Suggestions for a budget gaming laptop

**phantomotap** · 02-15-2015

So now, you have around a surplus $180 that you can use to beef up that video card, a good monitor if yours happens to suck like mine, or some nice games off of Steam.

O_o

I don't agree with tossing the SSD completely, but you aren't installing many "AAA" games on 128GB slice anyway. I'd say split the difference by buying a cheaper SSD just for the OS installs and throwing the remainder at a 2TB HDD for storage. The board has four slots (RAM) so we can buy a dual-slot speed package (The box I see from the link only has 8GiB RAM.) for maybe $10 (USD) more allowing us a little more wiggle room to overclock the components. (Alternately if you aren't going to overclock, you can toss the unnecessarily beefier cooling for stock and choose a four-slot package for more RAM at ~$80 (USD) savings.) You don't need the power to say "Corsair" so you can buy a bundled if you do need a case. You are still saving around $120 (USD) with that path, but let's not waste time building things if we don't have to just because we can build things. I specified almost the same box I'm talking about at a couple of places and got around $850 (USD) which also gets me a warranty on the package, a DVD drive, better--more fans--cooling, and "Windows 7" license in case I don't already have one.

I'm not sure what you were really throwing down, but I'll make my point clear. If you are actually trying to save money, don't use some quack list just so you can get specific parts that gamers would prefer because they are black or shiny. You don't really care where the fans, case, power, board, and drives come from so long as they are up to specification and do the job you need. (Of course, I'm not saying to buy something of which you've never heard. You just don't need the SSD to say "Sandisk" if a comparable Kingston or Samsung drive will cost you less moneys.) You can use a list for what you think you need, but then you should to look around for bundles (You can find so many "Corsair" case/power bundles that average out to a decent savings it is strait stupid to buy them separately if you are on a budget.) that hit multiple points because you'll almost always come out ahead.

Soma

**MutantJohn** · 02-15-2015

Yeah, sure, if you're super into researching parts and deals then that's cool. But at the same time, it's also just kind of easy to look at a quick list and just buy the parts. Not everyone really cares about market research and even though they could save money, they might just not care enough to put in the work that they'd rather just have a lesser deal.

To each their own, I suppose. I'm pretty lazy and would likely just use some cheap-o list or I'd bring it here and then let someone else refine it for me.

**phantomotap** · 02-15-2015

But at the same time, it's also just kind of easy to look at a quick list and just buy the parts.

O_o

Sure.

If you don't mind spending the extra money on nothing, you could swing by a BestBuy or similar and grab something off the shelf.

The posts by Mario F. and I are just pushing the budget harder.

You invoked squeezing those pennies with "absolute limits of the budget".

You can't throw money away if your really going to try pushing your budget.

Soma

**Epy** · 02-15-2015

So many responses...thanks all.

Well aware of the whole desktop vs. laptop pros/cons, but sticking with a laptop more than likely. And I'll more than likely get an SSD at some point later to install myself. Hopefully, the laptop I have will have the standard sliding side slot so I can swap drives easily. I'd keep Windows on the original HDD and Linux on the SSD, for compiling.

Was eyeballing this last night: ASUS X550JK-DH71 Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz) 8GB Memory 1TB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M 2GB GDDR3 15.6" Windows 8.1 64-Bit - Newegg.com

**phantomotap** · 02-15-2015

O_o

I don't see anything wrong.

Given you have $1000 (USD) to spend on a laptop, I'd say spend $1000 (USD) on the laptop.

You can bump that to a GTX 860M card which means you could drive a few more lights and shadows at resolution.

Soma

**Jimmy** · 02-16-2015

Originally Posted by Epy

So many responses...thanks all.

Well aware of the whole desktop vs. laptop pros/cons, but sticking with a laptop more than likely. And I'll more than likely get an SSD at some point later to install myself. Hopefully, the laptop I have will have the standard sliding side slot so I can swap drives easily. I'd keep Windows on the original HDD and Linux on the SSD, for compiling.

