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The laptop I have now I've had for three years. Dawn of War 2 runs like crap on it (among other games such as Source FPSes), and Space Marine doesn't run at all. I'm expecting to get quite a bit of money for my birthday, but I don't want to completely break the bank. Take note that I'm in the UK too.

Does it have to be a laptop? You get a lot more bang for your buck so to speak with a desktop.

For either, you could try looking at a website like 'Hardware Revolution'

A desktop is best. Gaming laptops aren't really for gaming; there is no way to fit a GPU into a normal laptop case (it's just integrated graphics), it's going to cook really badly, they're power hungry and far more expensive than their desktop counterparts.

It's probably worth considering building your own PC. For a lower cost I recommend and AMD FX8 processor (FX8350 is fastest, and costs about the same as a good i5) and a GTX 650ti along with other things.


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 Sturmtruppen wrote:
The laptop I have now I've had for three years. Dawn of War 2 runs like crap on it (among other games such as Source FPSes), and Space Marine doesn't run at all. I'm expecting to get quite a bit of money for my birthday, but I don't want to completely break the bank. Take note that I'm in the UK too.

I would use Aria PC, Ebuyer and Dabs to source your components.

I'd recommend building a desktop PC if you want to use it for gaming.

Laptops that can run high-end games are usually very expensive-- and usually they aren't really all that good even when you do get one that works.

novatech do a range of pretty cheap but good spec laptops, as well as bare bones PC's (as well as complete PC kits and components ranging from cheap and cheerful to powerful monsters).

As above if you want to have a gaming machine, go desktop. A lot easier to update, cheaper components and more power for your pounds.

If you really must get a laptop, as I say, check out novatech. I think they are also on quidco if you are registered with them for money back shopping.

You'll wind up with a $2000 laptop to play games on that will have roughly equivalent performance to a $600 desktop.

Your laptop will be crap in roughly 3 years. Chances are after three years you can upgrade the video card in the desktop to still give impressive performance. At this point it's an $800 desktop, but you've gotten twice as long out of it as the laptop would have been.

If portability is a concern, either build a desktop with a case with a handle built into it, or buy a mini-ITX board and a small media center case. Something I did 10 years ago when lan parties were still a thing was to get one of those VESA wall mount brackets and then mount my lcd screen to my case, then I just carried it around by the handle and slapped it down wherever I wanted to play.

Daedalus: Ooh, nice. Can we get screenshots, or do you not have it any more?

Unfortunately, I don't have it anymore. That screen long since gave out on me. My current screens don't have the vesa mounts on them, otherwise I'd probably have rigged my latest case up to support it.

The case I used was similar to this guy, but slightly less ugly. Same type of handle at the top though.



The bracket I used was just a standard slim profile LCD bracket like this:



Beyond that, just nuts, washers, and bolts, and you're golden. Only caveat I can think of is that this wouldn't work too well on a windowed case, and you'd almost have to put it on the left side of the case. I don't think you'd have enough space on the right side, and you wouldn't want to short out your motherboard.

Like people said, best to build your own PC.

But, for a gaming laptop I suggest MSI or ASUS. That is really all that is acceptable. Dell is crap. Alienware you pay extra $ for the name. MSI or ASUS, trust me.


Something like this is what you want: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152369

Give us an idea on how much you want to spend.

You can get a Lenovo Y500 which has pretty good specs (2.4Ghz i7, 12GB ram, dual Nvidia 650M) for around $1100.

Or

You can get a Falcon NW (3Ghz i7, 32GB ram, dual Nvidia 650M) for around $6500.

What's "breaking the bank"

For the money it would take to get a decent gaming laptop, you could buy a decent general laptop, as well as a high-spec computer. Probably a desk and chair too.

For £350 in a sale I got my laptop with a quad core processor with an APU + 6gb ram and a 7450M graphics card. It runs all the latest games smoothly, provided there at the lower settings.
It is possible to get something decent for a good price if your willing to shop around.

I am running a Lenovo Y580, it handles Bioshock Infinite turned up just about all the way and has run everything I have thrown at it so far including:

Bioshock Infinite
Empire Total War (this one I had to play with a bit, still looks great)
Fallout New Vegas (max settings and a couple texture mods)

Cost me around $1100.00 and is the laptop in the following link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2408962,00.asp

Looks great, has a lot of cool stuff like HDMI out, blue ray player etc..

I too am looking for a new platform. Coming from a laptop that is now feeling extremely outdated (2009 Hp Duo Core Intel 2.13 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT, 4G RAM, and 500G space) I can tell from experience I will not be going back to laptops any time soon for gaming.

As stated:

1. They are more expensive.
2. They are impractical to update (to update my video card would cost me more than what the laptop is worth)
3. They are quickly outdated.

