Gaming Laptop for $1300 or below

[Martinczo]

Hello everyone! How are you all today?

Well my title says it all. I am looking for the best gaming laptop I can buy with $1300. I can't go any higher than that. I play all sorts of games such as Skyrim, WoW, Crysis(all of them), The Witcher, GW2, Neverwinter, ect. The games don't need to run on Ultra settings, but I would love it if the laptop had an SSD.

The best I've come by are:

1. GIGABYTE P2742G-CF1

2. GIGABYTE P2742G-CF2

3. Acer Aspire V3-772G-9460

Anyone know of better laptops within $1300 with an SSD?

Thanks!

[Iite]

Does it need to be a laptop ?

[Martinczo]

Does it need to be a laptop ?

It does sadly =(

[tielknight]

You can get a Laptop through Ibuypower with a 240GB SSD +1TB HDD and a better GPU (GTX 765m instead of a 760m) for $1305 if your looking for about a ~10-15% FPS boost in GPU-intensive games at the cost of a 4gb of RAM(8gb is still plenty) and the BD drive.



edit: post number 666, muahahah

[Echelonl]

Lenovo is currently running a 40% off sale on a lot of their laptops, using the coupon code BACKTOSCHOOLIDEA or CAPWEEKLYDEAL, so they will probably have a pretty good sale on some gaming laptops.

http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/

Go nuts. The deal ends in 2 days though.

[tielknight]

Lenovo is currently running a 40% off sale on a lot of their laptops, using the coupon code BACKTOSCHOOLIDEA or CAPWEEKLYDEAL, so they will probably have a pretty good sale on some gaming laptops.

http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/

Go nuts. The deal ends in 2 days though.

They...aren't that good though.

Smaller screen, older processor, worse GPU, and a pitiful 16gb SSD that is pretty much useless and thats for the one that got it's price down to $1,149 from $1,449 thanks to the coupon. The only good thing is it has 16gb of ram.

[Fluorescent0]

Sager NP8235 for 1182$. You can add an SSD later if you feel the need for it and it'll still be below your 1300$ budget (mostly suggesting this because their prices on those seem pretty high). Also comes with a 770M instead of the 765M above.

[tielknight]

Sager NP8235 for 1182$. You can add an SSD later if you feel the need for it and it'll still be below your 1300$ budget (mostly suggesting this because their prices on those seem pretty high). Also comes with a 770M instead of the 765M above.

Looks like it'll be about $1301 with a 120gb SSD and a 750GB 7200rpm HDD (after $50 discount for spending over $1,350, had to throw in a t-shirt to get the discount :P) though the better GPU would be well worth losing the extra SSD space and having a slightly smaller screen(same screen res though). The HDD is faster though (5400rpm in the Ibuy laptop) and the rest of the specs are pretty much the same. The 770m seems to give about a ~20% FPS boost in most games compared to the 765m so I would definitely go for the Sager since they have the same processors (i7-4700MQ). 120gb is plenty of room for your most-used games & Windows.

[Echelonl]

They...aren't that good though.

Smaller screen, older processor, worse GPU, and a pitiful 16gb SSD that is pretty much useless and thats for the one that got it's price down to $1,149 from $1,449 thanks to the coupon. The only good thing is it has 16gb of ram.

Even though haswell processors aren't even more powerful than Ivybridge, it has an Intel i7 4700 which is brand new. The gpu is like 5% worse fps. A 24gig SSD is available in all 3 laptops so you must of looked at it wrong, but yea the ssd is not so useful, but the laptop is also 500 dollars cheaper and can play the games the OP listed.

Even a gtx770m is less powerful than a normal GTX 470 which is crazy old. He would need to get a laptop with SLI 770m to be able to have the power of a decent gaming PC., which I'm guessing is around 3k dollars.

If at all possible, the OP should just get a desktop. "Gaming" laptops are an insane waste of money. Its probably over double the cost for the same hardware in a PC. For 1300 he could build a very powerful gaming PC.

But if he must get one, then I'm not sure its worth 500+ dollars for about 6 FPS and slightly bigger screen.

[tielknight]

Even though haswell processors aren't even more powerful than Ivybridge, it has an Intel i7 4700 which is brand new. The gpu is like 5% worse fps. A 24gig SSD is available in all 3 laptops so you must of looked at it wrong, but yea the ssd is not so useful, but the laptop is also 500 dollars cheaper and can play the games the OP listed.

Even a gtx770m is less powerful than a normal GTX 470 which is crazy old. He would need to get a laptop with SLI 770m to be able to have the power of a decent gaming PC., which I'm guessing is around 3k dollars.

If at all possible, the OP should just get a desktop. "Gaming" laptops are an insane waste of money. Its probably over double the cost for the same hardware in a PC. For 1300 he could build a very powerful gaming PC.

But if he must get one, then I'm not sure its worth 500+ dollars for about 6 FPS and slightly bigger screen.