Was eyeballing this last night: ASUS X550JK-DH71 Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz) 8GB Memory 1TB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M 2GB GDDR3 15.6" Windows 8.1 64-Bit - Newegg.com

Personally I try to buy as cheap a laptop as I can when shopping for a laptop. I don't mean buy the cheapest, crappy, laptop, but as cheap as possible and still with the look, feel and specs you want.

If you buy a desktop computer, then you can switch out parts as it grows old and/or breaks. You can't do that with a laptop. From past experience I find that laptop keyboards tend to break for example.

But maybe you will use an external mouse and keyboard if you are going to use it for gaming?

Anyway, my advice is to buy a cheaper laptop and plan to replace it earlier than you would a desktop machine.

EDIT: I must say that I have never bought a laptop for gaming, so your situation might be different.

**MutantJohn** · 02-16-2015

Originally Posted by phantomotap

O_o

Sure.

If you don't mind spending the extra money on nothing, you could swing by a BestBuy or similar and grab something off the shelf.

The posts by Mario F. and I are just pushing the budget harder.

You invoked squeezing those pennies with "absolute limits of the budget".

You can't throw money away if your really going to try pushing your budget.

Soma

Actually, I think BestBuy price matches now so you can show them the Newegg or Amazon prices and they'll match them.

Ooh, have you ever been to a Fry's Electronics store? They're amazing. Literally everything you could ever need all in one place

And everything is at internet prices too.

**Mario F.** · 02-16-2015

Originally Posted by MutantJohn

Ooh, have you ever been to a Fry's Electronics store? They're amazing. Literally everything you could ever need all in one place

I don't know that particular chain. But experience has taught me over the years to distrust retailers as a matter of principle. What you see in the store is all good and fine. Some go to great lengths and huge sums of money to present customers with an attractive environment where they feel they are in consumer heaven. But the horror stories about retailers are never before or during, but after.

Their return and refund policies and if they actually stick to them, along with how much time you have to wait for a replacement are among the usual problems with these stores. I rather go to a local (or distant) small garage shop ran by computer fans, than stick my head inside those retail stores.

**MutantJohn** · 02-16-2015

I mean, I guess but at the same time, it's still the same EVGA GTX 970 at the same price. If *prepares self* the manufacturer ships a bad GPU *spits up* then I could see dealing with returning it being a pain but I think that'd always be the case. I'm not aware of any mom and pop shops in my area that sell computer parts at internet prices but with a big retailer like that, you can walk in and literally build your own computer with everything in it. And they have the sexy parts too. They have decent mobos and the top CPUs/GPUs. Granted, they don't have as quite a wide variety but they have the "mainstream" solid picks.

One day... I will buy my $2100 Intel server CPU though.

**Epy** · 02-17-2015

Ended up spending $0 and I'll just take my work laptop home with me. Core i7, 8 GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 1000M. I'm the IT manager and my boss wouldn't care anyway, so.

**Jimmy** · 02-17-2015

Originally Posted by Epy

Ended up spending $0 and I'll just take my work laptop home with me. Core i7, 8 GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 1000M. I'm the IT manager and my boss wouldn't care anyway, so.

Seems like a good solution to me, you should be able to do all the things you listed with that.

**Mario F.** · 02-17-2015

Originally Posted by Epy

Ended up spending $0 and I'll just take my work laptop home with me. Core i7, 8 GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 1000M. I'm the IT manager and my boss wouldn't care anyway, so.

Look, there's a report a 'Report Post' button. I hear it sends a message to enthusiastic moderators, disgruntled wives and aggravated bosses.

**atwood** · 02-22-2015

Just personal taste, I would buy a MSI laptop, I might suggest this with your budget
MSI GE60 Apache-629 Specs:
Intel Core_i7 4710HQ 2.5 GHz
8 GB DDR3L SDRAM
1024 GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
NVIDIA Geforce GTX850M with 2GB DDR5 vram
15.6-Inch Screen (1920x 1080 pixels)
2 x USB2.0, 2 x USB3.0, 1 x HDMI, DVD SuperMulti
Windows 8.1