Best gaming laptop under $650

[Marknate24]

Hay everybody, I was looking for a good gaming laptop for KSP, BF3 and other 3d games. I stumbled upon this, acer aspire v3 551g-x419,http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00AYT8H3Y/ref=aw_d_dsc_pc/181-4587757-5739642.

The price varies from $500 to $630 due to sales.

Anyone have any other recommendations?

[rpayne88]

Who's dollars. You are NOT going to get a gaming laptop for $650 USD unless there is something wrong with it. My Inspiron 17R SE cost me $1300 USD direct from Dell. You may be able to get a decent desktop, though. I never really looked into desktops since I don't have the space for one.

[The Destroyer]

Yeah I have a Cyberpower GAUsomenumber gamer ultra, ($500)it runs KSP OK, Minecraft ultimate, Take on mars max, GTA IV med, but I don't think it can run BF3.

It might.

[SGT_RIZZO300]

Yeah I have a Cyberpower GAUsomenumber gamer ultra.

Yay another Cyberpower user!

Anyway my I have never heard of getting a high performance laptop for less then 700 USD. Also do you need it to be a laptop? You could probably get a desktop model cheaper.

[nhnifong]

It's not a good use of your money to get a gaming laptop for $650 dollars. Better to save it up and build a desktop when you've got around $1200

"gaming laptop" is a bit of an oxymoron anyways.

[EvilotionCR2]

http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/K95VJ/ you can find one under 650 dollars I think...

[Levelord]

Ladies, do you like my gaming rig?

[Sean Mirrsen]

"Gaming laptop" is no more of an oxymoron than a "handheld console". You might think it makes no sense (a console is called a console because it attaches to a TV), but that doesn't stop them from existing and thriving on the market.

[lammatt]

notebooks and gaming are not meant to be in the same phrase

get a proper desktop.

[Tiron]

There's an element of truth to the 'get a desktop' thing. Laptops can certainly DO gaming, but due to the form factor almost invariably have heat issues. Especially since most manufacturers, last I heard, had decided that it was acceptable to lean on the emergency thermal protection throttling system in normal usage, rather than trying to design it to actually be able to get rid of all the heat (admittedly difficult).

Even if you don't have throttling issues, it's fairly likely that it'll 'burn out' faster than a desktop would. Anecdotal experience with my friends is that laptops heavily used for gaming seem to have a habit of dying every 3 years or so, sometimes less.

But frankly, guys, it's his money, if he wants a laptop, it's not really our place to tell him otherwise or disparage his choice to do so. He has that right, suboptimal or no. And for all we know he's got some situation that necessitates being able to move around regularly, thus the need for a laptop.

[sodra]

I accept your challenge.

When you want gaming, you want a good graphics card. You can have a Phenom II, and a 6950, and you will still get great FPS (60FPS Ultra, BF3)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314183

The one you chose is good, but the problem is that it has 2 mid-range cards in Crossfire.

I found the best you could get in your price range is almost the same one you picked.

That is great if your doing work with lets say, OpenCL.

But for gaming, mid-range Crossfire isn't very good. You get micro stuttering and such.

Radeon HD 7660G + 7670M Dual = 752 G3D score

Radeon HD 8650G = 1192 G3D score

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

[lammatt]

There's an element of truth to the 'get a desktop' thing. Laptops can certainly DO gaming, but due to the form factor almost invariably have heat issues. Especially since most manufacturers, last I heard, had decided that it was acceptable to lean on the emergency thermal protection throttling system in normal usage, rather than trying to design it to actually be able to get rid of all the heat (admittedly difficult).

Even if you don't have throttling issues, it's fairly likely that it'll 'burn out' faster than a desktop would. Anecdotal experience with my friends is that laptops heavily used for gaming seem to have a habit of dying every 3 years or so, sometimes less.

But frankly, guys, it's his money, if he wants a laptop, it's not really our place to tell him otherwise or disparage his choice to do so. He has that right, suboptimal or no. And for all we know he's got some situation that necessitates being able to move around regularly, thus the need for a laptop.

true

unless you open the notebook up and mod the radiator yourself

usually the "gaming laptops" have no more than a lifespan of a yr or two (either a CPU failure or the GPU)

while in luckier cases... the HDD or RAM failure

--

plus... the GPU in the notebooks (branded by an M in the subfix) usually is a generation or two earlier

ie. an HD7xx0M is indeed a HD6xx0 in terms of performance

Edited August 6, 2013 by lammatt

[Tiron]

I accept your challenge.

