Need New Laptop Advice!

[Claytiebear16]

Hey, all. So, with the release date of Guild Wars 2 getting closer, I'd really like to get a new laptop that can actually play it. I'm going to preface all of this by letting you know that I'm really not a computer expert or anything, so if I end up asking stupid questions, sorry in advance, lol.

Current Laptop/Issues:
So, my current laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1764 with an ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4330 graphics card. Sufficed to say, it's brutal, lol. To start with, I have basically no ability to play any games at all unless I'm within 5-10 feet of my router because the connection is so poor. Even from my bedroom about 20 or 30 feet away, I literally can't even load a Youtube video or download a basic torrent. This is a more recent issue, considering I've had this laptop for a little over two years, and I've never had that kind of problem up until a few months ago. I've got a good router, and none of the other four laptops/desktops in my house have an internet connectivity issue.

Anyway, connection issue aside, my graphics card is the other major issue I have problems with. I can barely get by playing games like Dragon Nest and Diablo III at their lowest settings, and as of its most recent update, I can no longer play Minecraft (Bad graphics card error) T_T Updating my video card drivers hasn't helped at all. It made it so I could play Minecraft choppily, but no longer could play Dragon Nest/Diablo III.

So, yeah, I'd really like to get a new laptop that won't give me these kinds of issues anymore. That said, I don't really know what I'm talking about when it comes to computers, and I'm wondering if anyone can point me in the direction of a laptop that will suit my needs.

What I'm Looking For/Expectations:
I'm not worried about mobility too much, considering I'll pretty much always have it plugged in. At the most, I'll just be moving it from room to room or at the most, to a friend's house. For the most part, I'd really like a performance laptop that will allow me to play any game I want -- specifically, the most current games, such as Guild Wars 2, Diablo III, Minecraft, Dragon Nest, the new PSO(whenever that comes out, lol), etc. -- and won't force me to play everything on their lowest settings just to get them to run. I'm not really worried about flashiness, more about performance. The case could be a hollowed out pumpkin if it meant I wouldn't have to compromise my experience, lol. As far as price range goes, I'm hoping I can keep it within $1,300, though I'm willing to go a little bit over that if I need to. I'm not expecting to be able to get a top-of-the-line Alienware M18x or anything.

Thanks so much in advance to everyone for their time, advice, and insight. I really appreciate it!

[glo]

You can get the best of the best a wee bit over that budget with a Sager. They're one of the more reputed makers out there.

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np9150-...wconfigure=yes

You'll want to select the 7970m as the video card. 7970m is currently still the best mobile card available (sometimes the 680m will trade blows, but it costs WAY more for no reason). The only other thing I would suggest is either an mSATA 40GB SSD for SRT, or a dedicated SSD in the optical bay, but that would bring your price up to around $1550.

In terms of pricing, this is the best bang for your buck that you'll find.

[Claytiebear16]

Thanks a lot, man. I appreciate it. Just wondering (and here comes the stupid question I was warning about, lol), what exactly is an SSD and SRT, and what does it/they do? lol

[glo]

Thanks a lot, man. I appreciate it. Just wondering (and here comes the stupid question I was warning about, lol), what exactly is an SSD and SRT, and what does it/they do? lol

A SSD is a solid state hard drive. They're smaller in storage size compared to normal drives, but they're infinitely faster. Most people will use them for boot drives, which are able to boot into Windows in a matter of seconds. You can also throw a few games on them to almost completely eliminate load times.

The mSATA SRT drives are also SSDs, however they're used as cache drives. Basically, your system will automatically push all of your most commonly used files (boot files / game files) onto the drive. This results in speeds -almost- as fast as using a dedicated SSD for Windows and a few games. This will also preserve your disc drive.

It's also worth noting that SRT speeds aren't instant, you'll see the improved speeds after a few gaming / general use sessions.

[illinivb7]

I have had a sager 9130 for about a month now and its been working solid and I would recommend either. I went with the 670 card as its the only option in the 9130, but if you intend to go the 9150 route with the 7970 expect the price at around 1500 not 1200. Since I was intending to get the laptop before the 7970 was releasing and did not want the full rubber finish of the 9150 why i made the cheaper choice. One other thing of note between the 9130 and 9150 is the 9150 has the backlit keyboard which I do kind of miss.

Beyond that Xotic wasn't awful but wasn't as good as I expected. They do not build the laptop there as it is built in california by sager, but I ordered on 5-18 and did not receive the laptop til 6-12 and they would not check on how the build was going for me when asked. Prices are comparable just about anywhere so unless your in Cali, shopping around doesn't hurt but if you are they have it shipped to them and then to you to avoid sales tax which is a nice perk.

[Claytiebear16]

That's great, guys. I really appreciate your help and advice! I was speaking with a friend a little while ago, and she told me that if I were to settle for a desktop instead of a laptop, I could get a better machine for a lower or equal price to my ~$1,300 budget. Is there anything out there in desktop form that meets or exceeds my requirements and costs less than the laptop counterpart??

Thanks again!

[glo]

With current generation mobile video cards starting to now blur the line between desktop / notebook performance (7970m is slightly more powerful than the desktop 7870), that statement isn't as true as it once was. For example:

i5-3570k - $230
HD 7870 - $300
Motherboard - $130
Case - $100
DVD drive - $20
PSU - $80
HDD - $100
SSD - $130
Fans, CPU cooler, and other random stuff - $60
Monitor - (at least) $130

$1280~

That's more or less what you would pay for identical performance to that Sager model (with the 7979m). It really comes down to:

Do you want upgradability? Build a desktop.
Do you want portability? Buy a notebook.

[Claytiebear16]

All right, cool, man. Again, thanks very much! Out of curiosity since I don't really know what I'm doing, lol, I Googled for the top 10 gaming computers, lol.

