Gaming PC replacement Laptop

[Xenonlightning]

Hello everyone I am just new to Anandtech. I have been a reader for a long time but never had the guts to post. I'd like to say I usualy hang around techpowerup as DrPepper and I'd like to ask a question.

The question is What would be a good replacement for a gaming pc in a laptop form factor.

The story behind the decision to move from a gaming pc to laptop is that I am soon going to the royal navy and they suggested I bring a laptop to keep me pre-occupied when I have free time. This laptop I'd like for it to be able to play most games these days while not being too expensive. I don't care much for battery life or portability.

I've looked at a few websites and especially alienware because they have always been my dream laptop despite the markup in price for the name. My budget is £1500 and I do not want to pay over a period of time because these companies have massive interest rates.

Thank you

 

[SickBeast]

Look for deal on a laptop with discreet graphics.

I've seen some with a GeForce 8600 for around $500-600CDN, which is probably 1/4 of your budget or less.

Depending on the level of performance you want, they can get quite expensive. Does battery life matter to you? On a high-end gaming laptop, you will usually get 1h of battery life or even less.

The CPUs are pretty standard and should be fine no matter what.

You might want to get an SSD if you can; your games will load up much faster (laptop hard drives tend to suck).

I think I would want an SSD (either the intel one or the newest OCZ one), plus a large traditional hard drive for archival and bulk storage.

 

[Xenonlightning]

Thank you for the reply but battery life won't be an issue because it will always be plugged in. I'd like to get something that is equal to an 8800GT which would be a 9800M GTS I believe. I play a lot of RTS like empire total war and I wouldn't want a SSD because I feel they are too expensive per Gb. Also I'd have an external 1TB HDD for storage so the storage on the laptop doesn't need to be massive. I will replace it with a 2.5 500GB if I find one that is 7200RPM. I think most gaming laptop cpu's can be overclocked but not much of course due to heat limitations.

 

[clipperfixer]

I don't know about cost in the UK, but the Gateway FX series of laptops are about the best bang for the buck so to speak. The new ones have a 9800 series gpu I believe. I have a 6831fx with a 8800gts and it does pretty well in the games I have been playing. I would not worry if you get 1440x900 screen either, it will let you play most of new games on its native resolution, if you get the 1900x1200 I doubt you will be able to game with newer titles at the native resolution.

 

[Liberator21]

I would look long and hard at a 7811 model Gateway FX (I forgot the actual model name). Like the post above, it will be extremely hard to beat. They can be had from 850-1000 on ebay, and Tigerdirect gets them refurbished from time to time for around $750 - where most of the ones on ebay come from...


On a side note, check out the Clevo M860TU 15.4'' Barebones here for $1059 --/ http://mivasecure.abac.com/rjt...=R&Product_Code=M860TU

-- Notice on the GPU drop down it has the 1Gb GTX260M - Got mine preordered

 

[clipperfixer]

If you don't mind fooling around abit to get the earler 6831 model set up it is even cheaper. I bought a used one with xp on it, dumped that, got Vista 64bit running. I tried to get Nvidia's mobile drivers for the video card installed without much success, but found a mod for that driver that lets you run the new Nvidia drivers. Wow, what a performance bump. I got 91fps last night on cod4 at 1440x900 2x antialiasing, and all the eye candy turned up. That was up from 65fps. I am very happy with the performance of it now. My laptop does have a 2.2 gig cpu in it, not sure how much that really helps on GPU dependant games.