A Little Laptop Shopping Help

[Kilgannon]

Hey MMO-C,

I'm looking for a laptop to take with me when I travel so that I can play a little WoW. I think I found one, and I tried to do all of my research, but you guys are the experts so I figured I would run it by you all before I buy it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toshiba-Sate...item5668b28061

I know it isn't going to set the world on fire with the best FPS and all that, but from what I can tell, it should run WoW on low just fine. That fact that it's well under my $500 budget doesn't hurt either.

Basically, I just want to make sure I'm not missing something dumb and waste my money before I buy it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

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I also found this one and I think it's better, I'm just not sure by how much.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834314557

[skitszo]

I'd choose the a10 apu over the sattelite.

[Lektrik]

My laptop has an A10 apu and it performs great for the most part because I don't expect it to run high settings, however my clock speed is around 2.8 ghz (which seems extremely low compared to my i5 at 4.2 ghz), and the clock speed of the A10 in that laptop is only 1.9ghz, which could be a problem in a cpu-intensive game like WoW.

Edit - didn't realize that they had turbo boost on the APUs, so it looks like the one in the Acer laptop will clock up to 3.2ghz, in other words it will run WoW on good settings just fine, but in any raiding situations I would still turn the settings down to low.

[Stormspark]

I'm heavily considering this laptop.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K6ZIBGY/...I15F3QLEW1ZJGK

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Hey MMO-C,

I'm looking for a laptop to take with me when I travel so that I can play a little WoW. I think I found one, and I tried to do all of my research, but you guys are the experts so I figured I would run it by you all before I buy it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toshiba-Sate...item5668b28061

I know it isn't going to set the world on fire with the best FPS and all that, but from what I can tell, it should run WoW on low just fine. That fact that it's well under my $500 budget doesn't hurt either.

Basically, I just want to make sure I'm not missing something dumb and waste my money before I buy it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

- - - Updated - - -

I also found this one and I think it's better, I'm just not sure by how much.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834314557

On the newegg one, what's the screen resolution? Nevermind, found it. It's 1366x768 just like the one I linked. Looks like that one is $70 cheaper because it has less RAM.

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My laptop has an A10 apu and it performs great for the most part because I don't expect it to run high settings, however my clock speed is around 2.8 ghz (which seems extremely low compared to my i5 at 4.2 ghz), and the clock speed of the A10 in that laptop is only 1.9ghz, which could be a problem in a cpu-intensive game like WoW.

Edit - didn't realize that they had turbo boost on the APUs, so it looks like the one in the Acer laptop will clock up to 3.2ghz, in other words it will run WoW on good settings just fine, but in any raiding situations I would still turn the settings down to low.

The A10-7300 will definitely not need to be turned to low in raiding. It can handle good settings all the way around (with even a couple things on high) just fine. I know someone who has a laptop 2 years older than this one, with an A6, and it runs good settings all around (even in raids) with decent FPS. And that one is not as good as the A10-7300. The integrated graphics are (roughly) similar to the HD7750 in power/specs. Entry level when you're talking dedicated GPU's of course...but amazing by integrated graphics standards.

[Lektrik]

Yup and the extra ram may help (maybe not a big difference on WoW) since the graphics memory is being shared with system memory, meaning that you won't really have all of your RAM available for use all of the time. And I'm just saying my laptop really gets hit hard in 40 man ordos groups with bloodlust and all that good stuff going on, that's a whole different story than 25 mans.

[Stormspark]

Yup and the extra ram may help (maybe not a big difference on WoW) since the graphics memory is being shared with system memory, meaning that you won't really have all of your RAM available for use all of the time.

Yeah, on any 64-bit system, laptop or not, I do not see any reason to ever have less than 8gb.

[skitszo]

with APU's memory speed and amount helps them perform better. i think you might still benefit getting 12 GB of memory. but definately get the fastest speed memory that is supported.

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man...try to not get a 5400 rpm hard drive....if you have to....then run a ssd hard drive and install onto it your OS then run the 5400 as a external storage. unless you get one with 2 bays....

[Stormspark]

with APU's memory speed and amount helps them perform better. i think you might still benefit getting 12 GB of memory. but definately get the fastest speed memory that is supported.

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man...try to not get a 5400 rpm hard drive....if you have to....then run a ssd hard drive and install onto it your OS then run the 5400 as a external storage. unless you get one with 2 bays....

Honestly, with laptops, sometimes you have to take what you can find. It's not like a desktop where you can custom build your own. I happened to find a great laptop that just happened to have a 5400 drive...but that drive can be replaced if it turns out to be an issue (preferably with an SSD).

Hard drives and RAM are easy to replace down the line if they're an issue, if you get something that otherwise has decent build quality.

[bobn9lvu]

Get a laptop with a decent cpu, separate gpu, and the main drive for OS is a SSD.
Have at least 8 gig ram and windows 7 or 8.1.
Use of a good laptop cooler is a must.

I use a Dell special edition that has 8 gig ram a good gpu with 2 gig ram, and added a SSD for the os.
My main storage drive is the WD with the ssd built in.
I upgraded the dvd drive to Blu-ray as well.
I use a USB sound bar for good audio, with a USB headset for voice.
It does just fine for normal raids and farming.