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General discussion (archive)Buying a new laptop - help(31 posts)(31 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 19, 2013
My work computer is dying a slow death.

It's about 10 years old now and my phone has more RAM than this thing. I work for a small (family) company and they are allowing me to pick my next laptop. Now, I travel a bunch for this job and I'm looking at a month long trip coming up. Since this new laptop will be mine alone, I'll be using it for personal reasons just about as much as I would for work. I need your advice on which ones to get. I'll be playing games and watching movies when I'm all alone in those hotel rooms at night.

I'm getting the feeling, based on my browsing, that what I want is going to be pretty tough to get. To put it simply, I want a laptop with a dedicated graphics card that's powerful enough to play Skyrim. And, i want to keep this under $600.

Is that even possible?

This is what I had in mind..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215974&RandomID=5187068452012220130619070619
Post edited June 19, 2013 by TekZero
Posted June 19, 2013
Based on this review that laptop should be able to run Skyrim on medium settings at 1366x768 resolution.

You can also check this <span class="bold">list </span>to see what graphic cards can run skyrim on which details and resolution.
Posted June 19, 2013
avatar
TekZero: My work computer is dying a slow death.

It's about 10 years old now and my phone has more RAM than this thing. I work for a small (family) company and they are allowing me to pick my next laptop. Now, I travel a bunch for this job and I'm looking at a month long trip coming up. Since this new laptop will be mine alone, I'll be using it for personal reasons just about as much as I would for work. I need your advice on which ones to get. I'll be playing games and watching movies when I'm all alone in those hotel rooms at night.

I'm getting the feeling, based on my browsing, that what I want is going to be pretty tough to get. To put it simply, I want a laptop with a dedicated graphics card that's powerful enough to play Skyrim. And, i want to keep this under $600.

Is that even possible?

This is what I had in mind..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215974&amp;RandomID=5187068452012220130619070619
Based on the other comment

I would go for the Acer Aspire V3-571G-73614G50Makk

The laptop mentioned looks a good fit, but uses AMD and a dual mode GPU rather than a single GPU. and I have not had a good experience with such hybrids.

I keep things simple where possible and that's 1 cpu and 1 gpu, based on that you want a high i5 chip or i7 if possible and a medium to high GPU because Skyrim is a high profile game.

Just my opinion and the gentleman before listed a nice Laptop which looks very nice.
Posted June 19, 2013
Thanks for posting that review. This gives me hope.

I'm using Skyrim as a benchmark because, with the way I get new computers around here, I'll be using this new one for quite some time. I'd like to be able to play Skyrim now (and most of my gog.com games) and god knows what I'll want to play 5-6 years from now.
Post edited June 19, 2013 by TekZero
Posted June 19, 2013
I don't have a specific recommendation (will try to look later), but Amazon has a promo where you get a $100 gift card when you buy certain laptops with Intel processors.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&amp;ascsubtag=367jUtjOEeKgo3rE6lFVEw-pR1_SYYb3_0_0_0&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;docId=1001224941&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;pf_rd_i=2956501011&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_p=1565868362&amp;pf_rd_r=11DWHTCV05WTRVCFGJ5E&amp;pf_rd_s=ilm&amp;pf_rd_t=101&amp;t=slickdeals&amp;tag=bargainspot-20
Posted June 19, 2013
Oh yeah. Go with AMD A10-4600. Careful for which graphic mode though. I have the one that only have integrated GPU in the CPU. But so far I am satisfied with that. The performance exceeded my expectation. You might want that have dual gpu, but I recommend using only one of the GPU (the integrated or the dedicated one). Because I read the dual GPU is not stable enough for most games. Sometimes it even reduce the performance. But it was when the first time A10 got released.

Also for the skyrim.. I think the benchmark result for A10-4600 is good enough to play the skyrim. But just doesn't expect high quality of graphic settings.
Posted June 19, 2013
Looking like Skyrim is playable even on Intel HD 4000 graphics (link).
Posted June 19, 2013
For a >$600 laptop, I'm not expecting a maxed out Skyrim experience. I'll be happy with medium settings. That way, i won't be too handicapped in a few years from now when the next big game comes out.

