What rig for college??

[Hoytx]

Hello all, so I'm getting ready to head off to college and want to be able to do some gaming on my free time. I currently am using a mid-range desktop that is three years old and won't be able to take it with me due to me having bought it with my brother and he payed the largest amount and gets to keep it with him. Anyways, I need help deciding which route to go. Everyone tells me that a laptop is very helpful to have for class and study groups but, I know that laptops are typically not the route to go for gaming and I'm used to being on a desktop, so that is my preferred way of going. That being said, I only really only want a desktop for ultra wow, Starcraft, and battlefield 4 for the 64 player multiplayer. Let's say that hypothetically the next gen consoles can play 64 player multiplayer, then I may be okay with going with that route and getting a cheaper laptop to go with for class.

So here are the options I'm thinking of and I of course want the best deal I can. Also let me know if you have any better ideas ( I also realize that I won't be able to hardcore game if I want to do well in school and not be a loner up on campus so keep that in mind for suggestions). My budget is up to $2,000:

- Just a desktop with all peripherals that can play said games above on ultra (50+ frames preferably) If you think I can get away with only a desktop. ( I realize that specs haven't been released for Bf4 yet but let's assume its a bit more than bf3 for the sake of estimation).

- A laptop that is portable (not a fat "gaming laptop") that can play ultra wow, sc2 and able to play bf4 at decent settings (if this exists).

- A cheap laptop for school and a desktop with less of a budget.

- A laptop for school that can play wow on high settings and a ps4/next box.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Sorry if working with unknowns makes this difficult.
I can also fill out the sticky for the desktop rig if I'm deciding on that route.

 

[JackMDS]

Many College newbies discover within few weeks that College is Not High school and wasting time on extensive gaming does not coexist well with school work and socializing.

I would suggested as a first step to get a 15" light (as easy to carry around) portable that can do what you need to do for school work + emailing and other type of online communication that are power mongering like gaming.

After few weeks if you find yourself in an Education a/Social/Psychological situation is so that live are No Go without gaming you can take the next step and get what fit to your environment at the time.

 

[Hoytx]

Yeah I'm definitely keeping this in mind, but am thinking that it is highly likely that I would like to do some fairly light gaming and would like the right set up to be able to do so. Thanks for the input.

 

[terpsy]

Alienware M14X R2.. Done.

You will have plenty left over a PS4 or console for BF4 (no current laptops unless
FULL desktop replacement will be able to play it).

I do ALL of my Real Life work on it, game on it (dont need all options on in BF3) but have
Ultra for SC2, WoW, Diablo III, etc....

You can get a decent i7 model with the 650m graphics, 1600x900 screen for around 1000 through Dell Outlet.

They carry the SAME warranty as the Brand New (and can be extended as well). Think of paying for a retail model with depreciation built into the price.

 

[Hubb1e]

Now that the public service announcement that you should study instead is over, can we get back to the question? I gamed fairly regularly, went out 4 nights a week, and earned an engineering degree at the same time.

Start with Mfenn's build. It's around $1000 and it's really all you need for gaming. Anything more than his build and the performance gains drop off quickly. Spend more or less on the graphics to suit your needs.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2192841

Then go buy a cheap laptop with decent battery life. Or better yet, get yourself a tablet with a keyboard and enjoy all day battery life and portability.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Second'ing Hubb1e.

For $2000 you could:

1) Build Mfenn's build for 1k and have an excellent gaming desktop.
2) Buy a nice monitor to game on (ex. dell u2312hm 1920x1080, 23') for $230.
3)Get an Acer or Samsung Chromebook for portable web browsing, note-taking, facebook, etc. $200-250.
= 1450-1500

You even have enough in your budget to substitute a nice tablet like the Nexus 7/10 or retina ipad, for the chromebook if you like the tablet for your portable option. Penultimate + Evernote will be happy to take care of all of your note-taking needs in a very tree-friendly way

 

[Hoytx]

Alienware M14X R2.. Done.

You will have plenty left over a PS4 or console for BF4 (no current laptops unless
FULL desktop replacement will be able to play it).

I do ALL of my Real Life work on it, game on it (dont need all options on in BF3) but have
Ultra for SC2, WoW, Diablo III, etc....

You can get a decent i7 model with the 650m graphics, 1600x900 screen for around 1000 through Dell Outlet.

They carry the SAME warranty as the Brand New (and can be extended as well). Think of paying for a retail model with depreciation built into the price.

How is the build quality on these laptops? (I've never been overly fond of dell) Would you say this is the better option over a cheaper desktop?

