Would one of these be good for online gaming?

Phil3822

Hi all, need a new laptop and I currently use mine for online gaming, streaming, web browsing, and some basic office tasks.

I have a budget of around £400, could go a little higher.

Have seen these but require input on which may be best or if any others are out there.

Have seen these ones:

http://www.comet.co.uk/p/Laptops/buy-ACER-ASPIRE-5733-CH-Laptop/780073
http://www.ebuyer.com/322115-asus-x54h-laptop-x54h-sx168v
http://www.ebuyer.com/337140-asus-x53z-laptop-x53z-sx052v
http://www.comet.co.uk/p/Laptops/buy-ASUS-X53U-SX317V-Laptop/782955

gonzo127

what games are you actually wanting to play?

Phil3822

I mostly play world of tanks and Battle star galactica. I also play a lot of facebook games like war commander. I dont buy high end games to play online. I use online client server type games.

I currently play these games on a Tashiba satellite Celeron M with 800meg of ram and no graphics. I play all the games on low and there is a bit of memory lag hence time to change. When playing my memory monitor flashes up in the 90% range.

I would also consider a desktop if I could get better for a similar price.

gonzo127

well for games a desktop will always be better however if you need to get a monitor etc then the performance to price will be simular, although of course you can always upgrade a desktop with a better graphics card processor etc if you need to which you cant a laptop,

out of the laptops you have posted the Asus with the AMD A4-3300 processor would probably be the best one for games as the intergrated graphics chipset on it is better than the intergrated intel ones, and the e450 processor is a low power CPU so woudl probably bottle neck game due to the power of the CPU

gonzo127

oh also forgot, moneysaving side of things, just getting more ram and giving your system a proper 'clean' would probably do your old system the world of good and might make it last a bit longer

ram is pretty cheap at the moment (depending on the type of ram you need (ddr,ddr2 or ddr3 - guessing here but would expect ddr2 but you can check on the crucial website with a system scan)

and a clean - follow closed's thread (sticked at the top of the forum) on how to speed up a slow or infected pc

Phil3822

Cheers, already done the clean up and things are faster. Increasing the memory would equal less lag during game play but I am assuming there would be no improvement in graphics.

With regards to desktop I can not find something of a similar cost including the monitor with an improvement or similar performance.

I appreciate your help.

gonzo127

am not totally surprised as at £350 you are really limited, £400 does raise the performance and £450 will generally get a much better desktop than laptop for gaming

a quick look around and this is potentially the closest in price to performance

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=1093

adding in the 19inch monitor the keyboard mouse and speakers and the GT210 graphics card brings it to £370 and would give better performance than the A4-3300 asus but of course costs more (not sure if Dinopc still charge for delivery last i knew it was £25 so would make it nearly £50 more than the Asus)

Phil3822

Thanks for that. I dont know much about the Intel G620 processor, how does it compare with the AMD and then the i3 for example?

neilwoods

For FB games, any of those will be fine. I can run them on a netbook running intel atom and 1gb ram. WoT also runs, a bit sluggish but runs.

Phil3822

My laptop link second one down has an i3 2310 processor in it. Surely this is better than the G620? Unless in this case the added graphics card then outweighs the laptop because of my suggested usage?

gonzo127

this is the sort of problem you come across trying to match up laptops and desktops,

the i2310 in the laptop is the mobile version of the processor which is less powerful than a desktop i2310

therefore when looking at the benchmarks the i2310m in the laptop scores virtually the same as the desktop g620 - this being said these are (in processor terms) quite a bit more powerful than the processor of the a4-3300

however graphically - which in most instances tends to be more important in games than processors - the 6480g and the GT210 are of simular performance and both are superior to the intergrated graphics chipset on the i2310m

this is why i have suggested the AMD a4-3300 over the core i3 cpu when your stated usage has included games - as although the i3 is more powerful processor, games are very rarely cpu limited, but this is not to say the core i3 will not do what you want, its just that the graphics chipset in the amd one is better so will be more suited to games

but also why the desktop is a better choice for games because you get the same power as the more powerful of the processors in the laptops, linked in with the same power as the higher level graphics

and should you find the cpu or gt210 isnt good enough it can be replaced whereas in a laptop if your graphics or processor cant stand it, its a whole new system