When you want gaming, you want a good graphics card. You can have a Phenom II, and a 6950, and you will still get great FPS (60FPS Ultra, BF3)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314183

The one you chose is good, but the problem is that it has 2 mid-range cards in Crossfire.

I found the best you could get in your price range is almost the same one you picked.

That is great if your doing work with lets say, OpenCL.

But for gaming, mid-range Crossfire isn't very good. You get micro stuttering and such.

Radeon HD 7660G + 7670M Dual = 752 G3D score

Radeon HD 8650G = 1192 G3D score

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

DO keep in mind how CPU loaded KSP is though, assuming he wants to play that on it as well...

[TanC]

Stay away from Acer. I've had two friends having two separate Acer products which failed within 2 years. They may be cheap but you definitely get what you're paying for. If you could buy Asus laptops I would recommend them. So far I've found them to be the best bang for your buck. I'm having a Sager laptop at the moment, was top of the line for laptops in 2011 when it came out but you definitely will feel the pinch in your wallet. I haven't a clue how it will perform for BF3 but for KSP I've managed to max all graphical settings and hit stuttering at about 400+ parts vanilla.

Edited August 6, 2013 by TanC
grammatical errors. sigh.

[sodra]

DO keep in mind how CPU loaded KSP is though, assuming he wants to play that on it as well...

TRUE!

Well lets see then.

I have no lag on an AMD Phenom II X4 965

AMD Phenom II X4 965 = 4304

Now, on my laptop, a 350$ samsung, I have an AMD A6-3410MX APU

This will get no lag IF I put it on High Performance mode.

AMD A6-3410MX APU = 2113

The Acer I suggested has an AMD A-Series A10-5757M(2.50GHz)

AMD A10-5757M APU = 3470

SO, the Acer I suggested may not be as powerful as a mid-range desktop CPU, but it will run KSP at a good, powerful rate.

Source: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Stay away from Acer. I've had two friends having two separate Acer products which failed within 2 years. They may be cheap but you definitely get what you're paying for. If you could buy Asus laptops I would recommend them. So far I've found them to be the best bang for your buck. I'm having a Sager laptop at the moment, was top of the line for laptops in 2011 when it came out but you definitely will feel the pinch in your wallet. I haven't a clue how it will perform for BF3 but for KSP I've managed to max all graphical settings and hit stuttering at about 400+ parts vanilla.

All PC's and parts are different.

My friend has a Dell with a Seagate HDD that lasted 8 years.

On the other hand, My Asus motherboard died within a few hours of arriving.

[jwenting]

Stay away from Acer. I've had two friends having two separate Acer products which failed within 2 years. They may be cheap but you definitely get what you're paying for. If you could buy Asus laptops I would recommend them.

And I've had several friends who had Asus laptops fail just after the warranty expired (in fact several stores here no longer carry them because of the high number of complaints about them)...

You're right about Acer though, they're cheap for a reason.

Dell often has nice discounts, giving you a pretty potent machine for a nice price.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I've got an Acer laptop for my gaming needs (and all other needs, because I would rather buy one laptop than a desktop for every location I am regularly spending time at), and so far it's outlasted its warranty by two years. I think. Something around that. In all that time it's needed a HDD replacement because the old one got fragmented into oblivion (I keep it as an external now), and its WSAD keys are starting to fail from heavy use compounded with being right on top of the GPU heatsink. I play KSP and GTA IV on it. I've no reason to believe that Acer laptops are bad so far.

My ASUS laptop that I had previously, however, had been in the service twice during its warranty period. Once because its screen failed, once because it managed to blow a chip somewhere due to overheat.

It really boils down to how lucky you are.

[nhnifong]

I want that guy's shirt. It looks good

[Mr. Scruffy]

I've got an Acer laptop for my gaming needs (and all other needs, because I would rather buy one laptop than a desktop for every location I am regularly spending time at), and so far it's outlasted its warranty by two years. I think. Something around that. In all that time it's needed a HDD replacement because the old one got fragmented into oblivion (I keep it as an external now), and its WSAD keys are starting to fail from heavy use compounded with being right on top of the GPU heatsink. I play KSP and GTA IV on it. I've no reason to believe that Acer laptops are bad so far.