 

[Hoytx]

Now that the public service announcement that you should study instead is over, can we get back to the question? I gamed fairly regularly, went out 4 nights a week, and earned an engineering degree at the same time.

Start with Mfenn's build. It's around $1000 and it's really all you need for gaming. Anything more than his build and the performance gains drop off quickly. Spend more or less on the graphics to suit your needs.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2192841

Then go buy a cheap laptop with decent battery life. Or better yet, get yourself a tablet with a keyboard and enjoy all day battery life and portability.

Thanks! I'll definitely check this out. I've been used to using Microsoft office my whole life so if I went with a tablet over a laptop should I go with a windows tablet or what are some good programs for the other operating systems? (Assuming that I'll have to use the tablet at some point when i won't have access to office on a desktop)

 

[Sleepingforest]

You're basically using the tablet for in class notetaking, right? You should try getting Microsoft Onenote or a similar software that can sync between the tablet and the desktop.

Onenote is pretty great, in that it recognize handwriting and converts it to type, though you may also retain it as handwriting, and you can also draw in diagrams and so forth. Very useful. Look for something like the Galaxy Note 8.0, which has a stylus and works well (or the much more expensive Surface Pro, which has better palm rejection, a Wacom stylus, and so forth).

 

[Hubb1e]

My brother in college got a microsoft surface and a desktop for gaming. His surface works well for note taking and general use at school, though he complains it's a tad slow. Tegra 3 isn't really a fast chip. You'll tend to use the tablet only for notes and light consumption like web browsing. If you need more than that a notebook or Atom based tablet would be a good choice.

 

[Hoytx]

You're basically using the tablet for in class notetaking, right? You should try getting Microsoft Onenote or a similar software that can sync between the tablet and the desktop.

Onenote is pretty great, in that it recognize handwriting and converts it to type, though you may also retain it as handwriting, and you can also draw in diagrams and so forth. Very useful. Look for something like the Galaxy Note 8.0, which has a stylus and works well (or the much more expensive Surface Pro, which has better palm rejection, a Wacom stylus, and so forth).

Thanks, ill definitely get that on whatever I end up choosing. I've heard mixed reviews on the surface and it sounds like it is one generation away from being really good. I know this won't help me much now, but is it worth waiting for the surface 2 and make do with other things in the mean time? I love the idea of the surface but would hate to drop the money for something that hasn't ironed out the problems yet.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Thanks! I'll definitely check this out. I've been used to using Microsoft office my whole life so if I went with a tablet over a laptop should I go with a windows tablet or what are some good programs for the other operating systems? (Assuming that I'll have to use the tablet at some point when i won't have access to office on a desktop)

You could go with the windows tablet, but I really don't think it's necessary.

The chromebooks I mentioned all use google docs/drive which works basically the same as MSOffice, except that it's browser based and effectively platform agnostic. iOS and android both support google docs/drive as well.

I've used penultimate sync'd with evernote on both an ipad and an asus transformer, and it works quite well for note-taking.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Thanks, ill definitely get that on whatever I end up choosing. I've heard mixed reviews on the surface and it sounds like it is one generation away from being really good. I know this won't help me much now, but is it worth waiting for the surface 2 and make do with other things in the mean time? I love the idea of the surface but would hate to drop the money for something that hasn't ironed out the problems yet.

The Surface needs some refinement, but the current one is usable. If you do wait a generation, the 2013/2014 Surface Pro will be much better: a higher battery life, plus more powerful. I'd expect the "normal" Surface to mostly benefit from a small power boost and maybe a better physical design.

 

[Hoytx]

The Surface needs some refinement, but the current one is usable. If you do wait a generation, the 2013/2014 Surface Pro will be much better: a higher battery life, plus more powerful. I'd expect the "normal" Surface to mostly benefit from a small power boost and maybe a better physical design.

Yeah I hear the battery life is pretty terrible on the pro version. Not that it's the end of the world, but it would be great to have a better battery and a little better specs. I don't know if I can wait much longer than this winter though. :hmm:

 

[Hubb1e]

When I was in school nobody even had a notebook with them in class, and I've heard that at many schools engineering classes don't allow them in class anyways. I'd wait until you're in school and then decide on what portable to get. Besides, by then the Haswell notebooks will be looking pretty good with fantastic idle power levels and long connected standby. Your budget is such that you can have both a desktop and a decent laptop which is the way I roll.

Even the best gaming notebooks are only as fast as a midlevel gaming desktop. And that desktop is half the price and upgradable. And current laptop integrated graphics is such that they're usable in games in a pinch.

