Hey,
I've been waiting a while to see a good deal on a new laptop with a half decent graphics card, most I have seen in the price range are just onboard graphics
I'm wondering if theres any close to my price range on sale at the moment?
Best size would be 13-15inch
I can also take it with me overseas in two weeks and claim tax back at airport.
Any help is greatly appreciated :)
Hi hixx101, I spent a bit of time exactly on this for a friend. This is the best I could find its got a pretty good CPU, GT 640M which should allow you to play modern games on medium settings, 20 GB SSD as well as 500HD hard for quick boot, Ultrabook with 15", 6GB ram which is OK, its brand new as opposed to refurbished, has reasonable battery life, Aluminium shell and comes with 2 years acer plus free which has accidental damage cover. For $699 I think its as good as you will find.
http://factoryoutlet.acer.com.au/acer/afo/index.php/aspire-m…
Cheers
Yeah a 640m is about the best you can hope for with this budget. Note that this is actually not a bad GPU, just don't expect to run current games in high detail. At the $500 price point you are probably looking at something like a 7670m.
This might even be ozbargain-worthy..?
Thanks Fateddy, I bought this one :)
You're very welcome glad I could help out.I'm sure you'll be happy with it.:)
The Acer Timeline series has a decent finish too for the money, I bought one a few years ago and it still looks great today.
That Acer looks OK but the CPU is throttled back on battery power, BF3 60-70fps on mains vs 28fps on battery kind of defeats the power of GPU!
I find myself in a pickle, I want to upgrade my lappy but I'm using my tablet more and more instead, any one wanna share tips/personal experiences, ramblings?! Lol
Hi morpheu, I have to admit that since I picked up an asus transformer prime for $300 from eb 2 weeks ago I have been using it all the time and for a portable device it does everything I need and batteries last for about 18 hours of use.
Laptops aren't really designed to have games like BF3 played on battery power, and if you really wanted to you can change the setting to allow the cpu to run at full speed but you won't get much time. I personally do find that a tablet especially like the prime with a keyboard that can be removed is great for a portable device, and the games these days are pretty decent.
Also there are a few large screen tablets 13,3" if you want a bigger display
http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Colorfly-CT132-Q-T-13-3-inch-…
Cheers
actually, my second tablet uses the same cpu, A31, except it's higher resolution, 2048x1536, i can't go backwards to 1280x800!
and the point on Android games is true, i like FPS and RPG games, MC4 is impressive(for a tablet game) and RPGs like Dungeon Hunter 4, Soulcraft, Wildblood, Iesabel etc which are ok replacements for similar pc games, heck, even Ravensword2 gives Skyrim fans something to sink their fangs into on the Android platform…hmm, given the fact that i can install all these apps onto my phone as well might mean i'll be selling that laptop soon!
Your pm is locked, send me a pm. I might be able to help you.
You won't be able to get any decent laptop for $500 - $700 let alone one that is suitable for gaming.
Get a desktop instead, you can build a decent Desktop for that amount that can play the latest games.
Go for a desktop for gaming.
Fateddy and Bruce are right, that Acer will be your best bet.
A cheaper option is this HP that's on sale for $594
http://www.dicksmith.com.au/laptops-notebooks/hp-pavilion-15…
But it has lesser graphics card, worse CPU less ram, slower Hard Drive…. Just a cheaper option all round.
Check out http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark… for info on laptop graphics chips.
Below are some sample scores: (lower is better)
GT 780M - 9
GT 770M - 29 (in alienware 17")
GT 750M - 70 (in alienware 14")
GT 640M - 104 (in the Acer Fateddy Listed)
HD 8670M - 145 (in the HP i've listed)
HD 7670M - 170
HD 4400 - 219 (Haswell i5 integrated)
HD 8400 - 270 (AMD A6 integrated)
HD 3000 - 340 (Intel Ivy bridge Integrated)
You can see the acer scores reasonably well.
Of course like others have said a $700 gaming desktop would blow all these scores out the water, but I'm guessing you're after the portability :)
AMD fusion laptops? Slower CPU but better graphics.
Not that much better… as you can see above the graphics in the A6 scores 270, in the A8 its 208 and in the best A10 its 160. But even the HP at $594 at 145 is better than that.
Still if you are on a very tight budget the fusion APU does have its place.
I find it stupid when they make laptops with an AMD Fusion APU, and include a dedicated low end mobile graphics card… its like… why bother?? It's all about scamming the customer. They stick on their fancy "DUAL AMD GRAPHICS" sticker and they think they are getting some fancy SLI setup or something -.-
I completely agree with you! Fusion is a waste of time, as is AMD in general at the moment, they can't compete with Intel and hence, are churning out gimmicky products.
If you don't really need graphics performance (trust me this is 80% of people), get an Intel with HD5000 Graphics or Iris graphics.
If you need graphics performance, get one with a dedicated GPU. Which GPU to get will just depend on what performance level you are after.
AMD Fusion is silly because there is no middle group, either you need graphics performance or you don't, nobody "sort of" needs graphics performance.
lol. you need to increase your budget mate. gaming laptops are expensive for a reason; they have the hardware power. You cannot get everything.
The best ones I found lately are Horize/Clevo laptops, starting from about $1000. best of luck