Which laptop would be better for GW2?

[chevelle1972]

Hello, I am in the market for a laptop right now and am torn between a Lenovo e530 and Asus Q500A. I fell in love with the Lenovo until i went to best buy yesterday and they showed me the Asus. The only problem with the Asus is I think is that it has a glossy screen compared to the Lenovo's matte screen. I will be going to college in january and will be on my laptop all the time in all kinds of conditions so I would think the matte would be better for me? I don't want lots of relflections on my screen when i'm in class or outside doing labs and whatnot. What do you guys think of these specs in general for GW2? Will these laptops be able to run on low/medium with decent fps?
Here are Lenovo specs:
i5 3210m 2.5ghz, with turbo boost
500gb HDD, Serial Ata 7200 RPM HDD
Intel HD 4000 graphics
and 4gb of RAM
Matte screen

The Asus Q500a has
Same i5 3210m 2.5ghz with turbo boost
750gb HDD, 5400 rpm HDD
Same Intel HD4000 graphics
6gb of Ram
The Asus does have a light up keyboard, but I don't think that really matters anyways as I always have a light on when I am on the computer at night. And the Asus has more HDD space but I don't think I'll even come close to the Lenovo's 500gb. I did take a picture of the Asus and I can see my relfection in the picture along with the relfection of the lights from best buy. I have a picture but since I am new to the forum I can not post it yet

Right now the Asus is on sale for 600, the lenovo is not on sale for 685

Thank you

[Faithh]

Basically none will play it fine. I guess 20-30fps with low settings?

The first one has a faster hdd while the 2nd one has a slower hdd and 2GB more ram.

[chevelle1972]

Is that extra 2 gigs of ram even needed? I will not be heavily multi tasking or editing videos or anything so i think 4 gigs should be enough. recommended ram for guild wars 2 is 4gb anyways right? I know the intel 4000hd isn't the greatest but i've seen several youtube videos of it playing guild wars 2 and it looked good enough for me. i also heard the faster hdd is better but that's just what i've heard, don't know how much better or if it makes a difference really

[Faithh]

Is that extra 2 gigs of ram even needed? I will not be heavily multi tasking or editing videos or anything so i think 4 gigs should be enough. recommended ram for guild wars 2 is 4gb anyways right? I know the intel 4000hd isn't the greatest but i've seen several youtube videos of it playing guild wars 2 and it looked good enough for me. i also heard the faster hdd is better but that's just what i've heard, don't know how much better or if it makes a difference really

A 5400rpm hdd is going to be slower but better for batterylife tough. A faster hdd is only going to allow you to boot faster into windows or faster loadingspeeds in games or faster virusscanning orsomething.. But it's not going to have any performance gain for FPS.

You rather look for something like this SONY VAIO SVE1712W1EB which has a higher resolution than the Asus and is 17" with an amd 7650 (1GB). It has an i3 but who cares about hyperthreading because games currently don't take advantage of it and you're not a heavy multitasker so I don't see the point.

[chevelle1972]

how much is that one? from what i found by googling I am only seeing ones upwards of 1000$, my budget is around $600-650. So far I am leaning towards the Lenovo still. I don't really mind playing on low-medium graphics as long as it isn't choppy or anything.

[shroudster]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834215662 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834230734
not worth it to look for gaming potential with intergrated graphics. (hell decent graphics are a pain to find already in most laptops/desktops pre-built)
also since it is for school perhaps entry level ultrabook is an option? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834310652.
GT 610M isn't much of a dedicated GPU but still better compared to intergrated hd4000, consider this if school/mobility are important.

[Faithh]

how much is that one? from what i found by googling I am only seeing ones upwards of 1000$, my budget is around $600-650. So far I am leaning towards the Lenovo still. I don't really mind playing on low-medium graphics as long as it isn't choppy or anything.

That one was 700eur here in belgium though

[chevelle1972]

is it possible to find any of those two on bestbuy's website? right now i'm kind of leaning to buying off of best buy because they have an 18 month no interest payment plan which i really need right now. I can't afford to drop $650~ right now so a payment plan is the best for now. i'm moving to a different state/city for college so I am not sure how soon i will find a job out there i ran the 610m on a website where you enter your pc specs and the 610m didn't pass the graphics card test. but neither does the intel 3000HD, the 4000 passes but says with low-medium settings. out of curiosity, if i went with the lenovo e530 do you think it will run fine on low/some medium graphics without lag? i can go to all low in wvw if i need to. i'm not really a graphics freak, i just want to play the game without choppiness/lag i also want a matte screen since i will be using the laptop outside and stuff, i have heard glossy gets real bad with reflections with any decent amount of light overhead

[shroudster]

can't find any good match @bestbuy site (and the search feature sucks vs other ones :P)
also what site you used for gpu test?

