Decent gaming laptop for 500 - 600?

Herbyme

Hi all,
I rashly offered to buy my sons a laptop for gaming (COD of course, and combat arms on web) for a joint b/d present. Then looked at prices. Does it have to be £800 to get one that won't stutter or lag? annoyingly have just bought one for my DH which looks to be just the job, except the graphics card ain't up to it according to cyri web site. I'm told it can't be upgraded, is that right?

Would be very grateful for advice. I know laptop will be dearer than a pc but don't want a big pc with lots of wires etc in family room. btw could use tv as monitor if that's any help?

Many thanks in advance!

JasX

Laptops and gaming really don't go in the same sentence often, basically for anything vaguely up to playing modern games you're kinda guranteed

1-Heat problems
2-high price tag
3-completly non upgradeable, difficult/expensive to repair, will be obselete within 18 months or so

Is a desktop out of the question? in that case £500-600 would very comfortably cover something suitable, and be more readily upgradable/repairable for a good number of years to come (4-6yrs at least)

use of a TV as a laptop monitoor makes no odds on any of the shortcommings above.


One option albeit slightly less than ideal for gaming is get a desktop PC, 'hide' it somewhere behind the TV or out of the way and use a bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse to keep all the gubbins out of the way... -just keep plenty of spare batteries to hand


EDIT: ...also rather than an £800+ 'barely up to it' laptop for them to share would it not be better to consider 2x £400 desktops that'd let them play things like COD multiplayer? or at least both at the same time? is there no other room they could be put in?

Herbyme

ooh, thanks jasx! That last bit sounds promising, would you mean using the tv as a monitor?. I thought you might say the other bits. I suppose desktop could go down the side of the sofa, there is room. Then the keyboard could be wired would that work better?

Thanks so much for your help!

JasX

carolinerunner wrote: »

ooh, thanks jasx! That last bit sounds promising, would you mean using the tv as a monitor?. I thought you might say the other bits. I suppose desktop could go down the side of the sofa, there is room. Then the keyboard could be wired would that work better?

Thanks so much for your help!

assuming a flatscreen TV you hide the PC 'somewhere', get an HDMI cable of a discreet colour and run it from the base unit to the TV.

PC then just needs a bluetooth dongle and kids could use keyboard and mouse anywhere in the room to use the PC on the TV screen (eg sofa, coffee table, floor, dining table etc)

would also need net connection (wireless or wired voa router into a nearby phone socket, and of course power

1-if your PC is in the family room worth trying to get one of a 'quiet' spec if possible

2-expect lots of shouting when the batteries in the keyboard/mouse go flat at a critical time in whatever game they're playing

3-no benefit wiring the keyboard -probably more hassle than its worth in the above bluetooth setup

Herbyme

Thanks, that's really really helpful. Off to ask my pc man about upgrading an exissting pc vs buying a new one, but the bit about quiet is really useful. We are big users of rechargeable batteries so aould charge them daily to avoid said outrage!

JasX

np,

see these threads for suggestions about good gaming machines around the £400 - £600 mark

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2707453

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2706901

unfortunately "high performance gaming machine" and "quiet PC" aren't things you tend to find go together, especially if you're looking to keep the budget down and for gaming you tend to toss out 'quiet' long before sacrificing performance (bring on that stuttering again) -but can mitigate that by keeping it free of dust and perhaps investing in a fan speed controller to turn the fan speeds down and higher spec/quieter fans (£6-£10 ones rather than £2) or you may find your front room starts sounding like an air conditioning plant room

unless your existing PC is fairly new and just missing one/two components (eg graphics card) I'd be highly suspect about being able to economically upgrade it (find out exactly what you're getting in advance and how much they want for it -then check benchmark sites or post on here for other options)

DaveLy

I'm a pretty die hard gamer (even been paid to play games ) i don't play graphics on max resolution, but my lappy plays ALL the latest games on medium-low details - looks better/on par than xbox though.

I have just bought a re-con studio 1749 at the dell outlet
mine was £530

• lovely 17" screen
• i-3 350 processor (nice and fast)
• 4gb ram (you can play games, minimise and browse and listen to music all at lighting speed)
• FANTASTIC inbuilt speakers for a laptop! (with sub woofer underneath)
• 1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
  http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html

Take a look on the above link to see expected FPS performance in various applications/games.

Some higher spec 1749 lappys on dell outlet atm - good one for £630 due to faster processer and bigger hard drive, all a case of waiting.

(also - go via quidco to Dell then to the outlet, maybe get cashback, it tracked for me)

Herbyme

Hi again,
JasX hear what you said but also noted what DaveLy said - guys, would you think this is a bad idea if I could get it for under £600? I have seen a couple for sale in the UK.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00305HS7K/?!!!!!cheap.prices-20
I can only find refs to it on US websites, will that cause me any problems? it's on amazon com at $2000... please don't snaffle it up if it's a great bargain!

Knarf44

I'm a bit confused 'cos by my maths $2,259.60 equates to £1,467.27!! If it comes from the USA you'd then have to pay the VAT on it too @20% ie another £293!!

So, not so much of a bargain when you can buy an almost identical Qosmio (X500-134 direct from Toshiba UK (excl Blu-Ray) for £1,299 incl VAT.

The Qosmio that includes a Blu-Ray DVDRW, 8GB RAM and a 64GB Solid Stae Drive is available for £1,799 incl VAT.

I thought you said your budget was £600??? Where would you get either within £600?? The cheapest I could find the X500 was £1219.99 at Play.com or on Ebay at £1,053 excl VAT from Canada.

Did I understand right or am I the dunderhead here?

coolermasterelite

Yeah if you want to build it yourself you can save a lot of money by finding all the parts at the lowest price online.
For example the PC I am using currently cost only £500, and this is how good it is. :j:j:j

Specs
-LG 1080p 23" LCD monitor
-Coolermaster Elite 310 gaming case with see thru window
-AMD Phenom II BE 3.2ghz quad core processor (Overclockable to 4.5ghz:eek:)
-OCZ ddr2 4gb 1066mhz ram (more than 4gb of ram is not needed, the speed is very important though)
-ASUS M4A78L-M motherboard
-xfx ati hd 5770 1gb gddr5 graphics card
-a simple samsung dvd-RW
-AC Ryan dual cold cathode blue lights
-AKASA 500w power supply
-WD caviar Black 7200rpm 500gb dual processor hard drive (twice the speed of a normal caviar blue HDD)
-keyboard with backlit keys that can change to any colour of the rainbow.
And I can max out every game 1080p!:eek:
If anybody wants picture just ask but it looks amazing.

Herbyme

knarf, sorry to confuse, the one I found is on ebay with a bin of £570 from a uk seller. But on us amazon, quite a afew negative reports re reliability... groan!

No hope at all of me building it myself. I know when something is too big a job for me and that's about a mile beyond it. Easy when you know how, I'm sure, but thanks for the thought, your pc sounds beast, as my kids would say!