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Can't stop obsessing-- please help

J

jaygatsby9

Weaksauce
2FA
Joined
Dec 2, 2008
Messages
122
I'd like to buy a 17" in laptop for gaming. My budget is about $2000 (maybe slightly more). I've been going back and forth between asus, alienware, sager with different configurations (slower processor, with SSD; faster processor, faster videocard, regular hard drive; slower processor, faster videocard; etc.). I'm very tempted by this, especially since I can get it right away:
http://http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Gamers-G74SX-DH72-17-3-Inch-Gaming/dp/B005PAJICG/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1323271205&sr=1-1.

On the other hand, I configured this on Dell, which will allow me to get some money back via Upromise, but will take more time, and I'm concerned about the screen:
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dkcwvy1g&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=alienware-m17x-r3

Please help because I've been driving myself crazy. Thanks.
 
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I would go the Asus over the Dell in a heart beat.

The current Alienware laptops are junk, they flex like crazy(cheap plastic case/frame), run hot, and have some serious drivers issues.

This doesn't take Asus off the hook tho, they have had some quality issues and love that bloat ware 50mb ram eating per FN key button drivers programs(moot with 16gb of ram but sucked back when I only had 4gb).

I went MSI this round with their offering, I didn't go top of the line with the BR drive but I did get a new release i7-2870 and GTX 570m(smokes skyrim, max settings 60+ fps smooth as butter).
 
the dell sucks

they all suck

the ASUS sucks the least

everything sucks and nobody cares...maybe I'm just depressed...when does the sun come back?
 
I'm in the process of shopping for a gaming notebook too.

To me the Sager with a 6990m seems to be the best value. You can even get the 6990m in a 15.6 inch, which no other manufacturer I have found offers.
 
I just looked at thie one; when I checked Mainger before, it didn't have the AMD option.
Thoughts?

MAINGEAR eX-L 17 (laptop-eXL17-SB) - $2,146.75
Primary Display: 17.3" HD+ 16:9 LED Display (1920x1080) with Super Clear Screen (disp-8850-1920x1080)
Chassis: eX-L 17 Performance Chassis (case-exl17-sandybridge)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 2720QM 2.2GHz/3.3GHz Turbo 6MB L3 Cache GT2 (cpu-intel-i72720QM)
Graphics and GPGPU Accelerator: AMD® Radeon™ HD 6990M 2GB GDDR5 (gpu-p150hm-p170hm-6990m)
Memory: 4GB Kingston DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM (Dual Channel) (mem-4GBDDR3-1333so-dimm)
Hard Drive Bay One: 750GB Western Digital 7200 RPM SATA 2.5" (hdd-WD7500BPKT-750GB)
Memory Card Reader: All-in-One Integrated USB 2.0 Flash Card Reader & Writer (fcr-allinone)
Optical Drive One: 8X DVD Dual Layer Burner (optical-integratedlaptopDVD)
Network Adapter: On-board Gigabit Ethernet (nic-onboard)
Wireless Network Adapter: Integrated 802.11b/g/n Wireless - up to 300Mbps! (lan-integratedwireless)
Audio: Integrated High Definition Audio (audio-integratedHD)
Bluetooth: Integrated Bluetooth Technology Module (bluetooth-integratedintel)
Web Cam: Integrated 2.0MP Webcam (webcam-integrated2.0)
Primary Battery: 8-cell Li-Polymer battery pack 77Wh (battery-exl17sb)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (os-windows7-homepremium64)
Angelic Service Warranty: Lifetime Angelic Service Labor and Phone Support with 1 Year Hardware Warranty (warranty-1yearstandard)
Advanced Warranty: 30-day ZERO dead pixel guarantee (warranty-zeriopixelSG)
 
Maingear is just another Clevo reseller right?

Seems like a decent spec there, but I might increase the ram up from 4 to 8 or so. Not that it's really necessary, but it's cheap so why not.
 
If you guys are looking to do gaming a laptop is by far the worst way to go IMO. They heat up very easily even with cooling pad and replacing any part of a laptop is way more expensive to fix. Not to mention upgrading anything except RAM and the HDD is out of the question. Go with a desktop, its a way better way to go IMO.
-BTY
 
circaal said:
If you guys are looking to do gaming a laptop is by far the worst way to go IMO. They heat up very easily even with cooling pad and replacing any part of a laptop is way more expensive to fix. Not to mention upgrading anything except RAM and the HDD is out of the question. Go with a desktop, its a way better way to go IMO.
-BTY
Click to expand...

Well obviously I think everyone here knows that, and as you can see from my sig I have a gaming desktop.
 
I've had a desktop for the past ten years, the most recent one for three (it just died). I live in a two bedroom apt. in NY and when the desktop was taken out of our BR and put somewhere temporarily, my wife was extremely happy and, I must admit, it does make our small BR a little roomier. I don't need to play everything on super maxxed settings, but I would like to enjoy Witcher 2 and Skyrim at least on Medium, if not High. I don't do any on-line gaming, and I would think a laptop with at least a 560M and at least a 2670-QM should be sufficient. My wife recently said, "people who don't spend $3K on computers must still be able to play those games," and I think she's right. But I'm not familiar with laptops AT ALL (never even had a netbook), and that's why I'm looking for advice. I suppose the best solution would be to go to a shrink so I can stop obsessing, but that would coste even more.
 
jaygatsby9 said:
I've had a desktop for the past ten years, the most recent one for three (it just died). I live in a two bedroom apt. in NY and when the desktop was taken out of our BR and put somewhere temporarily, my wife was extremely happy and, I must admit, it does make our small BR a little roomier. I don't need to play everything on super maxxed settings, but I would like to enjoy Witcher 2 and Skyrim at least on Medium, if not High. I don't do any on-line gaming, and I would think a laptop with at least a 560M and at least a 2670-QM should be sufficient. My wife recently said, "people who don't spend $3K on computers must still be able to play those games," and I think she's right. But I'm not familiar with laptops AT ALL (never even had a netbook), and that's why I'm looking for advice. I suppose the best solution would be to go to a shrink so I can stop obsessing, but that would coste even more.
Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with gaming on a laptop don't worry about that.

