Need advice on laptop for gaming/general use

[gamer1234]

Hi,
So at the moment i'm looking at the XPS 15 l521x, £1,150:
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-3210M processor, 2.50 GHz (i can upgrade this to i7 if it would help gaming much?)
- hard drive: 750GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive + 32GB m-SATA SSD
- display: 1080p gorrilla glass
- video card: 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M
- memory: 8GB DDR3-SDRAM

And one of the samsung s series models, £1,200:
- Processor: Intel Core i7-3612QM, 2.1GHz
- hard drive: 500 GB Serial ATA 7200 rpm
- display: 1080p
- video card: 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE
- memory: 12 GB DDR3-SDRAM

And advice on which is better?

I plan to use it for casual gaming on skyrim and battlefield 3 (hopefully on med-high settings) and for just general usage.

I've got a £1,000- £1,300 price range so if anyone has any other suggestions...

Thanks for any advice which can be given

 

[frozentundra123456]

Either of those will struggle on BF3 at high for sure and maybe even medium. Upgrading to a quad might help in BF3, but not Skyrim. You could probably play skyrim on med to high. It also depends on the resolution. I am assuming 1366 x 768.

You will probably be limited by the GT640. That is actually a rebadged GT540 which is a mid range card from the previous generation. I believe the 640M LE is even weaker. I notice the prices are in pounds. Do you live in Canada? Those prices both seem rather high for what you are getting. Be that as it may, if you want med to high on BF3 you need at least a GT650 or above. That gets you the new architecture which will give better performance and run cooler. I like the XPS line, but IMO they are somewhat overpriced in general.

 

[gamer1234]

Thanks for the advice! No, i'm from England, everything is so overpriced compared to the US it's ridiculous. The HP Envy 17 is $1,450 on the American site, and £1,400 on the UK one - so annoying. Could you suggest any laptops which could run it on med-high, or even any brands? (i was looking at Acer but none are great at gaming).

 

[Isaacb]

Both of them are SUPER overpriced for what their are, you should defitly try this costum Made Brands sager,ibuypower and digital storm

 

[gamer1234]

Are they durable though? That's the main reason i was looking at these two, even though they are way overpriced! (living in England is a killer). Laptop needs to last 3 years minimum, which long i know...

 

[s44]

Cheapest British 650m machines:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/gaming/?th=g

I think there are some Sager/Clevo custom dealers that sell there too, not sure of the names though.

 

[hwan]

Have you looked at the Ideapad Y580?

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...5F&action=init

 

[gamer1234]

Wow, i didn't even know about these brands; you get so much more for your money. Are there are any other such brands? This is my favourite one at the moment: http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/range/novatecheliten1501.html?th=g will that run skyrim/battlefield 3 on med-high?

 

[gamer1234]

So i like this one, http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/range/novatecheliten1501.html?th=g but there doesn't seem to be a hdmi port which is pretty common place on laptops nowadays. Am i missing something?

 

[s44]

I think there are some Sager/Clevo custom dealers that sell there too

here's one

more in this thread

 

[AtenRa]

I plan to use it for casual gaming on skyrim and battlefield 3 (hopefully on med-high settings) and for just general usage.

I've got a £1,000- £1,300 price range so if anyone has any other suggestions...

Thanks for any advice which can be given

Spend £800-900 for a desktop with an HD7850 or better.
Spend the rest for a laptop.