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Looking for a new laptop

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Geirr Ronuken
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2012-08-26 20:59:02 UTC
Hey guys,

I'm looking for a new laptop. Currently I'm using a Dell XPSL501X. It runs EvE, but not great. Also something messed up the sound card, so I can't use a mic anymore. Basically I'm done with Dell. My gf's laptop( also a Dell) suffers from severe heat issues. We sent it in for repair, which took over a month, and afterwards the heat issues did not get any better. So I'm looking for an affordable laptop to play my favourite game on that is not a Dell.

Since I'm not an expert on what hardware is worth anything these days I'd like some advice. I've looked up some stuff and came across the following:

Acer laptop 53214G50M

HP laptop Pavilion G7-2002SD

Are these any good? Anybody got any experience with either?

For my work I spend a few days at home, then a few days in a rented room, so I need a laptop (sadly). However I do not ooze money, so it needs to be within a decent price range. I'd say the max I'm willing to spend is something like 700ish euros. Maybe 800.

Regards,

Geirr
James 315
Experimental Fun Times Corp RELOADED
CODE.
#2 - 2012-08-26 21:03:58 UTC
I'm no expert, but I know those are both well-established brand names. However, how good a company like, say, HP's stuff is for gaming depends on which gamer you ask. Smile

MinerBumping.com
TheBreadMuncher
Protus Correction Facility Inc.
#3 - 2012-08-26 21:14:15 UTC
I hear alienware do pretty nice laptops.

"We will create the introduction thread if that is requested by the community. Also, we will have an ISD Seminar about the CCL team in the coming weeks in which you can ask your questions about the CCL team and provide some constructive feedback to us." - Countless pages of locked threads and numerous permabanned accounts later, change is coming.
ISD TYPE40
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2012-08-26 21:16:44 UTC
Moved from GD to OOPE - ISD Type40.

[b]ISD Type40 Lt. Commander Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs) Interstellar Services Department[/b]
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#5 - 2012-08-26 21:38:34 UTC  |  Edited by: Akita T
Do you want to buy from a brick&mortar store near you, or will you order online ?
What country are you in ?
How large would you like/prefer the screen to be ?
What screen resolution do you expect/accept ?
Will you be playing a single EVE instance in small-scale combat, or multiple instances in large scale combat ?
What kind of FPS would you consider acceptable at which graphic detail settings ?

P.S. Look at this too : https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=144752&find=unread
If you can still find an Asus K93SM - YZ038D somewhere (around 800 eur, i7-2670QM, 750GB HDD,18.4" fullHD screen, GeForce GT630M 1 GB vid, 4/8 GB DDR3, Win7HomePrem64, great cooling, decent battery life, nice later expansion options with a 2nd HDD/SSD bay and room for up to 16GB RAM ; also, would be cheaper if you take it without the OS and reuse the one you already have on a different machine, if that's possible), that would probably be more than sufficient for you.
The video card is not great, but sufficient for single instance EVE in fullHD at near-max graphic detail under moderate load conditions.

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
Omega Sunset
Black.Omega
#6 - 2012-08-26 23:09:23 UTC
Geirr Ronuken wrote:
(sadly)
????!!!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!????!!!!?!?!?!P
imo it's the way to play :D
Laptops are great for playing mmo's imo. Get yourself a hotspot device or aircard. Laptops are good for playing games while desktop pc's are better for development apps etc. I'd go with the HP from your extensive list, but really I'd be looking at Toshiba, myself. Intel with HD graphic chip even at bargain level runs EVE very well.

—Ω—
Caleidascope
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2012-08-27 06:16:34 UTC
The HP is nice. But it is going to be big. It got 17" screen. It is more of a desktop replacement.

Life is short and dinner time is chancy

Eat dessert first!
Geirr Ronuken
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2012-08-27 07:50:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Geirr Ronuken
The weight and size of the thing won't be much of an issue. It will be chucked in the car, driven to my home away from home and back again. So a bigger screen would be a plus. Online or store bought doesn't make much of a difference to me. If I can get it cheaper online I probably will.
As to gaming, I will only be running one instance of EvE. So far I haven't encountered any large scale combats, but that might change ofcourse.