My ASUS laptop that I had previously, however, had been in the service twice during its warranty period. Once because its screen failed, once because it managed to blow a chip somewhere due to overheat.

It really boils down to how lucky you are.

That´s what i was thinking. And imho, if you dont have skyhigh expectations and dont really need an SSD in your rig, a laptop for 650$ can be fine for gaming. Got an 17" Acer as well in january, with I5 CPU, 120GB SSD, 750GB HD, 2GByte NVidia graphics and 8Gbyte of RAM. I am totally pleased with its performance (KSP & World of Tanks, being the most demanding stuff i play on it) and, really, it was just the SSD that pushed the price from under 700€ to over 800€.

Sure, if you really want the best, and care not about marginal costs, you can easily spent 1300+ $ on a laptop -- but you will be able to play most any game on a laptop half the price (albeit maybe not in maxed out settings), if you choose well.

[Tiron]

That´s what i was thinking. And imho, if you dont have skyhigh expectations and dont really need an SSD in your rig, a laptop for 650$ can be fine for gaming. Got an 17" Acer as well in january, with I5 CPU, 120GB SSD, 750GB HD, 2GByte NVidia graphics and 8Gbyte of RAM. I am totally pleased with its performance (KSP & World of Tanks, being the most demanding stuff i play on it) and, really, it was just the SSD that pushed the price from under 700€ to over 800€.

Sure, if you really want the best, and care not about marginal costs, you can easily spent 1300+ $ on a laptop -- but you will be able to play most any game on a laptop half the price (albeit maybe not in maxed out settings), if you choose well.

Do ASUS Laptops still come with the year of Dropped/smashed/whatever warranty? 'cause that's just awesome.

My laptop (which I don't use much now I'm not going to school), is an ASUS that I got surprisingly cheaply. Seems to be a discount version of one of their more normal ones, or something. Even when new it only had a product listing on their malaysian site, though I got it from Amazon...

[Sean Mirrsen]

I find that the biggest problem modern laptops have is being OEM'd with Windows 8. I'm seriously considering holding off on upgrading until either W9 or W8SE, because finding a decent laptop with W7 in stores is getting harder and harder as time goes on.

[AntonioAJC]

I think you better save up for a desktop PC computer ($1k+). These are better in my opinion, since you can actually play games like Planetside 2, GTA IV, Bioshock, and Far Cry 3 on maximum. And believe me, they're gorgeous!

[Gobbles Gusto]

Your best choice (the computer I was going to buy n now will have to wait for restock) is sold out for a reason... ASUS

3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3230M 2.6GHz (3MB Cache, up to 3.2GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)

NVIDIA 2GB GTX 660M GDDR5

8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz

750GB 5,400 RPM SATA 3Gb/s

$800

Edited August 6, 2013 by Gobbles Gusto

[SRV Ron]

The only reason to get a laptop is for portability. Do get external speakers for them as you can damage the built in ones with heavy use of low level sounds such as rocket launches. Even the tiny vibration speaker powered by the USB port will aid in protecting the internal ones.

The new laptops will plug in directly to any flat screen TV using an HDMI cable and eliminating the need for a set of speakers.

And, even though KSP is not that demanding on the CPU and graphic card as a game such as Painkiller is, be sure that airflow to the cooling ports on the laptop are not obstructed in any way. Third party cooling pads are available if you are getting overheating issues.

[littlebattler]

Some people, like students for example, need a portable device to work on. Having a separate device for gaming can be quite expensive and wasteful, which is where the gaming laptop comes in. So please don't tell people off for wanting gaming laptops, it's rather inconsiderate.

Anyways, don't shy off from any brand. I'm on my second Acer right now. The first one survived a dozen or so drops and was finally sold away after its Core 2 Duo processor became hopelessly obsolete. This one is well on its way to matching the first's record thanks to my clumsiness, although this one also overheats a lot, but a cheap $5 half-assed cooling pad fixed that. Not a gaming laptop, but it runs KSP and TF2 so I don't mind. Both were also very cheap so I am quite satisfied.

Between those two, I had a quite good HP laptop. Unfortunately it came with Vista and upgrading to windows 7 was too expensive. It still ran Assassin's Creed II despite of that though, so yeah.