Talk me out of a used Alienware R3 laptop

[robbro9]

I think R3 is the model. Looks like 6th gen i5 and geforce 970 with 3gb memory. I have been looking for a laptop to lay in bed with and browse/play some games at night in the $3-400 range. I was already thinking 17 inc would be fine, since I'm not going to be travelling with it, and battery life doesnt matter much. I was expecting to have to get a ryzen based laptop with integrated video to handle any gaming in this price range, but then I start seeing on ebay several alienware r7's with 16 gig memory, geforce 970 graphics, 256gig ssd, all of which hit the points I wanted. That price for that hardware seems too good, granted it is a few years old, but I assume it would still beat the pants off a ryzen 5 integrated graphics notebook (most seem to come with 8 gig memory in this range). What am i missing? Should I avoid these? I'm assuming build quality would be better than the low-mid end laptops I would normally get in this price range. Reviews of the R7 from its day seemed fairly positive, nice screen etc... just no battery life is biggest negative.

 

[heymrdj]

I think R3 is the model. Looks like 6th gen i5 and geforce 970 with 3gb memory. I have been looking for a laptop to lay in bed with and browse/play some games at night in the $3-400 range. I was already thinking 17 inc would be fine, since I'm not going to be travelling with it, and battery life doesnt matter much. I was expecting to have to get a ryzen based laptop with integrated video to handle any gaming in this price range, but then I start seeing on ebay several alienware r7's with 16 gig memory, geforce 970 graphics, 256gig ssd, all of which hit the points I wanted. That price for that hardware seems too good, granted it is a few years old, but I assume it would still beat the pants off a ryzen 5 integrated graphics notebook (most seem to come with 8 gig memory in this range). What am i missing? Should I avoid these? I'm assuming build quality would be better than the low-mid end laptops I would normally get in this price range. Reviews of the R7 from its day seemed fairly positive, nice screen etc... just no battery life is biggest negative.

R3 and R4 have the terrible three pressure point heat sink mount and *can* have terrible thermal throttling performance. I would avoid them.

R5 was the last of the line in that series of laptop model. Now it’s Area-51m, which has socketed and replaceable CPU and GPU, and the M15/17 R2, which is feature parity with the old Alienware R1-R5 laptops.

Anything with a high R than that would be an Aurora, which is a desktop. Aurora R9 (Intel) and Aurora R10 (AMD) are the current models there.

 

[robbro9]

But would any of those options be in the low price range? Maybe just stick with a rysen 5 laptop? But this are often so cheaply made. Curious about the next gen ryzen laptops but doub those would debut in my price range unless cheaply made also

 

[heymrdj]

But would any of those options be in the low price range? Maybe just stick with a rysen 5 laptop? But this are often so cheaply made. Curious about the next gen ryzen laptops but doub those would debut in my price range unless cheaply made also

No, mobile gaming has a pretty darn high barrier of entry. It would be best to state what kind of gaming you want to do and what quality you expect, maybe some members could give some suggestions. Anything with a dedicated GPU is going to rub hotter and have meh battery life when gaming. But there are some diamonds in the rough. Don’t expect to be able to use your typical bottom air intake laptop on a bed without having a hard pad underneath to get air flow under it.

 

[killster1]

well that sounds like a very old laptop, for 300-400 you can get 3500u or possibly 3700u Maybe a i7 10th gen intel that will be able to play games. havent checked against the 970 mobile but that is a fairly old chip, just bought a 300$ dell 7586 with mx150 8th gen intel (already own one 8th gen mx150 so i knew it would be OK with games). for around 500-550 you can get a used dell with 1060 that would be great for games, might be double your budget (and ebay charges tax for me 🙁 )

 

[robbro9]

well that sounds like a very old laptop, for 300-400 you can get 3500u or possibly 3700u Maybe a i7 10th gen intel that will be able to play games. havent checked against the 970 mobile but that is a fairly old chip, just bought a 300$ dell 7586 with mx150 8th gen intel (already own one 8th gen mx150 so i knew it would be OK with games). for around 500-550 you can get a used dell with 1060 that would be great for games, might be double your budget (and ebay charges tax for me 🙁 )

I guess I'm aiming for mid-range gaming. World of warships, world of tanks, maybe some fps on occasion. Kids play some games like farm sim 19 and sims that work on about anything.

I just tested world of tanks out on my work laptop, 4th gen i5, it gets about 30 fps on lowest sittings. Maybe integrated would be ok, though I would like to be able to turn up the sittings a bit. I was thinking along the lines that something like this would be more well built than a current day budget laptop, and especially the screen would be better. Like I said battery life is not very important. I may at times even HDMI it to my tv, plug in wireless keyboard mouse and use it as a desktop replacement.

I currently game on a really old desktop from around 2012, 3rd gen i5 i think and a geforce 650TI. Its passable. I also built a ryzen 3 with integrated graphics desktop that does about the same. I was thinking laptop ryzen would be a little slower than desktop though not entirely sure. Looks like ryzen 5 is not much faster gaming wise than the 3.

I was just looking for something that would be a step up from those, I'm not a high end gamer or anything, no max settings. Just would like to have mid level settings with nice framerates on most games.

 

[Maxima1]

Depending on how long you can wait, you can get laptops with 1050 AND the higher TDP cpus (such as AMD's 3550H) for ~$400-450, possibly lower. Check out slickdeals. Ebay also for older Intel systems with 1050. It's not that uncommon.