Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp

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Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - LochnarITB - 11-02-2005

I am in need of a new computer, and it needs to be a notebook. I want it to run WoW currently, and anything coming in the next couple years. The preferred specs would be:

- notebook
- <$3000 (2000-2500 would be better but I doubt it's possible)
- Pentium 4 3+ Ghz
- nVidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX (step down to 6800 might fly)
- 2 gig
- 60+ gig SATA drive
- CD writer/DVD player
- WSXGA (prefer WUXGA)
- windows XP home

I was strongly looking at Sager, but I found WidowPC also. They seem to price out very close. Alienware seems to get pretty poor reviews for their notebooks and customer service, so they are out. Dell and Gateway seem to only run Pentium M chips in their laptops. Even though I've seen info saying an M has the same horsepower as a 4 at nearly twice the processor speed, laptops using them don't seem to offer the top end graphics cards and drives, possibly because of the power they draw compromising the low power intention of the M.

Has anyone here bought gaming laptops from any of these companies? Has anyone used a Pentium M laptop for gaming? Any input you have, good or bad, on your experience with any of this would be appreciated. Deciding what I want is the first step. Then, I need to figure out how to come up with the finances. :blink:

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - TheWesson - 11-03-2005

LochnarITB,Nov 2 2005, 06:41 AM Wrote:I am in need of a new computer, and it needs to be a notebook.  I want it to run WoW currently, and anything coming in the next couple years.  The preferred specs would be:

- notebook
- <$3000 (2000-2500 would be better but I doubt it's possible)
- Pentium 4 3+ Ghz
- nVidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX (step down to 6800 might fly)
- 2 gig
- 60+ gig SATA drive
- CD writer/DVD player
- WSXGA (prefer WUXGA)
- windows XP home

I was strongly looking at Sager, but I found WidowPC also.  They seem to price out very close.  Alienware seems to get pretty poor reviews for their notebooks and customer service, so they are out.  Dell and Gateway seem to only run Pentium M chips in their laptops.  Even though I've seen info saying an M has the same horsepower as a 4 at nearly twice the processor speed, laptops using them don't seem to offer the top end graphics cards and drives, possibly because of the power they draw compromising the low power intention of the M.

Has anyone here bought gaming laptops from any of these companies?  Has anyone used a Pentium M laptop for gaming?  Any input you have, good or bad, on your experience with any of this would be appreciated.  Deciding what I want is the first step.  Then, I need to figure out how to come up with the finances. :blink:
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Don't get a Pentium 4 for gaming. Don't get a P4 laptop.

P4's are outperformed by Pentium M and Athlon/A64 for gaming purposes (those chips 'like' executing game code.)

P4's are too hot and power hungry to be a good laptop chip. They'll bake your lap and the battery will die after an astonishingly short time.

Pentium M's have excellent power consumption and Athlon XP-M (mobile edition) are pretty good.

anyhow I just went to Dell and clicked on gaming and found a good gaming laptop immediately:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/con...=iMX170S1&s=dhs

edit:
that one you can get with a geforce go7800 gfx card and a 60 GB 7200 RPM HD; seems pretty good to me.

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - --Pete - 11-03-2005

Hi,

Alienware has a nice line of laptops well in your price bracket. And they are indeed game machines, from the reports I've read. They are a bit on the 'boat-anchor' end of the weight scale and have pretty limited battery life, but that is going to be true of any 'laptop' with the specs you are looking for.

Falcon Northwest also makes heavy duty gaming laptops, but they might be out of your price range.

Both companies offer a great range of options, including the most important ones like CPU, memory, video card and hard drive.

If I wanted a gaming laptop (or desktop and didn't want to build it myself) these two would be my first choice, based on years of reviews. Each company has a great reputation for the quality and performance of their product as a gaming machine.

I would not buy a laptop for gaming from any other manufacturer without a demo of the games I wanted to play on it. The specs might be right, but the implementation might make the specs moot.

Just my 2 gp.

--Pete

EDIT: PS, You don't say why you need a laptop. But have you considered a small factor PC with an LCD monitor? To play games with a laptop, you usually need to add a headset and a pointing device. Plus you need to carry a power brick. Which gives you a weight and volume nearly the same as the small factor system. But the small factor system lets you get some of the high ticket items from cheaper sources (e.g., the monitor). And, if you care to, you can always build it yourself at a savings of about 20% or more from what a computer house would charge for an *identical* system. You would get to cherry pick the best components for the performance you need within your budget.

