any computer tecks out there

fishguyxd · #1 02-05-2009, 03:21 AM

I looking at new laptop or upgrading desktop
looking to see what a decent video card would be is any suggestions

or if looking at laptops something that could be used for gaming what's a good choice (toshiba ,Acer hp ) need a dedicated vid card though. I heard hp fall apart and crashes a fair bit and the toshiba's are a few bucks and acer well I don't know much about them. Just looking for some models to narrow the search.

Seen one already that has (bluetooth, hdmi, webcam,and a blu ray player.

heck what else can one get or need?

dreef · #2 02-05-2009, 03:31 AM

Acer lappy's is all my boss has sold at his computer store for years.There no.2 in sales in the world.Just my 2 cents.

banditpowdercoat · #3 02-05-2009, 03:52 AM

dbl post

banditpowdercoat · #4 02-05-2009, 03:59 AM

Don;t get a HP, especially for gaming LOL. How much do you have to spend?? If you want an awesome gaming laptop, check out Alienware.com If I ever do another lappy, it's gona be one of them. Only thing I miss from my big OC'd tower is the graphics and gaming. Now I gotta settle for the X360 I guess......

wolf_bluejay · #5 02-05-2009, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishguyxd

I looking at new laptop or upgrading desktop
looking to see what a decent video card would be is any suggestions

I hate to say it, but I think gaming laptops are the worst of both worlds. They are usually much bigger for the screen, heavy from the extra hardware and have very short battery life. My usual recommendation (other than buy a console for games) is to buy a power desktop for gaming and a netbook if you need to be portable. Heck, buy both it would still be cheaper. That, and I see a lot of fancy gaming laptops that are usually dead in under a year due to overheating problems.

Think in terms of numbers -- a desktop with 8 or 16 Gig or ram ($10 per Gig nowadays) is easy to do, with dual hard drives, and dual head video (2 screens yippee) is not that much money. If you want that in a laptop, you are going to pay. I don't even think I've seen a laptop that goes over 4 Gig of ram, let alone 1TB of drive space. And yet, you can buy a 42" LCD TV and hook you're hdmi as the screen instead of a puney 16" or 18" laptop screen.

Disclaimer: this is coming from a guy that runs BIG machines that no laptop on the planet could do what I need to run

So laptops are just for portability for me.

ocean diver · #6 02-05-2009, 01:23 PM

I agree with wolf, buy a good desktop for gaming for less money than a laptop. The laptop is only good for portablity, plus you can make the desktop config anyway you like it a lot easier and cheapier then a laptop.

Just my 2 cents as I have both a desktop and a laptop and I use my desktop way more.

ridder · #7 02-05-2009, 01:56 PM

If you are stilling looking for a laptop, here a site to check out: http://reviews.cnet.com/gaming-laptops/

Snaz · #8 02-05-2009, 04:02 PM

I have bought lots of laptops for business and a couple for gaming.

If your interested in gaming on a top then look at the Dell XPS.
http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/prod...ref=lthp&s=dhs

These tops are POWERFUL, stable and Dell of course has great support. Keep in mind gaming laptops are HEAVY and not normally suitable for lugging to work everyday unless you have strong arms. They are portable of course so you can take over to your buddies place for a round of HALO.

wolf_bluejay · #9 02-06-2009, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snaz

I have bought lots of laptops for business and a couple for gaming.

If your interested in gaming on a top then look at the Dell XPS.
http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/prod...ref=lthp&s=dhs

These tops are POWERFUL, stable and Dell of course has great support. Keep in mind gaming laptops are HEAVY and not normally suitable for lugging to work everyday unless you have strong arms. They are portable of course so you can take over to your buddies place for a round of HALO.

The main downside to this -- price

By the time you get this up to a single-quad core, with 4 GB of ram, 17" display and a mirror 500G drive it is a $4000 US laptop, plus taxes, shipping and such.

My work desktop machine ---
Dual Quad core CPU (8 cores)
32 GB of ram, 4000 GB of raid drive, and a hardware raid controller, dual hot swap power supplies comes in at under $3000.
You could build a similar desktop for about $1000 with a 22" screen.

What is the point if they are just too heavy to carry anywhere. Why pay all the extra to cram all that hardware into a laptop case?

Side note: this is from a guy that is currently whining about only having a 700 CPU cluster with 1000Gb of RAM

midgetwaiter · #10 02-06-2009, 05:12 AM

Do you really think a quad core is worth the extra bucks for gaming? Most of the benchmarks I've seen give an edge to CPUs with bigger cache than number of cores as current games don't multi-thread well. I bet you'd get better results on a dual core with 6mb cache and using the money you save to get SLI video cards or at least a better single card.

Given that cluster you manage you probably have a much better understanding of threads than I do so I'm curious if you agree or not.