The author works in financial company, supporting complicated IT infrastructure and runs blog – boredsysadm.blogspot.com
Today I’d like to help you going with tough choice of buying a new gaming laptop. Market offers all kinds and shapes. Video card manufactures pulling their teeth off to confuse you. And add to that fact that on MOST laptops you can buy in retail stores you’ll find ether integrated video or low-end dedicated, skillfully disguised with high model number fooling you into false performance believes.
Fear no more, as I’ll help you thru these muddy waters.
The Choices:
1) “Give me something I can play most new games with decent speed, but I can’t pay over $1000”
ASUS N80 Series N80Vn-X1 – $899.99 w/ Free Shipping (continental) and Tax only in CA,PA & NJ
Quick Specs:
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium |
| CPU Type | Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 2.0 GHz |
| Screen | 14.1" WXGA [16:10 1280×800] |
| Memory Size | 4GB DDR2 |
| Hard Disk | 250GB 5400rpm |
| Optical Drive | DVD Super Multi |
| Graphics Card | NVIDIA GeForce 9650M GT |
| Video Memory | Dedicated 1024MB |
| Card slot | 1 x Express Card |
| WLAN | 802.11n |
| Ports | VGA, HDMI, SPD/IF out, 5x USB,1x E-SATA |
| Weight | 5.7 lbs. |
| Other Features | Fingerprint reader |
| Battery | 6-cell Lithium Ion |
| Warranty | 2 years limited for Parts & Labor |
Can’t really go wrong here with this Power horse with dual core 2 cpu at 2.0ghz, 4ghz of ddr2 ram, and a sweet 9650m GT video card , which is 20% faster version of regular 9600m card still found in many gaming laptops. Thou I’m not huge fan of Vista, with whooping 4gb of ram at this price point is simply amazing, thanks to recent price drop of computer memory. LED Backlight is great bonus allowing you better energy savings.
For Extra $50 you get bigger screen – 15.4” brother called ASUS N50Vn-A1B
2) “I’m serious about my ‘mobile’ gaming and 9600 is just won’t do for my Halo 3 multiplayer , but $1500 is my limit”
TOSHIBA Qosmio F55-Q504 - $1399
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium |
| CPU Type | Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 2.0 GHz |
| Screen | 15.4" WXGA+ [1440×900] |
| Memory Size | 4GB DDR2 800 [Max 8Gb] |
| Hard Disk | 320GB 5400rpm |
| Optical Drive | DVD Super Multi |
| Graphics Card | NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GTS |
| Video Memory | Dedicated 512MB GDDR3 + Up to 1791Mb TurboCache |
| Card slot | 1 x Express Card |
| WLAN | 802.11 a/g/n |
| Ports | VGA, HDMI, SPD/IF out, 4x USB,1x E-SATA, 1x IEEE 1394 |
| Weight | 8.1 lbs. |
| Other Features | Built-in GPS |
| Battery | 8-cell Lithium Ion |
The extra buck (or $500) goes a long way this model upgrading most of components:
· 320Gb Hard drive [from 250Gb]
· 15.4” screen over 14.1” (Not LED backlighted thou)
· GeForce 9700M GTS Video Card [big speed boost from 9650m]
· 1x IEEE 1394 Port [aka FireWire, aka i-Link]
· Built In GPS
· FM Radio
· 8-cell battery [from 6 cell]
· 2 built-in Harman/Kardon speakers plus 1 sub-woofer [?] – How exactly you can build subwoofer into laptop remains a mystery to me, but the usually the sound produced is much better than regular cheap radio-alarm clock quality most laptops speakers produce.
3) I want POWER!! I want Crysis to run at DX10 VERY High Quality! Price isn’t an Issue!!!
TOSHIBA Qosmio X305-Q706 - $2,049.99
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium |
| CPU Type | Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz |
| Screen | 17" WSXGA+ [1680 x 1050] |
| Memory Size | PC3-8500 DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM |
| Hard Disk | 320GB 7200rpm |
| Optical Drive | DVD Super Multi |
| Graphics Card | Dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS SLI |
| Video Memory | Dedicated 512MBx2 GDDR3 |
| Card slot | 1 x Express Card |
| WLAN | 802.11 a/g/n |
| Ports | VGA, DisplayPort, HDMI, SPD/IF out, 4x USB,1x E-SATA, 1x IEEE 1394 |
| Weight | 8.1 lbs. |
| Other Features | Webcam&Microphone, 5-in-1 CardReader, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR |
| Battery | Starting at 9.04 lbs. |
Noticeable upgrades:
· 2.26Ghz CPU [from 2.0 Hgz]
· DDR3 1066 Mhz [from DDR2 800]
· 17" WSXGA+ [1680 x 1050] from 15.4" WXGA+ [1440×900]
· Dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS SLI
These are just some of the top gaming laptops on the market. Any one of these rigs will give you more than decent gaming. However there are probably a lot much cheaper gaming laptops out there and it does pay to shop around. And as you probably already noticed these gaming rigs are geared around Intel and Nvidia, since they are provide the best performance combination.
Unfortunately AMD/ATI based systems lag behind in both raw performance and battery life. If you like Mac, you should look at the new Apple MacBook Pro – Slick design and plenty of power with Hybrid SLI system allows additional power saving- and keep in mind - you can also run Windows on them to play games!
However, major drawback of going with any gaming laptop (rather than a desktop) is that there is very little room for expansion.
About The Author:
The author works in financial company, supporting complicated IT infrastructure and runs blog – boredsysadm.blogspot.com. Copyright © 2008 Bored SysAdmin.
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