 

[Hoytx]

I think that I'm definitely going to hold off for a bit and wait and see what comes out in the coming months... I'll definitely keep the suggestions given in mind though, thanks everyone.

 

[frozentundra123456]

You could go with the windows tablet, but I really don't think it's necessary.

The chromebooks I mentioned all use google docs/drive which works basically the same as MSOffice, except that it's browser based and effectively platform agnostic. iOS and android both support google docs/drive as well.

I've used penultimate sync'd with evernote on both an ipad and an asus transformer, and it works quite well for note-taking.

You could be right, your experience is probably more recent than mine, but personally I found google docs clumsy an having a lot of compatability issues with real office applications. I also would be reluctant to be dependent on the cloud for valuable documents prepared for classes.

I would advise the op to at least wait a bit of time to see if a fair number of students were using chromebooks and if they were having issues with them. I do work in a large university, and see a lot of students in the lunch and common service areas. I dont think I have ever seen a chromebook, although almost everyone has a laptop of some sort.

 

[mfenn]

Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I never ever found that having my laptop out in class helped me in any way. It's just too much of a distraction to have it open. Take notes with pen/pencil and paper, and you'll find that you learn a lot more.

I had a laptop in college because it was required, and some professors would randomly bust out a laptop exercise. I honestly only used it maybe once or twice a week. The rest was good ole pen&paper and my desktop.

I ended up with a 3.97 GPA for my BS (fuck you Physics lab TA) and a 4.0 for my MS, so I must have been doing something right.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I never ever found that having my laptop out in class helped me in any way. It's just too much of a distraction to have it open. Take notes with pen/pencil and paper, and you'll find that you learn a lot more.

I had a laptop in college because it was required, and some professors would randomly bust out a laptop exercise. I honestly only used it maybe once or twice a week. The rest was good ole pen&paper and my desktop.

I ended up with a 3.97 GPA for my BS (fuck you Physics lab TA) and a 4.0 for my MS, so I must have been doing something right.

Just curious, but if you dont mind my asking, when did you graduate? I do agree about taking notes on a laptop vs written on paper, that writing on paper is much better. Personally, I graduated before laptops were available, but I do see a lot of students now typing papers and such while waiting in the hallways between classes.

 

[Torn Mind]

I only graduated last year but fuck, the laptop was useful for annotating powerpoint and PDF's but it certainly could be distracting if you are fond of Facebook, etc. Of course, it was an ancient hand-me-down Dell D810 that was heavy as fuck when walking .5-1 mile to campus and battery life was shitty(2 hrs with display totally dimmed and Notebook Hardware control locking the multiplier to 800 Mhz.

Do yourself a favor and get a convertible like the Lenovo X61. That way, you can handwrite notes but store them on the computer.

Otherwise, paper/pencil is the way to go in any math-related course. Need to draw a graph for calculus 1? Hand-drawing is simply more convinient.

Besides, a good note-taking habit to have is to review and rewrite the notes you take within 24 hrs because it forces you to recall what happened in class. I myself did NOT follow this and it burned me more than once.

 

[Ayah]

not sure what degree you're doing, but for a scientist/engineer, having a laptop will full blown CAS packages is rather useful to have at school. matlab <3

the ability to generate 4D graphs (3 space and 1 time you goofs) can be useful for certain types of analysis

 

[ThePolarSky]

...

 

[jaedaliu]

annotating PDFs is probably going to be useful. A laptop or tablet with a touchscreen or wacom tablet type of thing will be quite handy for classwork.

I would:
1) Build mfenn's recomended desktop for $1000 (adjust as you see fit)
2) Buy a nice 27" monitor off ebay or wherever you can get the 2560x1440 and keyboard/mouse. cheap speakers. total should be ~$500
3) spend the last $500 on a touchscreen laptop or tablet for note taking. If it's a tablet, maybe one of the new larger format galaxy notes? either which way, buy a cheap capacitive stylus.

That would spend your entire $2k budget. College is expensive. There's a lot of eating out and pizza involved. Most prudent thing would be to not spend the entire budget, build a cheaper computer, and save money for going out. I never did that. I called mom and dad for more money all the time.

edit:
If you don't need the computer this summer, wait until the end of summer to buy/build the stuff. Prices only come down (aside from memory, which is a fairly small part of total cost.)

 

[Hubb1e]

I'd build the desktop soon. You've got all summer to enjoy it. You might wait for haswell, but word on the street is that it's only 5-10% faster than current chips and there will be an early adopters premium when it first launches.

 

[Hoytx]

I think I'm going to get the desktop like you said and wait on tablet/cheap notebook until the new haswell models are out.