Again, just my 2 gp

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - LochnarITB - 11-03-2005

TheWesson,Nov 2 2005, 07:06 PM Wrote:anyhow I just went to Dell and clicked on gaming and found a good gaming laptop immediately:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/con...=iMX170S1&s=dhs

edit:
that one you can get with a geforce go7800 gfx card and a 60 GB 7200 RPM HD; seems pretty good to me.
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It does look like a nice machine. However, it prices out as the most expensive of the 3. With P4 630s on the sager and widowpc, PM 760 on the dell, bump to DVD writer on the widowpc to match the other two (currently a free offer on the dell and only option on the sager), and 60 GB 7200 ATA-100 on the dell with 80GB SATA-150s on the other 2, the prices are sager($2779) < widowpc($3413) < dell($3542).

Pete,Nov 2 2005, 07:28 PM Wrote:Alienware has a nice line of laptops well in your price bracket.

Falcon Northwest also makes heavy duty gaming laptops, but they might be out of your price range.

EDIT: PS, You don't say why you need a laptop.
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Alienware has always gotten great reviews for their desktop units. The reviews I've found for their laptops are less than glowing though. While the hardware is solid, once you get it in your hands, order filling and shipping and customer service seem to be a real issue for many people. Falcon was, indeed, significantly more expensive. I think one of the reasons for it is that their automotive paint finish is now standard on them, rather than the pricey option it used to be.

The laptop I am using right now was purchased in march, 2003. It was, in effect, buying my sanity. I was 23/7 in a nursing home bed. I have been home since the end of 2003, but the medical issues persist. I spend most of my day in a recliner to keep my legs raised. Sitting for long hours at a desk is a big no-no. Thus, the laptop and the reason even a small form factor desktop wouldn't work. If there was a keyboard with a flip up LCD display (mimicking a laptop), even a full size box would work great.

Heat was an issue with this machine initially. I got large bruises on my legs from the constant heat. I have since bought a lap table designed to insulate the laptop bottom from me. It works very well. Power is also not an issue. I rarely, if ever, use it on battery power. In fact, I think I killed this battery because it was almost never unplugged.

If I were to purchase one this minute, I would probably go with the widowpc. I would probably get the DVD reader, not the writer. I would get windows XP home rather than media. I might even go with 1 gig rather than 2 to get the price closer to the sager. I might also try to use the widowpc like hardware price match guarantee to see if they would match the sager. The reviews I've seen on the widowpc are glowing for their customer service, a big issue given problems I had with that on this machine. They also say they include the disks for the OS (but I'm not sure about the other software), where the other 2 only seem to give you recovery disks. The machine was also given 4.5/5 stars and an editor's choice award in CGW's march issue. If all that wasn't enough, the pictures of the display on their site use scenes from WoW! :lol: However, with such a big price difference, going with sager might be necessary to actually have a chance of justifying the purchase.

Wow, I've been writing this and digging through sites for a couple hours. I am practically drooling at the thought of buying one of these. I don't know that I can actually afford to do it but I don't know if my sanity can afford not to buy one. Hmmm....

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - Doc - 11-03-2005

Not much help on the laptop issue, but I have a recliner at my desk. I have a little tray table thingy that swings out over my lap that holds my keyboard. The desk is custom made. I have bad legs too.

The desk sits somewhat high and is quite deep. Deep enough for a recliner to swing up under it. I do all my work here and spend considerable time at my desk. The monitor sits a little high and points downward. I can lay my head back on the head rest when I am tired and still see quite well.

I tried a laptop for a while and while I liked it a good bit, the small 1024x768 screen resolution drove me BONKERS. I simply must have, at minimum, 1600x1200 resolution, but 1920x1080 is nice too for the wide screen effect. I usually work with huge spreadsheets open, and dozens of applications open and all kinds of windows. Email, browser, text editor, a graphic editor, pretty much everything. And a laptop is always just to cramped.

Instead of spending to much on a laptop, spend a little on a good custom made desk.

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - LochnarITB - 11-03-2005

Doc,Nov 2 2005, 11:41 PM Wrote:Instead of spending to much on a laptop, spend a little on a good custom made desk.
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Geez, Doc! Now I have to think about that too. I had dismissed the desk idea some time ago. However, it brings another idea to mind. Space is limited for me. There is a small table next to the chair. I can envision a custom cabinet in its place. It could have space for the box and a lamp, as well as additional storage. It could have one of those swing arms that hold an LCD monitor and a wireless keyboard and mouse would round out the system. I could build such a killer machine for so much cheaper that way, but I guess I need to weigh that against the possible future need to actually use it in battery mode, at least for the short amount of time the battery could drive such a laptop.