The 770m is more powerful than the 470(you can pickup a 560ti for around half the price of the 470 with the same/better performance, love how the top tier of older series still cost a arm and a leg), not by a whole lot though. A single 770m will still be plenty to play those games at high settings.

Where is this "$500 for 6fps and a slightly bigger screen" coming from? There is a $150 difference between the ones posted above (Sager & Ibuypower)
and the Lenovo.

If they say it needs to be a laptop, then that is what we will work with. Of course the performance isn't as good and of course you can build a desktop for less with better but that is not what they want.

[Allawi]

When you're buying a laptop, you want portability, and when you want a "gaming laptop", you want performance. The best option for you is the lenovo y500, you can get SLI 750m's and it's as portable as you can get with a "gaming laptop".

Sager's laptops are bulky and you'll probably never move it off your desk.

[Echelonl]

The 770m is more powerful than the 470(you can pickup a 560ti for around half the price of the 470 with the same/better performance, love how the top tier of older series still cost a arm and a leg), not by a whole lot though. A single 770m will still be plenty to play those games at high settings.

Where is this "$500 for 6fps and a slightly bigger screen" coming from? There is a $150 difference between the ones posted above (Sager & Ibuypower)
and the Lenovo.

If they say it needs to be a laptop, then that is what we will work with. Of course the performance isn't as good and of course you can build a desktop for less with better but that is not what they want.

It seems we both have missed something, as Allawi pointed out, the expensive Lenovo on the website that is $1100 with the coupon is an SLI 750m.

That might be the better option overall. It is using a last gen processor, but the new Haswells are pretty much just a battery life booster instead of a performance one.


edit: hmm looks like the 770m is actually better than a 750 sli. Neverminds :P

[tielknight]

When you're buying a laptop, you want portability, and when you want a "gaming laptop", you want performance. The best option for you is the lenovo y500, you can get SLI 750m's and it's as portable as you can get with a "gaming laptop".

Sager's laptops are bulky and you'll probably never move it off your desk.

According to this and this, the 770m is about ~10% better than the SLI 750m and you would not have your optical drive replaced by a GPU and you would get a SSD that you could install the OS on and your most-played games for much better load times.

It seems we both have missed something, as Allawi pointed out, the expensive Lenovo on the website that is $1100 with the coupon is an SLI 750m.

That might be the better option overall. It is using a last gen processor, but the new Haswells are pretty much just a battery life booster instead of a performance one.

One of the main things they are looking for is a SSD, and the 16gb(yes it really is 16gb) SSD while the other laptops offer 120GB or a 240GB SSD.

[Allawi]

According to this and this, the 770m is about ~10% better than the SLI 750m and you would not have your optical drive replaced by a GPU and you would get a SSD that you could install the OS on and your most-played games for much better load times.




One of the main things they are looking for is a SSD, and the 16gb(yes it really is 16gb) SSD while the other laptops offer 120GB or a 240GB SSD.

first of all, optical drives have become pretty much useless, so it's really not a problem to replace it with a second 750m. And it's not difficult to buy a SSD and install it yourself.

Also, i'm not sure any of you understand what the "16 gb SSD" is, it's a hybrid hard drive which has the 16 gb SSD built into it to handle temp/cache files to make everything load faster.

[Fluorescent0]

first of all, optical drives have become pretty much useless, so it's really not a problem to replace it with a second 750m. And it's not difficult to buy a SSD and install it yourself.

Also, i'm not sure any of you understand what the "16 gb SSD" is, it's a hybrid hard drive which has the 16 gb SSD built into it to handle temp/cache files to make everything load faster.

In a notebook you either have SLI cards or have a big SSD. That's because the SSD usually gets installed instead of the optical drive, while you can't because you have the second GPU there. Let's not forget that SLI adds extra overheating, compatibility problems and such. Since the OP actually asked for an SSD, and since a mechanical drive with a 16GB cache is never going to be as fast, that notebook seems not to be what he requested, all while providing less power both CPU speaking (10%) and GPU speaking(10%), while consuming more power itself.

[tielknight]

first of all, optical drives have become pretty much useless, so it's really not a problem to replace it with a second 750m. And it's not difficult to buy a SSD and install it yourself.

Also, i'm not sure any of you understand what the "16 gb SSD" is, it's a hybrid hard drive which has the 16 gb SSD built into it to handle temp/cache files to make everything load faster.

Did not see anywhere that it was stated to be a hybrid drive(plus they labeled it in the specs as a HDD + a SSD) but that might be the case and would explain why it is so small. Seems a bit pointless as it still has to rely on the HDD.

Unless you find a aftermarket SSD that can go into the optical drive, the only option available on the website was a 750GB HDD that would replace the optical drive. Sure you can buy SSD then slap it in there, but then the price would be on-par with the other two laptops while they have similar/better specs. That and there is the heat issue that Fluor mentioned and laptops have problems with heat enough.