Well this isnt a console, but since it is a gaming laptop I think it kinda fits in the forum. With Xmas coming I'm going back home for the holidays. So will some of my friends, and we decided it would be a great time to set some LAN parties like in the old days:nod: The thing is my desktop is outdated for current games, and even if it wasnt I'm not going to carry this huge thing all the way home, so I'm thinking into buying a gaming laptop. Since I dont want a desktop replacement (ie: 17 inch ones) I'm going for a cheap 15inch Dell laptop:thumbsup: So, I made a custom Vostro, then a custom XPS, and the Vostro with even more stuff in it (like a higher resolution screen, HDD size, etc...) is at least $300 cheaper than the XPS. So, is there any explanation? I mean, am I paying for the XPS brand or what? seriously, is not like the XPS has an all aluminum body or carbon fiber all over it, in fact is the same black plastic of the Vostro 1500 with some silver details at the sides, but thats all. Dunno whats going on here, but honestly if Dell wants to make the XPS their default laptop for gamers they're doing everything wrong...
Laptops? Gaming power? Don't mix man. Look a the acer gaming laptops for cheap, or better yet try to get a XPS refurb from the dell outlet. Same warranty, save much cash.
Of course it's not worth the "XPS" name. The only thing they're good for is if you're sitting on a bunch of money you don't need and don't feel like building your own computer. Either that, or you can impress computer gaming retards by having something with extra lights on it. Build a Shuttle and buy some nice headphones and a monitor. You will probably come out cheaper, it will be a far better option than a laptop (which will be outdated next time you blink), and it doesn't take much more effort to cart a Shuttle around than a laptop. Your main concern would be to find a place for your monitor, but you could always buy a laptop bookbag and use the interior case for it. That also leaves space for a keyboard, mouse, and headphones. That leaves the PC itself which you could just carry around.
I'm so glad I lucked out on my free thinkpad....laptop prices make me choke. I know a lot of people with XPS laptops, and are they all suppose to be gaming laptops? A lot of the ones I've seen have intel integrated video in them. Oh, I agree with Taemos. This is what I did, except I went even cheaper and got a slightly larger X-QPack from Aspire. The new ones are even nicer, it's pretty much a nice little cube but it takes matx and full atx psu's. I have that, a widescreen LCD, and some usb powered speakers, works out great when we used to have LAN's, before all my friends went to college or got addicted to WoW. A laptop is more convienient though, as long as you have a mouse.
I did consider getting a miniATX or even miniITX motherboard and build a small PC, maybe even in a suitcase like BenHeck did (altought he used a 24 beer can box:lol but dunno, maybe it would hurt the actual usability dont you think? Plus I'm getting a desktop down the road anyway... About obsolescense, well, that happens with any computer nowadays:-( The notebook is actually midend, using a T5500 and a 6600GT. While the CPU is up to any game, the GPU isnt, but is the highest option in the book, since only bigass laptops get GPUs above that (8800). Anyway, the Acer ones suck ass. I mean it, you can berely customize those and the specs, specially the GPU are too low for me.
DON'T BUY A CHEAP ACER... Sorry for the caps, but seriously don't. At the school I worked at we had a load of them, and they pretty much all failed within 2 yrs in a major way, and most had minor faults after one year. Our latest problem was a load of aspire 3000s keyboard and touchpads failing. I can't speak for the more expensive ones as our school only bought budget, but the cheap ones are definately to avoid. I have always been impressed with HP in terms of hardware and service, but we only bought they're business laptops, not the home user ones, so I'm not sure if they're gaming models (if they do any) will be any good.
Acer's build quality on mine seems quite good........but i did have a key on the keyboard come off...it was easily fixed though.....mind you the aspire 5100 makes a pretty decent game machine on a budget..... .....but it's not that great for linux lol
I'd not buy a Dell again. It was good value but the hinge on the screen has seized up and now it splits open the casing around the right hand side of the monitor whenever I close the laptop. As Assembler said, gaming and laptops are always a compromise. Desktops are a wiser choice.
Unless what you wrote was a typo, 6600GT's are by no means a "mid-end" card. I have what could be considered an older mid-end card, which is a 7900GS. Even if you meant an 8600GT, they're terrible for gaming. I think they're somewhere around the power of a 7600GT because of the crippled memory bandwidth. Of course if you don't mind compromising in terms of graphical effects, then more power to you. Personally, I would never even consider a laptop for gaming. They're uncomfortable to use for gaming during longer periods of time, the keyboard is never the same as using a desktop, as well as the mouse (obviously). I was forced to use my laptop to play games for the semester I was away at school, and I almost went crazy. I almost exclusively play DOS games, anyway, though, so it wasn't too much of a big deal.
You exaggerate. 8600GT is far from terrible for gaming, it's not the top end but it is pretty impressive for all but the most graphically demanding new titles.
Yeah I meant 8600GT, and I dont know where you get your bechmarks from, but theres no way a 8600 is the same than a 7600...
You're right, I don't know why I compared it to a 7600. I pulled that from memory; I don't keep up with this stuff a whole lot and didn't feel like looking it up so that is my fault. What I'm trying to say is that an 8600GT in a laptop really isn't worth it (not to me at least). It will play everything for right now, but not necessarily at full. I know Crysis for instance demands medium-low settings of the card, and that's not necessarily at 40+ fps either. Nvidia has also brought out the 8800GT as well, and since they're using a better fabrication process I'd imagine they'd improve on mobile cards as well in the near future. Do you think it would be worth it to buy a new laptop right now when something drastically better might come out in a few months? Now, if the 8800GT were made into a mobile card...
Well, theres a Dual GeForce 8700MGT XPS, but at $2700 is more than double the cost of the Vostro, and has the same specs, except for the PhysX card, but how many games use that anyway? About Dell, honestly I havent had any issues with their hardware, unlike compaq and HP which have been a pain in the ass since day one...
They have 7900 in laptops too, but I dunno if there a good price like the desktop ones. I still love this card.
7900 allows broke people like me and Taemos play games with pretty high settings. Definitly not meh at all, I still haven't found any games become unplayable at high settings, except maybe Crysis or something, but I don't play those anyway.
DX10 seems to be nice as far as graphical enhancements, but it most certainly does not justify spending a more significant amount of money on a [slightly superior] card, especially when you bring Vista into the equation. I have XP and I am not going to poison my hard drive with Vista again, so I have no interest in "upgrading."
DX10 was just eye candy some months ago, but if crysis shows anything is that difference between standards will only grow larger in the upcoming months/years. About vista, I totally agree on that, in fact thats the reason why I decided to make a partition and install vista there with all the games, so I'll use for that and nothing else. I'm using XPpro right now, but I'm planning to move onto ubuntu, cuz I'm sick of windows issues (that and beryl kicks aero and aqua in the balls:nod Dude a 8600GT isnt expensive at all, in fact I've seen 7900 cards going for more money most of the time...