Heh, when I saw that you had replied, I really expected to see you pimping macs. :) I had thought about that too. For a long time, I avoided PCs* at all costs. I started my home computing with an Apple II+ and moved from there to Amigas. However, once I moved into the IT world for employment, my computing purity was forever sullied. Now I just see all the options, both hardware and software, going the PC route.

*The term PC shall henceforth refer to a Microsoft operating system running on Intel hardware, and not to superior operating systems and hardware platforms which also may be described as personal computers. ;)

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - Fragbait - 11-03-2005

"P4's are too hot and power hungry to be a good laptop chip."

- I'll second that. Bought myself a P4 2.66 GHz Acer 2 years ago, and I can tell you: The processor gets really quite hot in no time. The fan seems to be underpowered, because on occasions the notebook just hangs-up and I have to reboot manually (in ages of WinXP - would you believe it), yet it is loud as hell. Watching DVDs / playing games without headphones with this one - no fun.
Can't say anything about AMD chips, but even a celeron in the old days was better in the performance/noise ratio. I'd definitely go with an other processor if I were to buy a new notebook now. Others may be of more help than I.

Greetings, Fragbait

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - Alram - 11-03-2005

I bought a gaming laptop from Dell a couple of years ago. ATI leaves driver upgrades up to the notebook manufacturer, and Dell did not upgrade the drivers. As a result I could not run the latest version of Thief; I tried.

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - Fragbait - 11-03-2005

LochnarITB,Nov 3 2005, 06:55 AM Wrote:*The term PC shall henceforth refer to a Microsoft operating system running on Intel hardware, and not to superior operating systems and hardware platforms which also may be described as personal computers.  ;)
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Gee, I'm not trying to convince someone here, am I?

As I said, I'm gaming on a P4, but here I came up with a most useful (I hope) link:
well - the link.
This might want you to alter your decision if you choose some of the latest games as benchmarks, because AMD cpus lead in many comparisons.

Greetings, Fragbait

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - Drasca - 11-03-2005

I'd go desk :D

What can I say? I'm a fan of expensive desks that make me feel good. Cost wise, it just might get you better results to boot.

Do me a favor, and go on a Desk Safari!

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - LochnarITB - 11-05-2005

Fragbait,Nov 3 2005, 08:01 AM Wrote:Gee, I'm not trying to convince someone here, am I?
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I was just trying to stave off the inevitable poster that follows my statement with "Macs are personal computers therefore they are PCs" even though PC is the colloquial label for a Microsoft/Intel(AMD) platform.

Drasca,Nov 3 2005, 12:34 PM Wrote:Do me a favor, and go on a Desk Safari!
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If I am able to afford a new machine, it will probably only be by going this route. I do still drool over a monster machine laptop. There is just something about having that much power in your lap and ready to go when necessary. :whistling: :lol:

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - Doc - 11-05-2005

Actually, PC is politically correct. A personal computer is a peecee. :D

And no, that's not pee, as in piss, a slam on computers. It's just peecee. Spell it like you say it.

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - DeeBye - 11-05-2005

Doc,Nov 4 2005, 09:48 PM Wrote:Actually, PC is politically correct. A personal computer is a peecee.  :D

And no, that's not pee, as in piss, a slam on computers. It's just peecee. Spell it like you say it.
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My son calls it a "puber". According to him, it's pronounced Pew-BRRR.

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - Munkay - 11-05-2005

DeeBye,Nov 5 2005, 12:04 AM Wrote:My son calls it a "puber".  According to him, it's pronounced Pew-BRRR.

Hopefully he pronounces his "r's" well, otherwise... :wacko:

My little nephew likes to say Pew-Tuh. Which always ends up sounding more like Pew-Duh. Though, it may just be the effect of the Massachusettes accent.

Cheers,

Munk

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - Thecla - 11-06-2005

Personally, I love laptops, so don't listen to any of those desktop naysayers.

A Pentium M is just fine for gaming, and as others have said it's a much, much better laptop chip than the obsolete P4. My advice -- don't consider any laptop with a P4.( I've no experience with the AMD chips, but some of them might be an option too.) The graphics card and hard-drive speed are usually a much bigger bottleneck on laptops than the cpu anyway.

The other piece of advice I'd give is to look pretty skeptically at the boutique gaming laptopss. There are a limited number of laptop manufacturers, and most of the boutique models are based on a standard chasis that you can get elsewhere for much less. At least, before you plunk down a lot of money for one, figure out what model a laptop is based on, how solid that model is really is (reviews, especially reviews of new bleeding edge laptops, are often unreliable and overly full of praise, and resellerratings.com doesn't always tell the whole story), and what it --- or a similar model --- would cost from a mainstream source.