The biggest thing is that there are soooooo many machines out there and they are all advertising they're the best. I don't really know where te even start looking. It's kind of overwhelming and I'd hate to spend a decent part of my monthly salary and ending up with a piece of poo-poo.

I did come across these two:

ASUS K75VM-TY126V
17,3 inch LED • Intel Core i7-3610QM • 6 GB • 640 GB HDD • NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M (2 GB).

LENOVO G780 i7
17,3 inch LED • Intel Core i7-3612QM • 8 GB • 1 TB HDD • NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M (2 GB)

I'm right in assuming higher numbers mean newer? :P Price of these is the same by the way.
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#9 - 2012-08-27 09:37:42 UTC
Ah, so you live in Holland or Belgium then ?

Weirdly enough, the i7-3612QM is the slower one, but it's essentially the same chip as the i7-3610QM, both are 4-core, 8-thread CPUs.
The only two differences being a lower power usage (35W vs 45W) and a lower bus/core ratio by two ticks (so 2.1GHz vs 2.3GHz base clock, 3.1GHz and 3.3GHz max turboboost frequency).
The CPUs are allegedly identically priced when they get out of Intel's factory (makes sense since essentially the only difference is a setting).

For small and medium-scale combat, the GPU matters most.
The GT 630M is not a powerhouse by any means, but station-spinning in fullHD resolution at near-max graphic detail (everything except antialiasing) should get you a bit over 60 FPS.

For larger-scale combat, SINGLE CORE performance of the CPU is the most vital, and it's much harder to estimate how badly it will run, since data under such conditions is scarce.
Still, both versions of that CPU can deliver some punch when turboboosting, so it shouldn't be all THAT different no matter what you pick.

A single EVE instance can't make use of more than 4GB of RAM even if it needed it since it's a 32-bit app (and most of the time it doesn't need even half of that), while the OS should not take more than 2GB, so even the 6GB laptop should be quite ok. In fact, it will probably be quite ok even if you run two EVE instances.

You might also want to look closer at the RAM frequencies and the HDD speed on those two machines before you make a final decision.

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
Crrrazy Ivan
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2012-08-27 10:15:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Crrrazy Ivan
This is what I ended up buying around 3 days ago:

Asus N56VM-S4110V-12GB
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM Quad Core
Display: 15.6" ( 1920x1080 Full HD)
Memory: 12 GB DDR3 RAM
Storage: 750 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 630M with 2GB Dedicated Memory
OS: 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium
Price: £834

...and I'm extremely happy with it.

Despite the screen being 15.6" the quality of the screen is fantastic as it runs full HD (1920x1080) and buying a larger Laptop was rather out of the question as I will need it for Uni (has to be mobile!) and hence I can't carry a brick around. I haven't had time to properly 'make use' of the processor and GPU however, what Akita says is quite accurate. It is more than capable of running medium/high settings in small gang roams at around 50-60FPS. I was originally planning on buying the 8GB model for a slightly cheaper price however, the local ASUS store did not import my desired model so I simply settled for the 12GB model, hopefully, it will come useful one day. I regularly dual-box and run other applications in the background so I guess it won't go to waste. The standard air cooling is fantastic as the Laptop does not go past 50C (GPU) and 40C (CPU) whilst browsing the net, watching films etc. however, it does slightly overheat whilst running a near max settings Eve client at around 60C (GPU). Therefore, to tackle the issue of overheating I decided to buy this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00441LYEW/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

This external cooler has fantastic reviews with many people claiming it reduces temperatures by 3-5C whilst idle and 5-10C whilst running high demanding games. Furthermore, this cooler increases the quality of airflow which will definitely increase the Laptops longevity in the long run.

All in all, a fantastic purchase. I would have definitely bought a 17" if this was a desktop replacement however, I need it to be mobile.

EDIT: I forgot to mention I will be undertaking a 'computer' heavy Uni course (BEng in Software Engineering) and hence the reason I decided to spend a bit more for a 'better' Laptop.
Geirr Ronuken
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#11 - 2012-08-27 11:45:53 UTC
Thanks for the information guys. And yeah, dutch born and bred :-) Time to ponder and decide :-)