Best bang for buck gaming laptop

[loverdose]

Hi all,

what would you say is the best bang for buck laptop available? I don't mind spending money, but I don't want to pay lots extra for only a little more performance.
For example : from what I can see 1333mhz memory is sufficient compared to 1600mhz, and the i7-2670 is the best performance per £ processor.

I was thinking something like this:



Chassis & Display
Optimus II: 15.6" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2670QM (2.20GHz) 6MB

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)

Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

Memory - Hard Disk
250GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD2500BEKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

Total : £769

To get the same laptop but with a 560m GPU would cost £1,090. That's £321 more for the 560m which seems crazy to me. Is it that much better? £1,265 for the 6990 or £1,418 for the 580m. All the benchmarks I've seen say the 6990 is better despite being cheaper.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[tom_gr7]

Looks good to me dude, but you be fancy a amd setup pc or do you specifically need a laptop?

 

[truegrace]

I've been reading a fair bit into cards and i think the 560m is about 30-40% increase compared to running a 555m.

By the same laptop are we talking same chassis, as last time I checked the optimus couldn't be configured with a 560, so part of the increase will be for the chassis I'd it is the vortex.

The 6990 does have very similar benchmarks to the 580, and obviously much cheaper. Apparently the 580 does run cooler, which is a very important factor, but imo doesn't out weigh the massive price increase.

 

[loverdose]

Looks good to me dude, but you be fancy a amd setup pc or do you specifically need a laptop?

Oh I'll be buying a new desktop when Ivy bridge comes out. This is for when I want to play games with my partner, lan parties or just in front of the tv.

 

[loverdose]

I've been reading a fair bit into cards and i think the 560m is about 30-40% increase compared to running a 555m.

By the same laptop are we talking same chassis, as last time I checked the optimus couldn't be configured with a 560, so part of the increase will be for the chassis I'd it is the vortex.

The 6990 does have very similar benchmarks to the 580, and obviously much cheaper. Apparently the 580 does run cooler, which is a very important factor, but imo doesn't out weigh the massive price increase.

You might be right about the ~40% increase.
I just found some benchmarks on notebookreview:
'On Ultra settings in starcraft 2 the 540m gets 18fps, the 555m gets 23 fps, the 560m gets 35fps, the 6990 gets 62 and the 580m gets 60. On Crysis2 high settings the 540m gets 27fps, 555m gets 38fps, the 560m gets 60fps, the 6990 gets 100fps and the 580 gets 100fps.

Nice fps.. but still... £782 for the 555m and £1090 for the 560m.. £308 more! :O

 

[truegrace]

You might be right about the ~40% increase.
I just found some benchmarks on notebookreview:
'On Ultra settings in starcraft 2 the 540m gets 18fps, the 555m gets 23 fps, the 560m gets 35fps, the 6990 gets 62 and the 580m gets 60. On Crysis2 high settings the 540m gets 27fps, 555m gets 38fps, the 560m gets 60fps, the 6990 gets 100fps and the 580 gets 100fps.

Nice fps.. but still... £782 for the 555m and £1090 for the 560m.. £308 more! :O

What chassis are you configuring with the 560 though? As just checked that the optimus can't have the 560 and the vortex can't have the 555 so a the price difference isn't a true comparison. I couldn't tell you for certain but I would put money on that the vortex 2 would be more expensive if you could just buy the chassis, maybe someone from pcs could give a rough price difference of the chassis

 

[loverdose]

Better webcam, ability to have 16gb RAM, bigger battery and a dvi-out port (irrelevent since it has hdmi out!). They're the only things I can see.

I think i've narrowed it down to these;
i7-2670qm, 8gb ram, nvidia 555m : £782.
i7-2670qm, 8gb ram, nvidia 560m : £1090.
i7-2670qm, 8gb ram, ati 6990 : £1,265.
(All 17" 1080p)

Not sure I trust the 6990 not to melt.. ati drivers seem a bit dodgy in my experience.

 

[truegrace]

If the 555m does everything you need it to the ya best bet is to stick to that and save some money, as the 6990 or 580 would probably be the best bet for future proofing at a much higher cost.
I myself am debating between a vortex with a 6990 or a viper with 580 sli. I did look at the optimus with a 555 but figured if I was spending that amount i might as well spend a bit more and buy something that should do me a bit longer.
I am not buying a desktop like yourself in the near future though so mine will be my only gaming machine apart from consoles.

 

[loverdose]

ahhh I think I am gonna kick myself in 2 years time if I pick the 555m instead of the 560m for the sake of £300.. >.<

 

[loverdose]

I've searched quite a bit, even been on the clevo website.
Can't really see much difference at all between the P170HM and W170HR besides the GPU, which I'm not sure is worth £320! The money saved will half go towards a whole new laptop by the time the 555m struggles!

 

[truegrace]

I Reakon a single 560 is £167 as thats the price increase to go from single to duel 560s in the viper. If the differences between the chassis mean nothin to you then def stick with the oprimus , as you said its a lot of extra money.
Another difference I know of between the 2 is the gpu being soldered in on the optimus, where as on the vortex its not. Again probably means nothing to you as I'm guessing the optimus motherboard can't support better carda anyway

 

[loverdose]

hmm... a friend suggested I wait for the 600m series GPUs.. said they would be much better and should be out soon :/

 

[truegrace]

Being announced on 6th Dec apparently, so probably after Xmas, at least by the time it has been built tested and shipped if pcs do get gold of them before Xmas

 

[loverdose]

Yeah that's not too far away at all actually.

 

[truegrace]

The new 6 series could also bump the price up a fair bit as well I guess, they are supposed to run cooler and faster though.
Swtor is fast approaching so not sure I can wait

 

[loverdose]

GeForce 600M series – Ready for launch on December 6
A leak has hinted NVIDIA’s plans about the new generation of notebook graphics chips from the company. We talked about the future GeForce 600M GPUs line earlier. Now more clearly, NVIDIA plans to launch 3 new graphics chips on December 6 in the GeForce 600M line. In theory, these chips will be based on the current Fermi architecture similar to GeForce GT 500M. The models that are going to be launched are GeForce 610M, GeForce GT 630M and GeForce GT 635M.

Nvidia GeForce 610M
The model GeForce 610M will be based on the GF119 core aimed at replacing GeForce GT 410M and 520M. It has 48 CUDA cores, memory bus of 64 bits and the code name N13M-GE1/3/5.

Nvidia GeForce GT 630M and 635M
GeForce GT 630M and 635M are variants of the current GT 555M, ie the chip used in modalities of GF106 with 144 CUDA cores, memory interfaces ranging between 128 – 192 bits, with a working frequency between 590 and 753 MHz.

These three models will open the season for the line GeForce 600 and will be completed with the models with Kepler architecture that will be released throughout 2012.

(Source - http://lenzfire.com/2011/11/nvidia-will-launch-its-geforce-600m-gpus-on-december-6-26124/ )