The top rated one on there is called CyberPower PC Black Pearl (if you Google that, the very first link is the customization list I'm looking at on cyberpowerpc.com). Damn thing won't let me post the link or this would be much easier :[ really sorry!

I went down the list (if you happened to look it up since I can't post the link lol), and then I just changed the video card to AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card.

Under the "Hard Drive" section, it comes default with a 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD Single Drive. Under the "Data Hard Drive" section right beneath it, should I add one of those SSD's (no idea which one lol there's a ton of options). Would that be about right for what I'm looking for?? Is there anything else specific I should be looking for, like the type of motherboard, memory, cooling fan, etc, or is the default stuff good enough for the most part? Default price was $1299, and then with the graphics card and extra SDD, it's $1562. Sorry, I wish I could post the link to be easier to follow and not such an inconvenience.

Lol sorry for all the questions. I really appreciate everything!

[glo]

Something like this would be the equivalent of the notebook from them:

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1EAU1H

Cyberpower / iBuypower are decent builders, but expensive. You also have to make sure to get a decent PSU in the build. Their default power supplies are awful.

[Claytiebear16]

Ah, I see. Thanks very much. Considering that they're only decent but still expensive with poor base PSU's, are there other builders or companies that are better than them and offer the same thing or something similar? Possibly for less than that as well?

[glo]

Well, the expensive statement was sort of a blanket statement that all builders are far more expensive than building on your own. There are other builders such as Falcon, Maingear and Origin. They're all going to be slightly higher in price compared to Cyberpower or iBuypower (same company, different sites).

Are you interested in building yourself? You could take that $1300 budget and build an absolute monster compared to what you're looking at right now.

[Claytiebear16]

I see. All right, thanks. And regarding building myself, I've definitely considered it and would absolutely love to build it myself considering the inherent cost reduction and performance increase, the only problem is the obvious fact that I have no idea what I'm doing, lol. A 'How to' guide is, I'm sure, easy enough to find on the internet, but I have no idea specifically what parts/components I would need to buy to actually build one (for instance, specifically what motherboard, case, cooling fan, PSU, etc., lol), and I don't know where to go to find those parts from a trusted (online? I'm assuming) source, lol.

But yeah, if I could figure out what I need and where to get it, I wouldn't mind putting the time into figuring out how to build one myself.

[glo]

Here ya go:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($214.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($132.86 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($46.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card ($399.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 600T White Graphite ATX Mid Tower Case ($189.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 560W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($135.71 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS90 DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1397.48
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)

You'll also need 1 of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812117653

This is essentially the best single GPU setup you can get (aside from a 5% or so increase with a 680 or 7970) for gaming. The system will completely max any available game @ 1080p with ease. These are all the parts you need, cables, screws and everything else included.

Obviously the case is subjective, and I highly suggest looking through the many available on newegg to see if you find something that you prefer better. I chose the one listed due to how easy it is to build inside of Corsair cases. They look great, and have tons and tons of room to rout cables.

If you have any questions on where to start with guides, feel free to ask!

[Claytiebear16]

Wow, that's amazing! Thanks so much, I really, really appreciate it! Would the 680 or 7970 or an i7 processor really make a noticeable difference? The computer would be mainly for gaming, but I'm really not worried about an unnoticeable 5% difference if that's all it is. Especially if it cuts down on my costs. If you do know of any good guides, I'd really appreciate them, as well.

Again, thanks so much, dude. I really appreciate all the time you've put in helping me out.

[glo]

You're welcome.

The 7970 basically is ever so slightly above the 670, however it overclocks higher than any card available. That's the main draw to the card. The 680 performs better than the 7970, but doesn't overclock as far. Really, both of them at stock speeds aren't going to give you much of a noticeable difference. That 5% statement I made is spot on. You'll see a few FPS here and there, but that's it. For most people, it isn't worth the extra money.

As far as building goes, here's a good video guide. It really is simple, don't get intimidated. Once you have everything in front of you, it's just like putting a set of legos together. Don't worry about breaking anything, you'd honestly have to try to do so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPIXAtNGGCw (part 2 and 3 are in the annotations)

In addition to the video, do the following things:

1. Build it in a room without carpeting. Keep your shoes off, and build it on a table. This sounds silly, but you need to avoid static electricity. Even if you're not shocking yourself, computer components are extremely sensitive to the smallest amount of static buildup. To avoid all of this in addition to what I said previously, you need to be grounded.

To ground yourself easily (and to be able to ignore the crazy stuff suggested in the video), simply install your PSU first before anything else in your case. Switch the switch on the back to the "O" position, and plug it in to a grounded outlet (3 prong). While building, occasionally touch the PSU itself. This will ground you.

2. Don't touch the bottom of the processor at any time, or touch the inside of the processor socket on the motherboard.

3. When applying thermal paste for the processor heatsink only use a rice grain size (literally) of paste. Anymore and your processor may heat up more than necessary.

4. Put in the components in the following manner:

1. Case fans
2. PSU
3. DVD drive, SSD, and HDD
4. Connect PSU connectors (routing through the back side of the case) to above parts minus the fans
5. Install motherboard standoffs (included with the case)
6. With the motherboard still out of the case, install the processor (without the cooler) and RAM
7. Install the motherboard and connect the front panel headers (power button, reset, HDD light, etc)
8. Install the processor cooler
9. Connect PSU connectors to your motherboard and fans
10. Install the video card and connect the PSU connectors to it

The last few steps may have to be mixed up a bit depending on how you're routing the cables, but you get the idea. That's about all I can think of, feel free to ask if you have any questions!

[Claytiebear16]

That's awesome, man. Thanks a ton for everything. I'll definitely hit you up if I have any other questions. Can't thank you enough!