Replacing Gaming Desktop

A

anonuser

[H]ard|Gawd
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Preface: For the last 15 years I have been building computers in varying sized cases from huge towers weighing 60lbs to most recently a smaller (but still large) Antec 900. I have been an avid PC gamer and while I did play consoles, I always felt PC games were superior.

Well times have changed and for many game types, consoles are now the better choice. Never thought I'd be saying that... Not only have things changed drastically in the last few years, but the games I *would* like to play on PC end up being crappy ports or don't even get released. I've found myself playing less and less PC games and trying to get used to subpar FPS controls using a gamepad :rolleyes:

I've been running the same system for a couple years now, upgrading once and a while. It's a core2duo overclocked to 3.4ghz, 4gb ram, and a gtx 260 connected to a Westinghouse 37" and a smaller 20" LCD as a second monitor. I have been considering for a while the switch from a large power hungry desktop to a smaller, travel friendly laptop.

Here are the things I'm looking for:

- As small of a laptop I can get without sacrificing performance
- Port replicator or docking station (so I can still have two monitors, mouse, keyboard, speakers, usb dock, etc hooked up while at home)
- LED backlight
- The best possible video card for the size (looking forward to C&C4, SC2, and Diablo3)
- Good battery life (when not gaming)
- The possibility of removing the optical drive for a 2.5" HD or 2 2.5" drive bays (120gb+ ssd for OS/Apps/Games, large 2.5" magnetic drive for media)

At this point I would almost consider a macbook, but I'm really loving windows 7. Even though the new macbooks do have great battery life though I'd probably not do it... don't like OS X as much.

My only remaining issue with notebooks is that they aren't very expandable. I can last 4 years with a home built PC just swapping parts that break and upgrading when I deem necessary... only thing that has stopped me.

Has anyone gone this route? Any comments, advice, recommendations would be great.
 
your requirements contradict themselves:

you can't have "Best possible video card" and "good battery life" (unless ~70-90 minutes is good to you)

screen size will be 15" or larger, or you will lose a lot of performance very quickly

and it'll draw ~200W+ from its brick, or you give up a lot of performance

so generally ignoring the parts that can't work together, I'd throw in a vote for the Gateway FX 17", it'll do everything you want (well, here's the fun part: you can't predict performance for unreleased games, especially stuff thats far off like Diablo 3), will be about half the power of your desktop processing wise, you can lug it around, and its generally not a bad deal as a laptop/DTR goes

NOW
honestly I'd say keep wishing, and accept the big desktop for games, you might consider in your next build transitioning to an SFF type box and cutting power consumption and noise down there, but I would not at all suggest killing all upgrade routes to go with 12-18 month outdated hardware on a 10lb notebook that can reach the price of a quality used car (and will probably STILL be behind your desktop, at least until you break the $4000 barrier), and so on
 
"you can't have "Best possible video card" and "good battery life" (unless ~70-90 minutes is good to you)"

You are taking that out of context, I said "The best possible video card for the size" and "Good battery life (when not gaming)." Are there any laptops that can disable the 3d card and use lower power integrated graphics when not needed? Anything that throttles it down?


"screen size will be 15" or larger, or you will lose a lot of performance very quickly and it'll draw ~200W+ from its brick, or you give up a lot of performance"

There aren't any good 14" laptops that can do moderate gaming? Obviously I'm not looking for a hardcore gaming laptop, personally I think those are a waste of resources.


"so generally ignoring the parts that can't work together, I'd throw in a vote for the Gateway FX 17", it'll do everything you want (well, here's the fun part: you can't predict performance for unreleased games, especially stuff thats far off like Diablo 3), will be about half the power of your desktop processing wise, you can lug it around, and its generally not a bad deal as a laptop/DTR goes"

I definitely do not want anything close to the size of a 17" laptop. Obviously the best system would be an ultraportable gaming laptop that can dock, but that seems like a pipe dream so far. Taking a look at Blizzard's track record, you can predict that SC2 and Diablo3 will run very well on a broad spectrum of hardware... they make games that everyone can play.


