Does this laptop look like a good buy please?

JimmyPage

You really need to look for something these days that I7 and above

Cycrow

Which Heroes of Might and Magic was it ?

any pc will be powerful enough to play the first few, but the later ones will be more of a struggle

Cycrow

JimmyPage wrote: »

You really need to look for something these days that I7 and above

nonsense, i5's are perfectly capable for gaming
for most games, its the gpu that is more important, not the cpu (there are some exceptions)

NiftyDigits

melb wrote: »

that Acer looks good Niftydigits but that doesn't seem to have a CD/DVD drive either. Are these classed as unnecessary these days?

You can get it at the same price via Very, with their 10% off for a first customer.


Alternatively, glance at what http://www.save on laptops.co.uk/gaming-laptops-under-500

has to offer.

The Lenovo for "£300" has an optical drive and a choice of WIndows 7 and 8.

Tropez

Cycrow wrote: »

nonsense, i5's are perfectly capable for gaming
for most games, its the gpu that is more important, not the cpu (there are some exceptions)

Absolutely. I wish people would stop perpetuating this myth that you must have an i7 - and I say that as someone who has two machines with an i7 (albeit an ultrabook and a desktop version).

But I've got an i5 laptop as well and it runs games just fine, or at the least, it runs games that its graphics chip can actually support it running. Can get Mass Effect 2 & 3 on medium settings, breezes through Football Manager 2014 with several leagues running and I'm sure it could handle a fair few other games, particularly of the older variety.

Honestly, I've previously used a laptop with an i3 for running games on and it was fine (again depending on graphics card limitations, but it had CoH up to max settings). As you rightly say, Cycrow, in the vast majority of cases it is down to the graphics chip.

Unfortunately, so many are intent on perpetuating this myth about i7's that gaming laptop manufacturers chuck them in by default (along with 16Gb RAM which is also unnecessary) and thus there are very few viable options for someone on a stricter budget.

Cycrow

Tropez wrote: »

Absolutely. I wish people would stop perpetuating this myth that you must have an i7 - and I say that as someone who has two machines with an i7 (albeit an ultrabook and a desktop version).

But I've got an i5 laptop as well and it runs games just fine, or at the least, it runs games that its graphics chip can actually support it running. Can get Mass Effect 2 & 3 on medium settings, breezes through Football Manager 2014 with several leagues running and I'm sure it could handle a fair few other games, particularly of the older variety.

Honestly, I've previously used a laptop with an i3 for running games on and it was fine (again depending on graphics card limitations, but it had CoH up to max settings). As you rightly say, Cycrow, in the vast majority of cases it is down to the graphics chip.

Unfortunately, so many are intent on perpetuating this myth about i7's that gaming laptop manufacturers chuck them in by default (along with 16Gb RAM which is also unnecessary) and thus there are very few viable options for someone on a stricter budget.

The myth probably came about due to the first generation i7's
There were 2 different sockets, LGA1366 and LGA1156.
There were alot of differences with the 2 chipsets, the LGA1366 had better support for SLI/Crossfire, as well as more memory bandwidth and faster pci-e.
Which made them better for gaming, especially those who wanted to run dual gpus.

You could only get i7's on this platform
So the i7 LGA1366 was much better than the i5 LG1156.
But it was more due to the chipset than the actual cpu.
The newer generations dont have the same advantage


but then the i5/i7 on laptops are not the same as the ones on the desktop. So an i5 on a desktop could be better than an i7 on a laptop

then theres also different generations, making the comparison with i5 vs i7 pretty pointless

melb

to the person above it was heroes of Might and Magic 3. I have been doing more looking today - sending me dizzy to be honest - and was reading that I am best with a dual core processor. So on laptopsdirect I look under their processor tab and no mention of dual core but it did have i3 i5 i7 AMD and various others - please can someone tell me which of these are dual core? thanks

NiftyDigits

melb wrote: »

to the person above it was heroes of Might and Magic 3. I have been doing more looking today - sending me dizzy to be honest - and was reading that I am best with a dual core processor. So on laptopsdirect I look under their processor tab and no mention of dual core but it did have i3 i5 i7 AMD and various others - please can someone tell me which of these are dual core? thanks

Youll be hard pushed to find a processor that is not 'dual core' and above.

SoulUK

I am also currently looking for a "budget gaming laptop" i know its abit of a reach for the prices, however that argos refurbed one looks very good for 315

AMD A8-5557M quad core processor 2.1GHz
with AMD Radeon HD8550G graphics card

Should run all the current games (not at the highest level but still run them fluidly and for a good price) im hopeing some people agree?

NiftyDigits

melb wrote: »

to the person above it was heroes of Might and Magic 3. I have been doing more looking today - sending me dizzy to be honest - and was reading that I am best with a dual core processor. So on laptopsdirect I look under their processor tab and no mention of dual core but it did have i3 i5 i7 AMD and various others - please can someone tell me which of these are dual core? thanks

You do know that that game is fifteen years old, don't you?

That's up to number 6 now.

http://www.save on laptops.co.uk/20B2000KUK-Lenovo-ThinkPad-E545_1540218.html