Laptop suitable for games

TehJumpingJawa

If you read this in-time, this might be exactly what you're after.

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/579093/acer-aspire-7738g-t6600-4gb-ddr3-32?

el_gringo_3

I'd be another to say stay away from a laptop. If your gaming or playing poker for longish periods most laptops will heat up very quickly, especially on a game thats pretty intense on graphics.

I occasionally run a couple of the 2002-06 sort of era of these games (more a c&c man myself) but find that they don't run as well on my laptop (dual core 2.4i think, 3mb RAM,not sure of gfx card but cost £500 around 2.5 years ago) as my 2nd desktop (3.4 gig P4 maximum RAM in XP32 512mb gfx), but you only tend to notice the difference after about 30-45 mins on the laptop, then things slow down, after about 90mins the lag is unbearable, even on a 1v1 skirmish map.

Humphrey10

I can and do play recent(ish) graphically intensive games on my laptop for hours with no slow down or overheating. No laptop should overheat, no matter how long you leave it on.
I'd assume there's something wrong with the fans or vents if it's overheating eg it should be on a hard surface with no dust covering the vents (and no dust inside either).

However, battery life isn't great (but that's not a problem as it is too big and heavy to be portable!) and gaming laptops are hundreds of pounds more than the equivalent desktop, so I really wouldn't go for a laptop unless you have to.

TehJumpingJawa

Humphrey10 wrote: »

and gaming laptops are hundreds of pounds more than the equivalent desktop

I agree to a certain extent; however, if you shop around you can get some very game-capable laptops for prices that are comparable with desktops.

For instance, the deal i've linked to a few posts up.

It would be quite a challenge to build a desktop PC *(including monitor and operating system!) for £500 that would have comparable gaming performance.

The tendency with desktop machines is to over-spec. them to give better future-proofing for nominal price increases.
For example, I would consider a Core 2 Quad (e.g. Q8300) to be entry-level for a desktop PC today, as you pay only a few £'s to go from a Duo to a Quad.
However going from a Duo to a Quad in a laptop will set you back a great deal more; several hundred atleast.

Fortunately very few of todays games will utilise this additional processing power; therefore atleast in the short-term laptops can make excellent value gaming machines.