"NOW
honestly I'd say keep wishing, and accept the big desktop for games, you might consider in your next build transitioning to an SFF type box and cutting power consumption and noise down there, but I would not at all suggest killing all upgrade routes to go with 12-18 month outdated hardware on a 10lb notebook that can reach the price of a quality used car (and will probably STILL be behind your desktop, at least until you break the $4000 barrier), and so on"

I know that this system will be behind in power in comparison to my two year old desktop, but I understood that going into it. What I'm saying is that I rarely use my current hardware to it's full capacity as it is. Thanks for the advice though, you may be right that it just isn't the right time to liberate myself from the big noisy desktop. I'm just at a point in my life where I have become very minimalistic and if I could have one system that did everything I wanted I'd be happier.
 
- you have to get at least a 15" laptop for a GeForce 9600M GT or ATI HD 4570 (or w/e their midrange is).
- You CAN get GeForce 9800m, GTX 260m, ATI 4850m, 3870m in 15" trim too though
- I'd stick with nVidia for a laptop though, much better driver support right now

I'd agree with anonuser though: try SSF if you want something smaller & more portable. A Core 2 Duo w/ GTX 260 is really a very power-efficient paring and a laptop will be hard pressed to do much better.

If you DO want a laptop: aim for a P-series Intel Core 2 chip (they have 25w TPD, T-series are 35w) and a 9600m GT card in 15" trip. MBP might look good but I've had back luck with Mac batterys (writing this from my MBP, 3 years old, on my 2nd battery and down to under 1hr battery life).

Look at MSI, Asus, Lenovo T500, Dell, and Sager, shouldn't take too long to look through their lists
 
I just can't seem to work up a good reply to this, but it really just doesn't sound like you want a laptop at all. You'd be better off sticking with a desktop.

If you're interested though, I am a laptop only user. When I moved over to only using a laptop, what I gave up was the desk, there aren't any desks in my house anymore, no more computer room. I use the laptop anywhere: in the living room, in the dining room, or out on the patio if it's a nice day; not to mention at work, at the coffee shop or friends houses when we want to get together for beer and games.

What the other posters said is right on, for gaming you're looking at the bigger laptops with less battery power.
 
Why not try the Dell Studio XPS with P8600 (2.4 GhZ), ATI Mobility HD 4670 (320 SP 1GB Mem), 4GB System Mem etc. The only problem you might have is it is a 16 inch wide screen laptop. I would recommend getting the 720p screen IF you plan to game on it because the video card only has a 128 bit memory interface and I doubt will play many games on the 1080p screen well. Not to mention I believe the 720p screen should draw significantly less power than the 1080p screen; however, the 1080p RGB screen is purdy. Bot screens are LED backlit by the way. The rig weighs 6.4 lbs with the 6 cell battery.
 
The 9600M GT is a decent card and it shouldn't have any trouble running games at 1440 x 900 assuming you don't crank AA up. I would recommend upgrading the CPU to the P8700 though. Also I see there is a 9650M GT I imagine its just higher core and memory clocks so I don't know if its worth the extra money. Also I can't say anything about the reputation of that company as I have never heard of them before.
 
well you say you like windows 7
do you want to game on the go, or will you be doing your gaming at home, hooked up to your monitor(s)?
if at home, you should check out the vidock 2 - theres a couple discussions about it over at nbr:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=397296
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=390634

what this does is allow you to use a desktop gaming graphics card with any laptop that has an expresscard slot. supposedly it works pretty well (the first link is a discussion by a regular guy that bought one - not marketing). there are many laptops out there that are smaller, lighter, and/or more portable that are very powerful machines - beefy cpu, fast hdd (or ssd), lots of RAM - but they don't have a good gpu. this fixes that.

currently the vidock 2 only has an ATI 4670 in it
but supposedly in a couple months they will release the "vidock 4 blank" which will allow you to use any pci-express desktop graphics card you like

supposedly they are seeing 3dmark scores of over 10k using the vidock 4 in beta testing
we'll have to see when it is released though
 
Cool. $380.00 kinda seems a bit much tho. Then again, relative to the overall price of a laptop, it's no more expensive than a PC is to a gaming card.
 
