| 28 posts found | |
|---|---|
|
12/01/10 6:12:50 AM#21
Well I still can't beat this from Sony: VPCEC390X Intel® Core™ i5-460M processor (2.53GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 2.80GHz (Save $20 in Cart) $929.99 in cart
|
|
|
What do you all think of this one? http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/view.2/app.detail/params.item.E220516.desc.HP-156-Notebook-PC-w-6GB-RAM-500GB-HD-Intel-Core-i7 |
|
|
12/01/10 7:26:18 AM#23
The HP one is good. I still like the Sony one I posted a bit better but I would get this HP if going QVC. The Alienware one is overpriced but very good. |
|
|
12/01/10 12:44:07 PM#24
Originally posted by daddystabz Suppose that VIA were to come up with some super awesome video card technology that absolutely blows away the competition. Suppose that their intended "low end" card offered ten times the performance of anything else on the market, and it scaled all the way up to a high end card that offered a hundred times the performance of today's high end. Suppose that these cards cost about as much to manufacture as current GeForce or Radeon cards intended for the same market segment. How much do you think VIA would charge for these new miracle cards? Think they would charge $3000 for their low end card, and more for the higher end cards? That would cede basically the entire market to AMD and Nvidia, and they'd make basically no money if they did that. No, they'd want to make a lot of money, and so their low end card would have to be priced low enough that most gamers wouldn't just dismiss it out of hand as being too expensive. Maybe they'd charge $100 or $200 for it. Maybe they would charge thousands for their new high end cards, but the other cards in their new lineup would be priced lower to fill other market segments. There's nothing special about VIA here. I picked them for this example just so that people wouldn't have strong preconceptions about VIA as the sort of company that would do this or that. But if you replace VIA by AMD or Nvidia, the same analysis still holds. If you replace them by Intel building processors, the same analysis again still holds. Intel doesn't want to keep building old processor architectures forever. They want to stop building Penryn, Nehalem, and Westmere and move everyone building a new computer to Sandy Bridge. It's cheaper for Intel that way. They don't necessarily slash prices on older processors; they just introduce newer ones that are a better deal. Check here, for example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115130 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115067 The first processor is a lot more expensive. The second is a lot faster. The first isn't New Egg gouging you. They're just passing on how Intel prices them. Fairly credible rumors of Intel's pricing scheme for Sandy Bridge desktop processors have already leaked. Basically, Intel is going to charge the same for their new processor lineup as they did for their old processor lineup in each given market segment. Furthermore, Intel knows that once Sandy Bridge hits, they're going to be way ahead of AMD. But they probably only have four or five months before AMD catches up with Bulldozer. They want people to buy early in the year, so that people will buy Sandy Bridge from Intel. If they give people reason to wait for prices to come down, then once Bulldozer hits, Intel might have to cut prices lower than they'd like to in order to compete--and will probably lose a lot of sales to AMD that they would have gotten if the same people had bought earlier in the year. Intel makes $0 if you buy a processor from AMD. ----- I'd dismiss Sony laptops out of hand if you want to play games on them. Sony disables driver updates. Eventually you'll probably need to update your drivers for some reason, and if you have a Sony laptop, you won't be able to. Toshiba and Panasonic do that, too. |
|
|
12/01/10 1:04:00 PM#25
To the OP, I don't know what your budget is, but you're pointing to laptops in the $1000 range (at least, that's where the QVC one you first linked sat), so I'm going to assume that that's in the ballpark of what you want to spend.
