Gaming Laptop For Son

socrates

My son has £360 Xmas money and I promised him I would buy him a new gaming laptop after things died down after Xmas

The games he plays (apparently) are:

Elder scrolls V: SkyrimDota 2
Civilization V
Dragon age origins
shogun 2 total war
rome total war 1 & 2
trine 2
orcs must die 2

After looking around on various forums we both came up with this as a reasonable option:

PCSPECIALIST - EnigmaIV Laptops, EnigmaIV Gaming Laptops, Build Your Own EnigmaIV Laptop

There are various upgrade options - I tend to go for longer warranties

Are there any other upgrade options people would recommend?

Or is there another laptop altogether that people recommend?

RichL74

I would look at 500 gig hard drive and 4 gig of RAM minimum for those games. Maybe look at a full HD display too as opposed to 1366 x 768.

Does whack the price up a bit more though.

Mirno

I'd also look at the AMD A8 or A10 based laptops - they'll do nicely for gaming. Which manufacturer to go for I can't really say.

The laptop you've got there - the base processor is pretty cheap, and there's a reasonable jump in price to get to the i3 or i5. The HDD is only 5400rpm, and 2GB is low.
At the least I'd want to go to 8GB and the 7200rpm 250GB hard disk for gaming. The next step up is going to an i3, or an i5 - it adds £44 for the i3, which will be much better for gaming, but it's more cash...

I wouldn't bother with a longer warranty - 3 years is a long time for tech, and generally things either go wrong in their first year or last forever (my old 486 still works!).

Finally - I wouldn't upgrade the screen - you always try to game at native resolution and the 650 will struggle at 1080 on some games.


For the money you're wanting to put in, I think you'll get better bang for your buck with the AMDs though. Intel are better, but they cost more, also their graphics suck, so they have to be paired with either an nVidia or AMD discreet graphics chipset anyway for good gaming, so that makes them cost a bit more too.

Mirno

socrates

RichL74 wrote: »

I would look at 500 gig hard drive and 4 gig of RAM minimum for those games. Maybe look at a full HD display too as opposed to 1366 x 768.

Does whack the price up a bit more though.

Are you saying look at a completely different laptop?

I was thinking of 2x4 gig Ram

-TangleFoot-

Another build-your-own here for comparison. MSI may be worth a look too.

Also, check this out.

socrates

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

Another build-your-own here for comparison. MSI may be worth a look too.

Also, check this out.

The MSI is expensive - did not want to pay more than £700 tops

As for the other link - it might as well be written in Chinese - however I appreciate it

-TangleFoot-

socrates wrote: »

did not want to pay more than £700 tops

Have you considered a desktop?

socrates

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

Have you considered a desktop?

He needs a laptop as he spends 50% of his time with me and 50% with his mum

-TangleFoot-

socrates wrote: »

He needs a laptop as he spends 50% of his time with me and 50% with his mum

In that case...

socrates wrote: »

As for the other link - it might as well be written in Chinese - however I appreciate it

...a 650M should be adequate. Civ V might give you a little trouble though...

jaydeeuk1

Personally I'd go for a Dell Inspiron 7720
17.3", full hd, core i5, geforce 650, 6gb ram, 1tb hard drive

And 3 year next day pickup warranty (can save £100 if you just want to use the ol' SOGA route)

Should be £849.00 but use these codes to get it for £718

Some service plan thing -£51
6HD6XXLMRVJP21 - free delivery -£20
C9?0S9WPGXTPF1 - 10% off price -£79

Expires Monday though. IMO, a great price.

-TangleFoot-

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

Expires Monday though. IMO, a great price.

Dell? Okay then:

Inspiron 17R SE from £609