Gaming Laptop

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

My personal opinion with gaming laptops: never again.

Second this.

I bought a 17" gaming laptop the first year I was in university (2004). The battery was almost useless, it was crazy heavy and the power supply was a literal brick. The only good thing that came of it was the ability to easily go to a friends place and play BF2 etc. After a year, I bought a 15inch that was much better and relegated the 17" to the desktop at home.

[MickMcGeough]

I've got a 13" Acer Timeline 3820TG (with ATI 5650) - scores 9300 in 3DMark06 and runs everything I've tried smoothly at native res. Gets about 7 hours battery life on the integrated graphics. Best ultraportable gamer on the market, imo. Only $600.

New 15" MBP is the best all-round gamer on the market, imo, if you can stomach the cost.

[Hack&Lube]

You guys had the unfortunate experience of adopting technology at a bad time. It has taken a long time for gaming laptops to become decent. Technology has improved dramatically. Games requirements have not gone up because games are tied to console technology. At the same time, the processes for GPUs and CPUs have gone down many nanometers and everything is much more efficient, requires less power, runs faster, and is much cooler and it will only keep getting better.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

New 15" MBP is the best all-round gamer on the market, imo, if you can stomach the cost.

You mean for portability and cooling and power consumption?

You can build a much more powerful notebook with a GTX 460M and the same CPU as the 15" MBP (i7-2720QM) for almost $1000 less than the new 15" MBP.

For the same price of the 15" MBP default configuration (with 8GB ram), you could get a notebook with a single GTX 485M with a i7-2820QM processor and a next gen 120GB SSD.

The new 2011 MBP relies on a AMD Radeon HD 6750M. The HD 6750M in the new MBP scores ~4500 in 3DMark Vantage. The GTX 486M scores ~12500. It's almost 3 times as fast in most games and benchmarks.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...M.43958.0.html
vs
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.42883.0.html

Then you'll have to run bootcamp to add additional overhead unless they are Mac compatible or Steamplay games.

I guess it is more "all round" because it might run cooler and have more battery life? I know the ASUS G73s actually run very cool and quietly and Burn This City says he gets a lot of battery life out of it. I think the new Sagers are comparable in cooling and quietness.

I would personally stay away from 17" notebooks and agree that 15" ones are more functional as laptops but that's just a personal preference.

[renny]

I have an Alienware MX15 and I think it's fantastic, I typically just leave it at home though, but it's nice to be able to pack it up in 5 minutes to bring to a friend's house to play vids. It's probably because I have a Macbook Air that i use for on the road so the Alienware being a laptop is a nice plus since I don't have to lug it around with me all the time.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

You mean for portability and cooling and power consumption?

You can build a much more powerful notebook with a GTX 460M and the same CPU as the 15" MBP (i7-2720QM) for almost $1000 less than the new 15" MBP.

For the same price of the 15" MBP default configuration (with 8GB ram), you could get a notebook with a single GTX 485M with a i7-2820QM processor and a next gen 120GB SSD.

The new 2011 MBP relies on a AMD Radeon HD 6750M. The HD 6750M in the new MBP scores ~4500 in 3DMark Vantage. The GTX 486M scores ~12500. It's almost 3 times as fast in most games and benchmarks.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...M.43958.0.html
vs
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.42883.0.html

Then you'll have to run bootcamp to add additional overhead unless they are Mac compatible or Steamplay games.

I guess it is more "all round" because it might run cooler and have more battery life? I know the ASUS G73s actually run very cool and quietly and Burn This City says he gets a lot of battery life out of it. I think the new Sagers are comparable in cooling and quietness.

I would personally stay away from 17" notebooks and agree that 15" ones are more functional as laptops but that's just a personal preference.

What additional overhead comes with bootcamp? Do you mean storage space?

But yeah I'm talking all-around gaming laptop: portability, form factor, battery life, gaming performance, working, build, input, display, etc. A debate isn't relevant to this thread if the OP is looking for a dedicated laptop for gaming only.

[Diemenz]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

New 15" MBP is the best all-round gamer on the market, imo, if you can stomach the cost.

Mbp's are always reviewed at the bottom when It comes to gaming performance and gaming value.