I don't have any personal experience with the companies you mention, but Sager seems to have a good reputation, while I would avoid WidowPC, and I've read a lot of complaints about Alienware...

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - TheWesson - 11-08-2005

LochnarITB,Nov 2 2005, 08:17 PM Wrote:It does look like a nice machine.  However, it prices out as the most expensive of the  3.  With P4 630s on the sager and widowpc, PM 760 on the dell, bump to DVD writer on the widowpc to match the other two (currently a free offer on the dell and only option on the sager), and 60 GB 7200 ATA-100 on the dell with 80GB SATA-150s on the other 2, the prices are sager($2779) < widowpc($3413) < dell($3542).
[...]
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I hear that buying from Dell is like buying a pizza, in that the 'real price' is the coupon/sale price (since they have promotional bargains so often.) Don't buy a pizza w/o a coupon and don't pay regular price at Dell. This is what I was told after buying a relatively expensive Dell laptop at work.

If you're not in a hurry, you could sign up for Dell's mailing list (they mail out offers a lot) or just drop into the website every few days, I suppose - must be some way to track their bargains.

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - martini - 11-15-2005

TheWesson,Nov 8 2005, 05:56 PM Wrote:I hear that buying from Dell is like buying a pizza, in that the 'real price' is the coupon/sale price (since they have promotional bargains so often.)  Don't buy a pizza w/o a coupon and don't pay regular price at Dell.  This is what I was told after buying a relatively expensive Dell laptop at work.

If you're not in a hurry, you could sign up for Dell's mailing list (they mail out offers a lot) or just drop into the website every few days, I suppose - must be some way to track their bargains.
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Like this? :)

I run WoW on a brand new Dell Inspiron 9300 that I got when the video card on my 8100 died. It's has a 1.8PM chip, 256MB Nvidia 6800 card, and 1GB of RAM (for Ironforge), and a 17" WUXGA screen. I'm basically running WoW at 1920x1200, with all of the video options turned up, and with a great frame rate and very fast load time in IF. But, the options are pretty much the most expensive you can get on the 9300, so waiting for sales or coupons is a good idea. Sadly, Dell Canada doesn't do the 30% coupons the way that Dell US does. Best of luck with your decision!

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - LochnarITB - 11-16-2005

martini,Nov 15 2005, 02:38 PM Wrote:Like this? :)

I run WoW on a brand new Dell Inspiron 9300...
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Thanks for pointing this out. That sounds like a pretty nice machine. I have a question about it too. How do you like the WUXGA screen? Do you run your desktop at the top resolution and, if so, do icons and labels become too small on it or is there a way to increase their size? If you run it at a lower resolution, do things on the desktop get fuzzy from not being at the native resolution? I was thinking about WSXGA because of the concern of the resolution being too high on the other.

Trying hard to convince myself to buy a new comp - martini - 11-21-2005

LochnarITB,Nov 15 2005, 08:22 PM Wrote:Thanks for pointing this out.  That sounds like a pretty nice machine.  I have a question about it too.  How do you like the WUXGA screen?  Do you run your desktop at the top resolution and, if so, do icons and labels become too small on it or is there a way to increase their size?  If you run it at a lower resolution, do things on the desktop get fuzzy from not being at the native resolution?  I was thinking about WSXGA because of the concern of the resolution being too high on the other.
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Sorry I didn't get back to this post for a bit, I've been really busy at work lately.

I run the screen at 1920x1200, including in WoW (it's awesome, since it gives you extra peripheral vision over what you get in-game with a 1600x1200 screen). Personally, I love the increased screen real-estate, and you can change your dps setting (actually, Dell changes it to 120, or "Large Fonts" when they ship it to you), which will make everything larger. I also used a registry edit to fix the way that the higher dps setting goofs around with pictures.

There are a couple of times when the screen size is a pain, like some internet sites that are graphics-heavy will only take up 1/2 of the screen. You can set up IE to "Ignore font sizes specified on web pages", but that's not always a good option (i.e. on the WoW official site, it makes the menu entries on the left so large that they overlap and aren't useable anymore), so I sometimes end up flipping it on and off. Also, the software that I use to connect to work runs in an 800x600 window, and isn't re-sizeable, so that's a pain on the larger screen, since my email is very small. But it keeps me from spending too much time doing work at home! :P

If you're unsure if you'll like the WUXGA, I'd say that the WSXGA is probably a better bet. You don't want to use the screen below its native resolution, it'll look bad. But I love the higher resolution, and wouldn't have bought a laptop that didn't have it.

Feel free to PM me, or bug me in-game if you have any more questions. Good luck with your decision!