Where to be dedicated graphics laptops in USA?

brisk

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Dec 26, 2006
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In the USA, need a gaming laptop with a good card like 730m. On a tight budget so don't want a 1000 dollar machine.

I looked at Newegg and Amazon but are there any other stores? Best Buy don't have anything, same with Tigerdirect and Walmart etc. They just sell integrated graphics.

Thanks
 

GSW

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Jun 8, 2013
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Based on my recent search for a laptop with a dedicated graphics card... it seems, that the brick and mortar retailers in the US, are not offering very good options when it comes to moderately priced laptops with dedicated graphics cards... I think the reason is that the Intel 4000 HD graphics is actually a pretty good integrated solution, and to beat it significantly , you have to move up to a fairly powerful GPU, and then you have t add cooling to keep it all cool, etc...

Bottom line, is I personally came the conclusion , that $1000 is about the starting point for a good laptop, with a dedicated graphics card. There are some slightly cheaper, but at some point if you start looking, it seems better just to bite the bullet and buy a $1000+ laptop.

Dell Outlet has refurbished Inspiron 17R special addition models for around $750... but I have yet to see a laptop I felt was worth buying in a local brick and mortar store. I did buy one of he 17R SE Dells for my wife, but I don't like 17" , too big and heavy, so I've been sill searching for my own laptop.
 

brisk

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Dec 26, 2006
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The only game I care about is CoD really. On a setting of high is ideal but mid-high is good. I don’t play all the latest and greatest games so don’t care for insane crysis graphics etc.

I want to spend as little as possible. It appears the Acer Aspire V3-571G-6622 with a 730m for 630 dollars is the best at the moment in terms of value. Are there any other machines which could do the job but cheaper?
 


While Intel have definitely improved upon their integrated graphics performance since the not too distant days of the GMA 4500M in such a short period of time (two generations HD 3000 and HD 4000), the Intel HD 4000 is still a fairly weak graphics core. It can beat nVidia's entry level GT 610m, and Trinity's integrated Radeon HD 7520m (and lower) graphic core, but that is not saying much.

The latest release of Haswell has further closed the gap against the integrated Radeon HD 7660D and HD 8670D (only a 2% - 3% over the HD 7660D) with the Intel HD 4600, but it is still considered a bit too weak to compete against mainstream value oriented discrete cards like the nVidia GT 730m.

Intel's Iris graphics solution (HD 5200 + eDRAM) seems very promising since it's performance appears to be equal to the nVidia GT 640 / GT 730m. However, that graphics solution may be a bit expensive.

Regards, many people who wants to play moderate games using Intel's integrated graphics should be thankful to Apple who has been prodding Intel for better iGPU performance for some time. That lead to the Intel HD 3000.