With that in mind, there are *decent* options available for you righ now, not great, but decent. For $950, you can get the latest variant of the Asus N61JQ. The Radeon HD 5730 is a decently fast video card. It's essentially a slightly slower-clocked desktop 5650, but with DDR3 memory. It's definitely not high end, but I have an Asus N61JQ myself (with a slightly slower i7 720QM) and at 1366x768, I can play Crysis on mostly high settings (one or two things on medium), and get almost 30fps, which is honestly not too shabby. Here's a video of my machine playing the game posted awhile back on youtube (not by me), which has fraps running and starts with the game settings page so you can see what it's being played at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1w45_VuGZk COD Modern Warfare 2 not only runs at maximum settings fluently, but does so with the anti-aliasing turned on (at 4x it's a hair shy of fluent, but still pretty good, however I prefer keeping it at 2x just for the better framerate). As far as laptop CPUs go, you're also not going to get more powerful than the Core i7 740QM in your price range, pretty much no matter what. Asus also ships with a respectable 2-year warranty, but more importantly, if they're still doing it, they ship that model with a 1-year "accidental damage warranty", which isn't just a warranty, but actual insurance, in case you drop your computer in a pool one day. That's pretty good for a free add-on, and beyond what most companies give.
A more powerful gaming machine would be the MSI GX640. It can be gotten from Xotic PC for about $1150 after shipping and a thermal grease upgrade (I'd highly recommend the IC Diamond, because this machine WILL get hot, and having a better thermal compound will help there). That machine only has a Core i5 450, but that's still a pretty powerful mobile CPU (and really, the dual core will save power and produce a little less heat), and it has a much more powerful Mobility Radeon 5850, with GDDR5. In fact, that card is just slightly less powerful than the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (it's within ~10% according to Notebookcheck.net's tests). It also has a better 1680x1050 screen (yes, an actual return to 16x10 laptop screens! :D ). That'll basically negate the performance advantage of the 5850 gives over the Asus N61JQ's 5730, but the higher resolution is generally nicer, because the standard 1366x768 on most laptops is just NOT an adequate screen resolution for much of anything. I always feel cramped on my machine. Mind you, the battery life is not very good this machine either, and I'm not kidding when I say the MSI GX640 gets hot, especially internally. That said, MSI packs it with a 3 year warrant, and you're not going to be doing serious gaming on that machine after 3 years anyways; it'll just be too old to be worth it.
Now, all of this said, I will also say that Quizzical is entirely right. Better machines will be out shortly, and at this point, it's going to be better for you to wait a few months rather than buying laptops that are nearly a year old (both of these were unveilded at CES 2010 I believe) and aren't going to be around much longer. Sandy Bridge is just going to be a much better option. |
|
|
12/01/10 1:09:26 PM#26
I definitely wouldn't be buying a laptop right now with Sandy Bridge so close. The first ones are popping up righ tnow. If you can wait 1-2 months, you won't regret it and you'll get a much longer life out of your laptop. |
|
|
12/01/10 2:43:03 PM#27
I did al little looking around at this same topic a couple days ago. In adition to Sandy Bridge I found a little info about the ATI mobility 6300 and mobility 6500. But only found one laptop each, with the cards in them. I think that when Sandy Bridge comes out, you will also see these two cards in conjunction with the new Processors. That I beleive will mean more CPU power same temp, more GPU power same temp. My gut tells me 20%-30% greater performance in games, for the same price as the sales that are going on now. I just wish I could find enough to confirm my gut, in articles/benchmarks...etc. Really, ask yourself, what do you have to loose? The machines on sale now, will still be around then, and probably at similar prices And you may, end up with a platform that does even a bit more than you are willing to accept now, for the same price. Maybe just maybe add an SSD for 300, and really be grooving, as far as laptops go. And if not, if they do decide to charge a higher price in a depressed economy, which would be relatively stupid, then you still have the same options you have today, with a tax return right around the corner. Waiting would seem to be a win win. FTW? |
|
|
12/01/10 2:49:43 PM#28
There aren't huge gains in laptop video cards coming in the near future. I don't expect big gains in performance per watt on the same process node. Maybe they'll be able to offer something 10% better or some such (as Barts did as compared to Evergreen), but much higher performance will still mean much more heat. Realistically, the next new process node for video cards isn't coming until Summer, and possibly later. That's far enough away as to not be worth waiting for for most people who would like to buy something now. I guess it could be worth waiting for in the case of people who want to upgrade when a given level of performance is available, but not before that, as it wouldn't be enough of an upgrade over what they have. |
|
