Would this be a good deal for a gaming laptop?

[davidrogan60]

So a buddy of mine is selling his freshly bought Sager laptop..for $900! Heres the specs;

Model: NB9170
17.3" Full HD LED-Backlit Display with Matte Finished Surface (1920 x 1080)
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.40GHz)
12GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 X 4GB
Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX GPU with 4GB GDDR5 Video Memory
(Intel® Core™ processor and the fastest notebook GPU from NVIDIA -- the GeForce GTX 675M along with NVIDIA Optimus Technology.)
120GB Intel 520 Series SATA3 Solid State Secondary Disk Drive
500GB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive
Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module
IC Diamond on CPU + GPU
Backlit Changeable LED color keyboard

So, what should I do...Im looking to game.

 

[sevacallDOTcom]

It seems like a reasonable buy, but you might want to look into the cost of an equally spec'd desktop. If you're going to be gaming a laptop's battery will always be spent.

 

[Pyree]

It's a steal. Buy it before it is too late.

 

[davidrogan60]

Do you think this would last me 2-3 years of gaming though? I play WoW

 

[kyleis]

Where abouts does he live? If you don't want it.. I might.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Laptops will always fall behind a little faster but that's a good deal.

 

[Pyree]

Yes, you will be fine gaming on that laptop for 2-3 years. That card is around a desktop GTX 650 Ti

 

[KernalPanic]

How is a $1400-$1500 price with the same gpu (675mx) or one step better(7970m) a better deal than a $900 laptop with a 675mx?

The OP lists a 675mx, then mentions a 675m... be careful, the 675mx is a step and a half better than the 675m. If the laptop has a 675mx, its an incredible deal ($500 off). If its a 675m, its an OK deal. (about $100-200 off)

The 675mx is an underclocked Desktop 660, with slower GDDR5 on 256-bit memory interface. Early benchmarks place it at 4500P in 3dmark11. (it will perform between the desktop 650ti and 660.)

675mx
960 cores @600MHz (48bil textures/sec)
256-bit GDDR5 (115.2 GB/sec)

660
960 cores @980MHz (78.4bil textures/sec)
192-bit GDDR5 (144.2GB/sec)

650ti
768 cores @928MHz (59.2bil textures/sec)
128-bit GDDR5 (86.4 GB/sec)

The 675m is a rebranded 580m... thus it's an underclocked 560Ti. About 3600P 3dmark11.


As for what the laptop can do, the one with the 675mx (the better one) is roughly the same (within 10%) as a desktop i5/560Ti. There won't be anything you cannot play, even at 1080p. You might just have to set it to ultra, but drop the antialiasing to 2x instead of 4x... The only exception will be machine-munching games like Witcher 2 or Metro 2033.

If its the 675mx, I'd get it without hesitation. Worst case resell it for more.
If its the 675m, I'd counter-offer a bit lower.

Yes, you could build a better desktop... but don't forget you'd have to count a screen.
(which the laptop includes)