They might fair better if more games ran on OSX vs having to run boot camp and if apple understood that charging triple for the same hardware only fools the sheep.

[burn_this_city]

Now you've done it.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Diemenz

Mbp's are always reviewed at the bottom when It comes to gaming performance and gaming value.

They might fair better if more games ran on OSX vs having to run boot camp and if apple understood that charging triple for the same hardware only fools the sheep.

Even I, a person who would almost never recommend a Mac, cringes at how badly you have misrepresented that number.

[Diemenz]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Even I, a person who would almost never recommend a Mac, cringes at how badly you have misrepresented that number.

I apologize it seems I was incorrect by saying triple.

I spec'ed out a MBP 17" to match a Sager's specs and it came in at $3553+ tax
The sager was 1779 for the same hardware (almost that is as the Sager's video card was better and the screen has a higher resolution).

As such I would like to amend my previous post and say the following:

They might fair better if more games ran on OSX vs having to run boot camp and if apple understood that charging DOUBLE for OLDER hardware....

Again I apologize for my terrible misrepresentation of the facts in my previous post.

I do not wish this to become a Apple vs the world thread. As a matter of fact I own 2 Mac computers for my studio work. They are good computers, just not for gaming.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Diemenz

They might fair better if more games ran on OSX vs having to run boot camp and if apple understood that charging DOUBLE for OLDER hardware....

I know man, I can hardly make it through the day on this ancient sandy bridge quad core i7.

Also, it's "fare better".

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Diemenz

I apologize it seems I was incorrect by saying triple.

I spec'ed out a MBP 17" to match a Sager's specs and it came in at $3553+ tax
The sager was 1779 for the same hardware (almost that is as the Sager's video card was better and the screen has a higher resolution).

As such I would like to amend my previous post and say the following:

They might fair better if more games ran on OSX vs having to run boot camp and if apple understood that charging DOUBLE for OLDER hardware....

Again I apologize for my terrible misrepresentation of the facts in my previous post.

I do not wish this to become a Apple vs the world thread. As a matter of fact I own 2 Mac computers for my studio work. They are good computers, just not for gaming.

I would be interested in seeing those spec comparisons. I have done similar things in the past and found it much closer than that. I was comparing to a more main stream brand rather than a barebones type thing, but that should only account for a small difference

[burn_this_city]

On a comparison I just did the sager costs $2159 and the MBP costs $2969.. That was a 15" with the 2.3 ghz sandy bridge and a 120gb ssd.. Anything I couldnt upgrade on the MB I just left standard on the sager.

[Coys1882]

So $800 difference. Are the screens better on the MBP? I can't imagine paying that much more for OSX

[MickMcGeough]

Before Diemenz derailed this thread I was trying to say that the 2011 MBPs with the AMD 6750 1GB are capable gaming machines. The graphics card isn't as fast as the 460. I get about 5500 in 3DMark Vantage, 10500 in 3DMark06, BlackOps on high around 60fps. I haven't played anything that wasn't silky smooth with settings on high at native res.

Everybody already knows that Apple computers are expensive, don't they? Is it even worth talking about?

[dissentowner]

If you are looking for a gaming machine I would always go PC. For everything else its Mac FTW.

[Diemenz]

I didn't derail the thread.

Your apple fanboy attitude did.

Thank you for the english lesson. I forgot for a second it's a forum and that grammar and spelling mistakes are not allowed to happen. Just an FYI you made several in your posts, to bad we didn't have someone childish enough to correct you. If you are interested I know a kettle that you might want to meet.

At least I can say I have now added someone to my ignore list. Fanboy away as I will no longer see it.

[Diemenz]

As per the OP's question IMO for the money you cannot go wrong with the Asus G73JW-X1M. Dollar for Dollar not much can match up for it in that price range.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Diemenz

Thank you for the english lesson. I forgot for a second it's a forum and that grammar and spelling mistakes are not allowed to happen. Just an FYI you made several in your posts, to bad we didn't have someone childish enough to correct you.

It's "too bad".

[Diemenz]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

It's "too bad".

Thank you for proving my point about you being childish.