560m will play pretty much anything on medium to high. Hell, even really midrange mobile GPUs like the GT 540m or HD 6770m will play most modern games on medium.
 
Well, in case anyone's interested, I decided to get an X-Cube from Maingear (10.6" X 8.3" X 15.4"), which ended up not only cheaper than the laptop I had configured, but much more powerful:


ORDER DETAILS UNIT PRICE TOTAL
======================================================================
QTY 1
SKU system-XCUBE-SS
PRODUCT X-Cube Super Stock
PRICE $1,472.00
Special Promotions: FREE - Just Cause 2
Special Promotions: $100 Instant Savings - Winter $-100.00
Savings!
Chassis: X-CUBE SFF Chassis - Black Included
Chassis Modification: Silverstone� FX121 Included
Crossflow Fan
Motherboard: Gigabyte� Z68MX-UD2H Featuring Included
USB 3.0, SATA 6G, Lucid Virtu
Processor: Intel� CoreT i7 2600K $177.00
3.4GHz/3.8GHz Turbo 8MB L3 Cache GT2
MAINGEAR Redline Overclocking Service: Intel� Included
Turbo Boost Advanced Automatic Overclocking
Processor Cooling: MAINGEAR Certified Intel&reg Included
Retail Cooler
Memory: 8GB Patriot� Division2 Viper Extreme $121.00
DDR3-1866 Enhanced Latency (2x4GB)
Graphics and GPGPU Accelerator: Visiontek� $252.00
RadeonT HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 [ENTHUSIAST]
Power Supply: 850 Watt Seasonic� X-850 80+ $131.00
Gold Certified Modular Power Supply ROHS
Hard Drive Bay One: 20GB Intel� 311 Series Included
SSD (w/ TRIM) [SSD Caching ONLY]
Hard Drive Bay Two: 1TB Seagate� Included
BarracudaT 7200.12 32MB Cache SATA 6G
RAID: Intel� Smart Response Technology Included
(requires SSD+Mechanical HDD)
Optical Drive One: 24X Dual Layer DVD RW Drive w/ Included
LightScribe Technology
Audio: 5.1+2 Channel High Definition Surround Included
Sound (Intel DP55WB)
Network Adapter: On-board Gigabit Ethernet Included
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Included
Premium 64-bit
Security Software: Microsoft Security Essentials
The Final Finesse: Designed, Manufactured, and Included
Supported in the USA - Flawless Craftsmanship and
Wire Management
Angelic Service Warranty: Lifetime Angelic Included
Service Labor and Phone Support with 1 Year
Hardware Warranty




Subtotal: $2,053.00
Less discounts used: (-$74.75)
Shipping Charges: $74.75
=====================
Total: $2,053.00

Hopefully, this post will help a fellow neurotic.
 
Last edited:
thought you wanted a 17inch?
i bought a MSI last year, and even with last gen. video card it still rocks most new games maxxed. and it's not a plastic piece of shit either. MSI makes a very nice lappy.
 
That system is kind of a rip off :\

You could have built a mATX rig yourself for about half the price. I just built the rig in my sig last month for $750, for comparison. But otherwise, specs look good.
 
Thanks for complementing the specs.
I never understand why people say "oh, you should build it yourself." If I thought I was competent enough to build a computer, I would. Part of what people who buy computers pay for is to have someone put it together for them. It's like saying: "Why did you buy that table when you could build one yourself?" Or "Why did you go to a restaurant and order hamburger when you can make that yourself?" People have different skills. For those of us without certain skills, we pay other people who have those skills to do things for us, just like other people pay us for the skills WE have.
I don't mean to rant, but I'm writing this on behalf of everyone who asks about buying a computer, and is told "it's cheaper to build it yourself, and really easy."
 
Building a computer is nothing like building a table, computers are more like putting together a Lego set.

The reason I went with a laptop is because I spend the week living at my place and weekend at my girlfriends and a few times a year I get sent cross country for work.
 
You've been here 3 years and don't know how to do: (CPU/motherboard/video card/OS)?

it's literally like a sammich -- just an extra part or two. Back on topic -- the last gaming/work/CAD laptop I had was a Dell XPS1710 it was good at the time for the work I did.

Best advice is get the minimum/cheapest hard drive/RAM you can upgrade those yourself for probably 1/2 of what they would charge you. And you can't complain you don';t know how to do the ram, if you can use a philips screwdriver and have ever played with legos you can start (and finish) in 5 minutes.

I don't know what the "total care" warranties are costing these days but if you throw out 2K for a laptop no matter what happens to it, it's going to be expensive. Might be worth it to consider spending a bit for "complete care" if you plan on keeping it more than a a year or two.
 
Best answer to the title of the thread (but not the spirit, really) is:

Click on the desktop, press ALT+F4 and then ENTER. :p

You're right, I haven't had enough caffeine today, how could you tell...?
 
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