Cyclone said:
supposedly they are seeing 3dmark scores of over 10k using the vidock 4 in beta testing we'll have to see when it is released though
Click to expand...

Thanks for bringing this to my attention... looks awesome. This would solve all my problems and as long as I got a decent video card on the laptop I could still play some games while traveling for work. Then hit the large monitor and external video card at home... and even upgrade the videocard possibly.

Thanks... may have to wait to see what happens with this.
 
many lenovo laptops offer a switchable graphics option. Not doing anything intensive? Switch to integrated, enjoy a long battery life.

The T400 should be pretty good with the P series processor.
 
anonuser said:
Thanks for bringing this to my attention... looks awesome. This would solve all my problems and as long as I got a decent video card on the laptop I could still play some games while traveling for work. Then hit the large monitor and external video card at home... and even upgrade the videocard possibly.

Thanks... may have to wait to see what happens with this.
Click to expand...

BTW, i just noticed, i didn't see a power plug. You can probably plug in a full sized card and just leave the casing off if it doesn't fit, but is there a power supply in there?
 
Sly said:
BTW, i just noticed, i didn't see a power plug. You can probably plug in a full sized card and just leave the casing off if it doesn't fit, but is there a power supply in there?
Click to expand...

yes, there is a power supply in the vidock
people have already tried taking the casing off the vidock 2, putting in a more powerful card, and using a separate PSU to power the card
doesn't work unfortunately, for some reason

if we want the ability to use a more powerful card
we'll have to wait for the "vidock 4 blank"
which is a vidock that comes without a card and can take any card you want to throw at it
this is supposed to come out in the next couple of months, and it should be cheaper because it doesn't come with a card
of course, you also have to buy the card ;)
 
Sly said:
Cool. $380.00 kinda seems a bit much tho. Then again, relative to the overall price of a laptop, it's no more expensive than a PC is to a gaming card.
Click to expand...

aye - it is on the pricey side
if people in the discussions have a complaint about the vidock, its the price

however, once you buy it, i think it looks to work great
i'm waiting to pair a vidock 4 blank with some higher-end ati vid card and a lenovo t400s :cool:
 
This page indicates that they already have a version that comes without the video card in place. It doesn't really say that it has to be a 4670 (thought it doesn't explicitly say you can put any card in there). The buy link for the US only lists the $380 one with the 4670 in it already, but perhaps someone can find the empty version?
 
spadefoot said:
This page indicates that they already have a version that comes without the video card in place. It doesn't really say that it has to be a 4670 (thought it doesn't explicitly say you can put any card in there). The buy link for the US only lists the $380 one with the 4670 in it already, but perhaps someone can find the empty version?
Click to expand...

i can tell you that we will have to wait until the vidock 4 blank is released in a couple months in order to be able to install our own high-end cards
 
Could be, I"m not disagreeing with you, but it seems odd to make a product that only works w/ one video card and then sell a version w/o that card. Especially since it's a pretty cheap card.
 
I couldn't find anywhere on the viDock site that stated how it connects to the laptop...

does anyone know what type of slot you need?
 
spadefoot said:
Could be, I"m not disagreeing with you, but it seems odd to make a product that only works w/ one video card and then sell a version w/o that card. Especially since it's a pretty cheap card.
Click to expand...

i don't think there is actually a blank version of the vidock 2 available for purchase, despite what that site says

MTXR said:
I couldn't find anywhere on the viDock site that stated how it connects to the laptop...

does anyone know what type of slot you need?
Click to expand...

expresscard
 
MTXR said:
I couldn't find anywhere on the viDock site that stated how it connects to the laptop...

does anyone know what type of slot you need?
Click to expand...

I think someone earlier in the thread mentioned Expresscard
 
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