I would recommend a laptop over a desktop for virtually anything other than gaming, but when looking at gaming, I will never again be looking at anything else other than a desktop.

You also have to take into account that most PC's also slow down over time, making it difficult to play some of the top notch games your laptop could easily play when it was brand new. That's at least the problem I'm facing now as I'm preparing to purge my computer.....

A PC only slows down over time because of the user. If you were to install a clean game onto a clean computer, and do nothing else, it will play exactly the same until the computer breaks.

I always recommend doing a clean OS install and taking the computer back to factory spec at least once a year, back up important files and drivers, delete the rest.

I do agree that updating a laptop is near impossible, but honestly a 1k$ every 2 year investment, which is what the laptop I am using now costs, is roughly the same as you could expect out of purchasing a desktop and continually upgrading over the span of 2 years.

Laptops give the added bonus of portability, and desktops give the bonus of being easily upgraded, and you need to determine where portability falls on your priority list. Obviously if it is important then a desktop is out of the question. Once you make that determination it becomes a question of "is it a wise investment". What you have to find is the point at which you believe your laptop is no longer up to par after a clean reformat, and how long it takes to reach that point. If it only takes a year, then you will be cursing yourself fo buying a laptop a year later, if you can deal with good/great performance evolving into decent performance over the span of a couple of years (due to game system demands changing) then a laptop is a great choice.

What a lot of people fail to realize that most "gaming" laptops that are sold as such are typically over priced, there are a lot of comparable laptops that may have 8G of ram instead of 12G etc. for a lot less money. As an example, the Lenovo Y580 I am using has similar specs to laptops by companies like Alienware that cost 3 times as much,

Just some food for thought.

Why would you need to continually upgrade the desktop every two years?

gak, I update mine every seven.

@melissa



but yes get a desktop.. Why? So you can spend the same amount of money for a machine that is three times as fast, not to mention three times more reliable and less prone to over heating.

 Ifepy wrote:
@melissa

There's no fail here. My computer is still more than enough to play AAA games released this year..

The only game it HASN'T been able to play is PS2, and that's just because of the absurd processor requirements.

I bought my graphics card when I came back from uni which was what, 4 years ago? And I can still play all new games on highest settings, or could if I upgraded by operating system as new games no longer support XP...grumble grumble.

It's a myth that a PC has to be upgraded so regularly. Maybe that was true back in the 00's.

Fair enough, the same can be said for a laptop, it doesn't NEED to be continually upgraded every 2 years, although that is what I would reasonably expect, depends on your initial investment, just as it would with a desktop.

Again it all comes down to portability. Sure, you could build a LAN box with a handle and heft it around, but I doubt you could take a break in a coffee shop and set up a monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, and have a nice mini gaming session while you sip your coffee lol.

I am not arguing that a desktop is the best when it comes to gaming, simply that it is not portable so if that's what you need, a laptop is your only choice really...

Yup, as stated a ton of times desktop = gaming.

If you do go for a Laptop make sure it's an MSI. I have one for gaming and it's still solid as a rock after 5-6ish years. http://us.msi.com/

IronWarLeg wrote:
I doubt you could take a break in a coffee shop and set up a monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, and have a nice mini gaming session while you sip your coffee lol.

Do people honestly do this?

When I use my laptop outside of the home, I always used a USB mouse and good quality headphones. While it can't handle most games (1.5ghz single core), I still end up playing various indy games like Gratuitous Space Battles or Terraria on it occasionally.

Let's put it this way. A desktop sacrifices mobility for performance and customization. Yes you can still play the same games with a laptop but it won't be as fast nor will it look as pretty.

It's up to you to decide what's more important.

 Melissia wrote:
When I use my laptop outside of the home, I always used a USB mouse and good quality headphones. While it can't handle most games (1.5ghz single core), I still end up playing various indy games like Gratuitous Space Battles or Terraria on it occasionally.

Huh. I guess I just never really use a laptop to it's full potential then. Typically, I've only ever used my laptop while outside of the home for stuff like looking up info on a con's website, directions, or programming/picture manipulation. My tablet has successfully replaced all of those requirements except for the last one. Generally if I'm out and about, I've got too many things going on to worry about gaming. I suppose it's no different than sneaking a game of Angry Birds in though.

Terraria on the go would probably destroy me.

If you're dead set on a laptop, I would recommend pretty much anything from a reputable manufacturer that has a discrete GPU that specs decently. Don't go for the crazy custom gaming laptops.

I built a high-end gaming desktop three months ago, and my little year-old Toshiba laptop can play anything it can. It can't play it all on Ultra settings, of course, but it can run it all.