I'll get a desktop for my house to cover my home gaming needs. But, when I'm out on the road, I'd like to have relatively the same experience.
Posted June 19, 2013
avatar
TekZero: My work computer is dying a slow death.

It's about 10 years old now and my phone has more RAM than this thing. I work for a small (family) company and they are allowing me to pick my next laptop. Now, I travel a bunch for this job and I'm looking at a month long trip coming up. Since this new laptop will be mine alone, I'll be using it for personal reasons just about as much as I would for work. I need your advice on which ones to get. I'll be playing games and watching movies when I'm all alone in those hotel rooms at night.

I'm getting the feeling, based on my browsing, that what I want is going to be pretty tough to get. To put it simply, I want a laptop with a dedicated graphics card that's powerful enough to play Skyrim. And, i want to keep this under $600.

Is that even possible?

This is what I had in mind..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215974&amp;RandomID=5187068452012220130619070619
I just bought an Acer Aspire in Bangkok -- only $368. My dad bought the exact same computer in the US and paid around $500 for it minus a bag (he had to pay an extra 20 bucks for one). :

It has an Intel Celeron 1.8GHz processor, a 14 inch screen, 4GB Main Memory and a 500 GB hard drive. It also has a very nice DVD-RW player, great for movies.

So far, it's played every game I've attempted to play on it (except Civ 4, which hardly anyone seems to be able to get running on Windows 7). And yes, it's played Skyrim :)

I also currently have almost 450 movies downloaded onto it and the hard drive isn't even half full, so you'd have plenty of room for your work and all the movies you want to watch while traveling.

You can even see a photograph of mine on my desk :)

http://tastythailand.com/how-much-is-the-acer-aspire-e-431-laptop-in-bangkok-thailand/
Posted June 19, 2013
Don't know how the "new" 6000 and 7000 series work with the integrated graphics in the cpu, but if I am not mistaken you can select in the AMD driver suite which gpu a game should use. (I have a laptop with chipset HD4200 with a HD5650 discrete gpu and I can manually select which gpu should be in use).

Maybe someone here on the forums can give you a first hand experience.
Posted June 19, 2013
You know, forget Skyrim. I'd like it to play a game I actually own but haven't played yet. The Witcher 2.
Posted June 19, 2013
That will be a much harder task.

The 7670 maybe would be able to run it on 1024x768 at low settings.

(Mine wasn't able to run it smoothly on that settings - just for comparison)
Posted June 19, 2013
Anyway, 600 usd somehow limits the options

My main concern with this Acer would not be the APU, but the duability of the computer; If it's meant to actually travel a lot, you don't want a cheap, fragile casing or pos usb ports. And that's often what comes with APU based laptops. I had that experience with a Samsung and Acer's models I could see didn't look sturdy either
Posted July 19, 2013
Finally got my new computer!

What do you guys think?

http://www.bjs.com/toshiba-satellite-l55-a5278-laptop-up-to-27ghz-intel-core-i5-3337u-processor.product.241410

For sure, it will be able to play Skyrim, and then some.

Quick Specs:
CPU Core I5 - 2.5 ghz
RAM: 4Gb - 16gb max
GPU - Nvidia GT 740m
HDD - 500gb 5400 rpm
Post edited July 19, 2013 by TekZero
Posted July 19, 2013
avatar
TekZero: Finally got my new computer!

What do you guys think?

http://www.bjs.com/toshiba-satellite-l55-a5278-laptop-up-to-27ghz-intel-core-i5-3337u-processor.product.241410

For sure, it will be able to play Skyrim, and then some.

Quick Specs:
CPU Core I5 - 2.5 ghz
RAM: 4Gb - 16gb max
GPU - Nvidia GT 740m
HDD - 500gb 5400 rpm
Nothing said about the display. If it´s a glare/glossy-panel you´ll hate yourself in ~3 weeks for buying a laptop with one of this dazzling shit displays and did not invest ways more...
If it´s non-glare this was a good buy!
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Buying a new laptop - help(31 posts)(31 posts)
(31 posts)