Help with finding a laptop that can support gaming

[Blazingdragoon04]

Asus has quite good phone customer service, their website sucks though, and you'll also find that a lot of stores that sell Asus products themselves have shitty customer service, but that shouldn't be confused with Asus themselves.

As far as CPUs in a laptop go, you're usually going to be doing quite well, it's the GPUs that'll hamstring you. Even if you get a good amount of dedicated VRAM, you'll probably still end up with a card that has a 64-bit memory bus, which ends up making things rather slow. Don't settle for anything less than a 128-bit memory bus, and you'll be fine in the graphics department.

That means for GeForce GPUs you want a 220M or higher, 320M or higher or 415M or higher, and a 460M would be ideal.

For Radeon you want a 3650 HD or higher, 4650 HD or higher, HD 550v or higher, HD 5165, HD 5650 or higher or HD 6530 or higher.

I don't think you're going to get to be choosy about anything beyond that, so just see what you can find that fits those requirements.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006741+50001315+600029658+600004416+600004666&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=-1&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006741+50001315+600029658+600004416+600004690&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=-1&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220899

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006741+50001315+600029658+600004416+600082455&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=-1&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006741+50001315+600029658+600004416+600004666&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=-1&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220951

Fit your price range and have sufficient graphics power to be viable desktop replacements. I kept the resolution at 1366x768 so that things would be more reasonable on the GPU as well. If you're not running high res, you can afford to have the slightly reduced power a mobile GPU has.

Wow, thats a lot, I'll have to look at all of those and compare them. As for their service, I think I am just biased from the Newegg reviews, some of which recount terrible stories of being basically told "too bad about your broken computer/component" by their phone support.

 

[Najos]

Step 1: Sign up for Newegg and Tigerdirect newsletter/sale e-mail things.

Step 2: Wait for an e-mail with a laptop with specs you like on sale.

Step 3: Buy it.

I just bought an Acer laptop for my wife for 400 bucks. Sure, she doesn't need it for games or anything, but its is actually good enough to run what you listed at reasonable speeds.

 

[migo]

Yeah, if someone spends $500-$1000 on something and it breaks, even if it's their fault they feel they're owed something. If you don't purchase accidental damage protection though, you're SOL. Asus laptops have the lowest failure and repair rate of any manufacturer, so any time it is a defect they'll fix it (although there's no guarantee of overnight shipping and the like, as you'd get from Falcon-NW), so you might be without a system for a while.

If having constant uptime is a concern, then the Dell XPS might also be an option as long as you purchase accidental damage protection and in home service for 3 years. If you've got a problem they'll send someone to your house to fix it, and that rather negates the concerns of Dell quality (it also makes you think they slack on quality control to make the extra service purchase pretty much the only option).

 

[migo]

Speaking of Falcon-NW, you can get a TLX for just under $1500 that would meet your needs, and their overnight shipping included in the 1-year warranty should handle any of your concerns when it comes to service.

 

[psicat]

For another option there is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152203