I really don't know what to get. Please reccomend a gaming laptop.

[RockGuitarDude]

I would consider myself a power user. I use a computer pretty much all day for work / school / gaming. I'm looking for a high performance gaming laptop preferably with a 17 inch screen. Any reccomendations?

 

[slackwarelinux]

What is the price limit? If it is pretty high, I would go with a Sager notebook. The use the same OEM as Alienware, so you get the same notebook, but without the shiny paint job, and $400 cheaper.

If you want to go with top of the line stuff, I would go with the Sager 9750-C.
The downside is the price, which is about $2500 fully loaded, you can save some money by bumping down the extremely impressive stats:
AMD X2 4200+
GeForce Go 7800GTX
SATA Hard Drive
17' WUXGA Screen (An eye burning 1920x1200)
802.11a,b,g

For a much cheaper option, consider the Sager 5720-C
It is only about $2000, when configured for:
1.86GHz Pentium M
17' WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
GeForce Go 7800GTX
SATA Hard Drive
802.11a,b,g

Anyways, Sager tends to make reasonably priced gaming notebooks.

 

[Brainonska511]

Dell XPS M170 (Pentium M, 17" WUXGA, Go 7800GTX)
Dell E1705 (Core Duo, 17" WXGA or WUXGA, Go 7800)

Plus, if you can snag a coupon for either, you could get a great machine for a low price.

 

[RockGuitarDude]

I'm looking at around $2000.

I was reading about the Dell E1705 and it said it had horrendous battery life. I'm not looking to be using it EVERYWHERE but I want better battery life than 90 minutes. Is there any indication/benchmark of the performance difference between the 7800go and 7800GTX?

I was thinking about the Alienware m5700 but I think the 6800go is too weak. I really want something that can keep up with a desktop in gaming; nothing insane but it seems like there's a BIG difference between 6800go and 7800go GTX, is this true?

Are the video cards in Alienware laptops upgradeable if down the line I want a better video card in there?

Best video card I have ever had is my Geforce 4 MX440 so I really want to be blown away with a new laptop and a nice 1920x1200, 17inch screen.

 

[RockGuitarDude]

bump!

The only thing holding me back from the Alienware m5700 is the processor isnt a Core Duo and the video card is a 6800go, not a 7800.

 

[railer]

What kind of battery life do you think you're going to get with the Sager with the 7800gtx?
It will also suck, I would imagine. If you want a gaming laptop that's the price you pay.

 

[imported_sling]

You just change power schemes for mobile, which throttles the vid card down so it doesn't hog so much power. You don't have to be cranking that 7800gtx at 100% to check your email at starbucks.

I'm extremely happy with mine. It's nothing too spectacular. Dell 9300, 17inch screen, 6800go (O/C now) and a Pentium M 1.73ghz (533mhz FSB.) I play WoW, q4, and HL2 on it with no problems. I guess with gaming and notebooks it's pretty much whatever you want to spend. This one was $1200 shipped. The battery life is like 30 minutes with Call of Duty running on battery power. It's way higher with the mobile power setting on the video card and pulling down the CPU some with the speedstep settings.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
Dell XPS M170 (Pentium M, 17" WUXGA, Go 7800GTX)
Dell E1705 (Core Duo, 17" WXGA or WUXGA, Go 7800)

Plus, if you can snag a coupon for either, you could get a great machine for a low price.

thats the best and cheapest solution u could get, IF and ONLY IF u can snag a good dell coupon.

Also id wait a little on the core duo's. There still A LOT OF bugs on them.

Also, it apears most dual core cpu's have major bugs in gaming. Some games will be faster, others i hear causes registry errors and crawls.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
Dell XPS M170 (Pentium M, 17" WUXGA, Go 7800GTX)
Dell E1705 (Core Duo, 17" WXGA or WUXGA, Go 7800)

Plus, if you can snag a coupon for either, you could get a great machine for a low price.

thats the best and cheapest solution u could get, IF and ONLY IF u can snag a good dell coupon.

Also id wait a little on the core duo's. There still A LOT OF bugs on them.

Also, it apears most dual core cpu's have major bugs in gaming. Some games will be faster, others i hear causes registry errors and crawls.

If you think the 32 from the erata sheet a few weeks ago is "a lot", then what would you call it when other processors were released (which had much more than the Core Duo). The major bug at the moment is with Windows anyway where it continually accesses the CPU when a USB 2.0 device is connected to the machine (this problem also affects other Centrino systems, not just Core Duo systems). As for gaming problems, post some links to at least back up what you are saying b/c from what I have seen with reviews of these systems is that they have performed spectacularly.

 

[aigomorla]

well seems like they have a fix for the pentium D and AMD X2 but i dont see one for the core duo's

dual core fixes

 

[RockGuitarDude]

I wound up buying a Dell E1705 with a $650 off coupon!

 

[GT1999]

How/where did you snag a $650 off coupon? That would be awesome...

 

[Away]

www.notebookreview.com

They have Dell coupons available on their website.

 

[RockGuitarDude]

http://www.meanbargains.com/dell/