Musings on a new computer - advice PLZ & THX

[Barrister]

Beeb, you all get the cheap windows laptops up there? There are some screamers advertised down here in the 5 to 7 hundred dollar range. Sure the graphics are intel 4000's, but the do moderate gaming well.

I was looking at maybe getting something that still had discrete NVidia graphics.  As far as I can tell they'll run even the latest and greatest, albeit not at max graphics options.

[viper37]

If you only play 1hr a week, a gaming laptop would be ok.

I would go with something like that:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=84899&promoid=1244
It sells for 1949$ and it's decent hardware.

Now, it won't beat a desktop, but if you only play a little, I think that's your best solution.  Might want to invest in a seperate mouse though, for gaming.

[Barrister]

If you only play 1hr a week, a gaming laptop would be ok.

I would go with something like that:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=84899&promoid=1244
It sells for 1949$ and it's decent hardware.

Now, it won't beat a desktop, but if you only play a little, I think that's your best solution.  Might want to invest in a seperate mouse though, for gaming.

It's up to an hour per day, not per week, but I don't even have a gaming mouse now.

That laptop is 10lb - you might as well get a desktop.

[viper37]

If you only play 1hr a week, a gaming laptop would be ok.

I would go with something like that:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=84899&promoid=1244
It sells for 1949$ and it's decent hardware.

Now, it won't beat a desktop, but if you only play a little, I think that's your best solution.  Might want to invest in a seperate mouse though, for gaming.

It's up to an hour per day, not per week, but I don't even have a gaming mouse now.

That laptop is 10lb - you might as well get a desktop.

Hey, you want to play on a laptop, you have to sacrifice some things

If you want a lightweight laptop AND enough power to play games 1hr a day, then yeah, you will need to follow Grey Fox advice and buy two machines. 

Unless you try to find a smaller screen laptop, hook it up to a tv/monitor, use a seperate keyboard and mouse?  But then, I'm not sure it would be worth it...

This laptop here:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=83177&vpn=NX.M8SAA.002&manufacture=Acer&promoid=1244
It is less powerfull thant the Asus, but it is only 3.2kg (7lbs)

I have had good experience with Acer Laptop, but a lot of people hate them, consider them unreliable.  Two Acer laptops and zero problems save for the short battery life on one (wich I changed for a long duration battery).  It comes with Windows 7, but you can get Windows 8.1 for free, I guess, if you really want to.  Apparently, Windows 8 is better for gaming.  If you can get past the Metro interface.

I don't think you can get below 5lbs for a gaming laptop, there's just too much stuff.

[Grey Fox]

He's trying very very hard to avoid having to come to the realisation that he needs a PC not a mac.

That or spend 5000$ on a Mac Book Pro to put Windows 8.1 on it.

[The Minsky Moment]

I really do appreciate how the only advice you guys gave was the option I wasn't interested in - a full PC gaming machine.

But if you aren't interested in that, then isn't a new MBP a no brainer?  You should be able to play just about anything on that.
Yet the objection you make to that is that it isn't good enough for gaming.  And really if you need more than a full PC gaming machine is the next step up.

Given your stated usage level on gaming I would think the MBP would be enough.
But the alternative would be an Air + a Steam Box.  Tell the wife the latter is just a console.

[Barrister]

I really do appreciate how the only advice you guys gave was the option I wasn't interested in - a full PC gaming machine.

But if you aren't interested in that, then isn't a new MBP a no brainer?  You should be able to play just about anything on that.
Yet the objection you make to that is that it isn't good enough for gaming.  And really if you need more than a full PC gaming machine is the next step up.

Given your stated usage level on gaming I would think the MBP would be enough.
But the alternative would be an Air + a Steam Box.  Tell the wife the latter is just a console.

Ironically the prior generation MBPs would have been almost ideal - discrete graphics card, magnetic storage up to 1TB, in a fairly reasonable price. (you need the big storage if you're going to dual boot to Windows).

But the new generation have done away with the discrete graphics in favour of Intel Iris integrated graphics (except for the $2700 15" option), and have all flash memory.

See, what I was thinking of would be something such as off off this list:

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/3331-haswell-ultrabooks/

as long as you get the discrete graphics.  Enough power to run games, light enough to make worth while to tote around.


Or, just get an iMac and dual boot that.

[Barrister]

Unless you try to find a smaller screen laptop, hook it up to a tv/monitor, use a seperate keyboard and mouse?  But then, I'm not sure it would be worth it...

That's exactly what I was thinking of.  It's the setup I have at work - a laptop hooked up to a docking station.

[mongers]

So BB, did you recently sign up to a stealth social media marketing  program ?

[Barrister]

So BB, did you recently sign up to a stealth social media marketing  program ?

[The Minsky Moment]

Ironically the prior generation MBPs would have been almost ideal - discrete graphics card, magnetic storage up to 1TB, in a fairly reasonable price. (you need the big storage if you're going to dual boot to Windows).

256 should be enough to dual boot windows.  You could put in 100 GB partition easy.
Why would you need 1 TB of storage on your laptop?
You can always get a cheap NAS to store media files for streaming if that is the issue.

[Barrister]

Ironically the prior generation MBPs would have been almost ideal - discrete graphics card, magnetic storage up to 1TB, in a fairly reasonable price. (you need the big storage if you're going to dual boot to Windows).

256 should be enough to dual boot windows.  You could put in 100 GB partition easy.
Why would you need 1 TB of storage on your laptop?
You can always get a cheap NAS to store media files for streaming if that is the issue.

I dunno - just looking at my current Win 7 HDD on the Mac Pro, and it has filled 105GB with just Windows and <6 games installed.

Not being a movie pirate, my media files are fairly small.

[The Minsky Moment]

I dunno - just looking at my current Win 7 HDD on the Mac Pro, and it has filled 105GB with just Windows and <6 games installed.

OK, but given your game play level, you don't NEED 6 games installed at all times. 
Also I had a lot more than that on a 100 GB partition; not sure why so much space is being taken up.  Do you have a heavily modded Elder Scrolls game or something?

[DontSayBanana]

I dunno - just looking at my current Win 7 HDD on the Mac Pro, and it has filled 105GB with just Windows and <6 games installed.

OK, but given your game play level, you don't NEED 6 games installed at all times. 
Also I had a lot more than that on a 100 GB partition; not sure why so much space is being taken up.  Do you have a heavily modded Elder Scrolls game or something?

Not sure if there are any other online gaming habits, but Star Trek Online's a bitch when it comes to space- 10.3GB on my hard drive.

Series are the worst.  I don't even want to discuss how much hard drive space I have taken up with Sims 2 and 3 expansions.

[Barrister]

*bump*

Considering going with a Hackintosh - build your own Intel machine, but dual boot between OS X and Windows.

In some ways it might be ideal (though it means giving up on being mobile) as you should be able to get a strong gaming machine, but still have OS X.  Downside of course is not only have I never built a machine before (though I've swapped a few components here and there - RAM, graphics cards, PSUs), and that installing OS X involves a bunch of unofficial hacks that are hardly trivial.

I don't think so, but does anyone have any experience with a hackintosh?