Personal computing discussed

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paulWTAMU
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laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:09 am

My business travel is picking up substantially. I'm debating purchasing a mid range (800 or less) laptop because of this. Work would, I'm sure, provide some antique POS that'll run excel, but if I'm traveling a week or so every month, I'd like to be able to have a personal machine with MY software, and most importantly, MY Steam account! It'll also be used to stream videos from Hulu and Amazon Prime, 2 things that'd get me fired if I did it on a work PC.

I'd like to be able to play at least some games--L4D2, Plants vs Zombies, etc. I don't expect to run Battlefield 3 on a laptop, given my budget (and practical considerations--who wants to lug a 17" DTR around?)

I'd like a screen size of 13-15", and a decent resolution (higher than 1366 x 768 is prefered). What sort of mobile graphics would I need to run games like I want to play on that laptop? Battery life is not a huge concern--airports have outlets, so do hotel rooms. But I'm not up on mobile GPUs at all.

Also, is Lenovo good? And is Acer decent?

It'll be a few months before I get one, but at the rate I'm traveling I'm thinking a mobile PC is a good idea...bleh :(
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Captain Ned
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:14 am

Lenovos with Intel Wi-Fi cards are a good place to start and can be had for reasonable prices. Graphics of the order you want tend to get spendy in a hurry as moving from an integrated GPU to a discrete GPU almost always brings along a whole mess of Cadillac features you're not asking for nor need and cannot delete to save $$.
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:53 am

I bought an Asus RoG laptop a few years ago for similar reasons. Be warned that a notebook that's a good gaming system is going to be heavier and have less battery life than most.

Here's a decent list of laptop GPUs:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison ... 130.0.html
· R7-5800X, Liquid Freezer II 280, RoG Strix X570-E, 64GiB PC4-28800, Suprim Liquid RTX4090, 2TB SX8200Pro +4TB S860 +NAS, Define 7 Compact, Super Flower SF-1000F14TP, S3220DGF +32UD99, FC900R OE, DeathAdder2
 
paulWTAMU
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:38 am

After using those and looking at prices I may have to sacrifice resolution :( Bummer, but I wasn't finding anything with a 1440x900 with a dedicated GPU and 4 gigs ram for my budget.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834246153

that looks moderately promising, provided Lenovo is good for reliability. Also considering this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834246155

core i3 and, if I understood that link right, a weaker GPU...but 100 bucks less.

I'm not looking to play current games, just some older ones as time killers between conferences and sleep. I'd love to find some benchmarks but it seems like few sites actually bother with benchmarking laptop GPUs in games.
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:01 am

What about Alienware's MX11? It's got the small 1366x768 resolution, but a pretty good price/performance ratio. A couple of my friend's had the last generation of them and loved them.
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:08 am

Omen by HP Desktop: Core i5-7400, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1050, 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD
 
paulWTAMU
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:43 am

Riveria; onlyo ne of those had a dedicated GPU and it was right at the upper edge of my budget :( It was also larger than I wanted--a 17" is a pain the ass to carry around the airport and between the hotel rooms and conference rooms.

Alienware is just too expensive, barring a good sale. Between getting a shed built, some other expenses...I don't have 1,000 bucks for a laptop.
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C-A_99
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:30 pm

From my own experience, 15.6 is a good size; not too large but large enough to accommodate dedicated graphics (though at a price) and a numberpad. Unfortunately, most displays are the lousy 1366x768, but if you channel enough cash into the graphics card, you should be able to get something reasonably decent. (And could even run BF3 on lower settings and/or framerates.) Most laptop retailers focus a lot more on processor and memory (though now its all just processor since memory is cheap these days) than on screen quality, graphics, sound, etc. which is kind of unfortunate in many cases.
 
paulWTAMU
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:22 pm

yeah. It floors me to see a good i5 paired with...intel graphics? *gag* It's looking more and more like i'll have to settle for financial reasons which sort of bites but oh well. I'd love a 1200 dollar laptop but just can't afford that now or in the near future. 800 is a stretch but doable at least.
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cjcerny
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:36 pm

Intel's HD3000 is not nearly as bad as you make it out to be, especially when you consider the lack of hassle. Maybe a little more research on it before dismissing it out of hand?
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:12 pm

For any sort of gaming, Intel HD3000 is inadequate. Lllano's GPU, however, would be good enough for the sort of gaming that the OP wants to do.

The 15.6" form factor is a bit bulky. The 17" models with the slimmest bezels are the same size as my G50VT.

If you're looking for extremely high resolution, how about this Asus G53SW-XN1 for $900 -100MIR? It's an 8-lb luggable that will provide a decent gaming experience when plugged into a wall outlet.

You can do a benchmark comparison here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-G ... 849.0.html
· R7-5800X, Liquid Freezer II 280, RoG Strix X570-E, 64GiB PC4-28800, Suprim Liquid RTX4090, 2TB SX8200Pro +4TB S860 +NAS, Define 7 Compact, Super Flower SF-1000F14TP, S3220DGF +32UD99, FC900R OE, DeathAdder2
 
Coran Fixx
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:34 pm

If I had those requirements, I would be looking at a 400-500 dollar llano notebook.
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:37 pm

Coran Fixx wrote:
If I had those requirements, I would be looking at a 400-500 dollar llano notebook.
How about this HP Pavilion dv6-6135DX, then?
· R7-5800X, Liquid Freezer II 280, RoG Strix X570-E, 64GiB PC4-28800, Suprim Liquid RTX4090, 2TB SX8200Pro +4TB S860 +NAS, Define 7 Compact, Super Flower SF-1000F14TP, S3220DGF +32UD99, FC900R OE, DeathAdder2
 
LaChupacabra
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:09 pm

http://dealzon.com/deals/hp-dv6-laptop# ... second-gen

This one looks like a winner = )

*edit: It has a 5400 rpm hard drive, you may want to upgrade that if you can
 
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:49 pm

LaChupacabra wrote:
*edit: It has a 5400 rpm hard drive, you may want to upgrade that if you can

Not necessarily. A faster spindle speed usually means higher power draw and less battery life. A 5400 RPM drive will generally be "fast enough" in a system that fits the OP's usage profile.
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StuG
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:35 pm

LaChupacabra wrote:
http://dealzon.com/deals/hp-dv6-laptop#hp-dv6t-quad-edition-core-i7-second-gen

This one looks like a winner = )

*edit: It has a 5400 rpm hard drive, you may want to upgrade that if you can



Still not a bad deal though...
 
paulWTAMU
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Re: laptop graphic cards, reliable brands

Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:24 am

I'd be all over that one on Dealzone but I have to wait a month or so--the shed I just put up has all my money right now :cry: That other linked ones are good though and I'll probably go with something like htat.


thanks :)
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