'm telling you right now that if they didn't give me the option to let it be covered by scholarships and whatnot (my college required a laptop), I definitely would have been better off with just buying a desktop for 1k$ and then spending 500$ on a laptop. I don't see how anyone in their right mind could make the decision to shell out more money of something that has much crappier specs... just because you can take it places.

It's not much crappier specs.  This is pretty close to the top, compared to your gaming laptop to desktops back then.  And yes, my friend is having school to help pay for it.  He's already got a good desktop, but this laptop gives him a big hard on.  So I told him to go for it.  Nice 1080p LCD screen and the power to push it in gaming.  It's not going to be outdated for a long while.

As for the RAM issue, I'd maybe go as high as 6 gigs, but haven't been having any problem with 4 gigs on my desktop, as far as gaming goes.

Ignoring Superfetch to take advantage of unused ram, this reminds me of the debate some years ago about 512MB vs 1 GB.  Biggest reason was that games won't use all the ram...which was untrue back then, when games like WoW already did.  Well, since I use DDR2, the choice was 4 or 8.  I definitely needed more than 4.  And yes, it's for gaming:

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Ever heard of the flash game called My Brute?
 I posted about it on this forum but it got deleted.  Well, though I started late, I became the top of the English server in matter of months.  Rank 1 and 2.  By using automation scripts in separate Virtual XPs, each constantly switching proxies.  That wasn't enough as I also took over the Spanish server.  Though my intention was never for the money, I recently sold that Spanish brute for an offer I couldn't refuse in hundreds of USD.  I could sell enough brutes to get that laptop  While it's botting 24/7, I also like to clean up the data by using SQuirreL to export and import.  Since current version of Open Office can't have more than 65,536 rows, I end up using multiple sheets at once for my hundreds of thousands of pupils.  So with extra memory, I no longer feel restricted on how many simultaneous tasks I can run, like I'm even able to play Dragon's Age.  Hell, I stopped worrying about how much resources apps take up as I also run tons of gadgets including animations that are always on that dances and syncs with the music I'm playing.  It's the first time since I've been using Windows that I feel that my system is truly multitasking.

Even if we take the ram issue out though, I'd still say it's a waste.

Don't forget that nice 1080p LCD screen and the fastest GPU of any laptop to push it

I concur... basic use for laptop... you don't need much. If you want performance, don't bother. Heating issues kills laptops. Mine idles at like 40-60 celcius. That's fucked up. And the biggest part I can't deal with... the APi idles high and even a laptop fan can't always deal with it. So either the build has to be good, or you'll run into problems fast when you overheat your laptop.

Another great thing about this laptop is it's dual exhaust port.  Keeping this beast quite cool.  Also the benefits of using the mobility versions of the CPU and GPU instead of the desktop versions requiring monster cooling.  Definitely worth the slight performance hit for a laptop.  CPU also uses Intel's Turbo Boost so it doesn't overclock the CPU unless it's needed.  With the GPU also downclocking, never a heating issue nor much power usage at idle.  Plus it doesn't get too hot when running benchmarks like Prime95 or Crysis endlessly.

Newegg reviewers are often the most critical.  The posted reviews on this laptop are pretty good.

Seriously, if tight on money, then you shouldn't get it.  Get a netbook and have built in internet access everywhere.  But I still think this is a bargain for what it's capable of.  I don't see people bashing those buying an i7 with DDR3 with dual GPUs...and a 37in 1080p LCD.  They obviously won't get the most out of it and should settle with much less