I am looking for a new computer that can handle some games. Right now my computer cant handle the games my friends are playing online together, so I get to just listen to them talk and joke around as I browse the internet and such. I really want to build a custom desktop because I have a tri monitor set up. Right now I run two of them and I cant spread games across both. But in a couple years I am going to college and will need a laptop. Plus I was just using my parents laptop around the house and it was so handy other than it is a dell piece of ****. So, long story short, what laptop would you recommend on a budget for gaming? Or better yet, could you say a few in different price ranges? Maybe the $600, $1000, and $1500 price ranges?
Thanks for the question... I would say to NOT get a laptop just yet because they will be twice as powerful in two years. You can get a $600 desktop that will kill most modern games.
I tried to explain that to my parents, but they are insisting that I get a laptop. I cant convince them to pay the price difference between the desktop of similar specs to the laptop, so I am on a budget here.
Or, are there any points that would possibly convince my parents that custom building a desktop would be better? For college I could just go out and buy any laptop. It could be a dual core at like 1.6ghz and it would do what I would need it to do with ease. But for now, I want to game, and that isnt going to happen with a processor like that (I know, mine is a dual core pentium at 1.6ghz).
If you want to span the display across 3 monitors, you'll need a PC. So I'd go down the road of building one and when you go away to study in the future, sell it and spend on the best laptop.
I dont NEED to span games across 3 monitors, but it would be cool. Right now I can be productive with two (ie videos on the left and forums on the right). I know a desktop would be best, but I still can convince my parents. I think I will just have to save some $ from a job and build it secretly until it is done. I could have a teacher for computer club order the parts (with my $) to the school. Then I could build it teaching noobs how to build a computer. Then I just have an epic rig I can bring to lans and have at home. But I think that if I actually had a job (getting one isnt easy here) and I had the money I could probably convince them to let me build a pc. My cousin just moved in and someone is sending her a desktop. So I will probably end up upgrading it. So when at tiger, I could price out a decent spec system to see what it would be before rebates.
I dont know much about multi monitors with gaming, but my 3rd is a smaller one at a lower resolution, so I dont know if it would work, or if it would work well. But just using the other two would be cool.
If I was in your situation, I'd get a laptop. Not an extreme 17" gamer lappy with 4 minutes on the battery, but a little 13.3 - 14" laptop with latest entry to mid-range hardware. Can run up to 7 hours on a charge, not too noisy, not too hot, not using so much power. But still powerful enough to run todays games @ medium to high settings.
The new ASUS UX32 looks awesome, but I'm not happy with the idea of discrete graphics after my UL80Vt nightmare and Nvidia's "awesome" support for Hybrid SLI tecnology... assholes.
IMO, a laptop is more important than a desktop. I use my desktop MUCH more then my laptop, but when I'm "outta town"... good God, dat laptop best investment evah!
I would suggest building your own desktop for right now. Any laptop you get for gaming is going to be very expensive, have a short battery life, and won't measure up to a custom made desktop if you put the same amount of money into it. The main thing for school is that you're going to want something that has a long battery life, so you can go through your classes without having it die on you. You're not going to be able to do that with a beefy gaming laptop.
I'd say build a custom gaming machine, and then buy a cheap laptop or netbook in a couple of years once you start going to college. Pen and paper also works just fine for notes, although I know I'm personally a faster typer than scribe.
Another thing to just keep in mind is that you're going to want at least 2 high end graphics cards with as much VRAM as possible in order to run triple screens for gaming. If you don't have the money to do that, you can still hook up all three, use one for gaming, and just use the other two for multitasking.
Yeah, plus the school computers suck so they opened up a wifi network across the school so students can bring in their own computers. I currently dont have a laptop worth bringing. I have a toshiba a85 somewhere around here, but the fan is toast so unless I replace the fan, it is crazy loud. Plus even low end versions of linux dont run very well on it. Just not enough to do much.
Plus it would be less hassle for lan parties. Just bring the laptop, mouse, power cable, and headset. Rather than my usual desktop, monitor, keyboard, mouse, headset, sound system, and so on. One time I even brought in a home theater surround sound system, I had teachers complaining from down the hallway because they had students taking test that everyone else finished well within the given class time. Cant wait to see what they think of my more compact, but yet more powerful sound system.
So, what are some other laptops that will play most games at reasonable settings?
maybe a desktop + tablet combo? ive been doing that.... i have a gaming rig that satisfies my need for power, and an ipad for mobility.... i mean you can edit documents, spreadsheets and/or presentations on a tablet... more than enuff (IMO) for college stuff during the day. And then when you come home at night, your monster awaits >:D Just an idea.
No, but I do have numbers, Ivy Bridge was about a 60% IGP performance increase over Sandy Bridge, and Sandy Bridge was a major improvement over w/e garbage they had in the original Core i series. Assuming this will hold true for the next 2-3 years, that's a 120-180% increase in performance, sure it won't play Crysis, but I'd imagine it could play some of the current titles out on low-medium (1366x768)
Desktop, always desktop, in two years, you'll be able to buy a thin, 13" laptop, using Broadwell/Skylake (or their AMD equivilant) and be able to use the IGP for a fair bit of gaming (not BF3, of course), in a small, portable package. So get a desktop now and go for a cheap laptop later. Maybe a $1K Ivy build and a $600-800 laptop down the road
No, I am in High school and the district has like no money. They are pretty much stopping teachers computers and switching them over to virtual machines. It is faster than the dells that are 10 years old, but when they get all of the teachers on the mega budget server they probably bought, it will be back to normal. Slow as hell. Teachers students get to use arent any better and the district realized that. So they decided rather than spending thousands on new computers, they would spend a couple hundred and set up wifi in the schools for students to use since most already have a good computer anyway.
A tablet would be cool, but to me it is just a bigger verion of my phone.
I think I will be building a custom pc after I get a job, and probably building a laptop like thing with a raspberry pi or just get a cheap laptop to use. Laptops are also handy when I go to scio competitions, especially now that I will be able to make a wifi hotspot with my phone.
I guess that is it. Build a pc for fun, buy a cheap laptop for school. Then in two years when I go to college, bring them with. The cheap laptop will likely be able to still do word documents and stuff, and the desktop will still be able to play games (well, at least ones two or more years old).