Please Help me Find a Gaming Laptop under 650$

[aaceace]

Hello everyone and first of all thank you for taking the time to help me out. I'm Normally a Desktop Gamer With a Pretty Powerful Home Desktop PC. I'm taking on a new job where I'll be traveling a lot, so I wont be able to spend much time gaming on my desktop. I'm basically a complete Noob when it comes to laptops and Mobile Graphics cards ect... I've tried to do a little research and I'm completely overwhelmed. I don't know whats good or what I should get. Any Suggestions to what is the best system i can get for under 650$ would be greatly appreciated. As you can see I'm not picky about brands as long as it offers good graphics and good performance I'll be happy! thanks again


1. What is your budget? No More than 650$

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? not important

3. What screen resolution do you want? something 16:9

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Portable

5. How much battery life do you need? will be attatched to AC adapter

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? Latest games, Star Wars The Old Republic, World of Warcraft, Dead Island medium-high settings

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) Only Gaming

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? not really important

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. where ever i can get the best deal, I usually Buy from tigerdirect.com, Newegg.com or Amazon.com

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 2-3 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Not Important

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. Any Reputable Brand will be fine

13. What country do you live in? USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I'm basically trying to get the Best Performance for Gaming, I'm completely overwhelmed trying to find a gaming laptop

 

[or-ex]

I would get something reliable and that looks good at the same time with good performance.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215161 Cheap for the performance, but not as reliable as the rest.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246156 very reliable and looks good 30+$

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230096 pretty reliable, looks very good, better performance than the rest (gt 540 gpu) and 50$ over budget

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152264 average reliability, same performance as the asus, and 40$ rebate 10$ over budget.


Now, if i were you i would save 50$ more and get the asus. 1 it has better performance than the acer and the lenovo, 2 it has better reliability than the msi. 3 it looks better than the msi.
that's just my opinion...

 

[k1114]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230098 A little less performance than the 540m but fits in your budget.

 

[aaceace]

thanks for the quick response... I know this one is Refurbished.. But what do you guys think about this one?

http/www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Factory-Refurbished+Pavilion+Laptop+/+AMD+Phenom%26%23153%3B+II+X3+Processor+/+17.3%22+Display+/+6GB+Memory+/+640GB+Hard+Drive+-+Argento/2992332.p?id=1218370117791&skuId=2992332

 

[thesnappyfingers]

GPU is quite weak

here are the benchmarks, scroll down to see the game benchmarks.

http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6370M.40970.0.html

I think it will be quite tough to find a 16:9 gaming laptop for less than 650.

 

[k1114]

The 6370 is about as good as the integrated intel hd 3000 (which can be found in much cheaper $400 laptops). Either will only play most games on low. I should've posted benchmarks earlier but here.
http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6370M.40970.0.html
http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6650M.43962.0.html
$50 for the on that I suggested with a quad core(which turbos to 2.3ghz so is technically higher clocks) plus twice as much gpu performance is well worth it imo, not to mention it's also new.

 

[thesnappyfingers]

Reflecting upon your needs, I don't think it is possible to play latest games at medium to high settings at 16:9, while also "future proofing" for 2-3 years with the budget of 650.00.

I will attempt to find something.

 

[aaceace]

any help would be appreciated

 

[QuakerOM]

I'm on the exact same budget as you and I was considering getting this one
http/www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Laptop+/+AMD+A-Series+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+8GB+Memory+/+640GB+Hard+Drive+-+Dark+Umber/3441067.p?id=1218402870055&skuId=3441067

What do you guys think?

 

[thesnappyfingers]

Quake it has a slightly better gpu in it, but it still is not a gaming laptop.

here are the benches
http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6620G.54675.0.html

It is also not 16:9 screen resolution, but that is personal preference.

 

[jaguarskx]

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? Latest games, Star Wars The Old Republic, World of Warcraft, Dead Island medium-high settings

With a $650 budget, you are not going to find a laptop that can play games at high settings. At best it will be medium if you are talking about recently released games and it will go down from there as the years pass.

Based on your budget the best graphics card you can probably get is either an AMD Radeon HD 6650 or nVidia GeForce GT 540M.

I have a Lenovo IdeaPad Y470 with a nVidia GeForce GT 550m which is fine for medium graphic settings, but with high graphic settings games typically run between 18 FPS - 24 FPS on average. Playable, but not ideal.

 

[thesnappyfingers]

you can get a refurbed asus g51vx-rx05 or a g60vx from tiger direct for 550.00. it is not 16:9. it has an older cpu. but it has a gtx 260, which is a pretty good gpu. best cpu for this laptop is th t9900 or x9100.

the laptops can run hot, but there are several solutions to minimize the heat

http/www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5753605

here are the benches for gtx 260m, the cpu is a p8600@2.4ghz

http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-260M.14559.0.html

 

[aaceace]

Best answer selected by aaceace.

 

[aaceace]

thanks for all the help i decited to go with k114