Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Audioworm333]

So I've been meaning to get a laptop lately, and I've been wondering how much a decent gaming laptop costs; my current PC is mediocre at best for running games and I'm tired of having to crank the graphics down on everything I play. Especially when it doesn't work.

But I'm also on a budget, since I'm basically living on social security money for the time being. Are there any gaming laptops out there worth buying that aren't horribly expensive?

[wierd]

Amazon has some remanufactured dell laptops with i5s in them for around 400$.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Latitude-E6430S-Performance-Professional/dp/B01JFBCDFY/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1474320395&sr=1-3-spons&keywords=I5+laptop&psc=1&smid=ARKFFGMZRYG2X

Has Intel graphics, but otherwise not a bad system for the price.

[nenjin]

Casual search of Newegg for what manufacturers call a gaming laptop runs you anywhere from $700 to $1400. Less than that and it probably has onboard graphics by Intel and/or no slot for a dedicated card.

Like this guy: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154112&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Gaming+Laptops-_-N82E16834154112&gclid=CKLMlPranM8CFQaAaQodDmQD2A&gclsrc=aw.ds

Gets a GeForce Mobility 960. The i5 and 8 gigs of ram are pretty underwhelming though, for that price. Getting it at 12 gigs jacks the price to $800. And in truth it's a $1000 gaming laptop with a 20% discount.

For what you pay, trying to play high end games on a laptop when you're on a budget just doesn't seem worth it. The $700 laptop would struggle significantly with many AAA games at max settings, and probably mid settings too. It'd probably do a lot of $10 to $20 indie titles just fine though.

[wierd]

Agreed, doing it on the cheap is the killer.  AAA titles expect you to have shelled out for a real system.

But Intel's video has come leaps and bounds from where it was 5 years ago.  The video in an i5 is going to be pretty nice compared to what lives inside a celeron 5030, processor M, or atom. Other than the shared memory problem, it isn't that bad for light gaming, just don't expect high settings.

[nenjin]

FWIW, I built a pretty good upper end gaming desktop with a dank monitor for around $1400. Got a performance mobo and all this other fun stuff I didn't even need. If your desktop is really that bad, chances are you can get a more satisfying gaming experience off a similarly priced desktop as long as you don't need to buy all the peripherals like a monitor, sound system, nice keyboard and mouse.

[wierd]

I built an i5 for a friend from the ground up for a little over 1k a few months ago.  Its driving on a Spinny disk, but the board has an M.2 slot able to do emmc based ssds, so is pretty future proof. I forget the exact mono I got, but I got him the black edition i5, and a gtx 960. Runs fallout 4 on max settings without a hiccup.

Got him a nice corsair 600w PSU to go with it, and an aftermarket cooler.

If you have a decent case and PSU, you can cut a solid 200$ off the bill. If you have a good monitor, you can cut another 200$ easily. Keyboard and mouse cut another 100$ off.  If doing a new build, I strongly suggest an ssd. There are very inexpensive sata ones (driving a 512gb one from amazon I got for 60$ at home!) That are worth it if on a budget. Emmc/nvme floors it of course,  but any ssd is faster than Spinny disk.

[BigD145]

For a laptop that can do something with games? $1000 US. The Geforce 960M is pretty good.

The Lenovo Y700 can be found for under 1000 in some configurations and has a solid CPU and GPU. It can handle current gen games. I would definitely go solid state for the C drive and keep the 5400 rpm for mass storage. It has the stick based M2 for that purpose. I run Ark at max or near max settings and that game is a horrible pile of unoptimized code. It is pretty, though.

[Thief^]

Don't forget AMD! Especially if you're on a tight budget.

My HP/AMD laptop (with a dedicated Radeon R5 m260 GPU) cost only £220 as a store return off ebay. Runs pretty much anything at low-mid settings.

I challenge anyone to find a fully working recent laptop with any nvidia GPU for that price.

[Grimlocke]

A gaming laptop is never a budget choice. If you want something fast enough to run today's needier titles with most of the pretty stuff on and do it cheaply, second hand desktop parts are usually the way to go. Even if you only get the graphics card as second hand you can end up saving a lot of money.

[alexandertnt]

Gaming laptops can be a budget choice, just don't expect to run every game at max. You don't really need to in order to game anyway.

Ultimately, it depends on how badly the OP needs/wants a laptop.

[wierd]

The only weak thing about that dell I linked was the integrated video. 3ghz i5 is not going to have the weak offering from Intel that a celeron or atom has. It would play most things on medium.

[ginoa]

Budget and gaming on laptops don't usually work together. Budget?

[ginoa]

http://pc4u.org/msi-vr-ready-gt72vr-dominator-pro-015-with-gtx-1070/

[TheBiggerFish]

Gaming and laptop and cheap don't really go together.

[nenjin]

To be fair, gaming and budget don't really go together. But I say that as someone who plays the whole gamut: cheap indie titles up to eye watering AAA games.

Generally my experience over the last 15 years of building gaming PCs is.....you feel great when you save money and can run the things you expected to run. And then you're kicking yourself when a new game catches your eye and your system can't handle it well or at all because of one component or another.

Things to never skimp on:

-Power Supply
-Processor
-Graphics card
-Motherboard

Memory can be bought, upgraded and swapped easily as long as you got a mobo that is decently future proof. GFX cards are easily replacable too, but expensive. Especially when you're buying it just so you can play one game. Processors are not the kind of thing you want to fool with replacing often so buying one that will last is always a good idea. And the mobo is probably the most critical part, because it more than anything else determines how future proof your build will be.