[chevelle1972]

Can't post links yet but if you google guild wars 2 pc requirements its the first website, called game debate or something. if you scroll down you'll see drop down menus and thats where I entered specs i'm starting to like some of these asus laptops on newegg, but I really want a matte screen still!

[chevelle1972]

OK I think I have made up my mind to go for the lenovo, i just have one more question, best buy lists it with coming with DDR3-1066/PC3-8500, but when I looked up what ram is compatible with the i5 3210m processor, the 1066 ram cards aren't listed? It shows that 1333 and 1600 ddr3's are capable. so is there a typo or is it just not mentioned that the 1066 ram cards work as well? if its worth it to upgrade to 1333 or 1600 then i will just upgrade it anways and go for 8 gigs of ram compared to the 4 it comes with

[shroudster]

OK I think I have made up my mind to go for the lenovo, i just have one more question, best buy lists it with coming with DDR3-1066/PC3-8500, but when I looked up what ram is compatible with the i5 3210m processor, the 1066 ram cards aren't listed? It shows that 1333 and 1600 ddr3's are capable. so is there a typo or is it just not mentioned that the 1066 ram cards work as well? if its worth it to upgrade to 1333 or 1600 then i will just upgrade it anways and go for 8 gigs of ram compared to the 4 it comes with

you do know it is not effective to get a pc/laptop for gaming with intergrated graphics right?
also the ram should work , i highly doubt a laptop would be sold without working ram

[chevelle1972]

I know I will not be able to play on high/some medium settings and i'm ok with that. I've watched a couple youtube videos on people playing gw2 with hd3000 and 4000's and the graphics look good enough for me I've even seen a video of a guy using an hd2000 and he could still run the game on all low and was getting decent fps in a non crowded area and ok I will probably just get a 2 or 4 gig of whatever ram comes in it just cause ram is sooo cheap!

[dashflash890]

They will run pretty good in GW2 people telling you on low 20-30fps is BS. The laptop I have now has the exact same specs as the asus (i5-3210m and 6GB of ram). I usually have 40-50 fps on low and 30-40 fps on medium settings. Just make sure you turn things down for huge events. In Huge Events with 50+ people it drops to 20fps but still playable. Intel 4000 isn't as bad as people say it is. Its ok for laptops.

[yurano]

I have a glossy screen on my laptop and image quality is excellent. Significantly superior over the standard matte LCD screens. When using it outside though, its crazy reflective. You can probably use it as a mirror.

[shroudster]

They will run pretty good in GW2 people telling you on low 20-30fps is BS. The laptop I have now has the exact same specs as the asus (i5-3210m and 6GB of ram). I usually have 40-50 fps on low and 30-40 fps on medium settings. Just make sure you turn things down for huge events. In Huge Events with 50+ people it drops to 20fps but still playable. Intel 4000 isn't as bad as people say it is. Its ok for laptops.

so tell me how low did you set the resolution then?

[chevelle1972]

They will run pretty good in GW2 people telling you on low 20-30fps is BS. The laptop I have now has the exact same specs as the asus (i5-3210m and 6GB of ram). I usually have 40-50 fps on low and 30-40 fps on medium settings. Just make sure you turn things down for huge events. In Huge Events with 50+ people it drops to 20fps but still playable. Intel 4000 isn't as bad as people say it is. Its ok for laptops.

That's really good news! I'm not much of a graphics freak anyways so i would run on low if i had to but 30-40fps on medium sounds pretty nice! for wvw and stuff though i'd turn it to low. thank you for your input

---------- Post added 2012-12-10 at 01:01 AM ----------

I have a glossy screen on my laptop and image quality is excellent. Significantly superior over the standard matte LCD screens. When using it outside though, its crazy reflective. You can probably use it as a mirror.

Yeah from what i've read, glossy screens look a lot brighter and more colorful. my computer monitor has a matte screen and it looks good for me, not sure how much different a laptop with a matte screen would be though. For kicks I have my moms HP laptop which has a glossy screen and occasionally I'll play the same video on youtube on my desktop and my moms laptop and see how much more reflections the laptop has, its ridiculous how much more it has!

[dashflash890]

so tell me how low did you set the resolution then?

1366x768